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The American Version

Wait a minute, what?

A shooting script, by Ib Melchior and Edwin Watson and dated 5/7/57, exists for a movie called The Volcano Monsters. This was to be the American release of Gojira no Gyakushu, sort of. In fact, all that The Volcano Monsters was going to cull from no Gyakushu was the footage of the monsters fighting; a whole new movie, with American actors, was going to be made around these scenes. And even these scenes were to be chopped apart, as the monsters were now supposed to be regular dinosaurs, and so every scene of Godzilla breathing his ray was to be specifically excised. Toho was apparently all for this, and even sent two apparently unique Godzilla and Anguirus suits to America, for shooting additional scenes. (These suits have long since disappeared, and indeed, only a single photograph exists as solid evidence of their ever having been real). However, the brand new studio that was to make this film, AB-PT Pictures, folded with terrifying speed. And so The Volcano Monsters never came to pass. This is, perhaps, fortunate; Ib Melchior went on to use some of his concepts from this script in the screenplay for Reptilicus, which happens to be the worst giant-monster movie in this or any possible universe.

Instead, Gojira no Gyakushu was released in the U.S. in 1959, under the title Gigantis, the Fire Monster. “What the hell?” you ask? It seems nobody really knows what the hell, though one of its American backers has said that this was to fool local audiences into thinking this was an all-new monster. So an all-new monster would be better than Godzilla? Wha? In any case, Gigantis was re-edited by Hugo Grimaldi, and dubbed by voice actors including Keye Luke and Paul Frees. It was released on a double bill with Teenagers from Outer Space. One of its radio ads began, quite honestly, with the exclamation, “Hey kids!”

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Wheee!

It’s a good thing I never went into journalism, because I’ve recently realized I’m complete crap at making headlines. Thinking over part one of this little series, and wondering why almost no one seems to have read it, I realized I’d probably botched the job. I wasn’t really griping about Star Wars as such, even though I explicitly said so in the headline. But “Humorous Observations Regarding Star Wars” sounds so bland I want to punch myself in the jaw. “Petty, Inconsequential Star Wars Shit I Noticed” doesn’t fare much better. The whole miserable enterprise just lacks focus. And so I officially retitle this article “A Loving Tribute to the Foibles of Star Wars.” It still doesn’t quite fit what I’m going for, but at this point, fuck it.

Still, a promise is a promise, and despite really wanting to give up yesterday because of massive computer troubles, I forged ahead despite common sense and the invisible disapproval of that little devil on my shoulder who’s always telling me to quit while I’m behind. Here, then, are nine admiring, yet inconsequential, observations about Star Wars — none of which mention a certain Gungan, thank you very much.

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This weekend, I had the dubious pleasure of watching G4′s coverage of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, a mostly excruciating farrago that more or less represented everything I hate about genre fandom. Runaway consumerism, fat guys with three chins squeezed into Anakin Skywalker outfits doing Wookiee growls, and G4′s time-tested formula of Dweeb and Tits — a nerdy imbecile who can’t shut up, and some down-on-her-luck model crammed into a tube top, clumsily reading Star Wars trivia off cue cards in an obvious attempt to lubricate the feverish masturbatory dreams of stereotypical sci-fi virgins everywhere. In other words, everything you’ve come to expect from any kind of Star Wars convention. Seeing Jeremy Bulloch was a pleasure, though, and watching Ray Park goof off is always deeply rewarding, so it was only nearly a complete loss.

In somewhat belated honor of the 30th anniversary of Star Wars, I’d like to do what Star Wars fans do best, which is complain. No, wait a minute, come back here. I mean complain in the most loving and affectionate way possible. One sure sign that you love a movie is when you can complain a great deal about inconsequential, nitpicky shit that most well-adjusted human beings wouldn’t even bother noticing, what with their high-paying jobs and significant others and fashionable luxury automobiles. Here, then, is a short (and far from complete) list of little things about Star Wars that have always bothered me.

