Some dude, basically dressed, like, Neo shows up and has them
all. We have, we have the entire
like, Japanese planting getting getting taken care of, by like
three or four, American special ops guys but three or four,
American special ops guys have no fucking chance against this
video game protagonist, right? Hello everyone and welcome to
Castle Bravo. A Godzilla versus retrospective.
I'm Derek and I'm Charlotte, and we're two siblings here to
examine the history of the Godzilla, franchise one movie at
a time. We're joined today by writer and
geneticist, dr. M.
Jai Kali MJ. How's it going?
Bud? Great.
Thank you so much for having me. This is really exciting for me
as a huge fan of the Pod and of Godzilla.
So I was really just appreciate being here and When you reached
out, you know, asking for people who wanted to join up.
I immediately saw Biollante was on the list and I had to jump on
it. So yeah, you were chomping at
the bit for this one. And good thing you got in early
because a lot of people have asked for this one.
This is a very popular movie. Oh, well, apologies to all those
people. I'm glad we had you on.
Why don't you introduce yourself a little bit to the audience and
who you are and what you're about?
Sure. Yeah.
So I am a PhD geneticist so I'm a human geneticist actually,
but, but most of my day to day life is around sequencing
genomes and then also a freelance writer sort of by
night. And so and you know, honestly
one of my biggest Hobbies is gaming and watching movies and
being a huge nerd. So I kind of have tried to write
about sort of way. How science and genetic science,
especially is represented in games, and, and film and so
forth. So, that's kind of why I jumped
on this one so quickly because that's such a key part of this
one. And we'll talk about that.
I'm sure. Yeah, it's funny because I know
I got to meet you and got to know you primarily through like,
you know, games writing. So, it was very funny to learn
like, Oh no, you're an actual geneticist that isn't like a
bit, you know, that's Just a bit for the birds site that was
real. So, Perfect, movie choice, not
like those other fake doctor's on Twitter, which there are
many. There's a good number of fake
doctor's on Twitter. That's for sure.
Charlotte, what's up, how you doing today?
Better than I have been? Yeah, it's, it's been a rough.
It's been a rough bit for you and I'm so sorry.
Okay, I got piercings and they were like, oh yeah, it's
surgery. Grade titanium.
Turns out, I'm allergic to surgery grade titanium, which is
what they use for a lot of things.
So, I hope I never need one of those things.
Yeah, it's been a nightmare because we've been trying to
figure out how to even get you connected for audio to do this.
I was, I was up until yesterday really worried we were going to
have to bump this episode and you started doing a lot better.
And then today, it's been a bunch of tech issues out of
We're so funny how that goes, but I'm excited.
Today is a good one. Let's let's set the stage a
little bit. So last episode, we talked a
little bit about Godzilla going into Hiatus, right?
Terror of Mechagodzilla as much as I love it.
Did not do very well in the box office and it created an almost
decade-long scramble to figure out.
How the hell Touhou was going to make another Godzilla movie and
bring back the interest that had been slowly fading in the
franchise through the 70s. What's really interesting is it
seems like I think me and Charlotte's very is that they
really tried hard to get Honda back.
And in fact, got a script together that was almost laser
targeted towards Honda, but he was busy aiding for Akira
Kurosawa, he did not want to return, you know, we think there
were probably some sad Our feelings about the Godzilla
franchise and him, not feeling like it should have continued
past the death of eiji tsuburaya.
So Honda did not return. Despite that the movie we got
Return of Godzilla, which a lot of folks know is Godzilla, 1984
Godzilla, 1985 was really good. I hadn't watched it in ages and
it really, really immediately watching the Japanese version.
Hit my top five knocking Shin Godzilla out of that list.
So, Return of Godzilla does really well, right?
It's a new Godzilla to, it's a return to form.
They're going to something a little bit darker.
Heavier closer to the tone of like that first Godzilla movie,
maybe the first couple rather than where they were in the 70s,
we needed another one. Like we, this was, this was a
hit, we got to get that money train going early in the
process. They picked a director cause you
kiyomori amore. Does not appear to have been
involved with Godzilla before this point, but he is like an
established director, he had something like 15 years of
directing under his belt before this point.
So this is, this is somebody talented.
This is not them running to the you know the second ad from
three movies ago because they needed somebody to pump a
product out quick. And the more you wanted to take
his time, now there are some disagreements between this
director Mori and the long time. Series producer, tomoyuki
Tanaka, the decision was made to run like a contest.
Hey, submit your scripts, you know, the winner will get made
into a Godzilla movie. This is very famously, a dentist
wrote in the winning script which would eventually become
Zilla versus Biollante. The final movie does not have
too much in common. This is definitely like a Jet
Jaguar situation where the winners stuff got used almost in
name only. So, if you love this idea though
that have a contest because we don't trust this guy with this.
Yeah, I know. Well, it's a general public, get
a get a, a talented longtime writer director on board.
Give him money. Give him time.
But drum up interest by like, yeah, picking a randos.
As script Amore. I from what I'm reading, omori
was quietly, not very happy about this process again, he
took like three years to rework that script into what would
become Godzilla vs. Biollante.
So obviously, you know, cute trivia point about the dentist
wrote the script aside and a lot of people.
Put a lot of emphasis on the dentist because of Biollante
famously having a very interesting Dental situation.
Yeah teeth everywhere. Yeah.
This is one of those ones that went through a lot of very
famous script rewrites. There was originally like a
weird fish rap monster that was supposed to be hybridized.
That was like a sub monster that would get killed in the way
through the movie. You know?
Like the host. Yeah, yeah.
But You know, I try not to spend too much time on the versions of
these movies that could have been because there's a certain
point where almost all of these movies have been through some
really heavy reworks. But that's correct, that's
reworked. And we get today's movie
Godzilla versus Biollante. Not a quick turnaround because
Return of Godzilla was 1984. This is 1989.
So it took five years to get this movie off the ground, but I
think as we will probably are Gue by the end of this show
taking their time. Did pan out special effects was
handed over to koishikawa. Kita.
Who was a the sfx, like, assistant director under Terry.
Ooki na Kono, Naka. No.
Having been the sfx ad basically since since tsuburaya passed
away. So once again like we have some
continuity here. Here's somebody who has been
working under the previous person And have some experience
with the sfx on this series in particular, taking over.
Colicky, it is really famous for he worked on gun head, which is
a famous, like, cult sci-fi movie from Touhou either, either
that year or the year before, it wasn't a very successful movie,
but it's very popular among like cult sci-fi fans and then really
interesting lie for music exists.
Oh yeah, ahead. And I mean, I'm trying to think
back to godhead is that a Mecca movie.
The, the Maze and special effects thing was a giant like
MechWarrior style Mecca thing. Yes, hmm.
I've movies funny because the the unobtanium mineral or
whatever is clear Tex-Mex IAM it's called what Tex-Mex IAM.
Oh man, I don't want to make light of this.
Be sure that's not what they use when they did your piercing the
other day. It was spicy.
Oh god. Um, but yeah, what's really
interesting is they sprung, the money to have the soundtrack
composed by koichi sugiyama, who is the famous composer of the
Dragon Quest Series. This would have been right after
Dragon Quest 3. So, the height of the franchise
popularity sugiyama also famous shithead, God, war crimes,
denier anti-lgbt. He just like huge piece of shit.
Really shitty sucky, businessman and boss rest is as watch it for
real 100%. I'm a huge Dragon Quest fan and
just we were all cheering. Well, when that day, he died in
Minecraft. Yeah.
And but no seriously, I have take some.
I took some notes while I was watching this film and I have
people times where I just wrote Dragon Quest ask music during
this scene. Seriously, like, I have some
really interested in Nagoya, Super X2 is dying to Dragon
Quest, ask music, I so here's like we can kind of get into
this a little bit ahead of the plot summary but really
interestingly sugiyama composes. I think only like three or four
tracks and such music funny is that they just use those three
or four tracks? And then one FIFA kubb, a track
that they just had on stock and they just cycle those around
scene to scene and it's very obvious I swear to you, I heard
multiple of those songs in multiple Dragon Quest games.
