Tag Archives: Daikaiju

Reviews, Television

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis – Part III

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The Shadow of the Lizard!
The Shadow of the Lizard!

Episode 4 – D.O.A.

After the usual prologue/pre-credit teaser, the full strength of H.E.A.T. (including N.I.G.E.L. the Doomed Robot, whom I still refuse to talk about at this point) lands in “Costa Roja,” the first of several fictional Central and South American countries this show will exploit explore over the course of its run. “So how come I’ve never heard of this place?” Token Youth Randy Hernandez asks. Agent Dupre demonstrates why she’s my favorite character by rhetorically replying: “Because you were educated in America?” Continue reading Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis – Part III →

Reviews, Television

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis – Part II

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The obligatory King Kong shot.
The obligatory King Kong shot.

Episode 3 – Talkin’ Trash

With a garbage strike seizing New York City in the wake of (that first) Godzilla’s rampage, a pair of eggheads at the Manhattan Institute of Advanced Technology (MIAT?) struggle to find a “scientific solution” to this problem.

The subordinate one, Felix (Faust?) (played by Grant Shaud—who will, to me, forever be Murphy Brown’s boss, Miles Silverberg) has an answer in his still-to-be-perfected “nanotech drivers”: a “colony of microbes” that consume petroleum-based products and manufacture copies of themselves from the result. Visible to the human eye as a red and orange, candy cane-striped sludge, the drivers are still untested, unstable…and more than a little ravenous. Nevertheless, Felix (Faust)’s as-yet-unnamed boss insists on a field test for New York’s (now unnamed) Mayor tomorrow afternoon. What could possibly go wrong…right? Continue reading Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis – Part II →

Reviews, Television

Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis – Part I

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Godzilla the Series: Main Titles
The Obligatory Group Shot

Episodes 1 & 2 – A New Family

It may not be the most popular or most famous cartoon series of the 1990s and it’s far, far from the best. But even the die hard haters of Roland Emmerich’s 1998 Godzilla film admit a small place in their hearts for this cartoon series. They had no faith going in, allowing the series to pleasantly surprise them…even as it annoyed and frustrated.

Like Justice League after it, Godzilla: The Series successfully mined every useful idea out of it’s parent genre, eventually managing to distill at least fifty years of daikaiju movies into their purest, most ridiculous essence…and I mean that as a compliment. Because if you’re into this sort of thing you really couldn’t ask for more. What we have here, for example, is a animated, one hour, made-for-TV daikaiju movie. From America. Name another one of those from the last ten years. Go on. I’m so desperate for human communication I’m actually daring you to name one. Go on. But read this first. Continue reading Godzilla the Series: An Exercise in Over-Analysis – Part I →

Movies, Reviews

Varan the Unbelievable (1962)

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I can imagine him going, "Helloooo!" in full-throated, barbershop quartet mode. If only there were three more, we could have a hell of a harmony going.
I can imagine him going, "Helloooo!" with the full-throated thrill of a man trying to start up a barbershop quartet.

Ishiro Honda directed three films in 1958. One is justly famous in international horror circles, one is rare but infamous among daikaiju fans, and one is a “human interest” drama called Song of the Bride. Good luck trying to find out anything about that. As the decade of atomic power gave way to the Space Age, the director who began his career with two “human interest” documentaries (no really: The Story of a Co-op kicks ass if you can find it…not that you asked) saw himself enthroned as King of the Special Effects Picture in general…and monster movies in particular. Having learned their lesson from Godzilla Raids Again, Toho dared not let anyone else touch their newest, fattest cash cow of a sub-genre. They needed a monster movie for 1958. Too bad they had to give us this.

Except that’s not accurate, since the Japanese version of this flick  is remarkably different from the version I watched as a child; the one I’m picking apart, in public, tonight…and all for your entertainment, you sick bastards. Why must I suffer? Continue reading Varan the Unbelievable (1962) →

Movies, Reviews

The Mysterians (1957)

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"Last one to Tokyo's a robot chicken!"
“Last one to Tokyo’s a robot chicken!”

Alien invasions are as old as literature. I’ve read versions of the Biblical flood myth that sound more like the plot of tonight’s film than any other part of the Old or New Testaments. Yet ever since the success of George Pal and Byron Haskin’s War of the Worlds (released four years prior to our subject), vicious extraterrestrials have tried to conquer Earth at least once a year, despite repeated, and often embarrassing, setbacks.

Case in point: The Mysterians, first of the many, many, many alien races who threatened Toho Co.’s Japan (and, by extension, The World) with enslavement and annihilation throughout the 1950s, 60s and 70s. And while superhero and space opera films on all sides of the Pacific had long ago burned over this particular district of science fiction, The Mysterians marks the first successful fusion of the alien invasion motif with Ishiro Honda’s daikaiju formula. The result is, to say the least, mixed. But it’s still head and shoulders over what would come after Continue reading The Mysterians (1957) →

Movies, Reviews

Rodan (1956)

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So much for the new model army...
''I suppose I can call you guys the 'New Model Army'...''

If you’re at all like me, you probably received Rodan for Christmas at some point in the early 1990s. You dutifully spent the rest of the day ignoring your family in favor of traveling back to the middle 1950s, when giant monsters roamed the Earth and Scientists were heroes. You may not remember a damn thing about this film, but I’ll bet you remember that Video Treasure’s box art. Even the back of the box reads like a memorable relic from another time, letting us know in no uncertain terms that,

“This is the original thriller that delighted monster fans for years, starring the legendary RODAN, disturbed from his prehistoric slumber to wreck havoc on civilization.”

