The massive pollution of Tokyo Bay gives birth to a new
kind of horror: Herdorah, the Smog Monster.
Born of mankinds negligence, this beast begins to turn the city and
waters around it into a toxic paradise lethal to humans. Only one force stands in his way:
Godzilla. But can the King of the
Monsters withstand a seemingly deadlier force of nature greater than himself?
Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a special movie as it’s the very
first Godzilla movie I ever saw a kid on the SciFi Channel.
A lot of the deeper themes, messages and even
grosser elements were kind of lost on me at that age.
Cause let’s face it, when your under 10
seeing Godzilla fight a rival Kaiju for the first time, it’s all you care
about.
Rewatching this movie as both an
adult and seasoned Godzilla veteran, has my opinion changed about this kind of
divisive entry in the franchise or is it as awe inspiring as I remember?
Godzilla vs. Hedorah is certainly the most psychedelic of
the franchise for sure.
Coming out in
1971, the groovy age was in full swing and GvH (i’ll use that for shorthand)
takes full advantage of it.
From the
funky soundtrack to the hallucinogenic visuals, to say this movie is a bit of a
“trip” is an understatement.
Sometimes
they go a little too far with the fad, like using cartoon segments to show
Hedorah’s growth and share some scientific factoids about its nature, evolution
and some of its powers.
These segments
pop up at random times and while cute, do kind of clash with the darker nature
of the film.
If Godzilla is the Nightmare of the Atomic age, Hedorah
is every environmentalists fears come to life.
He’s basically a towering being of sludge, stink, garbage and every
other nasty thing that comes to mind.
It
helps make his design one of the most unique of the Godzilla Rogues
Gallery.
Hedorah’s shape is constantly
changing, save for those soul piercing red eyes, so it gives a more creative
edge to combat with Godzilla than we’ve seen in the past.
Hedorah also racks up quite the grizzly body
count and the movie isnt shy about showing how deadly his impact on everything
truly is.
He certainly forces Godzilla
to change up his usual punch and blast enemies till they fall strategy.
Also, let’s just just try to ignore his use
of projectiles against Godzilla, I don’t think we wanna know what it really
is.
Naturally, while the giant monster battles deliver and
then some, the humans…yeah theyre either two things in GvH: Stupid or Science
Lecturers.
Seriously, you either have
really dumb youths being totally oblivious to the carnage Hedorah is causing
and deciding to hold a concert in the middle of a field to stop
him…somehow.
Or you have a father/son
duo whose entire dialogue is a serious of excerpts from a Science and Biology
Textbook.
The kid character, Ken,
basically reads off his lines like he’s reciting the notes he took in class,
trying to sound as smart as his father.
I didn’t come here to take a Science 101 course, I want to see Godzilla
punch the Smog Monster.
And while Godzilla
does a ton of that, the last act of the film drags on significantly compared to
the fast paced and intense first hour of the film.
The final battle goes on forever, making a
just under 90 minute film feel like a whole other hour.
Yeah this could have used some major editing.
Despite its flaws, I cant not recommend Godzilla vs.
Hedorah.
It returns to Godzilla’s more
darker, destructive roots (with another manmade metaphor…though to be fair
Hedorah does have some extraterrestrial elements to his origins too), but it’s
goofy but in a fun and sometimes bizarre way.
Hedorah himself is pretty memorable and gives Godzilla a helluva
fight.
And while the heavy handed science
dialogue gets a little too full of itself, at the end of the day, if Godzilla
cant teach you to recycle lest you get a blast of atomic breath, who are you
going to learn from?
7/10
Next Monday we slide into a two week stay with the Hesei
Era as we look at what many consider to be one of the very best in the series,
Godzilla
vs. Biollante, as Godzilla Month IV continues right here at the Gundam
Anime Corner.
My favorite month of the Anime Corner begins! And what a choice to begin with lol.
ReplyDeleteIt’s cool, this is the first one you ever saw. Ironically, I didn’t see this one for years as a Godzilla fan. Overall, this one has a few elements I like, but there’s a lot that creator Yoshimitsu Banno went for that didn’t work for me. The ‘LDS’ inspired visuals being a big one, as I jut didn’t get what those were for. The animated Hedorah segments IDK might have been interesting but they feel so freaking random as you said.
The desire to return to sort of a Godzilla film tackling a specific issue was not a bad idea. Pollution in 70s Japan had gotten way out of control, and like the growing concern over that in the U.S. which led to things like Nixon (yes actually) forming the Environmental Protection Agency and a greater focus on combating industrial pollution. Similar things began to happen in Japan, and Banno wanting to tap into that like how Gojira was a reflection on the atomic bombings and war, or Shin Godzilla would be about the devastating Tsunami and Fukushima Disaster was a smart call.
Plus, the darker elements, especially considering the rest of the Showa Era was good. Seeing the grossness of the pollution elements that’d make Captain Planet cry, along with the actual skeletons of Hedorah’s victims. Even the main scientist character, is bedridden much of the film as a result of his own brush with the Smog Monster. Even Godzilla suffers more in this, with him choking on Hedorah’s toxic fumes, being burned with acid from the creature, and even nearly being buried alive in toxic sludge. All that stuff works, and I kind of would be curious about a pure serious take on this, with the darker elements.
And yeah like with most of the Showa films at this point, the human characters leave a lot to be desired. I almost wonder if Banno was commenting on the protest movements of the 60s and 70s, with the useless college kids. A subtle jab at their efforts to ‘do something’ that is meaningless against the actual problem. IDK maybe my Social Studies/History Major brain thinking more about this. We often get scientist characters informing us of stuff throughout these films, and I think Dr. Yano was supposed to be a bit akin to Dr. Yamane from Gojira but…unlike Yamane he doesn’t really give us more than just as you said, the science technobabble. Hell he LITTERALLY spends the climax laying in bed in the back of a car. Like dude, get the fuck up.
Overall, I’d maybe score Hedorah more 6/10 but it’s a unique entry from this part of the Showa Era, for good and for bad.