Gamera 2: Advent of Legion Talkback

[MekaGojira3k]

[klen7]

I do love this film. Probably my greatest memory of G-Fest is when Shinji Higuchi sat within arms reach of me at the Pickwick showing.
The engineer in me just gets down on the mysticism as "cheats" in a genre where i have already suspended my belief for a giant flying turtle (i guess thats the "one big lie" principle), so maybe i should just say GoTU cheats less than G2

[MekaGojira3k]

But...there's more Mysticism at work in GOTU than in G2. The only magic is Gamera, the rest is kind-of hard science fiction.
Cuz ALIEMS.

[jellydonut25]

Yeah, G2 actually rather downplays the "Gamera is connected to people acuz of mystical punctuation marks" thing. I mean, I kinda dig that in GOTU, but G2 is less fantastical by comparison.

[Gman2887]

[king_ghidorah]

[Rodanex]

So, I have a question about the scene where Gamera revives. We see all those sparks converging and forming that "apostrophe" shape in the air above him, and then Asagi's stone breaks, and then he revives. As a kid, I always kind of interpreted this as Asagi was using the stone to give Gamera some energy to help him heal, but the process of healing from such grave injuries basically burned out the stone and it broke. Do you guys think this is what happened, or was Gamera just summoning mana and the stone broke because Gamera wanted to sever his connection with Asagi?

While we're talking about Asagi, she says that she can't feel Gamera's heart anymore after Gamera heals her wounds at the end of GOTU. I always assumed Gamera severed that connection as a way of saying thanks. Sorta like, "Thanks for helping me, but I don't want you to get hurt anymore." In G2, Asagi doesn't share wounds with Gamera, so it would appear that her connection with Gamera was indeed severed, even before the stone broke. But she does get really weak after Gamera's battle with Legion at the airport....which would seem to suggest there is still some connection. And then there's the above-mentioned scene, where it again implies she still has some connection with him. So do you think basically she is still somewhat connected to Gamera, just not as closely as in GOTU?

[Gman2887]

It seems by Gamera 2 more people had those jewels connecting them to Gamera. Gamera was probably drawing strength from more than just Asagi, alleviating some of the burden on her. Once the stones were destroyed Gamera had completely severed all links with humanity, likely resulting in his carelessness in Gamera 3.

Some fans theorize that Ayana was Gamera's last remaining link to humanity by the end of Gamera 3 and that he had done it without the need for a trinket.

[Rodanex]

So am I correct in assuming there is still some psychic link between Gamera and Asagi after the end of GOTU, but it is completely severed once the stone breaks? And all those kids that were gathering around Gamera when he's healing, they all had stones too? Maybe their parents were all involved in that investigation from GOTU?

[Gman2887]

[lhb412]

Just watched the English dub of this film for the first time in years and really enjoyed it. Probably the strongest dub in my lifetime... mind you, G2K is the only real competition there.

[lhb412]

... wait, I've heard that the ants from THEM! were an inspiration for the Legion (especially the drones), but could the "My name is Legion" quote from the Bible be a reference to Edmund Gwenn quoting the Bible in THEM! ?

[Dai]

I watched this again for the first time in a few years, and it never disappoints. Where G3 was a natural extention of the film-making style and themes of GOTU, G2 has always felt like a stylistic tangent for Kaneko. Normally, characters are the driving force of his stories, but Gamera 2 is essentially a docu-drama, making it somewhat unique among kaiju movies. The characters are imbued with Kaneko's usual eye for charming detail, but this is never their story, but rather the story of the situation they find themselves in, and how both humanity and Gamera work to understand and resolve it. This is taken to startling extremes in places. Unless I missed it, we aren't told the names of many of the main characters until at least 40 minutes into the movie, and they're rarely repeated. I don't think we're ever told what Science Chick's job is at the Science Centre, or where Soldier Guys fit into the structure of the military, since they're in the field long before the prime minister mobilises the SDF. Normally skipping these kinds of basic details would bother me, but here it just doesn't matter. By using shorthand for the characters, Kaneko is able to maintain a fast-paced bombardment of mysteries, problems, and the frantic search for solutions: meteorites, weird atmospheric phenomena, disappearing glass and fibre optics, murders, monsters, a giant flower growing out of a building, impending city-leveling explosions, and that's just in the first half hour!

Also, to weigh in on the much-laboured mana beam, I don't see that as deus ex machina. To me, the moment Asagi's magatama broke, that was Kaneko telling us visually, "Something has changed. The situation has escalated. The old rules no longer apply." It obeys the basic rules for one-shot final attacks, in that it takes time to charge, requires the user to remain still, and therefore requires the enemy to have been beaten down sufficiently to keep them in one place for a moment. Also, lets not forget that it causes Gamera's chest to crack open. That alone should tell you that it was an act of desperation, and not something he would use to dry his laundry.

Oh, and this was the first time I noticed that the train driver who gets murdered was Tomoro Taguchi, who played the main character in Tetsuo: The Iron Man. How did I watch this movie so many times and not recognise his trademark elastic expressions of horror?

[tbeasley]

[lhb412]

[Benjamin Haines]

I believe the Queen Legion suit had Mizuho Yoshida (Dagahra, GMK Godzilla, Zedus) walking in the front half. I don't know whose job it was to lie down and operate the back half. Someone who has the Heisei Gamera Perfection book from 2014 could probably find out.

[lhb412]

^He was also Zeiram, right?

[Benjamin Haines]

[tbeasley]

[Ultraseven]

I love Godzilla as much as anyone here, but Gamera AoL is still the best kaiju movie i have seen (and i have seen pretty much all of them, Ultraverse included). Perfect pace, the right amount of kaiju action and human interaction, and Legion is one of the best kaiju suits ever. Add well characterized military and enough hard scifi and mystical setups... i don't know if it was a fortunate Kaneko's fluke compared with the more magic-inclined GotU, G3 and GMK, but it is a masterpiece nonetheless.

[lhb412]

You know... I think this is my all-time favorite kaiju movie. This is #1, #2 is prob Mothra '61.