The Godzilla Cycle: Deathiversary Week 2015: Day 3

Yikes! Well, things have actually have sped up some with this whole process, but oh man Megalon already destroyed dam! Yeah, it seems like at least 90 minutes (though not all the same movie) are gonna get only half paid attention to with the way things are going now, BUT I feel like the Day 2 post is pretty cool, got some interesting little things in there, which is basically now my main concern. Why would anyone read this? Last year my journal of events was written with the expectation that they were the last words I'd ever write, but this year my expectation is that things are going to get way better (for Godzilla at least), so without all the weight to what I'm talking about, my biggest concern is... is this stuff even worth saying?

So, for Day 2 at least, I think it was. Day 1 verged into 2014 territory slightly but I think I've got a grip now on what it is I'm doing with these posts this year, and my focus is trying to stick to "things that I wouldn't really have a reason to mention on The Godzilla Cycle proper but should probably bring up at some point."

Day 3 continues with a really, really fucking cool movie, then a really, really fucking goofy one, followed by something I've been looking forward to since last year, and after some Mechagodzilla madness we'll be taking a trip back to one of the more memorable experiences of last year's Deathiversary week (not technically a Deathiversary but you know what I mean), the distilled, almost-doesn't-feel-real late 70's madness that is Cozzilla. So today should be pretty exciting, and tomorrow... the cartoon! Hooray! ^o^

12. 1972 - 地球攻撃命令　ゴジラ対ガイガン • Godzilla vs. Gigan

So last year I think I mentioned the theory that Hedorah was a "stealth" invasion from the Nebulans rather than just a rogue monster. Here are two reasons why that doesn't make sense: Given the history of the world the Nebulans come from it's highly likely they did come from the same planet as Hedorah, and because the method Hedorah used to get to Earth isn't detailed in the film, which is highly suspicious since in a movie that's the sort of info you might want to clue your audience in on, it makes a lot of sense to assume the Nebulans brought him here. However Nebulans control their monster with "action tapes" in a highly methodical manner and I can't imagine them bringing a microscopic organism to Earth was intentional, I think this is kinda just the consequences of these sorts of things and history will bear me out on this. Additionally the length of time the non-profit responsible for children's land (and the disguises of the two main Nebulans have been dead for a year) emphasizes the fact that they were planning this invasion and the situation with Hedorah was an unexpected result of their arrival. Also, the other thing is that it's ludicrous to expect Nebulans to travel so many light years from home in order to conquer the pristine Earth which represents the way their home planet once was which is why they're there in the first place, only to completely destroy the environment themselves by intentionally letting Hedorah loose to fill the atmosphere with sulfuric acid.

The Gigan + Ghidorah thing has become a staple. In the films this was repeated with an ancient Gigan was paired with Keizer Ghidorah, while in the comics this has happened four times: once in The Godzilla Comic in I believe the last chapter called "Godzilla's Earth Defense Directive II" which features Godzilla and Mothra fighting off the pair in what I'm pretty sure is a continuation of the Showa timeline, once in Monster King Godzilla which features "Neo Gigan" and "King Ghidorah III" who has stolen Chamelegon's tactic of turning invisible, once indirectly in the unnamed second long-form IDW series (called Godzilla: History's Greatest Monster in it's collected form) where four space monsters appear and among them are Gigan and Keizer Ghidorah, and most famously in the Half-Century War which culminates in an invasion by the two which gets about halfway through completely destroying Earth's civilization before Godzilla and Mechagodzilla team up to stop them.

Also if the stock footage in this film is to be believed then 8 monsters currently live on Monster Island: Godzilla, Minilla, Anguirus, Rodan, Mothra (already the larva seen in DAM), Gorosaurus, Kumonga, and Kamacuras. Of course all three Kamacuras should be dead, so either this is a fourth one or the stock footage can't be trusted after all.

13. 1973 - ゴジラ対メガロ • Godzilla vs. Megalon

I made the connection last year between the red sand that the Seatopians make their buttons out of (???) and the Jurassic sand found on Godzilla, both of which were connected to the deep ocean floor but that was before I knew about Bride of Godzilla. Now not only is there a link between Seatopia and Godzilla's sea floor home, but now there's a link directly between Godzilla and the Hollow Earth. I knew it! Dr. Shida was right! Godzilla was created by the damned reptilians from the Hollow Earth! The moon landing was fake! Thorium is real! Open your eyes, people, NASA is hiding cities on the moon!

