Monster and Kaiju Movie Thoughts and Impressions

Part 19 Godzilla vs King Ghidorah

I will finish a bigger project I start,even if it's just this dang it. First off, the copy I have of thismovie is a cheap double sided deal with Godzilla vs. Mothra thatdoesn't seem to have a subtitled option.

This movie turned out to be another onewhere I really can't remember character names the day after exceptfor the one gal, half the time they call her Amy but other times itsounds like her name might originally be Ami. I know I could look itup.

I definitely have some mixed feelingson this movie, on the one hand it's just so goofy looking and badlywritten there's a charm to it that the previous movies in thiscontinuity didn't have, but it also feels the most nationalist of theGodzilla movies so far. I don't want to divert from talking about themovie though, so I don't plan to expand on that element.

The movie moves fairly fast for a timebut it's coherent enough at first. There's a UFO! It's from thefuture, not space! We're going on a field trip to World War II!

Then time travel hits. Godzilla's beenerased from history, but everyone remembers him. There are so manyquestions and no answers to be had, regardless of how hard fans try.King Ghidorah replaced Godzilla, that seems like it almost needs amovie of recap on its own. Did Ghidorah target boats at first too,were they different? Or did he start with planes, or settlements? DidGhidorah destroy Tokyo like Godzilla did or did he have a differenttarget? Did Ghidorah even attack in 1954 or did he spend the timechilling on the island until the future people activated him? Isthere a Ghidorah Returns in this alternate timeline, a Ghidorah-izedversion of Biollante? How did Super X and X-2 fare? Presumably nobetter, but the battles must look very different. It sure doesn'tseem to be anyone's first time hearing about giant monsters, butagain it doesn't seem to matter if they were on the time travelingship or not, no one's curious about what should be a new monstercoming out of the sea to fight Ghidorah. That's just Godzilla, he wasthere through the other timeline, of course we remember him. In theoriginal Hesei timeline when no one went messing with history doesGodzilla still go on to fight Mothra, Battra, MechaGodzilla,SpaceGodzilla, and Destroyah or are there different monsters?

The questions don't stop and to haveany piece of mind I just have to accept this movie is crazed and itcan't make sense. Which is kind of freeing in its way but I don'twant it for every movie, not even every Godzilla movie.

I prefer space demon Ghidorah, butHeisei Ghidorah makes some sense to me. Think of the attitude problemso many of our over-bred pets have. Every Chihuahua I've met seems toknow its existence is wrong and humans are to blame, so how hard islife on completely bio-designed pet Dorats? Made to be extremelyhelpless with their weird little wings and tiny feet, they wereprobably very happy to become something that could maim and kill withimpunity.

Japan has a nuclear submarine it'shidden from everyone and just has parked out by some friendlyneighborhood country that doesn't rat them out, is if you thinkabout, a very wild and out there idea. It's just utterly lost in thepile of crazier things about this movie. Why not just a new Super Xor something? The gal, Amy or Ami or Ame or whatever – is fine withgoing along with the plan to create King Ghidorah and wreck the firstcity, but she's appalled and switches side when she finds out theothers weren't going to stop at one? Not really a winning sympatheticcharacter there and yet by the end she's the hero of the movie,piloting Mecha King Ghidorah to stop Godzilla. With very littleconcern for collateral damage. "I could accidentally kill anancestor of a friend of mine if this fight goes on too long. BEAMSPAM!"

It feels like I could be here all dayfinding weird and awkward things to bring up, but I think I'll focuson the positive. I really like the ambling fat Godzillasaurus and hisuseless immobile arms tottering his way through the landing force.It's even a bit touching how the soldiers want to honor the dinosaursince they can't do more for it. It's a fun movie in its way if youdon't waste your energy looking for a good movie in it. Ghidorah'srampage is nicely done and it's rare to see Ghidorah actually fightwith a military in spite of all the havoc he unleashes. I'm mostly okwith the fight scenes in this movie, they are beam heavy, but itdoesn't feel like the monsters ever consider beams their only meansof fighting.