Monday, June 30, 2014

The Litany of Godzilla: Heisei Series Part Five- Diversifying Plans

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Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla
1994

A freaky big, and spiky crystal, meteor hits a pacific island and grows some spires there.

Completely forgetting the moral they learned last time out, G-force is building another piloted giant robot.  This one is called M.O.G.U.E.R.A. (Mobile Operation Godzilla Universal Expert Robot Aero-Type), has a lot of spirally pointy bits, and separates into two, equal sized, independent, transforming vehicles to make it even more Power Rangery/Voltrony than Mechagodzilla and Garuda were.

The UN Monster Stopping League has shortened its name to Counter-G and will be working with three anti-Godzilla plans this time around, none of which I am making up: 


Plan T- For telepathy: control Godzilla’s mind.

Plan M- For M.O.G.U.E.R.A. : use a giant roboty thing that will really work to kill Godzilla this time…honest.

Plan CGSBCBIGWA– For Crazy Guy Shooting Blood Coagulant Bullet In Godzilla’s Weak Armpit:
You really don’t want to know.

Miki is railroaded into working on Plan T by Guy and Gal Professor in charge of it. They threaten to use and endanger one of the Psychic School kids if she refuses to help.  Nice.

Two members of G-Force, Serious Guy and Happy Guy, are sent on a boat to the Island from the opening where the crystal meteor hit.  They make an adorable couple.  Once there, they meet an older and grizzled G-Force member, Crazy Guy, who details his brainchild, Plan CGSBCBIGWA.   Turns out, this is also “Birth Island,” (or Baas Island depending on who’s translation you got) the island Baby was on, who has now grown much larger, much cuter, and much goofier looking.  He’s now called LittleGodzilla.

There’s an emergency that puts Plan M on hold when a NASA Interplanetary Flight is blown up by crystals matching the ones on the island.  M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  is sent to investigate.

Miki makes her Mothra symbol earrings glow and wiggle, causing Mothra to release a mess of Teeny-Mothras (or “Fairy Mothras” to use the correct term) far out in space.  
One stops by Miki and turns into a projection of the Cosmos in a flourish of Magic Dust.  They warn the NASA flight was destroyed by a terrible monster that is coming to Earth to kill Godzilla.  With the King of Monsters dead, there will be nothing to protect the planet from invasion.

While there is no indication of any aliens in the film, do the math people.
A space crystal based monster with weird dental work coming to Earth to prep for an invasion in a movie that ends with a song in popular style?

If you don’t like math, do the verbal. Here’s an analogy you’ll never see on the SATs.
Gigan is to Showa as SpaceGodzilla is to Heisei

Miki comes to Birth Island with Guy and Gal Professor for Project T, and finds the three G-Force guys burying tear gas mines.  They ask her why she loves Godzilla, and get a “You wouldn’t understand,” answer. 
We understand, Miki.

The mines go off sending everyone running to see the pathetically humorous offspring staggering from one gas blast to the next.  Poor little guy.  Miki senses the Big G coming.  I’d guess it’s because the G-Force guys are torturing his kid.

Miki goes to the Professors’ tent to start Plan T while Serious Guy and Happy Guy join the team to shoot the psychic receiver into place. Crazy Guy stays focused on Plan CGSBCBIGWA.  Amazingly, the tear gas affects Godzilla.  More amazingly, the receiver is shot in to Godzilla’s neck, and Miki controls him with her new Cerebro helmet.  Less amazingly, Crazy Guy fails, even while following the briefly controlled Godzilla.

Very briefly, in fact.  They lose the connection and try upping the power, causing Miki’s new hat to spark a bunch until she passes out.

Serious Guy and Happy Guy are now throwing in with Plan CGSBCBIGWA, leading Miki to rail at them with a classic, “You men are all violent and stupid,” speech.

Meanwhile, in the asteroid belt, M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  meets a big monster flying with his giant crystal backpack.  He looks like a blue Godzilla, but with shoulder pad and tail spike crystals, plus some extraordinarily bad teeth.  The new creature sets a record for damaging G-Force equipment, and continues on to Earth.  M.O.G.U.E.R.A. , short one leg, follows as best as possible.