Godzilla vs. Megalon is best remembered as the campiest and most ridiculous Godzilla movie of all time, which is an honor it wears proudly regardless of what connotation others put on it. But this isn't intentional, it's not a self-aware film. Actually what's happening here is that Megalon is strictly a children's film, catering directly to the audience its established will best receive such a thing at the time. This is why the only characters are two dudes, a child, Oscar Wilde and Robert Dunham wearing a toga, and why the plot is condensed into about 10 minutes (there's also the part where the movie was written in like 10 minutes) and more than half of it is just straight monster action, and of course why Jet Jaguar can do things he isn't programmed to do with no modification for seemingly no reason at all. The logic in this movie is about as sound as it is in Power Rangers and it cares just as much, which is to say not at all. The only priority this film has is to keep children entertained by giving them a colorful show with giant monsters and robots fighting each other with strange powers in cool and oftentimes funny ways. The fact that the camp and silliness in this film is so well received by adults, then, it remarkable, as so few things kids think are funny manage to stay that way past the age of 7. Whether adults enjoy the wacky stunts ironically or with a genuine appreciation of what the film is trying to be you really have to give credit where it's due, and while "hippo hop" doesn't play to anyone over 4, Godzilla doing the same stupid tail-slide kick twice in a row just to make sure Jet Jaguar saw how awesome it was still a grumpy old curmudgeon like me smile 40 years later. I actually think it's kinda sad that Godzilla never tried this formula again either, but hey, there's always 2017, right? Maybe? Possibly?

When I watch this movie I can't help but hear the M.I.C. (that's Monsta Island Czars for those who happen to be faking the funk) track "No Snakes Alive" which samples the movie. The track is from King Geedorah's (a.k.a. MF Doom) album Take Me to Your Leader which features mostly samples of King Ghidorah movies (surprise!), "No Snakes Alive" in particular guests Jet Jaguar and Rodan, but not Megalon. The style of bass used by Broadcast has always reminded me of Megalon, and lately that's come full circle, and now Megalon just reminds me of Broadcast, which in turn makes me sad. Trish Keenan died less than a year after I discovered them, and it bothered me so much that I couldn't listen to them for like a year. Broadcast was one of the early adopters of hauntology back in the 90's, in the Stereolab camp rather than something like Boards of Canada (who have been making music since the 80's, but as far as I'm aware all of their output that could be retroactively called hauntology came later), and they pretty quickly established a very mid 60's to early 70's style with that wonderful kind of bouncy bass and occasional unrefined electronic elements that you could compare to Bruce Haack it he had slightly better technology, and in the later stuff it even wanders a bit into tracker music territory. Trish Keenan did a little project in the late aughts with Ghost Box artist The Focus Group, which released the amazingly titled album Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, and is easily the best album of 2009. And that's not an idle boast, there was a lot of really incredible stuff coming out at the time, including Telepathe's first album, but there's a kind of special... idunno, like Ariel Pink it's sort of difficult to explain, you either feel it or you don't.

I talked them up a lot because I figured I should leave this here. The first Broadcast song I listened to after Trish died was this one, "We've Got Time," and I wanted to embed this because it isn't "Oh How I Miss You," as that's not the theme of this year's Deathiversary. We do, for the moment, have some time.

TV1. 1973 - 流星人間ゾーン • Zone Fighter

Drinking Game Rules:
1 Drink - In case any chemical, geological, meteorological, or psychical, other than physical, sign of G's action is confirmed
2 Drinks - In case any physical sign of G's action such as voice and motion is confirmed
3 Drinks - In case G appears
4 Drinks - In case G's landing on any specific coast of Japan is positive
1 Drink - Godzilla uses his Atomic Ray
2 Drinks - ...and it's purple!
1 Drink - When the Godzilla Theme plays
1 Drink - During a conference scene
1 Drink - When direct casualties of monster attacks are shown
1 Drink - Appearance or arrival onto a mysterious or monster inhabited island
1 Drink - If Godzilla can't be located or reappears in a totally different place
1 Drink - When a Kenji Sahara character appears
1 Drink - Akihiko Hirata plays a scientist
1 Drink - Hiroshi Koizumi plays a scientist
1 Drink - Whenever Kumi Mizuno is being awesome
1 Drink - If a fight ends with either the losers running away or the monsters falling off a cliff into the water
1 Drink - When Godzilla wins
1 Drink - Gratuitous English
1 Drink - Gratuitous stock footage
1 Drink - If Godzilla stops taking a fight seriously
1 Drink - Godzilla does the Young Guy nose rub thing
1 Drink - A wild Kenny appears!
1 Drink - Gigan is blasted out of the sky
1 Drink - Zone Fighter Theme Song!
1 Drink - They were secretly a Garoga all along!
1 Drink - Zone's color timer starts blinking!
1 Drink - New Powers as the Plot Demands!
1 Drink - Ryusei Dyno-Mighto!
1 Drink - Ryusei Proton Beam!
1 Drink - ZOOOONE FIGHT POWAAA~!
2 Drinks - ZOOOONE DAAAABURU FIGHTO~!
2 Drinks - Commercial break
1 Drink - If the Mothra fairies sing her theme song
2 Drinks - If the Mothra fairies sing a different song
2 Drinks - Godzilla swims/walks into the sunset accompanied by a theme song