Literally. Yeah, the themes are just so
lacking in creativity that he must have come up with two or
three songs in his entire life and just use those for
everything or something. Yeah, the only one, the only
track that I think had any semblance of originality.
Very is very famous one. It's it goes by the name of Bio
Wars. It's that like very upbeat, like
You know, Rocky version of the Godzilla March, which really all
he did was do a, an upbeat Rock rearrangement of an existing
track. I can't even give them full care
and they use it like five times in the movie.
So you know I can't give you too much credit there.
Sugiyama turned in his homework a day late on this one.
So And then, as noted before Kenpachi, Rosado touma, who was
picked for Godzilla at the last minute and Godzilla Returns is
back as Godzilla. He's gonna continue to be
Godzilla all through this heisei era that runs through the 90s.
So this is, this is our guy he's here for good.
I'm probably going to stop bringing him up unless something
interesting happens, but I think it's unlikely.
He's going to go through the sheer amount of abuse.
That I said his name enough times in season one, because the
man kept getting just horrible Nakajima.
That's what it was. The man got dropped out of
cranes and had shit dropped on him from cranes set on fire.
Yeah, you got set on fire. I mean, man, you gotta like
electrocuted one time and I just don't think that's going to
happen to sot Sam. I think, I think the late 80s
through the 90s. We have workplace safety a
little bit more nailed down. Aunty he doesn't have AG
tsuburaya around a threatened, his life on a regular cage.
But yeah. So with all that being said,
Charlotte yeah. Why don't you tell us what
happens in Godzilla vs. Biollante.
All right? So as always if I gloss over
anything especially towards the end, please cut in because the
way that's week has been, I feel like my notes at the end or a
little Truncated. But will the end is all fighting
so it is. So that's also a reason but the
battle rages right. So this movie opens and they're
like describing all the defense systems in place against
Godzilla. And honestly, the way that they
framed it, I really thought there would be more about it
aside from like it's kind of like a timeline that they use.
They used to have like we have all of these different alarm
systems and like stages of like Defcon you know in place for OK,
Godzilla is moving but still asleep.
Godzilla has woken up. Godzilla has left the volcano
Godzilla's in Japan like different stages of alertness.
It's very at almost continues the the tone of Return of
Godzilla. Yeah.
In a lot of ways feels like if you were to make a sequel to
Shin Godzilla. This is how that would start.
It's that very, you know. Yeah.
Dry. Look at the plans that I thought
was kind of interesting. Yeah.
If I'm so 80s to me. Yeah, that way.
You know like it's just classic like 80s.
Tracking the enemy type of stuff.
Yeah. Helped by the wireframe special
effects. Oh yeah.
Incredibly sick and I mean in doing so it's like immediately
apparent this is a sequel to the last movie like this is in the
same continuity and so in English, this reporter is
explaining like how Godzilla fell into Mount mihara and
they're recovering the Super X. So you know, in case they need
it again. Insert old your show last time.
Yeah, some soldiers show up who also speak English and their
found by the Japanese military stealing.
Some kind of Flesh off the ground.
And this is where that the first time that rock remix of the, the
Godzilla theme is used. Yeah, this is kind of a fun
sequence though, of like it is soldiers fighting and Ascend
like escaping and and you know their leaping down stairwells
and shooting at each. Each other, there's a good mix
of like close up shots and like good wide shots of them like
escaping this changing gunfire. You have those two goofballs in
the planners who pop up but like it's the late eighties.
Now, you know, nobody's English is good, and I love it.
I mean, if you like, there's no question that those are
Americans, the moment they start doing that stuff.
It's like they're like blond white dudes and they're just
mowing down tons the people and laughing about it.
Yeah. It's just like, wow, cool.
That's yep. Like, they're supposed to be
Americans, but they're played by like, we found a Swedish dude
and like a guy from Morocco and we just had them.
Phonetically say their lines. It is really funny though
because the tone of this movie and how it approaches like
people from other countries compared to past Godzilla films,
because there's no, like, oh, we're having like an
international directive to help each other.
In this movie, really, it's like, ya know, we're all
competing. And also, the Americans are
going to come kill. Ya, it's interesting because
you've got obviously America's involvement and then there's a
fictional like Middle Eastern country.
That gets involved as well. Sir.
I and v v hand wave is like, well, these are like actors on
behalf of corporate interests. These are not like agents of
their governments, right? But like it does not feel the
same as for example in Mothra when we had the the capitalist
villain who like very specifically was not
representative of their country. This feels like the the
corporate interests are themselves tied to the military
interests and it's kind of all one in the same.
So it's definitely a Messier area with that than we're used
to seeing right? Yeah.
Yeah I just want I think I was really had forgotten about that
because I probably been Years since I watched this movie, and
there's just, it's really like, yeah.
These are from a American biotech company, but it's really
implied like and they're backed by the US government.
Like yeah, nobody in the United States is criticizing these
people for doing this. Like they the government
definitely backs this and so does the government of Sri Adia
back, what they're doing? Yeah, right.
You get the scene of like the fucking Ceridian.
Representative in the room with the the Japanese representative
like laughing and chomping on a cigar about, you know, how, you
know, we will, you know, turn the tables on America and it's
very, it's interesting and not in a good way, but not like, I
don't know that we've gone from Return of Godzilla being so
specifically about like embracing the tone of his Hero
Honda and going even through all of this tension, like, Countries
are basically made up of people and people will ultimately
understand each other and work together to this much more.
This doesn't read as like nationalist to me it reads as
cynical, which is maybe not a bad read.
For the time that this is getting made, this is 1989, you
know, so some dude basically dressed like, Neo shows up and
He has them all. We have, we have the entire,
like, Japanese platoon getting getting taken care of, by like
three or four, American special ops, guys, but three or four,
American special ops guys have no fucking chance against this
video game protagonist, right? He shows up he like, mow them
down, takes the case. And so then we cut to dr.
Shiragami who's getting ready to head to the lab and his daughter
Erica. And drive him there and he said
into the lab because some Godzilla's cells are ready to be
Frozen and he's in this lab and Sarabia and they're basically
discussing how they're going to use these these Godzilla cells
to create like super wheat and they're like, oh well America's
position as the greatest serial exporter in the world will be
shaken. How funny though?
That in the end, I love this technology is not.
Its this is not a weapon. Opens like an arms race.
This is about agriculture, right?
You know, so you know, I was so impressed by this exact thing
that I did a little research. I was like, why would this be
what they're concerned about and maybe we can talk about a little
bit more later, but there was this serious competition for
agriculture in the 80s, especially caused by the United
States because the United States It's felt like it was sort of
falling behind technologically to specifically Japan.
And so they were trying to embrace bioengineering of plants
to increase America's dominance in agriculture.
And this is something that I had very little context for because
I was a child at the time. Yeah.
But I was like, oh, this film is literally touching on that exact
thing. And it's super interesting
because also from like current context, look at how we are now
what a year and some change into the war in Ukraine.
And I remember when you know Russia first invaded Ukraine you
know there were news articles but like hey you probably do not
realize this but Ukraine is one of the primary sources for like
wheat, you know and Grain in In that entire region of the world,
you know. So it's kind of funny to think
about like you know for decades and decades like individual
countries can stake out their claim on such a weird and
specific like corner of Agriculture.
You know? Is that why in like the mid to
late 90s? There was a lot of backlash
against like genetically, modified food, that come from
the 80s where they were trying to Use.
That is absolutely. I was going to say, U MJ.
You can certainly speak to that more.
My understanding was that there was its a mix of like the
general fear of science involved in our everyday lives.
Look at the fear of like nuclear energy still right?
Despite that being probably one of our best paths away from
fossil fuels but also the kind of dangers of like corporate
powers from the things we're seeing now with genetically
modified foods where You know, a lot of these giant corporations
owned and patent their seeds that, you know, will not
reproduce. They cannot be replanted.
You just have to keep buying from them, and it's right.
Kind of a level of power, you know, corporate power over
agriculture. That was clearly never intended,
right? I don't know how much of that we
were talking about in the 90s, though.
Well, I mean it's a lot actually.
