Godzilla vs. Gigan
AKA
Earth Destruction Directive: Godzilla vs. Gigan
Godzilla on Monster Island
(1972)
Page 2
But the bizarre thing about Godzilla vs. Gigan is that it's actually kind of fun to watch. The final battle in particular, while crawling with stock footage, is incredibly moody and surprisingly brutal. It's without a doubt a splended pay off for sitting through such a mind numbingly stupid movie.
However, the film either doesn't know how dumb it is, or perfectly knows it and tries to keep a straight face in order to prevent the audience from figuring it out. This is a movie where the alien invaders are actually giant cockroaches disguised as humans, and none of the actors even look like they're thinking of breaking a smile when they state this fact.
But despite the silly nature of the aliens in general, the human end of the story is a tremendous failure. Pretty much every one of the characters that I suppose we're supposed to call "heroes" isn't that bright. When they do something right, usually it's by accident. A late scene, for example, when the group is trying to escape the alien invaders, the aliens lock on to a car driving away from the scene and blow it up. While the car is in flames, our group of good guys pops up from behind a bush, with looks of "Glad that wasn't us" on their faces.
Ah yes, nothing like a batch of dark humor were several innocents not involved with the plot get hopelessly murdered for being in the wrong place at the wrong time just so we can giggle at how incredibly lucky our heroes are.
The performances are phoned in. In serious scenes, nobody seems to care. In comical scenes, they switch from neutral to over-the-top, to make it look like they're making an effort. This is a rare case where the dub actually kind of improves the performances in the film, as the voice actors actually sound like they're emoting.
Not to mention that in the dubbed version, one of the most infamous scenes in Godzilla history is played out. Godzilla actually talks. Not in a traditional sort of way, though. In the original Japanese version of the film, Godzilla and Anguirus have a conversation using comic book style thought balloons (in keeping with the fact that the main character is a comic artist). In the US, those balloons were erased and Godzilla and Anguirus's roars were actually dubbed instead.
While the final battle is a hoot, some of the minor technical aspects of the kaiju scenes are not. First and formost is the Godzilla suit, which had been used for 3 films prior. The costume is so old and beaten up that you can actually see chunks of it falling off on camera. The fact that Toho didn't shell out the money for a new one says a lot about the budget to this feature. In certain scenes of the film where they are featured flying, both Gigan and King Ghidorah had been replaced by little plastic models (honestly, these hokey things are actually kind of cute). The final battle is also laced with stock footage, which isn't that bad, however, the scene is set at night, and the majority of the footage actually takes place in the day. The footage is darkened for a (hopeful) night effect, but overall, it's not a very smart use of these scenes.
However, the monster scenes are also where Godzilla vs. Gigan excells. Gigan himself, despite being a wild design, is actually a very cool and original monster. While the films he has starred in haven't been very good, he's actually one of my favorite Toho kaiju. The somber tone of the final battle is also cool, and marks the first time in his history that Godzilla actually bleeds.
Given how many things were going against Godzilla vs. Gigan, it's amazing they managed to craft a film at all. Too bad it couldn't have been a coherant one. This one's for the cheese fans only. Where else can you see Japanese hippies using an ear of corn as a gun?
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