So I woke up the next day - and by the way I did nothing on the post for Day 5 at all on the 13th as I was downstairs most of the time, and way too tired and drunk to bother with it for the two MST3k episodes - I had an intense cold-ish fever deal, you know that sort of thing where your body's temperature goes all crazy? Where you're burning up but you're super cold too? By the time I bothered getting out of bed it was already 15 and I didn't feel like doing much of anything, but I was awake, so I put on GvsKG and did my best to keep up the schedule, jot down notes, get the previous day's article started, etc. Afterwards the ibuprofen I took kicked in, and after a long shower I felt a little better, so things continued from there.
But for this and another reason my schedule has been kicked around some. I was planning on going out and doing something with my mom for the 16th, but she's no longer off that day, instead it looks like tomorrow, on Sad Deathnight Eve (Mayween?) is when she'll be available, and on top of that I'm now on to GvsMGII as I write this and I'm starting to get all achey and a little tired, and I'm not real sure I can make it through to Destroyah today, but I'll try. The other thing going on is that since the article for yesterday got started so late, and I want to take a little bit of time with it since it's got Biollante in it, and I really don't feel like working on something that serious and self-reflective right now (or really doing much of anything) anwyas. So it may be the case that the Day 5 post is two days later rather than the usual day after. However my notes for the films are back to their original brief chunks from earlier, so it's probable I'll get both this and the previous day's posts out on the same day.
Actually, a lot of my meager discussion topics for the VS series is based on the very existence of this site, because I don't really need to cover everything in detail, I can just get into it in GC proper when I get to those particular articles. Which is great, because I could probably go on and on about something like Godzilla vs. Berserk forever.
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 - Nuclear Pulse!
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 - 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 - A wild Kenny appears!
1 Drink - Mechagodzilla falls over
1 Drink - Any time G-Center or a G-Center equivalent is able to watch the movie on their viewscreen
1 Drink - When Miki Saegusa closes her eyes and thinks really hard
1 Drink - Whenever a character is too dense to understand that if you remember Godzilla then he obviously still exists
1 Drink - If the Mothra fairies sing her theme song
2 Drinks - If the Mothra fairies sing a different song
No drinking today, too sick. Here are some things that aren't worth a paragraph, or I just don't want to spend a paragraph on them: the 23rd century is ruled by mega-corps and rampant nationalism... sounds familiar. Apparently the start of the movie takes place exactly 1000 days after Biollante. I wish there was something unique about the futurian Ghidorah that made it stand out, such as the idea being passed around that each head would fire a different color beam, which would have been way cool.
This film features an homage to G3HM in that one of our ensemble mains is a writer for "Super Mystery Magazine Mu." It's a bit of a subversion though as Terasawa is trying to get out of the game and work as a non-fiction writer when we meet up with him. This homage would later turn into a stock plot by the time of GMK, where it is reused again straight, probably also as an homage since the film draws a lot from G3HM. There's also a cute little moment where the way the time traveling party is lead through MOTHER's halls is reminiscent of Monster Zero. In fact, the idea to make the time machine appear as a "UFO" I'd guess is a way to directly call a comparison to the previous Ghidorah's alien origin.
Oh, about that origin. From whence came the genetic material used to create the Dorats? A safe bet might be Keizer Ghidorah, but the novelization actually gives us an answer. Genetic material from King Ghidorah (yes, that King Ghidorah) was recovered from Venus, meaning that in this timeline KG stomped out the Venusian civilization but never made it off world, and was defeated by some unknown and now gone technology. It also means that, if we apply this into the film's timeline, Keizer Ghidorah is more or less a reanimated corpse, which is awesome. Death Ghidorah, the first dead Ghidorah, was also the first four legged form, and so this would make the life cycle of the creatures consistent, with their "death" just a catalyst for a dark metamorphosis, like a Metal Greymon or something. This leaves me with the question "if KG's genes were recovered in the future, then how are they still there in the 23rd century if Keizer appeared in 203X?" But that's the thing, I'm not sure if the genetic material was recovered in the 23rd century or earlier, and also, I don't know what kind of "genetic material" they found, and it may have just been a dislodged scale or something.
19. 1992 - ゴジラvsモスラ • Godzilla vs. Mothra
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 - Nuclear Pulse!
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 - 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 - A wild Kenny appears!
1 Drink - Mechagodzilla falls over
1 Drink - Any time G-Center or a G-Center equivalent is able to watch the movie on their viewscreen
1 Drink - When Miki Saegusa closes her eyes and thinks really hard
1 Drink - Whenever the environmentalism theme is clumsily restated
1 Drink - If the Mothra fairies sing her theme song
2 Drinks - If the Mothra fairies sing a different song
The film begins with an Indiana Jones-type sequence that introduces us to that one guy who's name I don't remember right now. He's a sort of swarthy, globetrotting, archaeology thief with a checkered past and an answer for everything. When his ex-wife drops by with some gov't and corporate reps he's offered the opportunity to get out of an Indonesian prison, and then refuses, only to change his mind less than a minute later because he misunderestimated how long he'd be in for. This scene is completely pointless and a waste of everyone's time. It doesn't develop his character at all, because if there was a "stubborn" aspect to him then it never shows up again. It might could make him seem like a novice who doesn't understand the stakes of his profession, except if that were the case we wouldn't be introduced to him in the middle of a damn Indiana Jones temple raiding scene and there sure as hell wouldn't be any reason for any agency to approach him with amnesty. His 30-second refusal only stalls the action and has no consequences to the rest of the story at any point and it should have been deleted completely.
