u/pikachucet2

I originally had this idea for Godzilla (alongside an animated remake of the 1998 Godzilla and Mothra as a 90s animated American musical, akin to the Disney Renaissance and The Prince of Egypt but I digress), but was then told the premise would fit Gamera way better. I tried fleshing it out a little more a few days ago.

If you've ever seen The Iron Giant, you'll know what kind of movie this would be. If not, to put it simply, it's about a kid who discovers a giant robot that fell to Earth and they become friends. So you can see how that premise would fit Gamera (I mean it's kind of like Gamera the Brave). I'm not entirely sure what I'd want the general plot to be at the moment (if I were to write it into a full story), but the most consistent part of all the ideas I have for it is that, like The Iron Giant, Gamera was originally a weapon of mass destruction who goes from being a destroyer to a protector, being either built by aliens or the Atlanteans.

One of the ideas for the Alien route is that Gamera was made by aliens seeking to conquer and occupy Earth by attacking it with bioengineered Kaiju, and Gamera betrays his alien creators through his friendship with the young boy, or would've been part of a larger army of bioengineered turtle Kaiju on either an alien planet or in Atlantis, who turned on their creators and destroyed their civilisation, with Gamera being the last of these in existence. This is partly influenced by The Iron Giant, but also by the Heisei Gamera trilogy and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, as they have giant creatures (the Giant Warriors in the case of Nausicaä and of course Gyaos in the case of Gamera) being built as weapons that caused the fall of their respective civilisations. I'm kind of a sucker for stories where advancements in weaponry lead to the end of the world. In either case Gyaos would also be bioengineered weapons, being either alien or created by a human military, and they'd be the main threat that Gamera would have to fight.

Sorry if any of this is poorly explained, I'm not great at articulating my thoughts. I'd also just call the movie Gamera, since aside from the 2015 short there's no film that just has that name.

Rewatched Gamera: Guardian of The Universe recently (after admittedly not really paying much attention to it the first time) and really liked it. I found it interesting how it comes across as more anti-military than Shusuke Kaneko's other iconic directorial effort, GMK, with the JSDF attacking Gamera instead of Gyaos and Gyaos being implied to have been a weapon that turned on the Atlanteans (kind of like the Giant Warriors from Nausicaä of The Valley of The Wind if anyone's seen that, similar story, just more explicit), but today I watched Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (or Advent of Legion if you prefer, either works) and I found it to be a bit of a downgrade (just a bit), and that one also showed the JSDF as more heroic. So I looked through Wikipedia to see if that was called out by anyone else and sure enough, it was, in the history section...alongside descriptions of Kaneko and Kazunori Ito talking about their distaste towards the older Gamera films and their depiction of Gamera as heroic and a protector of children.

Honestly reading what they have to say about Gamera makes Kaneko and Ito come across as really bitter, and I think that's just kind of sad. That aside though I noticed that the first act of Guardian of the Universe felt a lot like the original Godzilla (ships encounter the titular monster, island is terrorised by a giant creature and the main character goes there to investigate where they come face to face with the culprit), which would track with Kaneko and Ito wanting to do Godzilla instead of Gamera. 

Gonna be honest though I think, at least in the case of the first Heisei film, Kaneko and Ito succeeded despite themselves, I can imagine a kid loving Guardian of the Universe. Granted I did grow up on Doctor Who (a family show that was incredibly popular with the youth when I was a kid and went to some pretty dark places at times in the 2000s and 2010s) but Gamera came across as very heroic in GoTU, contrary to how Kaneko and Ito wanted him to be, and he's adorable, kids would love that. It's also impressive that they were as good as they were despite the director and writer not liking Gamera very much, though I do think the attempt to alienate the series from younger audiences is sad. It's also why Gamera went from being cute in the first two films to looking intimidating in Revenge of Iris. And whilst they're beloved now they were apparently incredibly divisive when initially released, especially Iris. Part of me wonders if that contributed to Daiei going bankrupt.

Speaking of Iris, that's next on my rewatch list. Hopefully it lives up to the hype! Sorry if this was too rambly.

OK got pretty heated earlier (apologies for that, though in my defense getting torn apart for expressing an opinion on something that as I'll get to wants to have something to say is ridiculous and I only forgo being civil if I feel the person arguing against me is doing so in bad faith) so I am going to try this again.

In an earlier post that I just deleted I criticised Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo, a short film that depicts the beginning of the Seven Days of Fire from Nausicaä that was directed by Shinji Higuchi and Hideaki Anno (both of Evangelion and Shin Godzilla fame, with Anno being the guy who animated the giant warriors for those unaware). I took issue with how the Warriors were depicted as aliens or even literal gods that just showed up one day and not as man made weapons that went haywire and destroyed the world.