So in the 70s the bioengineering was really invented in the mid
70s and you know this kind of this not to invoke another movie
but there's this famous line from Jurassic Park where Ian
Malcolm says your scientists were so preoccupied with her.
Not they could they never stop to think if they should write.
This is extremely famous line, one of Cinema's, last lines,
period it for sure. And you know that anyway, not a
Jurassic Park podcast, but if you ever make one We know, yeah,
but but the reason I bring that up is because actually they did.
So the scientist actually did consider it in the 70s and they,
they had a meeting to talk about the ethics and they recommended
regulation and so forth. And the regulatory bodies in the
United States. At least took that seriously and
did start regulating bioengineered products, but in
the 80s, those products started releasing into the market.
Things like insulin that had been Engineered and plants that
had been bioengineered to resist pasts and people were afraid.
What is this going to do to the natural environment of the
planet? And so throughout the 80s, their
kind of became this counter counter feeling against
bioengineering even though it's ostensibly, the bioengineering
was meant to help Humanity, people were afraid that it was
going to be mishandled or that. But fumble our way into some
kind of disaster and in the 90s, it started ramping up, you know,
more heavily towards I would say, violence, burning fields
that kind of thing, and it happened throughout the 90s.
And actually, I mean, I think it follows through even through
today. I mean, we have, there's been
anti-gmo legislation in the EU and in other places, I think
even one state has anti-gmo legislation on the books and And
I think one of the things is some of those fears did come
true with these Mega corporations, releasing plants
that you know, are resistant to their their herbicide, for
example. So anyway, I guess the point
being that there were serious fears and it was apparently a
very like big topic of conversation and so that's why
we end up with Godzilla versus Biollante tapping into that I
think. Yeah, it's any manically and a
lot of other current for Time. Absolutely.
Yeah. Well then there's an explosion
at the lab and Erica. You know.
The doctor's daughter gets caught in a blast of the lab and
she dies like surrounded by these roses and then there's a
five-year time skip that was just that was just our origin
story. We cut to Miki who's a psychic
who can communicate with blank and Miki seguso get familiar
with this big-eared lady because she's gonna be around for a
bunch of good, describer. I look, here's the thing.
It's noticeable, Miki, significant qasim, some Ashley
Graham ears. You know what I mean?
But like, I she doesn't have a lot to do in this movie, but
you're going to grow very attached to her because she's in
several, she is like the one super recurring character in the
entire Godzilla. Franchise, is this girl that
keeps popping up for like assisting rolls in the hay?
They are iMovies look like powerful psychic.
Girls were all the rage in the late 80s.
Yeah. They're all the rage.
Now with certain lesbians that might or might not do Godzilla
podcasts and it's very true. Not to call you out.
It's the ears. Yeah.
So the doctor doctor shiragami. He's been in, he's been living
in solitude for five years because he feels really bad
about everything that's happened.
And then they talked about how they've been freezing Nobel
Prize winner, sperm to create this.
Yes, or no, oh no, we're too real.
We're doing a yeah, yeah, they're just straight up
embracing Eugenics and he's like, I don't know if my science
is going to be accepted or no. Sorry my A father science is not
accepted in the community. It's like, yeah, that's because
that's straight-up Eugenics. Okay, that's why it's not
accepted, right? See we say this and yet, like, I
hate to break this to y'all if you don't know this but
uncritically that is still like completely believed at the
highest levels of our society like the richest like
capitalists in in our country's fully believe.
Eve, in this weird, like, genetic superiority bullshit.
Please take some time to read into, like, Elon Musk.
And his father, for example, churning out kids, because they
believe they have the super sperm and the super genes that
will create the, the nietzschean Ubermensch of the future.
That's not uncomfortable at all. You are very rich.
It means you're a very good at exploiting people.
Does that mean that you are smarter?
It actually mostly means you're a sociopath.
Yeah, I would I would argue. Yeah, I would say look when I
was learning how to be a human geneticist.
I literally had a class all about how Eugenics is bad.
So we're not taught that this is like something to Aspire to they
should have had those classes back in the 80s for this guy
because it's it's never it's never actual scientists who
believe in Eugenics, shit. It's always weird weird cycle
routes. Exactly sure.
Yeah, so Mickey hasn't been able to get like what they want out
of these plants because she's trying to communicate with them
and it turns out IV does not have a lot of interesting things
to say. It's true.
She's just kind of staring at the plants and like, trying to
talk to them mentally. It was great.
Yeah, they have feelings. What are they feeling?
Not much. They were interesting ones.
Well, and there's Pull in a truck nearby like watching them
from afar. I like one of these dudes needs
to calm down about, oh my God. Yeah, you guys Christ.
So at this I just want to comment on how the American
agents and this film are just like the biggest bumbling idiot.
I constantly and they're just like so realistic actually.
Yeah. And it's like, and these are the
agents. They sent to like capture this
very important asset and they're just Just there like basically
doing the wolf call on poor Mickey, who's done, he's done
nothing to deserve this. Also want to point out, she's
only well the actress anyway is only seventeen in this film.
So like she's a great character not to.
I mostly remember her from like late in the series obviously
where she's a decent bit older. But yeah, like she's noticeably
young. This is creepy from these dudes.
It would be creepy even if she wasn't it's creepier, right?
It was, yes, it was. Creepy and they're just such
idiots. And why would you send these two
to do this? I it was great and yeah, they'll
get there. So yeah, well, the Watchers are
being watched by the sorority and agent, the Neo guy from
earlier this dude, whose name is just like a serial number.
Yeah, I don't know, I didn't actually write his name down.
Oh, hang on always there because he does have an official name.
But it's it's it's literally just Say hang on I mean again
it's like it's like his dad was Elon Musk it's it's SSS 9.
Wow. Okay cool.
Big fan of near huh. So me he thinks that she liked
psychically hear someone call out Oscar's name who's like the
current the doctors like her an assistant and then we To Oscar
and her date who I have referred to in this entire writing as
Oscars boyfriend. He has a name but that's just
ask his boyfriend and they're basically discussing chimeras
like the concept of fusing creatures together.
And he's like, I think if we keep doing this, we could just
make something worse than Godzilla.
We should stop doing this. I love this part chimeras.
He just, you know, he describes the legendary Chimera, right?
Like the, you know, the goat-headed, what is it?
Goat-headed, lion head and ahead and go with a snake tail?
Is that what it is? Yeah.
Snake and and but meanwhile chimeras in science were a real
thing at that time and they still are and like, like they
exist there. It's not like something new at
that time. So I thought, I thought it was
kind of funny how much chimeras play into this whole film.
When they've been chimeras existed since the 60s, yeah,
like they're using it in the mythological sense, but like
Chimera had taken on scientific term for stuff that was actually
being done. So right, right.
So thanks for the mythological Chimera is coming from the sea
and I don't recall, that being the case at all that, right.
I think they changed that to make it map closer to Godzilla
coming out of the sea and breathing, fire and destroying
cities and shit like that, right?
Foreshadowing. Yeah.
Well, he wants to go to Massachusetts to study and he
wants her to go with him. I think that's MIT, is he
specifically referring to MIT. I think there, when he says
bobbleheads So Oscar Miki go and they check out what's going on
with her their psychic children that their training.
I don't feel like this really came up again but um they all
had dreams of Godzilla. Like they were all drawing
Godzilla which made them think, you know, maybe Godzilla's
waking up and so they had to mount mihara and use their
psychic powers. To determine that Godzilla is
awake. And they and they let people
know that and the into guys, that means our show and Goro
their part of the, the basically, the anti Godzilla
unit. They start getting ready for its
arrival because they've confirmed that Godzilla's wake
and they talked about the fact that they designed the bacteria
that eats nuclear radiation and they're hoping to use that
against Godzilla actually love this conversation.
This is so interesting to me and it's the kind of sci-fi I love
because they took and they even talked about like, oh yeah.
America's developed a bacteria that eat soil.
So you can clean up oil spills. Yeah.
And like, that is the thing that I think was being like theorized
and like worked on, you know, in the 80s and obviously, like
nothing great came of it. Otherwise we would have magic
bacteria that eat oil spills, you know?
