Talkback: GMK - Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah (2001)

[daveblackeye15]

Hm when I was younger I thought the Yokohama battle went too long but I think I appreciate it more now. I think perhaps the part where the two kaiju are in the water could use a little trimming but nothing major.

Here's a pretty sweet battle with the original kaiju. Though sadly less water/ice Anguirus. It does make me go 'well maybe three dinosaur crawlers against Godzilla doesn' look so samey.' I still side with the execs, ugh, about using Ghidorah and Mothra but it's less about profit and more diversifying the monsters some. I know the 'd' word.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLyZhhuP07Q

[edgaguirus]

I have only one complaint about the final battle, and that is that KG, even when at full power, falls to Godzilla. The three headed dragon dies and resurrects twice, so giving KG some kind of victory over Godzilla would seem more satisfying. I still like the ending we got, but it seems like a waste to have KG power up twice just to get blown away like the other two.

[Gailah 1966]

I have only one complaint about the final battle, and that is that KG, even when at full power, falls to Godzilla. The three headed dragon dies and resurrects twice, so giving KG some kind of victory over Godzilla would seem more satisfying. I still like the ending we got, but it seems like a waste to have KG power up twice just to get blown away like the other two.

I agree. The complete fight is in/under the water and Godzilla looks so small compared to the rainbow bridge. KG was kind of wasted completely in this movie and his design was simply bad imo.

[LSD Jellyfish]

I have only one complaint about the final battle, and that is that KG, even when at full power, falls to Godzilla. The three headed dragon dies and resurrects twice, so giving KG some kind of victory over Godzilla would seem more satisfying. I still like the ending we got, but it seems like a waste to have KG power up twice just to get blown away like the other two.

I used to think the way Godzilla dispatches Ghidorah at the end was anti-climactic, but now I really love it as it just keeps adding to the tension and desperation of the situation. Baragon, Mothra, KG, and even the military, are given countless moments of “upgrades” throughout the film, and Godzilla mostly just endures it all.

I love how in the final moments of Ghidorah, Godzilla powers up because of Ghidorah’s energy rather than further enforcing more bs-power ups.

Ghidorah is VITAL in the climax, but I love how the ending isn’t “Ghidorah powers up and beats Godzilla”. It’s one of the most unique endings in a film featuring monsters battling.

[edgaguirus]

In a way this film shares a similarity with G vs Hedorah. It takes the three guardian spirits plus a human weapon to bring about the end of Godzilla. The spirits force Godzilla underwater, and then the missile badly injures Godzilla. Godzilla's death is ultimately his own fault, but it takes kaiju and humans working together to take Godzilla down.

[LSD Jellyfish]

Recently I’ve been watching a lot of J-Horror classics: Cure (1997) and Pulse (2001). Of course, the latter came out before (or around the same time as GMK) but I see connections. It’s not that I think GMK was directly inspired by those movies, but I see similar undercurrents in the same cultural movements.

GMK, outside select moments with the guardian monsters, features muted colors. The movie, up until its grand finale, doesn’t feature bright colors, and mostly it’s totally dark as well. Godzilla is very analogous to a lot of J-Horror icons and concepts at this time; it’s some sort of ethereal entity, one spawned by hatred, societies collective unconscious, and disconcerting trends of late 90s early 2000s Japan. Of course, like a lot of J-Horror films, the exact root of Godzilla, or even if it’s a supernatural entity, is update. The ambiguity is there, and also divorces it from the traditional trappings of the Godzilla series, which mostly skews sci-fi.

It’s been mentioned to death, but Godzilla really is like a curse in the film. I think that’s why the hospital scene, despite its brutality, really is impactful.

And then there’s the way that a large part of the movie is set-up like a traditional J-Horror/ghost film before we get into its Kaiju elements. Yuki and her crew are a found footage film crew, although the film rarely enters that POV. The way that it’s set up, particularly with the ghostly revelation of the man not appearing on the film, really parallels a lot of Japanese horror at the time which was interested in examining the intersection of video media and the supernatural. Like J-horror, there are also a couple of scenes that may or may not be hallucinations: Yuki appearing in the submarine, many of the ghost scenes.

