Monster and Kaiju Movie Thoughts and Impressions

23 Godzilla vs Destroyah

Personally I'm fond of 'Destoroyah' forsome reason, Destroyer is kind of generic, but the middle groundseems to be the most used. Oh let's see how well I remembereverything, I watched the movie and got sicker and spent a coupledays kind of out of it.

Finally! This movie says that theoriginal Godzilla was killed by the Oxygen Destroyer and ever since1984/5/Returns it's been a second Godzilla once again. I couldn'tfigure it out in that movie since that issue was glossed over. Ithink Godzilla vs King Ghidorah might contradict this a little, it'sbeen a while, but it really doesn't matter. Since this was supposedto be Godzilla's sign off movie for some time it makes sense thatthere are cuts to the first movie and some older actors showing up.

Rather like Destroy All Monsters beforeit, my first viewing of this movie was hurt pretty badly by the 'hypemen' doing their job too well. It's a rare thing for me, I actuallyhave 'crushing disappointment from being too invested in the unknown'as something of a 'core' or 'foundational' memory so it's really rarefor me to be too hyped up by something beforehand. Pretty sure allthe times it has happened can still be counted on one hand so it'sinteresting that two of those times were Godzilla movies.

Shortly after Godzilla shows up in hisburning state they say any attack on him might cause him to explodeand destroy the entire atmosphere so they won't be trying to stophim. I kind of want to yell at them about older movie plot points butthey eventually remember one of them with the cadmium missiles. Iwonder about the anti-nuclear bacteria but this time around Godzillamight actually have a body temperature too high for it so it makessome sense. What about the blood coagulant though? Supposedly thatwas going to be dangerous to Godzilla from a man-portable weaponwhich was just silly, but it would be a less "explodey" method,yeah?

Anyway the movie sure spends a lot oftime trying to get us to worry about the baby after the last moviebarely took the time to confirm he was ok. Godzilla Jr now if Irecall, the slight name adjustment each time is a choice I guess.

Throughout this movie characters giveexposition things that should be almost impossible to know aboutGodzilla's state like he willingly checked himself in for diagnosisthat morning. It's great. He will explode on this exact time, he'llmelt down at this exact temperature and not one degree before orafter." How exactly is meltdown worse than exploding in this case,by the way? They said Godzilla exploding burns off the atmosphere, soeven if you were far enough away to not be killed by the blast orworldwide shrapnel, everything above the ocean's surface suffocatesquickly and ocean life is going to take massive hits shortly.

I doubt it was intentional but the factthat they're back to Super X ships has me imagining that the world'sjust running out of budget to fight Godzilla at this point. Japancan't raise taxes any more, USA and other allies are just tired ofseeing money get evaporated in nuclear pulses and death rays.Rebuilding and relocating is eating up the budgets that relativelyneutral nations are willing to put up. It's probably an electionissue but I don't know enough about Japan's elections to guess atwhat it would look like. "The budget for one of MechaGodzilla'sarms could have re-homed a hundred thousand people, instead the warmachine lies broken like every other!" "Look, if we don't stopthe nuclear dinosaur somehow the relocating won't stop."

It's interesting that Destroyah isestablished as freakishly strong almost right away, being the firsttiny creature busting its way out of a lab storage beaker orwhatever. Suppose it helps sell just how easily the larger formssmash through walls, drop through floors, and rip apart cars later.There was quite a lot of "Lady, that's not protecting you! You haveto take your chances in an open run!" during a fairly long anddrawn out scene, made all the more annoying when a guy pulls her outof the car and they easily outrun the growing Destroyah. I know it'sa composite creature, but I can't recall if the earlier stages hadtheir own name. The burning/melting face of the creature model is agood shot, I figure they knew what they had with Destroyah's demoniclook.

I feel like Miki caves on the "feedJr to Destroyah and hope Destroyah wins the fight with adultGodzilla" pretty quickly, but whatever, the plot needs to happen.It makes it a bit harder to feel for her when she's upset about hisstruggle and eventual losing though. Also the authorities decidedTokyo was the place for the giant monster brawl? As much mockery getstossed at 2014's "Let them fight" at least the monsters were allalready in the city, no one was luring them all there to throw down.When Destroyah emerges fully grown for the finale someone commentsit's the biggest thing they've ever seen and I had to roll my eyes abit – say Destroyah is more massive than MechaKingGhidorah, Ihighly doubt that's obvious even if they were both side by side.Also, you know, oceans, sky, landmasses...

Massively lowered expectations helpedme see this battle in a better light, I've seen the movie a few timesbefore but I've always felt like fans are great at making it soundlike the most epic thrown down you can imagine only to have it beanother Heisei Godzilla fight. So that's been my opinion for sometime but I haven't watched it in a while and in retrospect itdeserves better than that, there was a lot of work done to make someparts stand out, from the dragging scenes to Destroyah barfing upblood from damage and Godzilla's spines melting. I think I'm a littledisappointed that they didn't figure out a new sound for when he endsup mourning Jr, ah well.

Does Destroyah even die in this movie?It looks like it's mostly intact and just gets its wings blasted soit falls, which doesn't seem like enough to kill it after all that'shappened. I guess we're supposed to assume so, like maybe Godzilla'smeltdown finished it off? I read a fanfic once that was just a little'Destroyah survived after credits scene' because of how it wasn'tmade as clear as it could be. Of course the big ending moment is Jrcomes back to live as the new Godzilla and they've never done asequel so there's a lot of questions about how things progress –does Jr stay peaceful or did something about his worst day everchange him? We don't know, they never did a sequel.

But someone tried to.

For a little bonus; how do I feel aboutGodzilla vs. Gigan Rex as an unofficial sequel to the Heisei Godzillamovies? It's fine, it breaks formula with the 'boss and minions'format instead of one threat but there's nothing wrong with that.Godzilla's stony appearance and new powers are a little weird but itcan be chalked up to 'wasn't mutated by a man-made bomb but aworld-ending super blast' I suppose. It does sort of discount theidea that Jr had his own series of adventures and power upsafterwards because the narration mentions things have been peacefulever since. The short film seems to cast Godzilla in a more heroicrole to a degree, the collateral damage gets nuts and there isn'tmuch personality given to its Godzilla, what characterization thereis in that short is given to the Gigans. The minions take some joy inthe destruction they spread and their boss has an awfully coldattitude towards them and has the theatrics of an anime villain. Iwish Toho would leave their suitmation shorts up.