But like they took took that they Advanced it for the purpose
of this movie of just being a thing.
That's casually. There we are in a post oil spill
world because of this magic technology.
But also, if America's biggest natural disasters, have been
oil, spills Japan's, biggest natural disaster is the atomic
bomb, you know? So, of course, they're
equivalent of that is like, we would want a similar technology
that could. You know, clean up the effects
of background radiation from Atomic Testing.
So I just really good scene, really good short conversation
that I think layers a lot into the world and and really draws
from some of the lingering trauma of what we did to them in
the 40s. Right.
Yeah. And I think there maybe later in
the film or maybe it was in this conversation when we talk about
how a nuclear material eating bacteria, I could kind of change
the, the world order because it would just completely invalidate
the threat of nuclear weapons. Yeah, it's a little bit later,
but yeah, they talked about how if you had something like this,
you could theoretically use it to disable nuclear weapons in
Flight, you know, thus just eliminating any nuclear threat.
And yeah, would completely reshuffle the world order,
which, you know, is interesting. It's true, it's interesting to
think about And I when they offhand mention the oil eating
bacteria, I got to thinking oh that would also be a really
threatening weapon to any country whose entire existence
relies on oil. And so I didn't think of it from
that perspective but you could easily have Unleashed that as a
weapon against you know Venezuela or you know like Saudi
or sir Radia or so Radia, right? Okay.
Well then you get, you know like it kind of puts this triangle of
Petition in a new light. It does.
I didn't the think of that angle.
That's a good guy. She hot.
So this this bacteria they want to make kind of a hair of the
dog situation. Like it requires, Godzilla's
cells to create, so they need to find a way to make sure they can
procure Godzilla. Sell because, like, if Godzilla
feeds on radiation, there has to be something in his jeans that
is able to break down like nuclear material as energy.
So, if you can take that isolate, it create something
else from it and make it work. Just like on overdrive, then
Tada. It could eat Godzilla's radiate.
Radiation stores away, right? So Oscars, boyfriend and show
try to go get dr. Shiragami to help them, but
because of the stuff that's happened already, he's like, I
do I'm never going to touch Godzilla cells again.
Actually, I'm not doing this. Yeah, the explosion in the lab
earlier was from a force called the bio Major Force, which is
obviously an American Force coming to still the cells.
And this is when they talk about right here that the cells are
valuable for defensive purposes. Yeah.
Like destroying the usefulness of nuclear weapons and then
mount mihara. A Rob's and seeing this and also
that his roses get hurt from the Aftershock doctor shiragami's,
like you know what never mind, I'll do it, but his condition to
help them is he gets to keep the the Godzilla cells for a week.
And then during that week he fuses Godzilla cells with cells
from some of his roses. Yeah well and I don't this is
not spoken out loud but the implication is that and he
clearly believes that like some element of his daughters or
daughter or granddaughter daughter daughters.
Yeah. Soul like ended up in those
Roses that she died among so. He's been keeping those roses
alive because That's in his mind and heart.
Like that's the last thing he has of his daughter.
So, it's so messed up that. He's right though a little bit.
It says, a lot about the concept of, like human spirituality,
that just like, oh yeah, her soul inhabited, those Roses.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and I was kind of to two
things in this part that I really loved.
The first one is when they, when they go and get the Godzilla
cells, or they go look at them. They go down to this kind of
basement and there's a filing cabinet there and the sort of
head honcho of, I forget the name of the corporation here,
the Japanese group, but he opens up one of the file cabinets and
some liquid nitrogen starts flowing out and he pulls the
cells out of the filing cabinet, which is apparently a liquid,
nitrogen storage unit, but it's really just a filing cabinet.
And so, my partner and I were watching this movie were both
scientists and we Each other says, that a filing cabinet that
they're storing this house it which is I guess most people
probably wouldn't notice that but I was like, that's a great
idea. I think the other part was when
he's actually doing the fusing, it is a it is a, through a
microscope, there's a big kind of black cell and there's a
rose-colored. So let's smaller and he's
physically pushing them together until the the Godzilla.
The cell which is the big black one kind of swallows up the the
red one. First of all, that's not how
that works but I thought I was like for a movie at this time.
This is a great scene. Like this is a great thing to
show how to represent, how you're going to splice.
Yes, together. It's super realistic because,
like, good luck pushing to individual cells around.
It would never work. He is visually a great like,
explainer for a casual audience and a Pretty sure representation
for sure. And I just wanted to point that
out because I thought that was really eloquent way of getting
people to understand what the concept of splicing things.
Together is, especially in the 80s when really nobody would
have ever heard of this before, right?
So, the peeling the like single like, oh yeah, extremely thin
layer out of the pedal of the rows.
And like, you know, having this thin little red layer that gets
peeled off leaving the like in, You know inner like Venus you
know elements of the pedal behind just a great bit it was
great. Yeah great scene.
Science shit, love it. So they have another
conversation about how genetic experiments could just make
Godzilla but worse and then we cut to the military talking
about how the Super X 2, which is they recover the super Axe
and made it better is. Right, is ready to face
Godzilla. When Godzilla wakes up.
The installed something called a fire mirror, which is just to
return, Godzilla's Atomic breath back to it and dr.
Shiragami does like the suspicious evil doctor thing
when talking about cell division where he just looks off into the
distant. Yeah, as I sorry I'm laughing.
It was just I'm thinking back on that scene and just he's just
staring off in the distance. Like oh no your you went bad,
you went bad. Yeah, hmm.
So the American Bio major, Ants from the truck earlier sneak
into shiragami's lab. But so does the sorority and
agent from earlier ss9, I guess and while they're in their
tentacles, like lash out from the ground and everyone and it
kills, one of them kills one of the the bio major agents and
then shiragami reveals that he did create the creature and he's
like looking at a hole in the wall and he was like, you know,
I think I made a mistake. Be perhaps this is science.
I shouldn't have fucked around with.
Yeah I darn of ss9 like getting caught and cutting himself free
and just the extremely neon green Li kicker that spreads all
over the place and gets all over him as he's running away.
Yeah. The plant blood, the The Vines
and the plant blood is it's a very good effect.
Yeah, I'm going to also point out this is like a year after
Little Shop of Horror came out, so there is not an extent.
There is not a chance in hell that nobody working on this
movie like saw that and took inspiration from it true.
So this organization called alien which they're immediately
like, it's the bio Major Force. Yeah they threatened to blow up
Mount mihara to release Godzilla.
If they're not given the the anti-nuclear bacteria.
Dr. Shiragami doesn't really want to be involved in it at
all. He doesn't really care.
And then they go to this, huge Rose that's growing in the bay
now and the doctors like that's Biollante.
I made that I wouldn't take credit for the Towering Rose,
monster in the bay but sure, funded, you know, doesn't the
boyfriend get really mad at him at this point.
Yeah. And he's like You call that?
What do you call that? And then he's like, that's
Biollante and I was thinking no that's called a patent right
there. Yeah, it is a sick name to have
come up with on the spot. This dude was this dude, had
that name in the pocket? He was ready for this.
Now he was thinking about it the whole time.
Yeah. Oh yeah.
He's got a notebook and it's just full of different names
crossed out. So Goro from the from the
Godzilla unit and Oscars boyfriend.
Go to give the bio major troops the cells because they're like I
don't we're not going to, we will negotiate with terrorists
basically but this Rowdy and Agent shows up interrupts them
but he interrupts them before they can actually deactivate the
explosives. So the agent manages to make it
up, make off with the case again but the switches are broken so
they can't turn the explosives off.
So even though they went to give up the cells, they lost the
cells and mount mejores going to blow up so amount.
Mihara blows up. Good job, dip shits.
Oops, in Godzilla emerges and everything kind of hits the fan,
like immediately, like, Godzilla's heading to Tokyo
Biollante starts crying, the military launches a counter.
It's of including the super x 2 and the the Super X 2 goes to
fight Godzilla. The military?
Can we talk about violent? The sound Biollante makes real
quick. Yeah, I love that.
Sounds like Echoes at the end and everything.
Yeah. It's almost like a like a whale
song. There's something like that.
It's very well. Like, Yeah.
