Destroy All Planets: An Appreciation

[Danny B]

[GiganGoji]

My neighbor just lent me this.

I wish Gamera would save me from MY Boy Scout Troop!

[MouthForWar]

This movie is good in its own childish, charming, insane weirdness. I enjoy it more than a lot of the other old Gamera movies.

[Dagarah72]

The ping-pong ball spaceship, and Viras' design were great. Also the decapitation scene. I could've done without the stock footage, especially of Gamera under the alien control and attacking Tokyo (taken from Gamera The Invincible), but it's tolerable. Much more so than in Super Monster!


Ricky

[StevenScrivello]

[Xenorama]

[StevenScrivello]

[Gfan54]

Well, I don't know that I'd say I really have much of an appreciation for this film (whether you want to call it "Destroy All Planets", "Gamera Vs. Viras", etc.) but it did have some mildly entertaining spots throughout. The use of the stock footage from the original "Gamera" doesn't bug me that much (though the red-tinted black and white footage didn't really mix to believably with the color footage of the rest of the movie ) since it was used as part of the film's actual storyline (unlike the complete waste of 20 minutes or so by showing scenes of Gamera's battles with Barugon and Gaos to help fill up the film's approx. 90 running time!).

Overall, when it comes to the Gamera films to date, I can't really say that I'm a Gamera fan, I like some of the movies but most of them could be much better than they actually are. I have all the movies in my collection and will continue getting them for the simple fact that Gamera is the 2nd most famous kaiju after Godzilla (whom I'm DEFINITELY a fan of ), and without Gamera my kaiju collection just wouldn't feel complete. So here's my ratings for all the Gamera films to date, out of 4 *s:

Gamera **1/2
Gamera Vs. Barugon **1/2
Gamera Vs. Gaos **
Gamera Vs. Viras *1/2
Gamera Vs. Guiron **
Gamera Vs. Jiger *1/2
Gamera Vs. Zigra **1/2
Gamera, Super Monster ***
Gamera 1 **
Gamera 2 **1/2
Gamera 3 *

As for "Gamera: Little Braves", I will say that I have my concerns for how well the film will actually turn out, but I will also say that I'm very thankful they've decided to go back to more fun and entertaining style of the older Gamera films as opposed to the (mostly, with the exception of "Gamera 2") overly boring Kaneko trilogy.

[Benjamin Haines]

I've only seen the American versions of the Showa Gamera movies. I'm not sure whether Gamera vs. Viras or Gamera vs. Zigra is the most boring of them all, but they're both horrendous. Major "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" props to Gamera vs. Barugon, Gamera vs. Jiger, and especially Gamera vs. Guiron, with slightly better just-suckage props to Giant Monster Gamera and Gamera vs. Gyaos (which I found pretty entertaining by the way). I still haven't seen Space Monster Gamera at all.

Who knows, maybe when I get the high-quality and uncut region 2 DVDs, I might enjoy the movies more.

[Kaiju Nexus]

[Gfan54]

[Gfan54]

[Packmule]

Gamera Vs Viras-thumbs up: the advent of the Gamera march song, the scenes where the aliens' eyes glow, and Viras itself, if nothing else a unique monster design, and the final battle between Gamera and Viras--thumbs down: the Viras alien ship, which looks like revolving yellow-jacket abdomens(sounds weird but that's what it looks like to me), and the "boy scout" uniforms sported by Carl Craig and fellow "scouts" Overall: passable entry in the Showa Gamera series.

[kidnicky]

[August]

[planetxleader]

[August]