The new space Kaiju shows up in his pre crystalized landing zone on the island, and proceeds to smack around LittleGodzilla. His dad runs over, looking more aggravated than usual, if possible.  Wild flailings of shoulder/breath/tail lighting, coupled with magically appearing crystal shields put Godzilla down on the island floor before he can mount any appreciable assault.  LittleGodzilla gets encased a crystal prison before the new guy flies off.  Godzilla sulks back into the ocean, while Miki stares longingly at him.

The Professors and all three G-Force guys pack up, now that Plan T is a dud.  Miki decides she’s staying on Birth Island.  Serious Guy and Happy Guy abandon Crazy Guy and stay with her. They’re really fickle, changing allegiances in every other scene. 

Back at Counter-G Headquarters, Gal Professor explains that (hold on folks) G-Cells that went into space on either Mothra or Biollante 
(based on the teeth, my money's on the latter) got pulled into a black hole, came out a white hole, merged with a crystal organism, and grew into the monster attacking Earth now (naturally).   Based on the cells and Miki saying it "felt" like Godzilla (um…thanks Miki) that’s where it’s more descriptive than usual name of SpaceGodzilla comes from.

Crazy Guy is assigned to head up the M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  flight team…y’know, once they fix it.

Miki puts on a pretty dress and stands on the beach waiting for her scaly beau.  Fairy Mothra stops by again to give her a pep talk.  Serious Guy also stops by to hit on her. (See? fickle.)  She shoots him down faster than a flying laser tank in one of these stories.  Part of her verbal attack includes the information that Godzilla has feelings too. 

Girl’s got it bad.

We find out why Crazy Guy is crazy, and Gal Professor is cold.  Maintaining the standard Godzilla movie triangle, his best friend, and her brother was Kaiju Obsessed Defense Guy from Godzilla vs. Biollante who fired the Anti Nuclear Energy Bacteria Bazooka into Godzilla’s mouth before having the building knocked out from under him. 

Serious Guy and Happy Guy are beat up in their sleep when Miki is kidnapped.  She’s taken to a new Plan T lab on the mainland, staffed by Guy Professor and the Yakuza, who were funding Plan T all the time.  Yes, the Japanese Mob had a hand in the idea that came closest to working.  That’s why it’s called ORGANIZED crime, kids.

Miki ends up strapped to a table while they turn the machinery up to unsafe levels.  The three G-Force guys go rescue her, and do a pretty decent job. One of the bad guys hides behind Miki’s now sideways table to shoot at Serious Guy. Miki aids her own rescue by using her mental powers to levitate the table and herself, giving Serious Guy a clear shot. 

When asked, she merely replies, “Telekinesis, I never tried it before.” 
Really. 

Miki’s pretty much a full-fledged superhero now, but no one seems to notice or care.

SpaceGodzilla destroys chunks of Japan, both manually, and by causing giant power surges as he flies over things.  Guy Professor gets toasted by his own equipment in one of those surges. 
Ha Ha.

Everyone makes it back to base just in time for Crazy Guy to assume command of M.O.G.U.E.R.A. .  He signs on Serious Guy and Happy Guy as his co-pilots.  They’re supposed to go to Fukuoka where SpaceGodzilla is giving the city a crystal conversion that would shame Liberace.

However, Godzilla shows up in Japan, saying, “Hey, this is my movie.” He sets about destroying military hardware and crushing buildings.  Crazy Guy deviates from using Plan-M against SpaceGodzilla and steers towards the Big G, in hopes of salvaging Plan CGSBCBIGWA.  Serious Guy has to knock him out to get the pointy cyborg back on mission, but at least he says, “Excuse me,” first.  Maybe he should be Polite Guy?

M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  comes to fight, which is obvious because they have the same light up “BATTLE” sign as Garuda did.  The eye beams don’t do anything, but the “Spiral Grenade Missiles” out of the pointy hands cause the crew to exclaim, “We did it!”  Aside from making SpaceGodzilla smokey, I’m not sure what they did.  M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  also has a belly button beam, but at least they don’t call it a grenade this time.  It’s a Plasma Laser Cannon, and it also has no effect on their foe.  They only come close to success with the Nose Drill. (No, I didn’t make that up either.) However, being that close lets SpaceGodzilla unload on the cyborg, making it all sparky, and need to roller skate backwards to escape before pitching over.

Godzilla finally shows up, after taking the longest, most destructive route into town.  Crazy Guy wakes up his two friends and gets them to untie him; because he’s less crazy than the situation they’re currently in.

With all three players finally battle ready; it’s time for the Fracas in Fukuoka to shift into high gear.