And I don't know, I just was it's very haunting and, you
know, there's this kind of conceit that had somehow drawing
Godzilla and And I was thinking, man, it's got to be that whale
song, you know. Yeah, but yeah, just what a
sound? Yeah, Biollante is.
I mean, even before we hit like the end like change, right?
Just this very like haunting, you know, it's in a lot of ways.
God damn it. I really hate to make the
reference because this is not where this comes from, but it's
a pop culture reference point that people are going to get.
There's a very Evan gallion, kind of feel you two looking out
over the bay and seeing this, this giant thing, you know,
Jutting out of the water in the Mist, you know towering over and
eternal Potential Threat that everyone knows is dangerous but
nobody knows exactly how right solutely.
I mean I would not be surprised if at least a couple of the
angels and Evangelion word inspired by by latte.
Yeah. But it's just a such a its
haunting. It is terrifying.
It is sympathetic in some way. It's obviously beautiful with
the rose elements. It's just a very unique Godzilla
monster. Mmm.
Yeah. So the x 2 goes in fights
Godzilla. And the military says that
they're just going to lie about everything.
They're going to lie about where Godzilla is they're good.
They're not going to tell anybody what happened to the
cells because they their plan is to retrieve the cells defeat
Godzilla and in they get as many cells as they want and they
think they can just do this. Yeah, sure.
It's just reveal. Going like this, they want to
kill Godzilla so they can take his cells like they're not, they
don't even care that. He's destroying the city, that's
not their goal. Now it's, they want to have a
leg up on every other country in the world by having sole
ownership of Godzilla's cells, and it's just such a huge shift
from the officials in the last movie.
You know, there's nothing Noble about it at all.
Really So, the Press shows up to interview Dr. Shiragami about
Biollante. And as they walk down the pier,
like one of the one of its tentacles in this tentacles,
like a mouth on and on the end, like destroys half the pier, and
In This Moment, Like Me, he's like, Erica Spirit has gone
quiet in there. Like it's crying for Godzilla.
Like Eric has gone quiet. So meanwhile, the X2 is trying
to prevent Godzilla. From moving towards Biollante,
but the fire mirror is starting to fail.
So Godzilla look, finishes it off, like does not mean they
don't manage to stop them, so Godzilla makes it to Biollante
and they fight. And during the fight, like,
Godzilla's Atomic breath reacts like Biollante cells, react to
the atomic breath, and like there's a lot of combustion
inside everything. And then like Biollante has like
this acid breath and there's a lot of rap attacks and other
green by the end of this part. Oh yeah.
By the end of it, Godzilla or Biollante.
It's on fire. And there's like these glowing
spores going up to the sky. Yeah, we're biological it.
Does turn out that being a giant plant maybe makes you weak to
fire. I have played Pokémon before,
right? Yeah, there's in this part, the
they start talking about why Godzilla was drawn here.
And the doctor says something, and it wasn't in, it wasn't
translated in the subtitles. He said, in the subtitles, he
says, they're the same creature. That's why in the in the
Japanese he says, he people do boots, HEPA, washoku boots.
And that means he says they're the same creature.
But But one is an animal and one is a plant.
And so I was I don't know why they didn't translate that, but
I was kind of like oh they're kind of missing something in
this translation that they are not the same creature.
Actually they are like it's like Biollante is a plant version or
maybe a perverted version of Godzilla and that's why he
showed up here was because this is not this this This organism
is not right and shouldn't exist, right?
Right, that's why he shows up to attack and I felt like maybe
that was a little Lost in Translation at that point.
Yeah, that's an interesting piece of context to be dropped
out from the subs. Now, I didn't listen to the dub
but I mean I have to assume that the dub is not going to be
better at restoring context than subtitles will be.
So not with the history of this franchise.
Like I was talking to some oomph, he's while I was watching
this and there were a couple times I was like it's weird
knowing as much a Panini's I do now but I don't know like enough
yet but I knew enough to be like.
That was not what they said what when the subtitles came up.
But I know they have to make a lot of leopard, like take a lot
of liberties with it to make it fit with whatever their writing.
Yeah. But there were a lot of little
scenes just like lol things that would have changed the context.
I feel Like there is quite a lot, honestly.
And I was I was I was trying to make note of a couple places
where it happened, but I was a little surprised by the sort of
loss of context and it's unfortunate because some of
those things did have sort of context like this that I think
changed the meaning enough that it would have been good to
translate that a little bit more accurately to understand.
Like there's a theme Here of this is an artificial creation.
This is not a This is not worthy of existence because it's fake
Ryan. There's something like that,
there's something to that. And I mean, I think the film is
commenting on that, even through the end where well, anyway,
we'll get there but you see I think that was kind of Lost in
Translation. Unfortunately, it's interesting
because that's further Complicated by Godzilla
arguably, not being something natural.
Right? Right, right, right.
I mean, you know, regardless of your interpretation or, or In of
Godzilla, like that's a got up to this point.
Godzilla has always been something that was you know owes
its origin to American nuclear testing.
So you know and I guess maybe this is maybe this is a little
too direct, but it's also kind of Representative of nuclear
power versus genetic power, right?
Yeah. They're literally fighting each
other, right? So the military tries to fix the
X2 because I mean, it's all I've got, right?
Now, frankly, um, and Godzilla has used a lot of power at this
point, so they determined that Godzilla is heading towards a
PowerPoint to recharge. So the Defense Forces like set
up all their defenses and everything but Godzilla just
goes a completely different way than they expected heading
towards like Osaka. Instead, I have a note.
Oh, yes. More Dragon Quest ask music
during yeah. Anyway, sorry to interrupt but
now you're good. So Mickey shows up at the bay
and like tries to use your psychic powers to hold Godzilla
doesn't manage it for very long, I assume Mickey's pretty strong.
So that tells me that Godzilla has like really strong psychic
powers but she doesn't manage it.
She has like a recover afterward Godzilla resumes towards Osaka.
And show and Oscar's boyfriend go and they steal the cells back
from Sarabia from that case, that that was taken.
And the new plan, the new plan is to infect Godzilla with the
with the anti-nuclear bacteria. Hopefully to slow it down enough
that they can either kill it, still the cells something.
So the super x 2 is sent to distract Godzilla while they
fire the missiles at it and they do manage to To do that.
After like a prolonged battle, they managed to fire.
The missiles in the Godzilla's mouth.
Goro ends up dying in this scene because godzilla-like destroys a
building with him in it. Honestly, a lot of the
conversation here during this part is when I especially
noticed that like the soldiers are kind of sassy with each
other in Japanese but the English translation does not
pick that up. Yeah.
Pressure. They were kind of cool in
Japanese. Yeah, you know, I think if you
kind of lost that. Yeah, yeah.
So Meek, he's recovering from her psychic battle with Godzilla
and since they've managed to infect Godzilla, they're like,
okay, well this should take effect in about 12 hours but
also nothing is happening which it should be.
So they they decide well. Maybe Godzilla's body
temperatures too low. So like the bacteria is not
waking up moving around. So their plan is to basically
microwave Godzilla. Hey I mean you know yeah I love
it. Yeah they set everything up
while they're doing that Mickey's like in I think it's PC
paint because I mean it's the late 80s and she's on the
computer but she's drawing this Rose in space and so Godzilla.
Heads through this like artificial rain storm, they've
created because of all the Heat And stuff.
And they have like these lightning machines.
Like these big landmine looking things, have beam tanks and
they're just blasting Godzilla until its heat increases, and
noticeably Godzilla starts to like, slow down a little bit but
like it's still fighting on it. So, fighting through all this
and this seemed to me was like the scene where they're, like,
check out our technological. Might like look what we can
deploy here at a moment's notice.
Us to fight this thing, all high-tech stuff.
You know, if these beam cannon tanks and stuff which I think
become a kind of a staple at some point just, you know,
technology that definitely doesn't exist.
But yeah, I kind of go back to that biological versus
technological power idea and they're just able to deploy
incredible technology at a moment's notice, right?
