BLOOD WORK: SUSPENDED ANIMATION: GODZILLA ~ PLANET OF THE MONSTERS PART 1 (2017)

After 63 years and 29 movies Godzilla finally has an anime all his own! Yes, technically he's appeared in anime for years (cameos mostly, like in the anime Prefectural Earth Defense Force as well as many others), but never has he been the subject of a 90 minute anime feature. Released in Japan in November of 2017 and released world wide by NETFLIX earlier this month, GODZILLA: PLANET OF THE MONSTERS Episode One marks a new moment in history for the king of the monsters.

With the 2014 American reboot, GODZILLA, the monster movie star's parent company, TOHO Co. LTD was inspired to revitalize the Japanese version of Godzilla, albeit with more experimentation than usual. Tapping anime legend Hideaki Anno (Neon Genesis Evangelion, Gunbuster) to direct, Anno delivered what ostensibly amounts to the first chapter in a live action Evangelion film series. In Shin Godzilla the kaiju returned to his terrifying roots as "death incarnate" (on the opposite end of the spectrum from the super hero he was in the 2014 American film). Beyond that Anno transformed Godzilla into something far stranger than he'd ever been depicted in the past and more in line with the Angels from Evangelion than a kaiju.

And maybe that was the point: to do something different and fresh with the 60 year old property. We might call this the "Experimental" phase of the Godzilla franchise. And Toho appears to be continuing the experiment with this new anime. The team behind this film is POLYGON PICTURES, the production team responsible for recent anime projects like Ajin, Knights of Sidonia, and Blame! (all of which are on Netflix as well). The animation techniques often employed by the group are a mixture of CGI and cell-shaded graphics with spots of traditional animation peppered about. It's an interesting style which lends each of Polygon Pictures' projects a unique visual esthetic. And Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters a.k.a. Godzilla: Monster Planet is no exception.

THE PLOT

Humanity was blindsided by the advent of the monsters. Giant beasts arose, one after another, laying waste to the great cities of the world. Eventually one of these kaiju would prove the most terrible of all: the creature known as Godzilla. Humanity was helpless in the face of this monster apocalypse, awaiting extinction, when salvation arrived in the form of two different alien races. A bargain was struck between humanity and the aliens. The aliens could live on Earth if they could first rid the world of the monsters.

Godzilla proved too powerful even for them, forcing human and alien alike to flee on an alien space ship into the stars. Twenty years passed and the weary travelers had yet to find a new habitable planet. When Captain Haruo Sakaki revealed a strategy to kill Godzilla they decided to return to Earth and retake the planet. However, twenty years of light speed travel had translated to 20,000 years on Earth. When they return they find the planet changed far from what it once was. And far deadlier.

WHAT I LIKED

Godzilla's Biology Explained. Throughout the franchise there have been several attempts to explain Godzilla's seemingly invincible biology. Traditionally Godzilla is virtually impervious to all conventional weapons. This story reveals that Godzilla generates his own force field (an AT field? 😉) which is barely visible and only allows a small number of attacks through. And further more that an organ housed in one of his dorsal fins generates the force field. I thought this whole idea was really cool and provided a little more of a sci-fi element to Godzilla's invincibility rather than merely being super fast regeneration (which I am perfectly fine with by the way).

The Use of Previous Godzilla Universe Characters. The prologue at the opening of the film was probably my favorite part of the episode. There we are shown in brief still images a host of kaiju attacking during the "Kaijupocalypse." Among these characters are DOGORA, DAGAHRA, KAMACURAS, ORGA, and MECHAGODZILLA. Aside from Mechagodzilla these are rarely used characters and my excitement at seeing them went through the roof. Then an alien race shows up called The Bilusaludo whose home, the third planet in the Bilusaludia Binary System, was swallowed by a black hole. The Bilusaludo build Mechagodzilla in this anime too. This is the same race of aliens used in the 1974 film GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA, same backstory and all. Also the main character was named after original Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima, a touch that I thought was nice too.

Taking deep cuts like these from the Godzilla mythology is something I wish they'd do more of. When they do (which is rare) it makes me nerd out like crazy!

NITPICKS

These are merely my opinions. I'm not saying they're right or wrong. This is just my personal impression of the film.

First Episode-itis. The story really only gets started by the end of the episode and you'd expect that from any first episode, right? Well, this episode is 90 minutes long, essentially the length of a standard Godzilla movie. Given how intriguing the one minute prologue was, the rest of the movie by comparison travels quite slowly. The battle against Godzilla is pretty exciting but we have to wait an hour for the battle to happen. So, while this could've been its own film altogether it instead is presented as one giant first episode tease. Right as the episode ends the real threat is revealed and the story of taking back the planet from Godzilla begins. As a result the episode feels like a mismanagement of time and story.

Looks like a mountain peak with a forest down the slope... at least it does to me.

There are new monsters in this episode, car sized flying reptiles. This isn't a fault of the episode but rather a head scratcher for me. The filmmakers have over 50 monsters in Toho's library to chose from. Instead of using any of them we are shown new and rather generic monsters. Now, it's conceivable that the filmmakers will show us more classic monsters in the next two episodes. As far as this episode is concerned though we aren't given much in the way of kaiju. For a film titled "Planet of the Monsters" we are barely shown any monsters. It is also subtly implied during the prologue that Godzilla killed all the other monsters. This is merely my personal opinion but if this is indeed the case, and all of Toho's other kaiju were killed off already, that is a huge disappointment. I like Godzilla being king and all but I love the other kaiju quite a bit as well. Seeing only Godzilla all the time does get somewhat monotonous after a while.

Godzilla's Design. This is just me but I am very critical of Godzilla being redesigned. So take this next criticism as my personal opinion and not necessarily anything actually wrong with the film. Godzilla looks like a walking pile of rocks (or gnarled roots or muscles sinews or what have you. Take your pick). It's a combination of the animation style, cell shading, close up cinematography, and the new design for Godzilla. There are so many contours, bumps, and details that Godzilla doesn't look so much like a monster but rather a moving mountain or braid of roots. While walking piles of rock are cool in all, it's my feelings that a giant reptilian kaiju is far more interesting. It appears as if the idea beyond this design is to show Godzilla's continued evolution over 20,000 years as, once again, the Godzilla shown in the prologue appears far more traditional and interesting looking.

The filmmakers really shot themselves in the foot with that stellar prologue.

THE VERDICT

The idea of Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters is very interesting but the actual execution of this first episode leaves much wanting. The prologue story and kaiju choices and designs therein are far more interesting and satisfying than in the rest of the actual movie itself, in my opinion at least. Now again, it is easily conceivable that all these nitpicks of mine will be remedied in the next two episodes, and I truly hope that they are. But judging this episode or "movie" on its own the film comes across rather blah and mildly entertaining. To accurately judge this "trilogy" I'm going to need to wait until the other episodes come out. But as of this first episode it merely feels like another of Toho's weird Godzilla experiments.

Seriously Toho, you don't need to reinvent your 60 year old kaiju playground. You just need to play in it!

Overall Ranking: 5 out of 10

(for the first episode)