I was then told that I shouldn't criticise it for its writing on the basis that it was made as a demonstration of practical effects rather than to be a narrative piece which...yeah that's my ISSUE. It didn't need a narrative to begin with, so why add one there if it's not going to line up thematically with the source material? If it didn't have the narration or the narration were changed to mention a war brewing in the background that hasn't reached Tokyo and nobody is prepared for when the Giant Warrior arrives (à la Howl's Moving Castle with its war or the 1984 anti-nuclear horror movie Threads) I wouldn't be going out of my way to complain about it.

And it does present itself as something to provoke at least some amount of thought, with the conversation between the narrator and her brother and said narrator ending the film saying that she has to hold onto hope of survival even with how unlikely that is. There's meant to be more to the short than just "Wow big explosions". I'd compare it to another, much longer film directed by Higuchi and written by Anno, Shin Ultraman, which isn't particularly well written but still wants to say SOMETHING and that seems more concerned with being an effects showcase, which still does not shield the film from criticism. Hell this has less of an excuse because, again, nothing was forcing them to add a narrative to the short. It's not a "turn your brain off" short, as much as people may insist it is.

I appreciate the technical aspect of it as I am a sucker for practical effects (some of my favourite live action films are pretty heavy on them actually, Godzilla, Mothra, The Return of Godzilla, The Thing, The Fly, Threads, Godzilla vs. Mothra...could keep going but I digress) and I think there is a lot about it that's cool but it weakens itself by not stopping at just being a technical showcase and missing the point of the titular monsters in doing so. Also I still think that the recreation of the iconic shot from Nausicaä doesn't work because they looked more haunting in Nausicaä.

Some of you may not have heard of this short so let me fill you in. Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo is a short live action film from 2012 directed by Shinji Higuchi and written by Hideaki Anno, who animated the Giant Warrior in the climax of Nausicaä and is most well known as the creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion. It was made for the Tokusatsu/Special Effects exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo as a demonstration of practical effects (Higuchi directed the Special Effects for the 90s Gamera movies, and it seems like he's always happy to flex his skills as an effects director. It also played before Evangelion 3.0 in cinemas), and it's meant to serve as a prequel to Nausicaä, depicting the Seven Days of Fire. As a longtime Ghibli fan, and someone who just a few years ago became an avid fan of Godzilla, I feel like I should've really liked this film. I do not.

Yes, it's well made, and the destruction scenes have the same kind of look you see from the bombing scenes in Hayao Miyazaki directed films, which are animated in such a way that makes it look as though the burning buildings are melting under the heat of the flames. Howl's Moving Castle is a very good example of this, as well as Nausicaä of course. It's not meant to look cool like destruction in a lot of other films, it's meant to be horrifying. I think they also used some of the destruction sounds heard in the old Showa-era Godzilla films, which Anno and Higuchi would use when they made Shin Godzilla a few years later, one of the best Kaiju films ever made (although I'm not a fan of its pro-Japanese military stance), and that film made good use of the ancient 60s sound effects. Giant God Warrior was made as a special effects demonstration more than anything else, so if anything was going to be effective it would HAVE to be the effects to be fair.

Unfortunately as much as I love practical effects they alone don't mean much if the rest of the film leaves more to be desired. There's 2 really big problems I have with it though. First is the design of the God Warriors-I'm sorry but I think they don't look good at all. They lack the haunting look that they have in the few scenes depicting the Seven Days of Fire in Nausicaä, or the horrifying decaying God Warrior used in the climax of that film. The fear factor is completely gone, and this is from the same duo that would direct Shin Godzilla only a few years later, and Godzilla in that film is the most visually horrifying he's ever looked, which makes it a pity the Giant Warriors in this short don't look too great.

https://preview.redd.it/hbvpouy8vbhh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=55daf4af0b26595ad176964457fb72347285f0f0

https://preview.redd.it/510vkcn5tbhh1.png?width=1920&format=png&auto=webp&s=3abe5493f096e26e07357dcd0d9a20b41a50df48

Speaking of Shin Godzilla, he also had an element of nuance to him, being a mutated sea creature that is visibly in constant agony and makes you feel sympathy for him, as destructive as he is, because he didn't want to become a monster. The Live Action God Warriors though...yeah there's nothing to them. Nothing thought provoking anyway.