So Mickey runs outside and Biollante spores start raining
down from the sky and Biollante like burst out of the earth to
fight Godzilla again. And like, probably one of the
rawest, like death scenes. I think between monsters in this
franchise so far, like, Godzilla as is like in Biollante as
mouths, like Biollante bites down on Godzilla and just, like,
blast the inside of violante with a Atomic breath out through
her head right like clear. Clear through this is a really
interesting fight scene because obviously we haven't had a fight
between Godzilla another monster in a very long time not since
Terror of Mechagodzilla at this point 15 years earlier, right?
And you know, my first time through watching this movie like
watching Godzilla fight, the rose form of Biollante, and the
bay and a lot of the Damage Done to Biollante was very Clear like
okay you can get away with a lot of Gore because it's a plant you
know and because it's green like liquor and not blood so they got
to do some really graphic stuff with you know Godzilla you know,
damaging Biollante. But this second fight it kind of
goes both ways, right? Godzilla bites down and tears
through Vines Godzilla gets impaled through the hand, which
is already got that part. Rough visual.
Yeah, the the visual of like Biollante, you know kind of
leaning into like a bite down and engulf Godzilla's head and
upper body and it's gigantic crocodilian maw.
Before Godzilla blows the hole in the back of it of her head.
And then also the first use of the nuclear pulse, which is kind
of, very quiet and understated. But there's a bit where Godzilla
has wrapped up in in Vines and Being attacked and you see him
begin to charge up and you see the fire come up through the
back of his mouth. But he likes stops it and he
seems to swallow it. And instead, it just bursts out
from his body and vaporizes, The Vines like entangling him.
And I felt like the some of the way this was filmed was very
brutal, but also like scary like bye.
One day when, when it lifts all of the, its arms out of the
water and starts actually moving towards Godzilla, oh my God,
they can move that shot. I could stampeding like towards.
Yeah, camera is incredible and this entire battle.
Look, here's the fucking thing. This battle being shot at night
and yet everything is so clear. And so Vision like visible these
this shit is cracked. Act out like it's incredible.
How? Well, they did this giant battle
at night while losing no visibility or detail.
It is frustrating to watch any sequence in a dark room or at
night in fucking anything filmed nowadays.
This is 1989 in a relatively lower budget, like Japanese
studio and they are killing, you know, selling a night shot with
detail, you know, they put They put so much thought and craft
into it because it's like, well, we're going to make it so that
they're all, it's raining, they're wet.
So they're shiny and it's a full moon.
So it's, you know, they're they're lit up by the moon and
you can see them. So, clearly in the blood kind of
glows green and the, the the poison breath is like a big
green cloud and things like that.
You know, the fog in the background coming off of the
lake. Oh yeah, you know, helps create
like a background behind the monster.
Others to help them stand out from, you know, there's there is
so much craft and so much brilliant production work that
went into this final battle and it just makes me frustrated for
how much people right off this series as being cheeseball,
campy, bullshit. When I look at things like this
and I go 99% of Hollywood film sets could be learning tricks
from what this movie is doing. You know, I mean, it really
reminded me of Pacific Rim this scene?
The original layout, the original.
Yeah, I never even saw the second one.
Don't thank you. I will but just I am positive
that Del Toro, watch this film and was like I'm going to make a
scene like this and at night you can see everything and they're
all lit up and I think about the waves and the fog just like this
scene. Did because like this is an
inspired fight scene for sure. Well, this this director and
this sfx ad will continue working on Godzilla through the
heisei era. So we're going to see a ton of
night battles that are similarly well-lit well-staged.
Like well designed to sell like a night battle that still gives
you a lot of visible detail and knowing that Del Toro is a big
fan of like well, Le yes. But you know all kinds of like
classic horror and sci-fi. You know, he was thinking about
stuff like this because some of the best.
Sure the best like giant scale at night like work I've ever
seen. Yeah, for sure.
I also love, you know. So this is now if we consider
this is our new like Godzilla, three in a way and this is the
first time we've seen Godzilla have to fight another monster in
this format. This really sells us on a very
different kind of Godzilla than before because Godzilla through
the 60s and 70s was very much a determinate.
ER right you knock him down he gets back up, he's Scrappy he's
gonna keep going. This Godzilla is almost more
like a demon, right? Like this is there is no amount
of damage. That can be done to Godzilla
that slowing him down, you know, we have the, the bacteria,
infecting his See, he's been, you know, blown up with
microwave - he's getting impaled through the hand, you know, spit
on with acid and he just keeps walking forward.
You know, an Unstoppable force and even when at his worst like
he's still able to just blow a hole through Biollante.
It almost was never fair, you know.
So this really sells the idea of Godzilla is something truly
Beyond the possibility of Destruction.
Yeah, absolutely. And it reminded me of how the
doctor says something in the film about how he created this
thing to be immortal. And then after Biollante is
finally defeated, he says, well I guess it wasn't a mortal after
all, you know, and actually he was wrong, right?
When we know that by, I want to actually does survive this and
but probably only because it Add Godzilla's cells.
And it's makeup because Godzilla is like he said, basically an
immortal demon at this point. Yeah.
This this, this movie really helps to me more than any movie
before it cement like the goddamn Godzilla mmm-hmm.
Well, the bacteria does start to take effect a little bit.
You get sleepy Gods. Yeah, he gets CP falls down into
the ocean. Everybody kind of gathers round
doctor shiragami's like Biollante is my last work.
I'm not doing this again this time for sure.
Yeah, I'm hanging my hat up. I'm done.
Yeah, Biollante, like fleas into space again and there's like an
image of Erica. Oh, so good.
It's so good. Their face literally appears in
the sky. Yeah.
Now, was it just the doctor who saw that?
Are they all see it? Did they all die is because Miki
at least was like well she says thank you, you know I think they
all saw it too. Yeah.
I mean the movie makes it abundantly clear that that Erica
was a part of Biollante, for sure, right.
To the point where I was actually questioning did he
splice some of her with the rose originally?
Like, did he biologically create that?
Or was that her spirit moved into the road?
I mean, it's possible you don't really know how much, you know,
I can see in his desperation. He never says it right, but but
it's not out of character. He did in fact fully this with
his ha. So right?
He's a mad scientist, right? At the end of the day.
Desperate obsessively only child?
Right? Exactly.
So I it's hard for me to not think about that panel because
like this dude could do so much like he could Cure cancer.
But he doesn't want to come on. His daughter into a rose
crocodile is the, the Sauron of roses.
Yeah. So honestly, I was like, all
right, I guess this movie is wrapping up but no doctor
shiragami steps forward and he gets shot by the sorority and
agent. That's right, guys.
Always thought about ss9 King for always there.
So I chase happens and it ends with the sorority and agent
standing on one of the lightning generators and he just gets
disintegrated amazingly funny. If you'd gone, he just amazing
doesn't look down at what he's standing on and then it goes
near and then he's gone. I clapped I threw popcorn at the
screen. I was like, I just was so
impressed, that this is how this was gonna end.
So Godzilla cold down in the water.
So the bacteria is slowing down again.
So he just gets back up. He gets in the water, he swims
away. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Those find your fucking political struggle is over.
You've wasted your last command cells.
I killed the monster. You know, you can no longer make
the bacteria thing you were making, you know?
Yeah, mission accomplished, I'm gonna go take a nap now.
Oscar's boyfriend is like, you know what?
Maybe I don't want to go to MIT maybe a career.
In science isn't so good. I'm gonna open a restaurant.
So the doctors body is moving to a tent.
They Mourn him. Godzilla's swimming off and
Biollante is hovering in space and that's the end like they
really set this up for something else.
Now then attended the with Mickey's dream of the rows in
space. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. That was cool.
Oh my God. See how this movie fucking rips?
I mean, there's really no way around that.
That's a great film. Yeah it is it is one of the few
that I've seen before. Yeah, it's good.
And literally the only thing holding it back is the constant
reuse of the same three tracks that are tonally.
Not at all. In line with what you consider a
Godzilla soundtrack to be so fucking.
Thank you sugiyama. And it's I think it's a real
serious horror film to me? Yes, I would.
This is a great example of, like, sci-fi horror, you know,
that plays with skepticism of what are we doing with our
technological advances? Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, I also appreciate that.
