[HorrorScience] Godzilla VS Gigan (1972)

Reading time: 7 minutes

Qualification

Chikyū Kōgeki Meirei: Gojira tai Gaigan

Year

1972

Duration

89 minutes

Director

Jun Fukuda

Distribution

Hiroshi Ishikawa, Tomoko Umeda, Yuriko Hishimi, Minoru Takashima, Zan Fujita, Toshiaki Nishizawa, Kunio Murai, Gen Shimizu, Kuniko Ashihara, Zeko Nakamura, Akio Muto, Haruo Nakajima, Kengo Nakayama, Koetsu Omiya, Kanta Ina

Script

Takeshi Kimura, Shinichi Sekizawa

We are approaching the end of Godzilla's Showa stage with this twelfth film called in Japan Chikyū Kogeki Meirei Gojira tai Gaigan and known in the West as Godzilla VS Gigan, although obviously there are some alternative names as in almost all the films in the series, in this case I will only say that the first Spanish name given to this film was Galien, the galaxy monster attacks Earth. One more outrageous addition to the list of title translations, not only for ignoring Godzilla (once again), but also because it also changes Gigan's name to Galien.

After the extravagant and unrepeatable Godzilla VS Hedorah by Yoshimitsu Banno, the Toho directors and the director did not have a good relationship, which caused him not to direct any other Godzilla films and the director's position falling again into the hands of Jun Fukuda, who had already directed Ebirah Horror of the Deep (1966) and The Son of Godzilla (1967).

Fukuda was an ideal director for the Toho directors, since it seems that it did not cost him much to strictly follow the orders and conditions imposed by the company, which had been significantly reducing the quality of the series until it became a slapstick with a style more similar to the Gamera or Ultraman films than to the Godzilla saga.

The protagonist of this film is Gengo Kotaka, a cartoonist who obtains a somewhat strange job in a recently built children's amusement park, whose most striking feature is having a tower in the shape of Godzilla. The attitude of their bosses and the Finding a girl running away from his offices will make Gengo suspicious. about the legality of everything that surrounds him.

[HorrorScience] Godzilla VS Gigan (1972) — Godzilla Tower is the main building of the park

In her escape, the girl dropped a tape, which will be the reason for her and her partner to kidnap Gengo, who will join their cause when they discover that they also suspect that the owners of the park are up to no good.

A more exhaustive investigation will lead them to learn that those who work in the tower are people who have recently died, making the situation completely inexplicable, which will worsen with the appearance of the space monsters Gigan and King Ghidorah.

This is one of the movies that make Jun Fukuda have a bad reputation among Godzilla fans. The director had already worked on two films of the character, dealing with the production company's demands, such as budget cuts and forced infantilization, and even so the result had been quite acceptable, not wonderful but acceptable.

However, after his return to the series with this film, everything seemed to get worse and worse.

The scripts are still as crazy as ever (that at this point is not surprising), the performances have gotten worse and the films seem to have been made without desire, money or time.

I'm not going to discuss whether it was necessary to use the aliens as enemies again (something that will be repeated in the later films) or whether the design of Gigan (a kind of punk Cyberchicken) was more worthy of Ultraman than Godzilla, but it takes a lot of effort to see how some of the worst ideas of the series are recovered (and multiplied).

On the one hand, the monsters talk to each other again and have recovered part of their humanity (they clap, they do wrestling locks...) and on the other, the scenes they star in are done without any care and it is very noticeable that most of them come from other films (like War of Gargantuas, Destroy All Monsters either Ghidorah the three headed dragon). The melodies that accompany these scenes are by the great Akira Ifukube, but they also belong to other films.

The new monster scenes are a bit strange, as there are some that are quite good (shot at night, illuminated by the fire of destruction) and others that could be very improved, such as the final battle with 4 monsters, which sounds better than it is, because we almost always see only 2 monsters hitting each other, as if they were taking turns. The ridiculous situation led to the addition of blood (very abundant, as it even splashes on the camera) to give it drama, but obviously, it doesn't.

Fukuda did the hardest thing (create a movie about Godzilla raising his son that was entertaining) and now he fails to make the typical movie of the genre (monsters, aliens and crazy things). The only good thing I can point out is that there are no children among the protagonists and that there are many scenes with the monsters, especially in the final part of the film, although as I said, many are recycled or of dubious quality.

Godzilla VS Gigan makes the saga takes a few steps back in practically every way. And if you think that the situation of this saga couldn't get any worse, wait until you see the next film, with a smaller budget, more children, more crazy ideas and Jun Fukuda repeating as director.

Curiosities about the film:

Due to the use of scenes from other films, there are many moments in which the day changes constantly to night. For example, Anguiras reaches the coast and it is night, the military appears and it is day, they shoot at him and it is night, and so on. The special effects people were aware of this and darkened some images that took place during the day, but it is still very noticeable.
When the aliens tell the history of their planet you can clearly see that they had the same cars and the same factories as humans. This is what happens when you recycle the images from the previous film (Godzilla Vs Hedorah).
The conversations between monsters vary depending on the version you see, in some the monsters are dubbed and in others they only make noises but we see a speech bubble on the screen with the phrase they say.
This was the last film in which Haruo Nakajima played Godzilla.