For Zone Fighter I've got something awesome: Gulden Draak, a dark and oddly sweet 10.5% Belgian ale. It's pretty great, and I first heard of it when I found it at a local pub with the most amazing tap I've ever seen, a literal golden dragon with the tail as the handle with, I kid you not, glowing red eyes. That would be impressive enough period, the fact that it's a dark Belgian just makes it extra special.

Earlier this year I discovered full episodes of Zone Fighter uploaded on Dailymotion. I was excited, but I didn't have a lot of space open for downloading things so I didn't jump on it immediately, like I should have. Episodes started disappearing. Not excepting this outcome, I made room and, with the help of someone who had downloaded the Dailymotion episodes and some searching on Youku was able to get the entire series. My first thought was that now I was prepared for May 16th, so I've been looking forward to this for some time now, although of course I've seen all the episodes already, putting all the Godzilla episodes together for one big 100 minute pseudo-movie is gonna be awesome.

#4. 来襲! ガロガ大軍団 - ゴジラ登場 - • Garoga's Grand Army - Godzilla Appears -

The addition of Godzilla to the cast comes when Zone Junior sort of lets "why don't we just call Godzilla" fall out of his mouth. Which you'd think would be the answer to every problem in the Tohoverse, although how in the hell he managed to get there so fast after they sent the Zobot is beyond me. Also, are the Peacelander just... humans, or what? When Sachio appears Angel instantly recognizes him, so the Zone Family's human form can't be something they adopted when they got here. I guess that means modern humans, Mysterians, and Peacelanders share a common ancestor. That, or maybe they're related to Riserians. Also the scene with the toy tanks and planes is awesome. Also Wargilgar is one of the best designed monsters on the show, which I guess isn't saying much, but he kinda puts the rest of the Terror-Beasts to shame. There's some other cool ones, though.

#11. 間一髪ゴジラの叫び! • Roar of Godzilla

The plot of this episode is ridiculous. Now I haven't looked it up in an episode guide or anything in some time, and certainly not before watching it today, so I'm only going off the episode itself, which involves people speaking Japanese, a language I don't really know. But I still know loosely what's going on. There's this car, a fast car, and it goes really fast, and it's covered in trash bags for some reason. Everyone wants to drive this car, man, it's really cool and it goes fast and it has plenty of trash bags for everyone, BUT only one person gets to drive it, presumably whoever is the coolest. Enter Zone Fighter and his Earthm'n pal who work together at a... race... garage... car... thing. Old guy who probably runs the place is going to make the announcement of who gets to drive the cool fast trash car, and Fighter and his pal wish each other good luck, but who will get to drive the car? Fighter of course! His name is in the title of the show! Earth pal isn't having none of this, and his intense jealousey and anger about not being picked to drive the cool fast trash car rage like an icy inferno inside of him, and so he gets his revenge by... siding with the Garogans!

Okay, so I'll accept that jealouse Joe knows Fighter is... Fighter, because they're friends after all, and I'll even give him that he not only knows about the Garoga and their bid for Earth, but he's actually petty enough to want to get revenge by siding with the evil alien conquerors. I'll give the show that. But how in the name of the good lord goofus does he know where to find or how to contact them? Do the Garoga just have a recruiting office in the middle of Tokyo? The fuck is this crap. Also, the fool proof plan to kill Zone Fighter that almost works? Locking the doors. Hey, the Garoga remote control the car so he can't unlock it, but it's also somehow impervious to lazor guns and if he tries to grow he just bumps his head. No, but for real though, he bumps his head, so he can't transform. This is a real alien invader plot from a real Zone Fighter episode.