There's they still had a little bit of humor in it.
Like there's a part where, you know, when they're get I think
they're getting the bacteria that heats the nuclear material
and there's a sorority, an agent trying to capture like trying to
steal it and they just Bonk him on the head that has kind of
Three Stooges noise come out when he gets bonked on the head
or there's a part where they go to, I think when they're
shifting to Osaka and J-pop music.
Art's playing and then 15 seconds later.
It's like, whoop concerts canceled.
Sorry and the music just stops because Godzilla's coming.
Yeah, so I appreciated like that.
They had those light moments. I hope that it came off as being
intentionally corny, you know, like because they were I think
you needed that too though. Like, because Godzilla has been
like intentionally very funny through its history and
sometimes you need something light like that to break up.
The tension examine otherwise, very heavy and politically have
a movie. Sadly look, we love this movie
to death, this movie barely made its budget back.
Oh no, what the fuck was going on with theatrical audiences
when it came to this? But, you know, after we return
of Godzilla did so well, this movie, you know, I get didn't
flop, but it didn't like it broke even and just barely
Unfortunately, because of this super the, the special effects
supervisor koishikawa, Kita mentioned previously, worked on
gun head gun had was a huge flop, and then this was supposed
to be another big opportunity, and this barely made it back
col, Kita, blames or at the time.
At least blamed both movies, failure on himself.
I mean, you know, we all understand that feeling of, you
know, when you're a part of a big project and something
doesn't work out, it's easy to be hyper.
Nickel of your part even though. I mean I would, I am think his
work is be above reproach on this movie, but he did develop a
drinking problem for a few years after this.
Thankfully, the next Godzilla movie, which he works on, does
much better. And, and, you know, we get a
happier outcome of all of this. But, you know, there's real
people working on these movies and, you know, it's kind of I
don't know, just makes it feel all the more real to realize,
like, you know, the people working on this were devastated
that the work couldn't catch on. Yeah.
I mean, it's such a good movie. It's such a good film.
It's unfortunate. It didn't do well and I don't
know how to explain that. But yeah, well, and again like
fortunate that, you know, he took it so hard because if you
just subject the not objectively, but if you
subjectively look at it. Yeah, it's a great film.
I mean like an actual effects work is II.
Look, I'm willing to say objectively.
I think the special effects work is the stuff that stands out the
most of all so good. Like it's a good movie.
It's well-directed, it's a solid script.
Maybe a little over written and a little over packed, but like
there's, there's, there's a lot of good going for this movie,
but it is the visual language of the movie.
It is the complexity of the new Godzilla suit and the Biollante
designs and the Puppeteer work, you know, the the choices for,
you know, lighting like you said that the choice to have them wet
so that the lights would glint off of them and make them stand
off the fog in the background to help break them up from the
environment stuff like that. Like this is a brilliantly
designed movie and it's unfortunate that he blamed
himself because he's I mean again God that shot of Biollante
like trampling towards the camera is Iconic for sure.
Yeah, and and gods, you know, there's kind of that scene with
right before Biollante puts Godzilla has head in his mouth
and they're like framed by the fog like you were saying it's
just like this looks like a pinup poster of he's monsters.
You know, man, yeah, it's so good.
Yeah, I genuinely think that like, when Gareth Edwards would
get the opportunity to make that Godzilla movie in 2014, like
Edwards was clearly looking At a lot of this era of Godzilla for
visual inspiration and I don't know that you could pick a
better era to do that. With, of course, we'll get to
that eventually but yeah, I can definitely see that.
Yep. Yeah.
There's also a decent bit of like drama that comes out in the
aftermath of this movie. The the director cause a
kiyomori became pretty openly critical of long time.
Series producer, tomoyuki Tanaka You know, basically blaming
Tanaka for all of the woes that the Godzilla franchise and had
over time. This is an opinion shared by is
Cheryl. Honda and Acura a fukube,
although Honda always the consummate professional, maybe
sometimes to his detriment, you know, was always publicly very
polite about that and didn't are his frustrations very publicly,
he fukube, didn't give a shitty fukube, would talk about Tanaka
to anybody who asked, A true hothead.
We love him, Evac, Ube also. Reportedly was so just disgusted
by sugiyama as work on this that if everybody to Africa Evac Ube
dropped, all of his future projects to return to Godzilla
for the next movie on word. Because remember we return of
Godzilla a fukube was like, look man, I'm booked up.
I'm the Godzilla guy. Like, you know, I got I got too
many big big Budget shit to do, you know?
And I'm not going to drop them for you.
But Sukiyaki sugiyama came in and fucked up so bad.
He was like cancel my appointments.
I got to go fix my baby and I just received a cue that
pettiness. Fuck see, the armor.
Yeah. Um, by the way so we are going
to resurrect the, the titles bit.
Yes. So we didn't have a title
Frankenstein as this. Yes.
So there weren't any fun titles for Return of Godzilla but there
were two fun titles for Godzilla vs.
Biollante in Greece. The movie was known as Godzilla
2000 and oh,no, wow, funny for a couple reasons because of
course, there would eventually be an actual Godzilla 2000 you,
right? Know that 1989 is not quite
close enough to 2000 to make that jump.
With it you know. Not not sure what's up there but
I appreciate it. Getting a headstone oats.
Great job grease Taiwan though Taiwan has the best title of
them all in Taiwan this movie was known as big dinosaurs.
I love it. Big dinosaurs, that's the
titles. I want to see that but you may
know that there's only one big dinosaur in this movie.
Technically, but I guess plants. Can also be dinosaurs Biollante.
Looks again, very crocodilian. The Wonder.
They're, they're big yeah again. No notes.
Bless you Taiwan. Excellent choice.
I would, if I saw a VHS that was just called, big dinosaurs.
No cover art. I would get that in are
becoming. Yeah.
For sure, if I get that poster. Yeah, the posters just the title
of Of big dinosaurs, but I had on ways.
Big guys are led by a lot days on it.
Yeah, but I have to have it. So, um, like if we want to talk
about the lasting impact of this movie, I mean, a, this fully
launched is the heisei series, right before we had a weird cool
one-off sequel to the original Godzilla.
That was an experiment at Reviving, the franchise.
Now they come back and we have officially gone note.
We are continuing down this path.
We have a new set. Of continuity and we're going to
continue this darker more violent tone, you know, as much
heavier kind of emotional tone. And and, you know, we're going
to obviously see that through the heisei series because this
is the same director who will do most of these movies and of
course, Biollante easily, one of Godzilla's most famous and
popular, foes rightfully. So I mean I think after like
King Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla and And Mothra.
I mean, for the extent that you can call moth or a foe, like
once you get past them, like, Biollante and guy ganar, kind of
the most beloved by fans and Destroy when we get to it more
so than like Rodin who has shown up significantly more times.
So yeah, Biollante is violante as well.
Beloved and should because God damn what a design.
For sure. Yeah, just a really cool design
and so different from so many of the other ones.
Yeah, I can go on and on about how much I love Biollante is
design and is in, you know, the idea of I was talking to my
partner about if we watched it and they were saying, well I
didn't know any of the monsters in these movies were plants and
I was like, yeah, there's one. Yeah, it's awesome.
I don't know if there's any more but, yeah, he's awesome.
It's awesome. He it she I usually use she
because there's some amount of Erica.
See you in there but like it is a giant plant monster.
It is maybe plan. 'And you know, I'm also going to
know it has transcended gender for sure.
Yeah. I'm also going to note, though
along those lines, they were using a lot more gender neutral
language for Godzilla, then I have caught in the past.
So notice that, I recall that being consistent through The 90s
movies as well that they they treat Godzilla in a slightly
less gendered fashion and you know just interesting of note,
not well I'm super into Biollante is like space form for
some reason. Just a giant Rose in space is
cool to me. I almost earlier we were talking
about the cry. I was like, yeah, that cries
kind of Yuri but not reusing. She, a, that cries kind of Yuri,
you know what, it actually made me think of was I think it's
Star Trek for the original Star Trek for.
Oh my God. Yes, the one the whales in
space. Yes that's all.