Another thing that bugs me is the hamfisted environmentalism slant. It's par for the course for its time, but it's also par for the embarrassingly schlocky way the message is treated, and this is the sort of thing you'd see a lot in the 90's and they really tried to beat kid's over the head with it. Just like in Captain Planet or something, character continuously act surprised and horrified at the raping of Mother Earth when in fact no such thing is happening. All of the villains in Captain Planet acted outside the law and were active criminals and full-on evil, not a representation of the way humanity at large is affecting the planet without realizing it which is the actual problem, and none of the consequences of their actions can be taken to heart in the same way, say, the events of Hedorah could. Hedorah was a monster that fed on what we had already sewn, and in a vague way Battra seems to also represent the consequences of actions we've already taken instead of ones being carried out by evil monsters we have no control over and whom no one is suggesting we treat any differently. But the clincher here is that no one is blaming Battra for its actions, instead they wallow in self-pity, but not about provoking Battra's wrath directly, no no no that would make to much sense and require them to be culpable for their actions which would lead to an ACTUAL environmentalist theme. No, instead Miki and Takarada spend the whole movie hanging their heads in shame that they had the audacity to allow a meteor to impact the planet that they didn't know existed prior to a few hours before impact which had effects on the environment that would have occurred whether humans were there or not. No, seriously, the entire environmentalism theme is based on a meteor, something humans have no control over, and all I can hear is that same ignorant preaching that thinks landfills are a worse option than recycling. Here's a tip guys: putting stuff we took from the land back into the land is a much better option than expending extra resources and creating more pollution in order to turn that same stuff into more fucking consumer goods.
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 - Nuclear Pulse!
3 Drinks - Spiral Fire Ray!
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 - 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 - A wild Kenny appears!
1 Drink - Mechagodzilla falls over
1 Drink - Any time G-Center or a G-Center equivalent is able to watch the movie on their viewscreen
1 Drink - When Miki Saegusa closes her eyes and thinks really hard
1 Drink - If the Mothra fairies sing her theme song
2 Drinks - If the Mothra fairies sing a different song
Two quick things then I'll move on to the biological problems I noticed: First, MG's serial number is Type M-93G-002A. Neat. Okay, so the '92, '93, and '94 suits cause a lot of confusion. About that: the reason for this is that the actual design never changed.Think of it like the '99 and '00 suits, they're the same design but they re-did the suit for other reasons. I'm actually not too clear on the details (yet) but the reason people have trouble telling them apart is because all three were only designed once, but it IS possible to tell them apart if you've got a keen enough eye. The '93 suit added the yellow-red eye feature and is thicker, having more bulk in the back due to the fins and tail being removable pieces. The '94 suits has the most heavily re-done body, with a far less bulky torso, and you can see that the arms have a wider ranger of motion instead of being pulled into the side all the time, reminiscent of a Showa-period design. So, yes, they are different, but it's still the same design. You're not crazy, you're not blind.
So onto the biological issues. Baby Godzilla is said to be a Godzillasaurus yet it eats plants, which is characterized as being a different thing than Godzilla. But Godzilla IS a Godzillasaurus. Idunno, maybe it's nitpicky to accept that Godzilla's mutation could have turned him into superman but NOT cha- wait, what am I saying? Everyone in the film knows Godzilla feeds off of nuclear energy, right? They KNOW this dude doesn't eat meat as Godzilla, so the only time they could be accusing him of such a thing would be pre-mutation. Hold on, what? I'm not ruling out that Godzillasaurus is omnivorous because before now its diet hasn't really been addressed, but I'd like to think that a deep sea animal probably doesn't do a hell of a lot of foraging. Then again, we saw Minilla eat fruit, so I guess they can subsist on that sort of thing while they're still too young to go fishing. Another thing is that they specify that this animal is a subspecies of Godzillasaurus distinct from the current Godzilla. Subspecies is barely even a thing in real life, and speciation is such a grey area alone, but I like the idea that the world hasn't stood still here, people are finding Godzilla fossils and learning more about his history.
And then there's Rodan. First of all, pterosaurs don't flap, so that's just silly, and also we can stop pretending those wings are actually propelling Rodan somehow. I'm willing to suspend a lot of disbelief for monster movies, because you have to, I'm just saying I can accept that Rodan's mutation gave him, somehow, the means to stay volant via some daikaiju super power, but you can't seriously tell me something that big actually flaps, especially not a pterosaur. The rest of Rodan's story doesn't make any sense. What's with the plants? And the song? So I think what happened is that the kids took the vibration of the plant (unless they're at 0 K all molecules vibrate and, therefore, are theoretically producing sound, which is perfect movie logic to me) and amplified that into a song. But then what? That turns him into Fire Rodan? Why? Why didn't it turn Godzilla into Fire Godzilla since he was closer? Or Fire Baby Godzilla? Or, hell, Fire Miki? One last thing I want to mention is this really strange scene where Rodan, after hearing the song, lifts up and purposefully drops himself into a volcano before emerging as Fire Rodan. Was the volcano necessary? Did Rodan need to be in that volcano? These are the kinds of questions Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II leaves me with.
No comments:
Post a Comment