Godzilla has some troubles with SpaceGodzilla’s magic shields and looping lightning breath.  He falls over.  The alien crystal beast also has shoulder tractor beam lightning that it uses to throw Godzilla into a building.

There’s some Magic Dust and the crystals hover and fly at Godzilla like bottle rockets.
Whatever. 

M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  is fixed again, and the crew decides to try splitting into the subterranean Land M.O.G.U.E.R.A. , and the Super-X like Star Falcon.  Godzilla figures out, before any human might I add, that SpaceGodzilla is getting power from the tower he’s standing next to the whole time.  The two G-Force guys in Burrowing M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  drill through the tower’s foundations, while Godzilla shakes it and knocks it down. 

Miki and Gal Professor show up to use super powers and worry, respectively.

Crazy Guy finally inflicts some real damage with the Star Falcon, knocking the space monster down.

M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  recombines and proceeds to “Fire Everything,” using those exact words.  Godzilla joins in on the SpaceGodzilla roasting with his breath weapon, initially.  Afterwards, the G-Force trio extols the intelligence of Godzilla for, “Blocking SpaceGodzilla’s energy.”  To me, it looked much more like the Big G was chewing on his head.

More Spiral Grenade Missiles take out SpaceGodzilla’s shoulder crystals.  Yes, a Mecha actually accomplished something, I was stunned as well.   Unfortunately, the drill nosed cyborg loses an arm, gets impaled on a crystalline tail, and dropped in a heap on the ground.  Serious Guy and Happy Guy jettison in an escape pod, while Crazy Guy looks ready to embrace Plan CGSBCBIGWA again.

Instead, he goes into REALLY Crazy Guy mode, yelling and flailing around the cockpit to send M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  on one last kamikaze flight into SpaceGodzilla.   The ladies run into the escape pod duo, and Gal Professor expresses her panicked worry about Crazy Guy.  Miki also actually admits to being worried about Serious Guy. However, it is strikingly obvious that she is more worried about Godzilla, and Happy Guy is more worried about Serious Guy.

Serious Guy heads off to rescue Crazy Guy from the wreckage. He’s stuck upside down, and it looks as if Serious Guy is going to shoot off his foot to save him. Lucky for Crazy Guy, Miki wiggles her magic Mothra earrings, telepathically contacts Serious Guy, and uses telekinesis through his eyes to rescue Crazy Guy.  Then she absorbs the Magic Dust from the crystals and harnesses it as the Phoenix Force.

OK, that one, I made up.

Godzilla, once again several steps mentally ahead of G-Force, is breathing on SpaceGodzilla a great deal. The King of Monsters has figured out that by overloading SpaceGodzilla, he’ll explode.  To finish the job, and also “accidentally” vaporize M.O.G.U.E.R.A., Godzilla switches to his Rodan upgrade crazy-explodey-super-energized red breath weapon.  SpaceGodzilla dissolve-splodes into a mass of Magic Dust, taking a large area of Fukuoka with him.

Of course, the G-Force Five are all peachy keen

Miki smiles at the return of Serious Guy.  (Again, Happy Guy smiles more.)  She uses her new found telekinesis to pop the receiver out of Godzilla’s neck, and he looks back to give her the smoldering eye before wandering back out to sea.

The Cosmos show up, in Fairy Mothra/Magic Dust mode to congratulate everyone for saving Planet Earth.  Kind of a hollow boast when one realizes the key way they saved Planet Earth was by having all of their anti-Godzilla plans fail miserably.  Crazy Guy gives his special bullet over to Gal Professor. Looks like he’s trading Plan CGSBCBIGWA, for Plan SWSBIAB. (Snuggle With Science Babe in a Bar)

Happy Guy runs in the surf yelling at the departing Big G. He may be on the road to taking over the Crazy Guy mantle.  Serious Guy, however, admits he doesn’t hate Godzilla anymore.  Probably just a ploy to hit on Miki, but it does work somewhat. 

She mentally links with Serious Guy to show him, and us, that LittleGodzilla is free, and happily toddling around Birth Island blowing radioactive spit bubbles.

Miki and Serious Guy do hold hands at the end, but based on the looks she and Godzilla exchanged, I’d say it’s a platonic connection with the M.O.G.U.E.R.A.  pilot.

After all, Miki and Godzilla are both in the next film, and not Serious Guy.



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