Gamera: Super Monster

[Thatguy4683]

Basically what it says, what are your thoughts on Gamera: Super Monster

[LegendZilla]

The Godzilla's Revenge of Gamera.

[Terasawa]

When I was 5 or 6, a babysitter learned I liked Godzilla movies and so told me about a movie he and his friends had seen about a giant turtle and three women who could fly. I already knew about Gamera but none of the few monster books I owned then even mentioned Super Monster, so I had no idea they were related. I eventually put all the pieces together long before I saw the film itself, but for a few years in between, I couldn't get over this wild, obscure, Japanese monster movie that I couldn't get any more information about.

I was 16 when I saw Super Monster and I already knew that most fans hated it. I sure wasn't impressed but I didn't think it was an abomination, either. Mostly I was bummed that I'd finally seen one of the last old school kaiju movies I hadn't already seen. This was already after crossing off films like Goke, Terror Beneath the Sea, and The Manster, so it kinda felt like the end of a chapter in my life.

And that's probably as charitable as I can be for this movie; yeah, it's definitely the least of the Gamera films and one of the last tokusatsu movies I'd choose to watch for enjoyment, but I guess I also still don't hate it.

[Spuro]

I was 16 when I saw Super Monster and I already knew that most fans hated it. I sure wasn't impressed but I didn't think it was an abomination, either. Mostly I was bummed that I'd finally seen one of the last old school kaiju movies I hadn't already seen. This was already after crossing off films like Goke, Terror Beneath the Sea, and The Manster, so it kinda felt like the end of a chapter in my life.

To be honest I’m impressed you saw Goke by 16. I haven’t even heard of the other two.

[Terasawa]

I was 16 when I saw Super Monster and I already knew that most fans hated it. I sure wasn't impressed but I didn't think it was an abomination, either. Mostly I was bummed that I'd finally seen one of the last old school kaiju movies I hadn't already seen. This was already after crossing off films like Goke, Terror Beneath the Sea, and The Manster, so it kinda felt like the end of a chapter in my life.

To be honest I’m impressed you saw Goke by 16. I haven’t even heard of the other two.

They were on these two tapes I got for Christmas in '97.

[edgaguirus]

When I was younger, I would watch it time to time. It was the only Gamera film I had.

Now, I prefer the other films. GSM works as an introduction to the turtle, but the movie's plot is thread bare, and the acting could be much better. Also, I don't like how it treats Jiger like a chump. The one positive to this film is the music score.

[Chrispy_G]

For me, I don't consider it to be a Gamera film so much as I consider it to be a Gamera tribute special, a cinematic clip show, "Gamera: A Look Back"...a way to sort of provide one last oddity of a film to serve as a send-off for that era.

I think it is funny that it is the longest of the Showa Films. To be a stock-footage based film set during difficult financial times for the studio with the intention of making a quick buck...you figure the first inclination would be to have that thing running at the leanest and meanest of run-times, like how Godzilla's Revenge is only 69 minutes. The shorter a film is the easier it is to squeeze in more showtimes.

Godzilla's Revenge at least has SOME other things going on, it has SOME original/newly shot monster fights in it.. With Super Monster, it really is just a clip show, and even uses non-Gamera stock footage and clips. Yes, you got the wonkiest of plots with the super ladies...but it still just feels like some sort of weird TV special or theme park attraction. Or an odd cinematic acid trip. This weird hodge-podge of things that only ended up with the "Gamera" name because that's what they used the most footage of.

It is hard to even really consider it as part of the franchise. If it were up to me, when the Gamera Blu Ray Box Set came about, I would have placed it on a disc loaded with most of the bonus features.

[mikelcho]

I read on Wikizilla that it's possible, but not confirmed, that this one film could be in a separate continuity from the other seven Showa films.

[Chrispy_G]

I read on Wikizilla that it's possible, but not confirmed, that this one film could be in a separate continuity from the other seven Showa films.

Honestly, I don't see how it is NOT off in its own little world. It is one thing to pass off some stock footage within 'new sequences' from one film to the next...a shot of a monster hiding behind trees as Maser Tanks cut them down is used in War of the Gargantuas, Godzilla vs Megalon and I THINK Godzilla vs Gigan. Like, it is stock footage...but you can kinda sorta suspend disbelief in the repetition of events.

With Super Monster, you just straight up see so many of the EXACT SAME EVENTS and sequences lifted right out of previous films that you just cannot sell that realistically as 'this is a new adventure after those'....Super Monster in 'canon' must be considered something off to the side in some degree. Not that anything about the Showa films ever maintained any semblance of consistent and well maintained continuity...

But there is a difference between having flashbacks of certain sequences and battles, or having a few moments within a 'new' story that are recycled from previous films...but Super Monster has got to be the most extreme example of creating the thinnest of plots to tie all of the old footage together and to use as much of that footage, uninterrupted, as possible.

[mikelcho]

Personally I always thought that, since Gamera's enemies were all already dead, Zanon created duplicates of all of them to fight Gamera.

But he practically handed Gamera his victories on a silver platter by sending out each kaiju one at a time instead of having them attack him all at once. Won't these villains ever learn that that old ploy never works?

[G-Matt]

Apart from some quite well re-edited fight scenes and a fascinating music score, this movie is definitely the weakest of the Showa movies. The new(?) flying Gamera prop is really stiff and lifeless, the VHS quality effects scenes are poor, and the acting is nothing to write home about (the kid singing the theme song is particularly cringeworthy).

[mikelcho]

You're never going to believe what I just found on Amazon:

*The Unofficial Tokusatsu Fan's Handbook for Gamera, Super Monster by Constantine Furman.

Yes, it exists.