Also Gigan dies. I've been interpreting later uses of the character in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla: Showdown in Okinawa (or is it the other way around?) and Godzilla's Suicide Strategy as being as simple as a second Gigan, since his death in Zone Fighter is a word of god sort of thing, but there's a weird moment in this episode after Godzilla leaves and he gets up to fight Zone that he seems to... use an extra life? Or something? There's gotta be a line of dialogue that explains what that is, but it really seems like he just used an extra man, and if that's the case then a similar explanation would suffice if those scripts ever got produced.

#15. 沈没! ゴジラよ東京を救え • Godzilla, Save Tokyo

This is my favroite Godzilla episode, and not just because I love Zandolla so much. The episode opens with an out of shape office worker race, featuring a bunch of people in formal attire and dress shoes running around and then giving up. There's a weird subplot here that I don't really get, but it involves or is sparked by a silver Garoga wearing a hat marching in a parade, and then his hat falls off and flips a sign. It's weird. The evil Garoga plan in this episode also isn't stupid or ridiculous, it's very straightforward and it makes sense. Zandolla is drilling a series of tunnels under Tokyo in such a way as to compromise the structural integrity of its foundation, which means there's no monster for Zone or Godzilla to fight (the worst possible weakness of any alien plan), no one can see it happening, and it will take out the entire metropolis all at once. Also, of course, Zandolla is just awesome.

#21. 無敵! ゴジラ大暴れ • Godzilla's Rampage

There are three cool things I like about this episode: that we get a monster that is more than "a thing Garogans made" and we even get to see a cool alien in its natural habitat, that Godzilla and Zone have a friendly match, and that Godzilla's ray turns purple for no reason. The rest of the episode makes me uneasy, as it's entirely about the kidnapping of Zone Junior and it's not done in a throwaway "haha you foolish Earthm'n walked into our trap" manner, it takes up the whole god damn episode. There's a quick skirmish once the... Jellarlian... or w/e, arrives on Earth in his little pokeball and Fighter and Angel successfully take the thing from the Garoga agents sent to collect it, and to get it back the Garogans hold Junior as collateral. They aim a gun at him while he's alone at a playground and fire... something. When we next see him he's in this creepy Garoga base tied up, but then they untie him and chain him to the wall, before leaving him there to contemplate his fate, which is a thing the camera decides we need to see. Not only to we get to see him alone chained to a wall in a creepy Garoga base, but we even get to see the kid daydreaming about being free and being big and powerful like his brother and being able to fight the monsters. It's not fun. It's too much like an actual child abduction and I don't understand what this focus on torturing a child in doing in a god damned children's show. Ugh. Also, the name of the second Jellar is "Custom Jellar."

#25. 凄絶! ゾーン • ゴジラ対恐獣連合軍 • Zone and Godzilla vs. the Terror-Beast Army

The last Godzilla episode, and the penultimate episode of the series, has another really stupid plan but, unlike the thing with the car, is just like ooooone degree away from being an AWESOME plan. So the Garogans decide to gather up all their monsters and put them into pokeballs, sort of like they do with the missiles only way smaller. So they take these Capsule Monsters© and seed them throughout Tokyo, all timed to go off at the same time, unleashing an entire army of the bastards all at once, which would be too much for Zone and Godzilla to handle. Sounds like a good idea on the surface, but why the capsules? The only purpose putting the monsters in capsules and hiding them serves is that it allows the Zone Family time to go discover and disarm them, thereby foiling the plan before it starts. You already have the missiles, you idiots, and the episode opens with five monsters all being dropped on Earth via missiles in the same place at the same time, just do that, but in Tokyo. How is this so fucking difficult for these dumb ass aliens? These dipshits couldn't conquer a bag of Doritos®. Even the Black Star aliens figured this out and the plan was so successful that they actually crucified Megaloman. They probably could have killed him if they tried unleashing five monsters at once maybe more than just the one time. But I guess this is a problem all TV show villains have.

