Monday, November 16, 2009

a mega-bug

all these images come from my decidedly non-anamorphic HK R3 DVD of the following movie.  series videophiles will have to forgive me.

Godzilla is back, and to the consternation of continuity freaks, he's in a new timeline.  here he's shown up three times, searching for energy.  a cool thing in this movie is the flashbacks to the first three times he showed up, 1954, 1966 and 1996.  in 1996 he is after plasma energy, a renewable energy source for Japan.  in this raid he kills an army man and his female compatriot now HAS TO DESTROY Godzilla FOREVER.



in the next four years the G-Graspers develop a weapon called the "Dimension Tide" which creates a small black hole.  they will put Godzilla in it and he won't be able to escape.

of course, these things never go right in the movies, so the first time they fire the DT it brings about this, a revival of an ancient insect species called "meganura" which made their debut in 1956's excellent movie, Rodan (which I'll review eventually).  those were just little bitty bugs compared to the giant one we see here, which is a pretty cool design.

the movie is pretty fun, and despite the unwieldy design of Megagiras, the fight scenes work pretty well.  apparently lots of fans don't care for this movie.  Godzilla shows a lot of personality, and there's some funny bits with the monsters.  oh wait, that's it, monster humor.  Godzilla movies must be "dark and gritty" now.

touch darts, farmers!  but here's a shot for you "true fans", just in case!

I like the movie.    all of the so-called "Millenium" films are fun to some degree, far more than the ponderous second series movies.  but not a one of them holds a candle to any of the original set of movies.  I've never seen the US DVD, does it have true subs or just dubtitles?

1 comment:

C. Elam said...

I have that DVD, and I'm not sure. Only watched it once. The thing I remember most is that they made the transfer too bright (again) and the wires for the flying scenes are incredibly blatant as a result (again).

I love cheap effects in all their cheapness, but they don't do the filmmakers any favors when they sabotage them that way.