We're a giant spaceship shows up like basically threatening to
destabilize Earth and it can only speak in whale song.
Yeah. But oh darn it.
We made all the whales go extinct.
So let's go back in time and bring some whales to the Future
so they can have a chat. Yeah and but but this like now
we've that's that's the space. Alright, there is a giant Rose.
I think it's really, really cool.
Yeah, I think it's interesting because you know, like this is
while it goes in a very different direction than the
more optimistic tone that a lot of the like Honda's movies
would, this is still something that is very interested in
having conversations about like, the direction, we're moving with
scientific advancement, it's very interested in the morality
play between people. This is, you know, while taking
More cynical 90s tone. You know, I think this actually
really well adapt. A lot of the spirit of Honda to
the era if that makes sense. You know, I mean, you know, the
bit about Eugenics aside, this is, you know, otherwise a very
interesting movie about like very current concerns.
That doesn't try. That neither like tries to
vilify, the scientific advancement Right.
But also wants to give voice to like proper skepticism of have
we thought through the outcomes of our decisions Jurassic Park,
before Jurassic Park, you know, for sure.
And I mean, I was thinking about that, you know, this came
because came out in 1989, Michael crichton's book,
Jurassic Park, comes out in 1990, and he according to him,
he wrote Jurassic Based on a short story, he wrote in 1983
and so and then, you know, the Jurassic Park film comes out a
couple of years later and really popularized as a lot of these
topics. But this was, this film was
really right on the edge of commenting on genetic
engineering and and the drama around that in the public eye
and I think in a really smart way.
Yeah, you know, way that frankly like Jurassic Park doesn't touch
on because it did this film. Touches on sort of the
geopolitical issues around it, in a really smart way and the
competition between, you know, literally Japan and the United
States at the time, you know, we were friends but we were
Frenemies in a lot of ways. There was you know, yellow Peril
type propaganda going around and fear of Japanese dominance and
Technology throughout the 80s. And you know I actually
something I wanted to talk about real quick is I fished up I do
The quote, from, let's see who said this, let me get the
exactly somebody in the Bush Administration.
The first Bush Administration. Also, this is gonna wait in the
gray. He was counsel to President,
Bush 1989, 293 and his quote was the pharmaceutical industry and
agricultural sector are leading edges of American economic and
technological innovation. We wanted to make sure that
Innovation wasn't impeded and was in fact allowed To Bloom as
much as possible. And he is referring specifically
to genetic modification and genetic engineering when he's
talking about that. And so, I think it kind of goes
to show that this was a serious thing at the highest level and
for the United States and for the rest of the world, that the
United States was pushing genetic engineering in a way
that made the rest of the world afraid of what they might do.
Yeah. And the United States was
gung-ho about it under You know, pretty serious Republican
administrations in the 80s, in a lot of ways, is really easy to
understand, the, the slide in to cynicism.
We in this movie with regards to like National relationships,
when you look at, like, how long can you try to be optimistic
about your relationships with the US when you've dealt with at
this point? Multiple Decades of like you
said, yellow Peril around like Japanese technological and
Industrial progression, you know, you know, look at the fear
of encroaching Japanese technology in the American
economy and the American home, when you see the way America is
once again running roughshod over the rest of the world, when
it comes to things like genetic engineering and you know Japan
maybe more than anybody has the right to be.
A little bit concerned when Americans start getting a little
too jumpy with new technology. You know, you can understand why
that, that cynicism may start to overtake the optimism.
Absolutely. Yeah.
This is brilliant movie movie very much, like, capturing that
moment in time. I think it captures everything
that was important about the original Godzilla, you know, and
very Faithfully sticks to a lot of those tones and themes.
This is this So fucking good one.
They are on a goddamn roll with the heisei era right now and I'm
terrified for the first Miss II. Just I really liked what you
said about it really to me was like this is the first one of
the whole series since the very first Godzilla film, it feels
like they're touching on some kind of global concern about
science and what it can do and in a realistic way.
Like these are not not analytics, Iowa coming down but
yeah you know creating a mechanical monstrosity.
This is these are real humans creating this stuff.
Not for good reasons in a threatening way.
And the result is these monsters that kind of battle each other.
I mean I don't I think for me Biollante doesn't end up being
an evil monster at the end of the movie, you know he ends up
being or they end up being a rose floating in space, and
maybe being at peace with themselves.
Laugh at that point, I want H to creature doing what it does to
survive, you know. It didn't ask to be created, you
know. Yeah.
Very, very, very Mary Shelley, you know, very much so yeah.
Fucking excellent movies. Anybody have any final thoughts
on this? Or we gonna sit here and just
say fucking excellent movie, like a dozen different ways.
Basically that, I mean, I think the one thing That when you're
watching a movie like this, as a as a geneticist specifically,
but as a scientist, in general, you have to really suspend your
yearning for accuracy and think about how is the general public
going to perceive this. Because there's just a lot of
stuff in this movie that is just way off the with regards to
societal scientific bunk and and, and that's fine.
That's actually how it probably should be.
Yeah, it reminds me of a woman explaining science.
Science to other Layman. So yeah.
And like it reminded me of the frog DNA part of Jurassic Park,
right? Yeah.
Because I believe, if you read the Jurassic Park Book, he goes
into details that like, go beyond, you know, average person
that are standing in the movie. They're just like, yeah, we put
frog DNA. And that's why this happened and
that's fine. It doesn't make sense if you
actually think about it, but it explains in this movie too, you
know, you pushing the cells together or they're suddenly
able to just create this plant monster out of Of it, just let
it go. If you're a scientist or if
you're obsessed with those things because I think it made
the film better by just, you know, and they showed it, they
showed the cells getting pushed together, there's multiple
scenes of him, looking in the microscope and seeing what's
going on into the microscope and it was done.
So so well and effectively. And I just, I'm very impressed
by that and I hope that People consider that when they're
watching films, like like this one, and how there are so many
ways, they could have screwed that up.
They could have gone on into detail about how these things
work in a way that would have just tanked the movie.
Yeah. Charlotte, you got anything?
No, it's good move. Good is good movie.
All right, folks, that is a wrap on this episode.
Thank you all so much for joining us on our journey so
far. MJ you got anything?
You feel like plugging for our listeners?
Oh, I have a Blog. Plenty of hominids.com.
And I'm on co-host. If anybody?
I don't post that much but I post dumb stuff on there
sometimes. That's dr.
M to the J, DRM the number to th e j.
So if you're interested you could check me out there or
check out my blog. I'm planning to sort of post
more often than I have been including a post about Godzilla
vs. Biollante.
So hell yeah, maybe a little companion piece to this podcast.
Yeah, just wanted to say I really appreciate you guys
having me on. I'm not y'all having me on.
I'm not like you know, Big Time on Line person necessarily so
not that, that's what you're going for, right?
But but I am a huge fan of Godzilla and of the Pod and and
of you too. So I just I'm humbled and I feel
great being here. Thank you.
Well, you ended up being the perfect.
I mean, literally perfect guest for this episode.
So give yourself a pat on the back as well.
Thank you, it would be you. It sure would be nice if we
could all like decide on a single social media platform
that we're moving onto from Twitter, right?
Because we're like, we're trying out.
We tried out Hive for a bit and like that doesn't seem to have
stuck and people are trying like co-host and mastodons and like
blue skies picking up but nobody wants to post on it and fucking
Jack is a piece of shit still. So yeah, you know, we don't have
a lot of options here, we'll figure it out.
Eventually, I know, I promise, I'll still be on co-host though
as long as they keep to go doing what they're doing.
Yeah, so you know, join me on there if you want it's not the
same as Twitter but it is And that's a good thing saying it's
not the same as Twitter. Is a positive statement, in a in
a good way. Sure, if you've enjoyed this
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That's all we've got this week. See See you next whenever and
take care everyone, bye-bye. Castle Bravo is a production of
Derek Van Dyke and Charlotte landel.
All editing is performed by Derek Van Dyke.
Special thanks to Kiri a Lamont for our art assets and to David
Van Dyke for our theme song pools of memory.
Special thanks to Kiri a Lamont for our art assets and to David
Van Dyke for our theme song pools of memory.