14. 1974 - ゴジラ対メカゴジラ • Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

Didn't drink anything for this one either. The Sony DVD of this one has not only the previously maligned international version, but it also has this thing called "dubtitles," which means the film isn't really subtitled, it's just closed captioned, and rather than translations of what the characters are saying it's just the dub script. Naturally, that won't do this year so I'm watching the actual movie with actual subtitles. There's not much of a difference at all, really, but there are a couple of interesting changes I noted:

• The material Akihiko Hirata's cool pipe is made out of "strenochron" or w/e, that the Sony DVD literally just gave up on and dubtitled it "???," is in the subtitles I have "Astrenocon." It doesn't make any more sense but at least it's like an actual word, even if it's a made up one.

• "You're mistaken if you think you're a match for Mechagodzilla" is actually pointing out that he's mistaken if he thinks he's fighting a similar type of lifeform. As in, he's taunting Godzilla that he thinks he's fighting another one of his kind, but he's not. I do not think Godzilla cares, nor do I believe he wasn't aware something was wrong when it started shooting yellow rays and making weird shrieking noises and also has metal under it's skin. I don't think these aliens give Godzilla enough credit, really.

• When Hiroshi Koizumi is flipping through a book of Okinawan tattoos, he mentions it leading to a clue as to the location of the "weapon," meaning King Caesar. I don't recall this line in the dubbed version, but it's possible for me to forget some things. What's interesting about this is it establishes King Caesar as being artificial, something mentioned in fluff and supplementary material but never directly stated or even mentioned at all other than this one instance.
• The "Alpha... Centaurus" scene where Agent Nanbara is forcing the spacem'n to say the password so they can enter? That's not what's happening. The doorman just asks "who is it" and the spacem'n replies "Centaurus." As in, the name of that particular spacem'n was Centaurus. Spacem'n.
• Mechagodzilla is pressured to destroy King Caesar quickly before he "brings other monsters to life." What? WHAT!? Wait... what!? I kept wondering why the spacem'n were so obsessed with eliminating the Shisa when there are like umpteen other Earth monsters you need to be worried about, like, say... Godzilla? But I guess it's because he can summon monster zombies, or... something? I guess?
• Not a dubtitle thing, but hey look! Zone Fighter is in this movie! It's not much of a mystery why I've never caught this before, and seeing the same actor pop up after sitting through ~100 minutes of Zone Fighter is pretty radical. I wonder if this guy is hiding in any other 70's Toho movies?

15. 1975 - メカゴジラの逆襲 • Terror of Mechagodzilla

After the pointedly juvenile Megalon Godzilla appeared to be just another 70's giant hero, exacerbated by his appearance as a recurring "sixth ranger" on Toho's Ultraman-clone. While Hedorah and Gigan were still serious stories treated seriously, the target audience had already skewed pretty young and they were a Godzilla film of a totally different kind than had been seen in the 60's, created under a new guard, and with their own unique style. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla was, relatively speaking, a success, and there's a number of factors you could attribute this to; the use of Okinawa as a location, the robotic doppelganger idea, the reappearance of a number of established Godzilla players, and then it just feels more in line with the golden age of Godzilla, yet fresher and modern. You could make the argument that GvsMG began the "70's golden age" and it wouldn't be a hard point to make. Now, whether or not those reasons actually did have anything to do with the film's relative success is a whole other issue, the 70's were a hard time for cinema all over the world for a number of complex reasons that I don't know enough about to really pretend I understand what happened.

However, I think I know what happened next. Yukiko Takayama wrote the screenplay for ToMG as part of a contest, much like Shinichiro Kobayashi would in the 80's, but unlike the Godzilla 2 story contest, no other runner ups are known. If any are, they've never been made public, and no one who's written such a thing has ever come forward in the 40 years since the contest ended. Weird. But it's quite obvious why Takayama took home the gold: because she reused Mechagodzilla, who Toho must have thought would mean the upturn of the Godzilla series in the same way Submersion of Japan saved the entire studio from a similar fate as other film companies at the time. And to pursue the concept of a second golden age even further, you gotta bring back Honda and Ifukube, you just gotta. Throw in a tortured scientist played by Akihiko Hirata and you're basically a fail-proof Godzilla movie, right? Terror of Mechagodzilla sold the least amount of tickets of the entire Godzilla series.

