The Series Project: The Summer of Godzilla (Part 7)

 

Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

a.k.a. GMK

Release Date: 21st December 2001

New Monster: Baragon

Description: Floppy-eared, one-horned, burrowing red hairless quadrupedal doggie

Origin: Just sorta hanging around.

Destruction: Stomped.

Ancillary Monsters: Mothra, King Ghidorah

Actor(s): Mizuho Yoshida (Godzilla), Akira Ohashi (King Ghidorah), Rie Ota (Baragon)

 

I’m not exactly sure where to place GMK in the Godzilla canon. I think the only conclusion I can come to is that this film, despite its awesome title, and the appearance of some of the old-guard Godzilla monster mythos, is actually not canonical at all. It features yet a new Godzilla design, and makes no attempt at connecting itself with any other films (other than the original and, oddly, the 1998 American film). The tone is much more kid-friendly than the previous few films. The monster fights are pretty darned spectacular, and I do like seeing King Ghidorah back in action, but all of the mayhem seems muted to me. A little cautious. A little too cartoony, even by Godzilla standards.

This may be a direct reaction to the World Trade Center incident, which occurred in New York not a few months before this film was released in Japan. Godzilla is a force for destruction, and often knocks over buildings, but how much will that image play to an audience who has seen some of the world’s tallest buildings knocked over on the evening news? I’m guessing the Godzilla series, for political reasons, had no choice but to regress. There are still scenes of smashing and buildings falling, but the bulk of the action will be monster-on-monster fight. In a way, GMK feels a lot more like the Godzilla films from the 1960s than any of the more recent movies, and most certainly doesn’t belong in the Millennium canon. The Godzilla series, then, takes a retro intermission until it either finds a way to make Godzilla’s building smashing more modern and timely, or until enough time has passed that building smashing can be cool again. In 2013, I think we’re in the clear (if movies like Man of Steel and White House Down are to be believed).

So the Godzilla in this film looks a lot more like the Godzilla from the 1954 original than any other film, only this time he has blank silver eyes. Godzilla is upright and roars a lot. He stomps about, and people freak out more than usual. A plucky reporter (former model Chiharu Niiyama) is investigating Godzilla, and finds some bizarre connections our hero monster has to an ancient book. There is also a creepy old prophet (Hideyo Amamoto) who has been witnessing the unfortunate smashings of local shrines by careless horny teens (there is a distressing scene wherein it looks like they drown a dog, but they don’t). The prophet also often returns to a remote ice cave (!) where our old friend King Ghidorah has been frozen. Mothra, too, reappears, this time from under a lake where she has been hanging out. Baragon also returns, although previously Baragon only appeared in a cameo in Destroy All Monsters. Baragon first made his appearance in the little-seen and totally insane Toho classic Frankenstein Conquers the World from 1965. Baragon is a cute li’l critter that looks more like a dog than anything, and who crawls around on all fours, and only occasionally attacking Godzilla.

The three ancillary monsters in this film, our lead reporter discovers, are Protector Monsters, set to wake up when Godzilla gets too out of hand. Godzilla gets out of hand. The monsters wake up, and they all variously attack the G-Man. Baragon is dispatched pretty early in the proceedings, but there is a pretty epic fight wherein Mothra and King Ghidorah team up to defeat Godzilla. Mothra is destroyed, and she becomes dust and floats into the lungs of Ghidorah, reviving him. I’m so used to seeing King Ghidorah as an evil monster (his previous function was essentially the supervillain of the Godzilla series), that it was a little bizarre to see him as a sympathetic monster.

GMK plays more like a tribute reel than anything. A kind of greatest hits album, but recorded afresh by new members of the band. A tribute never really works in this way. Look at the boring Superman Returns, or the offensive Trail of the Pink Panther. It’s one thing to make cute nods to previous entries in the series, but don’t ever make an outright tribute film. They don’t ever work.

More to support the tribute theory: If you look over the cast of the film, you’ll find it peppered with cameos from well-known Japanese kaiju alumni. Actors from Gamera films and Ultraman films turn up, as well as other Godzilla actors, monster performers, and even just a few recognizable Japanese stars. I’m not well-versed enough in modern Japanese cinema to recognize all these people (indeed, I’ve been focusing more on the monsters throughout this project than on the actors on the ground), but it may have been a thrill for the Japanese fans, who probably smiled every time a bike shop owner or jet pilot sped by with a single line.

So feel free to skip this one. It’s not readily available on home video (I had to download it), and it doesn’t match with any of the other movies. Maybe save it for the end of your own Godzilla journey.

That’ll be it for this week, kiddos. Be sure to join me next week for the final stomp in our long, long summer. We’ll be looking at the re-return of Mechagodzilla in the Millennium mold, another two-on-one monster fight in Godzilla: Tokyo SOS, and we’ll be pondering the final, final death of the Big G in the very long and very epic and reportedly very awesome Godzilla: Final Wars. I will also be declaring a winner as to who the best monster is, I will list all the monsters in a handy reference piece, and I will declare the best of the Godzilla movies, alongside the worst. We’re almost done, my friends. The end is in sight.  


Witney Seibold is a featured contributor on the CraveOnline Film Channel, co-host of The B-Movies Podcast and co-star of The Trailer Hitch. You can read his weekly articles B-Movies Extended, Free Film School and The Series Project, and follow him on “Twitter” at @WitneySeibold, where he is slowly losing his mind. If you want to buy him a gift (and I know you do), you can visit his Amazon Wish List

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