Which brings me on to the writing itself. It's supposed to be a prequel to Nausicaä but does not in any way work as one due to the God Warriors being implied to be alien invaders or even divine beings that were summoned by the Earth itself to destroy mankind if we are to take the description of them literally, which isn't what they represented in Nausicaä at all! They were man-made weapons that went haywire and destroyed the world! They reflect fears that Miyazaki would've had as someone who grew up during World War 2 and lived through the Cold War when it seemed as though the world could end at any moment. Taking that aspect of them out completely contradicts the film they debuted in and what they're supposed to represent. It also doesn't inspire confidence when taking into consideration the pro-military themes present in Shin Godzilla.

At a certain point you have to ask why they decided to make it a prequel to Nausicaä if they weren't going to use the themes or plot of Nausicaä beyond "big monsters destroyed the world in seven days". It would've worked better as an Evangelion short honestly, make it about the Second Impact (the apocalyptic event that destroyed the world in Evangelion) instead of the Seven Days of Fire. And that's another thing I don't like about this short! Evangelion has Christian imagery that doesn't actually mean anything because they just put it there to look cool, but you could still at least interpret SOME themes there, like how the shady child abusing organisation NERV using surface level Biblical terminology could represent their arrogance in thinking that they can play God. Here though the reverse Genesis retelling just comes across as pretentious and that just makes the fact they traded the anti-war themes inherent to the Giant Warriors for the pretentious Biblical references more infuriating.

So yeah, as far as being a Kaiju movie goes, Giant Warrior is incredibly middling, especially compared to Evangelion, the Gamera Trilogy and Shin Godzilla, which the two creative leads of this short worked on (albeit Anno wasn't involved with Gamera). As a prequel to one of the greatest movies ever made? Terrible. A for the Special Effects, F- for the writing, maybe don't stray too far from the source material if you want it to be a prequel.

Telling someone "There is nothing to fear" immediately after doing a creepy laugh is probably the scariest thing a person can do

I put it off for a while since I hadn't seen a lot of Kamen Rider media before seeing Shin (more specifically I started with Tojima Wants to Be a Kamen Rider because I thought it sounded funny and watched 2 episodes of the original Kamen Rider from the 70s before losing access to the rest of the series), and by the time I saw Shin Godzilla I was already pretty familiar with Godzilla as a series and character, but then I remembered I'd seen a similar amount of Ultraman media when I first watched Shin Ultraman, and I liked that well enough, so I went "Well, what the hell" and decided to watch Shin Kamen Rider.

I was a little apprehensive upon hearing that they moved away from the Nazi influence for SHOCKER in Shin, since even with my lack of familiarity with the series I can appreciate media being firmly anti-fascist (Doctor Who was my favourite show growing up), and yeah it wasn't really there in Tojima either but given that was a comedy I could give that a pass. I was worried about it being absent in a more serious work like Shin though, but when I finally did get around to it I was less bothered by it than I thought I'd be, and the rest of the movie was still really good. Like...better than I thought it would be.

Aside from Shin Godzilla, where the mere thought of Godzilla's plight can get me teary eyed, Shin Kamen Rider is the most a work written by Hideaki Anno has made me cry. The first half was good, though I wasn't sure how intentional the campy tone of it was meant to be given how Shin Godzilla tried to avoid the more campy tone of its source material (that's not to say it was a weakness I just wasn't sure if it was meant to be present), but the second half of it was when it became really hard-hitting. I don't know why but the scene of Takeshi taking his helmet and crying after seeing Ruriko's last message (plus the contents of the message itself) really got the waterworks going. I'm also rather partial to the trope of a character who is initially emotionless or keeps their emotions bottled up becoming more emotional as the story progresses, which I think is why I liked Ruriko as much as I did. Takeshi dying and having Hayato take his place got me pretty hard too.

Of all the Shin films I've seen (which is every one except for Evangelion 3.0+1.0) this is my second favourite, behind Shin Godzilla (one of my favourite films in general) and above Shin Ultraman (which is good but the least remarkable of the three), and it's the best Kamen Rider thing I've seen so far. Though again keep in mind that not including this film the only other Kamen Rider things I've seen are 2 episodes of the original and the comedic KR anime, so that may not be saying much. Still, this could be encouragement for me to check out more of the series, or at least what's available to me (trying to watch Tokusatsu media is hard in Scotland given not a lot of it came out in the UK or Ireland, so I may need to import some things. Oh joy.)

I don't know how petty this is

I have to say it was very nice for Godzilla and Mothra to show up at his party (and yes that's meant to be Godzilla, you can only do so much with the editor. Also I am aware that's the wrong Ultraman)

Gomess' head is perfectly positioned for this