Powers Talckback: Meteor Cocoon and Gravity Beams

[edgaguirus]

A meteor cocoon would make space travel easier, but appears to be expensive energy wise. After landing, it takes at least two or three days for Ghidorah to emerge. He may have had to rest til he was fully recharged before attacking human kind. And it did make for a interesting entrance.

[Spuro]

You know, I never did believe explosive power was a proper way to judge kaiju weapon strength. After all, kaiju tank explosives from bombs and missiles and even oil refineries all the time without so much as a scratch. I always believed that when it comes to kaiju, at least, explosive power is a poor way of gauging beam strength. Ghidorah's gravity bolts exemplify my view. They do little explosive damage, but its very clear that they hurt the monsters they hit regardless.

[Rody]

I'm going off on a different tangent here, so please bear with me.

Thinking upon this subject, I was reminded of how the Heisei kaiju get criticized for their "beam wars", yet Showa Ghidorah seems to get excluded from such criticism, even though he does similar actions. I wondered about this apparent hypocrisy, and realized I have an answer.
First of all, beam-spamming was not the norm in the Showa era. Most kaiju were totally T&C, or balanced out beam attacks with melee; so it was acceptable for a couple of kaiju like Ghidorah to be primarily beam attackers.
Second of all, Showa Ghidorah is more visually interesting than Heisei Kaiju. The Heisei "beam wars" usually consisted of two kaiju facing each other and volleying lasers - not very dramatic beyond the flashy colors. Showa Ghidorah, on the other hand, is totally spastic and random. As Living Corpse pointed out initially, Ghidorah's actions are unpredictable and unreasonable. He is constantly moving: flapping his wings, flailing his heads, and spraying Gravity Beams indiscriminately. When Ghidorah is on screen, there is no lack of action.

...My two cents (give or take 98).

[Godzilla165]

What are gravity beams even supposed to be? You don't see American monsters shooting rays or bolts like that. The most you ever get is fire. I love how Japanese monsters have different powers and abilities.

Gravity bolts are weapons that utilize the gravity around them to inflict damage on an enemy (hence the name). I personally think of them as an array of incredibly hot daggers or fists being sent into the opposing monster frequently. Plus, like Living Corpse said, they don't posses a strong glow like other beam weapons and can hit the enemy several times before the enemy monster finally realizes what is inflicting pain on them. Add their weak glow with King Ghidorah's mentally insane nature, and you have yourself a terrifying weapon that appears to lack any type of mandatory "cool down system" if you will, and thus can be spammed for how ever long King Ghidorah wishes .

[JAGzilla]

These are both such awesome powers. The meteor cocoon is a perfect way for an apocalyptic monster like Ghidorah to make his entrance: dramatic and conspicuous, but not immediately threatning unless it lands in a populated area. And once it lands, it just sits there for a few days. At first it appears to be a normal meteroite, but people would realize something was off as it gradually develops the magnetic properties, and then... all hell breaks loose.

The gravity beams are equally perfect for a chaotic killing machine like Ghidorah. He can just spam them, randomly and without warning, and level whole cities in hardly any time at all. Running or hiding won't help much at close range; all you can do is hope he misses.

[Spuro]

What are gravity beams even supposed to be?

We will never know the answer to this question. At best, we can only theorize.

I've always thought that the when the beam strikes a target, it produces an effect similar to a mini white-hole. With buildings, it blasts them apart like an invisible explosion, as seen in GTTHM. On the ground, the effect is less dramatic, simply carving fissures through the earth as it strikes. Against the extra durable kaiju, the beams cannot outright blow open the opponent, but they can hit almost like a punch, transforming the bolt into a kinetic energy weapon through the use of gravity. The beam also produces an insane amount of heat/electricity/both, shocking/burning whatever they strike.

Just my theory.

[Kiryu2012]

I never paid any attention to the meteor cocoon. I suppose KG would just fly from planet to planet most of the time. I like the theories being put out about the gravity Bolts, but the Gravity Bolts don't seem that impressive to me. They seem more like electric-like bolts of energy in my opinion.

[edgaguirus]

The electric quality is would injure other monsters, but not do that much to buildings. When a gravity bolt hits a building, it destroys it. The beam must harness gravity to produce a crushing force. This makes it a deadlier weapon; Able to cause harm while also pushing an enemy back.

[Godzilla165]

When the they hit buildings in GTTHM, the building fell apart or shattered, so it makes me wonder if gravity beams have a second type of effect that is used to destroy buildings, but don't have the same kind of effect on other Kaiju. As I said in an earlier post, I would imagine that gravity bolts feel like red hot darts, or knives, or like a fist that has been cooked to a extreme temperature constantly hitting your body... A devastating weapon indeed.

[Kubo]

The gravity beams are wicked in GtTHM. Using his hurricane winds and those lightning rays of death, KG puts on a spectacle unmatched for almost a decade. The effect it has in later movies seems much less devastating, only shredding the sides of buildings and not causing complete obliteration like in '64. I do like how they can be fired without warning, anywhere anytime, and at anyone. That makes for a great surprise attack. as for the meteor cocoon, I can't say much other than it's awesome.

[darkcancer]

The meteor cocoon and first appearance of KG in the "fire" form is one of the most memorable first appearance of any kaiju for me. I hope we can see an updated version of it in the future some time.

[Godzilla1703]

When I was little all I feared was for Ghidorah to his somebody with a gravity beam. I always imaged those being of infinite power and I thought he'd obliterate Godzilla if he got hit by one that's why I was so damn scared every time Godzilla charged through a barrage of them.

[Lain Of The Wired]

Funny, I never saw it as a Meteor "Cocoon" I always saw it as an egg, Ghidorah's egg fell to Earth, Ghidorah hatched, went on a rampage, getting his ass kicked, flying back into space only to come back controlled by Planet X folks (The first of Ghidorah being controlled, then going on to be every alien in the galaxy's bitch, by being controlled by EVERYONE and there grandmother)

[JAGzilla]

One thing that surprised me when I watched GvsG this morning was seeing the gravity beam's effect on tanks: it melts them, the same way Showa Godzilla's ray did. I figured the beams had more power behind them than that, enough to simply blow the tanks up. With that in mind, it's interesting to look at the beams' effect on Rodan. He totally ignores the atomic ray, taking shots point-blank to the face without comment. But (and I haven't seen GTTHM very recently) he definitely didn't like being hit by the gravity beams, taking cover and otherwise avoiding them. It would appear that their heat output is comparable to the atomic ray's, so it seems that they must have some other property that bothered Rodan.

[he-ba]

It seems to me, and this is me so don't go ripping into me, that whenever people think of Ghidorah, they think of the great imposing and majestic Heisei Ghidorah. But I feel like that isn't Ghidorah. I absolutely LOVED the spasmodic movements and the huge amount of sound effects that came whenever he was on screen. The meteor didn't really have that big of an impact on me compared to the rest of Ghidorah. I feel it was kinda dragged out until we finally see him, the scientists say, "Oh! It's Ghidorah!" In a not very scared sounding tone, and then the scene ends. We wait a good 20 minutes for him to show up, he explodes out of the meteor, and then about 5-10 minutes later he finally starts destroying things. It just seemed too dragged out until the spectacle that is Showa Ghidorah's rampage.

[three]

a magnetic meteor might not be the best idea. if you're hurtling through space, and you're hyper magnetised, you'll end up being attracted to the nearest large celestial body. that could be your target, or a white dwarf star. it's not exactly a good strategy for travel. it's meteor appears to be a one off, especially since in later films Ghidorah materializes out of fire in the sky.