In the interest of not being unbearably dull, I’ve left out drab criticisms like “why is there sound in space?” and “how did the Ewoks defeat the stormtroopers?” These points have been exhaustively covered in apocalyptic fanboy clashes the world over, and further discussion will only bring tears and more Kevin Smith quotes.

Before I begin, I should not that I know there are probably some very boring, canon answers to nearly all these lingering questions. So, before you start frantically writing comments to correct me, I want to tell you (in the nicest possible way) that I probably don’t want to know. I’m sure that some fan, somewhere, if not Lucas himself, has laboriously catalogued every xenological quirk and plot hole in the Star Wars saga. But, see, I like the mystery. I also like to complain. And, most of all, I like cheap laughs. So here we go.

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Review

My favorite building! Noooo!

Gojira – the original Godzilla – was a serious and gripping film, a grim and powerful one. Its sequel, not so much. There really isn’t much to Gojira no Gyakushu. There’s Godzilla fighting another monster – oh, man, there is that! – and that is, of course, just fine. But the things that aren’t Godzilla fighting another monster (which is to say, the human plotlines) have little or nothing to do with the monsters. Godzilla destroys Osaka, and out heroes have to relocate. Relocate! Oh, what hath the march of mankind wrought? Perhaps more importantly, the human plotlines don’t even have very much to do with themselves. Kobayashi suddenly, inexplicably has an off-screen girlfriend toward the end of the movie; much of the narrative hangs on coincidence – it just happens to be Tsukioka’s car commandeered to chase the escaped convicts who accidentally summon Godzilla back; Godzilla just happens to follow our heroes north after Osaka. Why wouldn’t he? There’s nothin’ better goin’ on. Really, there isn’t; we are hard-put to care about our heroes, because nothing’s really happening to them. And this makes for a slow movie, a movie that gets tiresome. Why are we watching convicts escape for so long? Why are the planes attacking Godzilla returning to base to talk about it? And so on.

It’s hard to say just who to pin this boredom, this disconnect, upon. The actors do their best with what they’ve got. The chaste and polite nature of Tsukioka and Hidemi’s romance is more an artifact of Japanese cinema of the time than a mistake. Hidemi actually manages to look honestly concerned about the destruction of Osaka, which is more than the others – or the narrative itself – can manage. Masaru Sato’s score is decent, but consistently upbeat, which certainly sucks away the gravitas of things. Sato has said, of his work here, that hearing it is “like listening to a kid, trying to learn.” The special effects are much as in the first film, and the collapsing buildings do look good (although at one point, a building in the background suddenly collapses as the monsters fight in the foreground, as if it were committing suicide in fear). The script is a problem, with its reliance on coincidence and its placement of the big monster-fight halfway through the film, leaving us with nothing to which to look forward. But really, most of the blame should probably be placed on Motoyoshi Oda’s direction. Oda doesn’t seem interested in the awesome destructive potential of his creatures. Or in anything else, really. Screenwriter Takeo Murata has said that he intended for the escaped-convict sequence to be about the looting and chaos in the wake of Godzilla; Oda makes it into interminable light comedy.

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Synopsis

No, none of these look like the little rapscallion who tricked us into whitewashing his fence…

Act One

After the credits, we see the handsome young Tsukioka (Hiroshi Koizumi), in his plane, looking for schools of fish for the fishing company for which he works. He talks to his girlfriend, Hidemi (Setsuko Wakayama) over the radio, as she works in the control room back in HQ; her father owns the company. Then, his less handsome best friend, Kobayashi (Minoru Chiaki) radios that he is having engine trouble, and is going down; and Tsukioka goes to look for him. Thus are Our Heroes introduced.

Tsukioka finds Kobayashi on the deserted Iwato Island. He sets down, they build a fire, and then, looking up from the crevasse they are in, they see…Godzilla. Well, a Godzilla – it is later said to be another member of the same species. Don’t say you weren’t warned! This Godzilla is battling a quadrupedal, spiky giant reptile, roughly his own size. Our Heroes express their understandable dismay about this sighting, and the monsters’ battle takes them tumbling unceremoniously into the sea.

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