This is undoubtedly connected to the bigger picture going on around this 70's cinema collapse, but there has to be something else going on here, because even in the 70's a really good Godzilla movie should bring in some numbers, right? I mean that literally just happened the year before. The answer seems, to me, pretty simple if you think about who it was watching these movies. After Megalon, audiences over the age of 7 probably weren't coming back. Unless you were a hardcore Godzilla fan, it seemed like the message was now loud and clear, Godzilla was just Ultraman now. Mechagodzilla was an awesome monster, though, and the inevitability of fighting one's evil clone in a franchise that has lasted 20 years is a big draw. But you know what happens in Ultraman shows? The thing that the core audience of these movies is now expecting you to conform to? They fight a different monster every week, and as the series wears on they get progressively stranger, more insane, and a lot of the time just outright stupid. Taking a look at some of the monsters from Ultraman Leo will give you an idea of where the weekly search for new, stranger, and more unique ideas took the series after, what, 50,000 episodes? Godzilla movies come out yearly, you only get one chance to make an impression, one chance to cook up progressively more far out monsters for the one episode that these people get in a whole year, and on top of that you're asking people to pay for this, as opposed to television, which is free. Toho thought Mechagodzilla was their second wind, but reusing him was the last nail in the coffin, and the Showa series closed out after Godzilla fought the same opponent twice in a row.

That's why it's such a shame what happened in the late 70's. Starting from 1976, where good guy Godzilla is framed by an invisible monster, the ideas grew ever more crazy, pushing the envelope in ways that have never been attempted in the film series... ever. This stuff has just never made it. Instead, Tomoyuki Tanaka was dead set one Resurrection of Godzilla, which started life as a remake of the original movie, the most creatively inept strategy ever. The fridge horror of all of this is that had a new Godzilla film appeared in the 1976 Champion Festival about an invisible monster that frames Godzilla that only he can see... it would have attracted its primary audience in a much grander way than ToMG did. You know, maybe it would have been modest business still, but it would have done better, and it would have been what people at the time wanted, too. American audiences would have eaten it up, too, as Godzilla's survival in the 70's in the new world was based on his new image of a campy super hero, I mean the whole reason Biollante didn't get a theatrical release in the U.S. is because the audience didn't understand and didn't want a serious, darker and edgier bad guy Godzilla. They wanted Godzilla to fight an invisible monster that tried to frame him. And god dammit, so do I.

1. 1977 - Godzilla, il Rei di Monstri • "Cozzilla"

When you take Godzilla away from me I become pointless. My entire experience as a human being, from the very beginning, is all just filtered through the lens Godzilla gave me. Without him I don't know what to think or how to feel anymore. Muscles are useless without a skeleton. I spent the past year looking back, it's how I've survived, I simply ignored the things that shouldn't be and raged against anything I came across that tried to tell me otherwise. My whole existence this past year is predicated on a lie. I know that now, but I can't say I regret it. Even in my denial, my faith in Godzilla has spurred me on and given me more drive than I've had in the past 6 years. Maybe my state over this past year has been... sheltered, but even then the memory of Godzilla drew me to keep trying, still, even when I know and have known for years that there's no hope. This isn't a simple movie we're talking about here, this is a muse, an entity, a real and powerful force that has a means beyond its literal existence. This is a completely fictional concept that my whole life is dependent upon. This is real, and I don't have anything else.

I realize now that even if there is a future from here, for me, it is meaningless unless it involves Godzilla. Priests don't spend their days idling around playing shuffleboard, they preach. This is my lot as well. I have to contribute, no matter how things go from here, if I'm not adding to the cause them I'm wasting my time. And there's too much at stake now to be lenient about this.

What possible options does that leave for me? I can write, that's almost the only thing I can do now, although I can't do it as well as I used to... I think. Or maybe I've never been good at anything and I've just been really good at lying to myself. Maybe there's a reason this is happening to me, maybe my life was just a huge joke. Anwyas, I still have to try something. Write... something. How does that translate into a living in the post-modern world? It doesn't, not without a license. And I can't afford one of those. I'd have to work for a larger company, like Matt Frank does, but they won't hire just anybody. It doesn't work that way. Passion gets you nowhere in this system, meaning is pointless and humanity is a farce. I could try, though. I'm sure there's something I could try.

I got lost in this movie. I may have said everything I needed to last time, that it doesn't feel real, that it plays with your perception, that it's a gateway to the yellow forest of perpetual regret, or that whenever Godzilla appears he seems to be attacking the very concept of the film itself, with my copy cutting out numerous times during the big raid on Tokyo and the tracking is even worse. There's something else, though, something I didn't catch until tonight. Near the tail end of the climax, the big Tokyo raid, after the jets come and attack Godzilla it... changes. It goes from dark blue and pink to bright yellow like in a day scene, and it keeps cutting to dead bodies. Real dead bodies. Soldiers and holocaust victims. Then it cuts back to Godzilla firing his ray, then back to the bodies, and back again, over and over it does this. We are shown the remains of Hiroshima, all in bright yellow, and then finally the movie comes back on.

