TALKBACK #12: Godzilla vs. Gigan

[Mac]

When the Blu-Ray comes out, I'm going to do an amazing shot-for-shot analysis of how terrible the fight scene in this movie is. The oil-refinery scene is two minutes of the monsters doing poses and taunting each-other, followed by awkward close-ups of explosions.

[Gojilove]

I watched this again on my flight the other day (I love seeing people's reactions when they glance over confusingly at what I'm watching.). This is a film I've watched a million times. And each time the bad editing of the stock footage becomes more and more apparent. The lack of effort towards the end of the movie in this regard is especially jarring. At least earlier in the film, they make an attempt to tint some of the old footage to make it look more nighttime-ish. If they knew they were going to use all this stock footage, why not shoot the new footage with day light instead of forcing a night battle that they couldn't accomplish? .

The one use of stock footage I did enjoy, if only for its pure silliness, is the reuse of the same "flip ghidorah over my shoulder shot". They use this same affect in Megalon with the karate kick, and the humor is never lost on me.

IDK, there are so many things wrong with this movie, and they become more and more obvious to me as I age, but I can't help but love the characters, as cheesy as they are. Its a top Godzilla flick for me, maybe call it a guilty pleasure?

[jellydonut25]

[Hybrid Gojira]

This movie is just fun. The Godzilla suit might be falling apart, but Gigan is awesome. The fights? I'm always entertained. The oil refinery is a really well done sequence. I love the score. It's not the best made Godzilla film, but I'm not bored with it. The cockroaches? Completely weird and not my favorite, but what I like the most are the kaiju and that Godzilla saves the day.

[Mac]

[Legion]

Are you half blind or something? That scene never confused me, even when I was a kid.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[Mac]

[briizilla]

[Hybrid Gojira]

@Mac

I don't see anything in the refinery sequence that is particularly worse than most Godzilla films. Once of the best scenes from Ghidrah is when Rodan rams KG out of the sky and onto a boulder...the very next scene shows KG standing. In GvsThe Smog Monster, Godzilla is covered in sludge. A few scenes later it's gone. Toss in any number of jarringly different hand puppets and I don't think the oil refinery sequence offers anything so bad it's even worth pointing out. It really seems more like sour grapes when you compare the rest of the films. What Gigan does offer is a ton of fun, engaging characters, and some really cool action. Sure, there are points that could be improved upon, but the refinery portion doesn't seem that "off" to me. I'd much rather get rid of the cockroach idea, but I digress.

[MekaGojira3k]

I actually noticed this on my last viewing. However, I don't know that it bothers me all that much, in fact there's something about the random shots that really work for me. I think it creates this bizarre visual language that doesn't feel that out of place here and I think has less to do with being inept and more to do with trying to make the sequence feel frenetic and exciting given the limitations of what they could do. That could be totally wrong (probably is), but that's how I look at it. Also, I don't think when anybody thinks about the fights in this film is thinking of the refinery bit. Maybe they are, but I always remember the stuff that happens at Children's Land. Godzilla vs. Gigan is a really rough around the edges film, but what it manages to accomplish with it is what really elevates it to the level of a favorite for me. It does a lot with its limitations and rises above it. It also helps that the very cartoony heroes and manga angle really appeal to my sensibilities.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[eabaker]

Mopst of what Mac sees as sloppy failure to convey action, I see as successful suggestion of action with limited resources.

[Gman2887]

I remember Barry's Temple of Godzilla reviewed this movie with two scores: One was a high rating. The other was just a bomb. His written review stated, somewhere, that Godzilla vs. Gigan was one of the best or worst movies in the series, "depending on how you look at it." Stuff like the perception of the oil refinery scene really is a great example of this.

I'll be re-watching it soon enough-- as of right now, while Godzilla vs. Gigan holds a special place in my heart for being my first Godzilla film, I can admit it's deeply muddled on a technical level. On the one hand it's impressive what it accomplished with such limited resources. On the other hand it's still not a very impressive movie as a whole. It'd be understandable if fans listed this twice in their lists of ranking Godzilla movies. Once somewhere around the top. And again somewhere around the bottom half.

[Mac]

[briizilla]

[eabaker]

[Shonokin]

[briizilla]

[Hybrid Gojira]

[jellydonut25]

To me, Megaguirus is ALMOST worse than the Heisei era...because at times, they actually did it right, which makes the times it isn't done right stand out even worse. Unlike the Heisei era which to my memory is just all bad.

That said, I dunno why it never bothered me much that Ghidorah didn't flap his wings much, and it basically never bothered me at all that Rodan didn't. As for Gigan, swallowing his flying is actually easiest. He doesn't even have wings to flap. Sure, the prop looks pretty mediocre, but it's not as obvious.

[briizilla]

[eabaker]

Basically, the closer something is to being even vaguely realistic, the more realism we, in turn, tend to ask of it. Perceiving any method of depicting Gigan flying as "realistic" would require the brain to struggle with an absolutely destructive level of cognitive dissonance.

[briizilla]

[jellydonut25]