While not explicit, there’s also a lot of undercurrents of a dissociation of Japan’s identity, that of its fascist and militaristic past, versus its more modern youthful one. I like to think that GMK takes a more positive and optimistic view on these topics, but there is still that disconnect in society. You get the impression that Kaneko has a more clear idea of what he wants to accomplish, but the film never outright explicitly states what’s going on, and it’s up to sociological interpretations on multiple levels.

While the guardian monsters are a source of positivity in the film, and we root for them, there’s also some darkness to them as well. The monsters to be “activated” by some sort of curse, or trigger, mainly that seems to be caused by some discontent in Japanese society (biker gangs, rowdy youth, suicide). It’s important to note that as we all know, Mothra and Ghidorah replaced Anguirus and Varan, two monsters that would have been easier to see as neutral forces.

To be clear, I don’t think that GMK is necessarily Kaneko leaning hard into J-Horror, or even intentionally, but I see it following a greater artistic movement at the time. Think of it analogous to how Godzilla (1984) contains many of the same genre trappings and stylistic choices as disaster films from around the same time. It’s still a Godzilla film, still a Kaiju film, but yeah I now see the J-Horror influence more now that I’ve been engaging in the genre more.

Anyone else, see any similarities, differences, or things I might have not picked up on here?

[king_ghidorah]

Absolutely a J horror “vibe” to the film. Hard to describe but I think you did a great job there.

[Chaos Reincarnation]

Agreed, I've always felt it had carried that same feeling but just wrote it off as me being weird. Glad to see others feel the same.

[JAGzilla]

Agreed, I've always felt it had carried that same feeling but just wrote it off as me being weird. Glad to see others feel the same.

Why would that be weird? It's J, it's horror (ghosts and all), and it came out during the J-Horror boom. It's a pretty logical conclusion to come to.

I admit I don't think that ever really occurred to me before LSD framed it that way, though. I didn't know J-Horror even existed back when GMK came out and I wasn't very interested in 'conventional' horror until much later, either. I treated it as a weirdly supernatural Godzilla movie and didn't really have a larger context to put it into until recently. But the J-Horror connection is clear enough once you see it.

[Chaos Reincarnation]

Personally I wish we got more Kaiju movies with that kind of influence.

[cloverfan98]

While not explicit, there’s also a lot of undercurrents of a dissociation of Japan’s identity, that of its fascist and militaristic past, versus its more modern youthful one. I like to think that GMK takes a more positive and optimistic view on these topics, but there is still that disconnect in society. You get the impression that Kaneko has a more clear idea of what he wants to accomplish, but the film never outright explicitly states what’s going on, and it’s up to sociological interpretations on multiple levels.

I really enjoyed your J-horror parallels and will be looking for them the next time I rewatch this film! When it comes to the films view of Japanese society and it's military, I definitely think it's a positive view. You can't ignore the past and attempting to ignore it or even lie about it will only result in further harm and evil. Remember the spirits possessing Godzilla are not attacking Japan for revenge in the name of the countries Japan attacked during WWII, but because modern day Japan has tried to forget it's past. However you are NOT bound to the past and are free to choose a better course for a better future. I think this is best depicted by the character of Yuri's father. He is a leading authority figure in the Japanese SDF and the closest character we have who could have served as a human villain or clearest target for Godzilla's rage. However his actions within the SDF are nothing but selfless, risking himself completely in the hopes of saving a society which has tried to ignore the sacrifices of past soldiers like him and which has little to no regard for it's modern soldiers (as shown by the young people jeering at the SDF telling them they are all going to die before the final showdown) Yuri's broadcast as her father dives to fight Godzilla underwater, is a call for Japan to recognize the importance of those like him who are willing to sacrifice their lives to save others and a call to recoqnize the value of human life.

[JAGzilla]

IIRC, the civilians mocking the SDF troops was a change made for the dub/dubtitles. They're actually just sincerely cheering the soldiers on. Admittedly, you could make a case for the dub version fitting the movie better. GMK is full of idiots and terrible people.