Gamera vs. Viras Talkback
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:34 pm
The Basics: Aliens plot to invade the Earth (Why? Because they are EVIL and that's what aliens do!) Masao and his young gajin friend Jim end up getting trapped in an alien ship and it's up to Gamera to save them! Meanwhile, the aliens probe Gamera's memory banks looking for weaknesses to stop the giant turtle resulting in a seemingly endless amount of stock footage...
The Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Viras
The Kaiju:
Gamera: He's pretty much unchanged since the last film.
Viras: An interesting kaiju, but I wouldn't call him one of my favorites. I do think he's better executed here than Gezora years later.
The Acting: Nothing special. The children of this film are less annoying than in Zigra, but not as fun as the ones in Guiron.
The SPFX: I love the spaceship in this film as well as the creepy, glowing eyes of the aliens. There aren't really any minatures worth pointing out.
The Other Stuff:
-I have a few editions of this film, Shouts! is easily the best but the semi legal one with the commentary by Carl Craig is pretty cool too. It's from that commentary that I learned one of the head aliens is also the same guy inside the Daimajin suit. That's a pretty cool bit of trivia there
-Gamera's thoughts...a great way to show past battles but it's execution is sloppy. It goes on for far too long and it's jarring to see the switch from color to the black and white footage of the original film
-This film was supposedly Noriaki's favorite Gamera film even though most fans hate it
-Overall, I like this film. It could have been a lot better had it not been for the abundance of stock footage...oh well, as is, it's still better than Zigra and miles better than Supermonster
Edit* I'd also like to say that I think this film could have been better than Gyoas had it not been hampered by the crazy amount of stock footage. I was actually engaged in the human plot of the children while they were in the spaceship...I cared more about the humans in this film than I did in Gyaos.
The Plot: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamera_vs._Viras
The Kaiju:
Gamera: He's pretty much unchanged since the last film.
Viras: An interesting kaiju, but I wouldn't call him one of my favorites. I do think he's better executed here than Gezora years later.
The Acting: Nothing special. The children of this film are less annoying than in Zigra, but not as fun as the ones in Guiron.
The SPFX: I love the spaceship in this film as well as the creepy, glowing eyes of the aliens. There aren't really any minatures worth pointing out.
The Other Stuff:
-I have a few editions of this film, Shouts! is easily the best but the semi legal one with the commentary by Carl Craig is pretty cool too. It's from that commentary that I learned one of the head aliens is also the same guy inside the Daimajin suit. That's a pretty cool bit of trivia there
-Gamera's thoughts...a great way to show past battles but it's execution is sloppy. It goes on for far too long and it's jarring to see the switch from color to the black and white footage of the original film
-This film was supposedly Noriaki's favorite Gamera film even though most fans hate it
-Overall, I like this film. It could have been a lot better had it not been for the abundance of stock footage...oh well, as is, it's still better than Zigra and miles better than Supermonster
Edit* I'd also like to say that I think this film could have been better than Gyoas had it not been hampered by the crazy amount of stock footage. I was actually engaged in the human plot of the children while they were in the spaceship...I cared more about the humans in this film than I did in Gyaos.