That's when I realized it, this isn't a movie at all. This isn't some sort of fabrication or metaphor veiled under symbolism, this is just what it is, and that's all it is, and that's that. I've seen Godzilla and the Americanization so many times, but I don't think it's ever hit me as hard as it did just now. Godzilla isn't just some monster, or worse, just a movie, it's not even hidden, there's no smokescreen or anything. THIS is the legacy we've left, THIS is, still, the single most defining event in all of human history, THIS is the time when we stopped being residents of Earth and started being gods, THIS is Godzilla, and he will be our representative to the future whether we like it or not, or even whether the people of the future even know his name. We've already left our mark, all this other stuff, the Cold War or the United Nations or whatever else, this is just filler. Whatever happens to Godzilla, the monster, this isn't going away. But it gets worse. It's not bad enough that we killed Godzilla twice, but in the 60 years that have passed, we haven't done a god damned thing about any of this. The United States alone has, what, a billion nuclear warheads? Oh, I overshot it by half a million? Gee thanks. Haven't we figured out yet that these things are fucking dangerous? What, exactly, is the excuse for this? How is it that in the year 2015, 46 years after a man walked on the moon, we still have religions, much less the terrorism and prejudice it fosters. How is this still happening? Why do we still act like a bunch of fucking cavemen in a time when everyone has access to all information at literally any time they fucking want it? There's no reason for any of this. We're failing. We're failing as an "intelligent" species and there's no one to blame but ourselves.

I've got to ease up a little on big brother and corporate control of social media. At least they aren't pure evil, marketers can't conceive of good and evil, they just make money, it's all they're programmed to do, and we can't really blame them for that. Toho has made a very dangerous gamble with hollywood but it might pay off in a big way, so it's possible for this system to be a force for good. What's the rest of the world's excuse? How can I, as an American, be expected to defend state sponsored racist para-military terrorist organizations? How is that a thing that makes any sense? Everything Ishiro Honda was trying to tell us got completely ignored, because he had the audacity to tell us through the lens of art and imagination, because he had the balls big enough to talk about things that mattered in a way that could be easily digested to those unfamiliar with the details, presented in a way that, while abstract, helped people to understand the world around them in an entertaining and enriching way. What kind of tremendous fucking asshole thinks he can do that sort of shit? Oh sure, you can see the strings, but you can't see the fucking ice caps melting. Boyd Rice was right, this world needs an iron gardener. When someone so intelligent, passionate, honest, forgiving, and prescient is dismissed utterly, how can I be expected to think the people of this world should be allowed to live? Religion still exists, right? So tell me, what kind of god would allow this? Was it Yahweh's idea to give the Earth a humble, wise, and honest teacher that will be completely ignored because the U.S. really needs those extra 4 million nuclear weapons?

For this alone, we all deserve to go up in a nuclear firestorm. All of us are guilty, and we don't deserve this planet or anything it has to offer. And now even the message itself is subject to a CGI reboot for "today's audiences."

Fuck you. Fuck all of you. You allowed this to happen. You all deserve to burn in hell.

I was going to save this for May 16th's post, but the time to post it is now. This is an excerpt from the booklet that comes with the classic media release of Godzilla, written by Steve Ryfle, who is probably the biggest influence on me with regard to critical understanding of the Godzilla series as a franchise. There isn't really a better way to say it, so I'll just leave it here:

"Perhaps director Ishiro Honda was a bit naive. In 1991, two years before his death, Honda said he had always hoped that Godzilla could help bring an end to nuclear testing and arms proliferation and lamented that he had failed. Indeed, the situation has grown ever more dangerous since Godzilla's first rampage. More and more countries are going nuclear, and terrorists covet the bomb. A monster movie can't change the world, but Godzilla is a lasting reminder of Pandora's Box opened in August 1945. Born in the hellfire of a mushroom cloud, the King of the Monsters warned man to shut that box and extinguish the fire. If we can't look beyond the rubber suits and the flaming Tokyos and stare the monster in the eye before it's too late, perhaps we're all a bit naive."

Contents

2015/05/13

Deathiversary Week 2015: Day 3

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