If you’re like me, reading this is the equivalent of ringing your personal dinner bell. If you’re not like me…well, I’ve just given you a taste of how it was for me. Now let’s see how it is. Continue reading Rodan (1956) →

Movies, Reviews

Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

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"No hickies!"
“No hickies!”

Lest you think quickie, cash-in sequels are something new, I have three words for you: Son of Kong. But if that only draws a blank look I can always hit you upside the head with this: the quickie, cash-in sequel producer Tomoyuki Tanaka churned out in the wake of Godzilla‘s 1954 box office success…without the original Godzilla‘s director or (with two notable exceptions) its cast.

Can you see the problem with that already? Ishiro Honda just had to go off and make Half Human. Half Human, for those unfamiliar, is a Yeti movie…’nough said. Whatever drove that monumentally bad decision on Honda’s part allowed director Motoyoshi Oda to win the big chair back in Godzilla land. Five months later he turned in a finished film…that almost sunk the franchise in its infancy. Why? Because – in spite of inspiring the “Godzilla vs.” formula that would go on to power the series for the next fifty-odd years – it’s just not very good. It came out wrong. Continue reading Godzilla Raids Again (1955) →

Movies, Reviews

Sharktopus (2010)

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"Slowly twisting...in the wind..."
"Slowly twisting...in the wind..."

Now here’s something we haven’t seen in awhile: a Roger Corman movie. And goddamn, the man’s still in fine form, making films that are nothing if not honest. “Hello,” they say, “I’m crap. And honestly unashamed. At least I came in on time and under budget. I’ll make money, and keep my Master in food and clothes for the foreseeable future. What more do you want?” For some, that would probably be enough. But around here we like to shoehorn the films we see into some greater narrative or another. What better narrative than the decline of Roger Corman, not as a man, but as a Bad Movie institution?

Was a time when the Sci-fi channel didn’t bother making its own crap. There were far, far, far too many pre-existing, crappy syndicated sci-fi shows one could buy up on the cheap and use to plug holes in the schedule, like a frantic bricklayer working overtime to build a mafia front, knowing that the Don is not as forgiving as, say, Darth Vader. Then the Dark Times came upon us all and the Channel sold out to USA…and thus to NBC, and thus to General Electric. Awash with this new, corporate cash, the channel began regularly premiering its own films. To an outsider, the process resembles a feces fight inside a monkey cage. The channel flings monetary poo at primates lower on the social pecking order, who quickly respond in kind by lobbing back handfuls of cinematic excrement. Unfortunately, these often pass straight through their intended targets, escape the bars, and hit the “SyFy” channel’s dwindling audience in the face. Continue reading Sharktopus (2010) →

Movies, Reviews

Yongary Monster from the Deep (1967)

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Every happy couple has their wedding in a matte painting.We open at a wedding as the bride and groom depart in their shark-faced car, a gleaming phallic rocket wishing them well from the background. Must be the late-1960s, and this must be Korea’s answer to Godzilla and Gamera‘s breakaway success. This is Yongary, a Sino-Korean co-production conceived with the land beyond the sea (the East Sea, that is) firmly in mind. Thus Yongary‘s many, many problems. All of which are accentuated by a horrible dubbing job and an injudicious use of TV aspect ratios.

For now, let’s examine the families. Yongary leaves us no choice, unceremoniously dumping its audience into their after-wedding gossip session. Recounting the catty babble would be tedious, so I’ll give you the gist. We’re to understand the Happy Couple are On-na and a character I labeled Major Tom (since, in the English dub, we never learn his name). Major Tom’s friend, Ilo (present at the wedding) immediately reveals himself to be a Korean Jeff Goldblum figure twenty years ahead of his time: the dedicated-but-socially-inept Scientist who’s dating On-na’s sister, Su-na. Su-na, we soon learn, is in no hurry to marry our Scientist. Falling in love with him would apparently “be like falling in love with a computer, almost.” You can imagine Ilo thinking, Thanks, Su-na. For being made of Bitch. {More}

Movies, Reviews

Attack of the Super Monsters (1982)

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"Death! Kill! Destroy!" Not exactly, "Let slip the dogs of war," but under the circumstances...If you’re at all like me you probably wasted most of your childhood watching Super Sentai: imported, live-action, Japanese superhero shows, repackaged for American audiences. The most famous examples were brought to America’s shores by the Egyptian-born warhawk Haim Saban, but he is only the tip of a good-sized professional iceberg. As anyone who’s seen Prince of Space knows, Japanese superhero shows have not moved along all that much since the 1950s, and neither has the process of Westernizing them.

Tonight’s subject is a relic from the first wave of Super Sentai success. In 1975, Toei Company’s Secret Squadron Go Rangers proved that children will watch just about anything – especially if that anything involves a team of costumed heroes and the advanced technology they employ  to defend the Earth from armies of giant monsters. While we American children languished in the vapid hellhole called “the 70s”, our Japanese counterparts basked in the glory of an emerging genre…one that  exhausted itself almost as soon as it cohered. Successive series followed Goranger annually, and someone over at Tsuburaya Productions (makers of Ultraman – which was, until that time, Japan’s undisputed king of superherodome) must’ve seen green. Someone (producers Akira and Nobor Tsuburaya, probably) must’ve wondered how best to cash in on this rising wave of  superhero squadron shows? Then the light bulb moment came. “We’ll re-editing old footage from crap TV shows and replace all the actors with cheap, South Korean animation. Provide the illusion that this is some kind of real Super Sentai show…rubes won’t know we hit ’em ’til they’re bleeding on their carpets.” {More}