r/Gamera

This was fun to make

Here's the rig i used if you're interested: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/showa-gamera-69563ba308e348f49aa69f75c02d7103

This ended up being much more difficult to do than I anticipated because trying to fit all of these non humanoid monsters into place was tricky. I decided to be more faithful to Gamera than the meme just to keep these guys recognizable, although some liberties were taken. My favorite has to be Iris, she/he/it is difficult but also really fun to draw.

https://x.com/MadokaLina8/status/2088947606722425183

https://discord.gg/9QHnwJcpa

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.

https://camp-fire.jp/projects/935944/view

Giving a character like Gamera who has like no chin a massive chad face looks so stupid but it was too funny not to do,

Gamera and Ziser very sad 😢

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.

Disney buys the movie rites to use Gamera and the others to complete with Warner Bros