G: minus 9 days

Gojirathon is me just writing up some thoughts about the movies I see while I conduct my little marathon of Godzilla-movies in anticipation of the new Hollywood retooling. Why Gojirathon and not Godzillathon? Well, because Rolfe already did his Godzillathon as part of his Monster Madness, and I don’t want to steal his work. I’ll be using the terms, G, Big G, Godzilla and Gojira somewhat interchangeably… since I can be a bit lazy at times, when it comes to these things.

Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

So as I was turning four years old this film came out. Featuring a soundtrack strangely reminiscent of some old anime I remember seeing. And still going for a more serious tone.

But first things first. When I wrote about the ’84-reboot last time I neglected to mention what I had read about the 9 year hiatus  between Terror of MechaGodzilla and Return of Godzilla. Apparently the pause in production wasn’t all planned. But according to IMDB-trivia, it was also due to the gasoline-crash in the late 70’s. Toho tried several times to put together another Godzilla film sooner, but for economical reasons, it just wasn’t possible. So when it was finally revived. The decision was taken to reboot it all and go in a new direction.

And about that serious direction. This one, as I said, is also going for that very same tone. Which for me is a pity. Because for most of it I had real trouble staying awake. Though that could also of course be because I think I have some sort of condition that reacts to low-herts-flashes with sleepiness. It’s what has ruined many a classic action flicks. And films like Alien is one of the worst. It’s supposed to send my heart pumping and make my glands produce adrenaline. But instead I am fighting drowsiness despite being not exhausted at all.

It doesn’t really help though, that the plot here isn’t that much to write home about. The humans try their best to use cells of Godzilla from the last film to produce a form of super-anti-radiation-bacteria for use both as a weapon against Godzilla and also to create a new kind of vegetation that will be able to cover the deserts with usable flora. I mean. What could possibly go wro… oh….

Just as we expected, the super-cells starts “evolving” in strange unwanted ways. It merges with a rose that carries the soul of the professors newly deceased daughter and starts to grow into something that looks like the long lost vegan girlfriend of Cthulhu. Rising from the sea, tentacles and all. And so an extremely underwhelming battle takes place between the newly dubbed “biollante” (supposedly named after a Norse myth. I need to look that one up – I thought is was nonsense, but someone made a connection to some Greek operetta called Iollante in their research. Could be where they got it, albeit just a bit confused about locale of the myth.)

Anyways, Some corporate espionage and borderline acts of terrorism later, Biollante get’s destroyed twice and Godzilla gets fed up and returns to the sea.

Damn I didn’t expect the Heisei-films to be the ones that would be hard to get through…

Be seeing you!