Before and after the TwinLUG meeting I watched The Gamera Trilogy which came out in the last half of the 1990's. Gamera, Guardian of the Universe was the first in 1995. It's a retelling of the story with Shusuke Kaneko directing. He'd direct the rest of the trilogy and in 2001 direct Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. In the new Gamera series a ship with a cargo of plutionium bumps into a floating island. Everyone freaks but they are ok. The island is moving so some scientists come to investigate the island. They find a bunch of odd comma shaped stones and a tablet buried in the rocks of the island. It's got writing on it with a message from some ancient men telling them that this is the last hope against Gyaos. That's the ancient name of the giant flying birds that start attacking people on another island. Gamera breaks free of his rock shell and starts kickin' some Gyaos ass. The Japanese Military was fighting with Gyaos and they toss some of the same at Gamera. They all fight off and on all through the rest of the movie and Gamera wins. There's a pretty good amount of collateral damage as the monsters go at it. There a good amount of chatter amongst all the charactrers as they figure out what's going on. Most of the effects are ok and there's a much greater human toll than the previous series of mutant turtle films from the 1960's. Gamera still has some sort of affinity with the children but it's not so childlike. Mostly pretty entertaining. I went and bought the dvd's back 7-8 years ago, even after I had seen all the films.
Our flying turtle has pretty much recovered when he returns in 1996's Gamera 2: Attack Of Legion. Some bug like critters start showing up before Gamera appears. They like chomping on people. There's lots of running about and collateral damage before Gamera saves the humans once again. At least by this movie the army is starting to help him when he battling the other monsters. It's about the same in Gamera 3: Awakening Of Irys which came out in 1999. Irys is another monster that some stupid kid lets out and tries to raise. There's always that dumbass, huh. The monster raising doesn't go well and Irys grows up to be larger than a sperm whale, but with tentacles. She wrecks some stuff and sucks the girl who was her friend into the goopy center of her chest. Gamera gets her back and luckily for us a lot of stuff gets damaged in the fight. There's too much melodrama in this one but the effects are about the same. So for the most part a pretty entertaining trilogy of films. Worth seeing if you like the giant monsters and i sure do.
Comments