[HorrorScience] Godzilla: The Planet Eater (2018)

After Godzilla The Planet of Monsters (2017) and Godzilla City on the Edge of the Battle (2018) we arrive at Godzilla The Planet Eater, the third and final part of Netflix's Godzilla trilogy.

In the previous film, humans found the remains of Mecha Godzilla (which was built by the Bilusaludos centuries ago). Being made of Nanometal (a metal with the ability to absorb other life forms to endure) the remains of Mecha Godzilla have stood the test of time, taking a small portion of the planet as their own.

The Nanometal offered humans and Bilusaludos the possibility of creating new weapons and strategies to defeat Godzilla, but the plan included fusing with the metal if necessary, something that ended the lives of most of Bilusaludos (who surrendered voluntarily) and some humans (who were absorbed against their will) which horrified Haruo, to the point of aborting the mission, leaving Godzilla injured, but not dead.

After seeing that Godzilla has not died, but remains in a vegetative state (regenerating his wounds and regaining life), the survivors of the previous film decide to return to the Houtua village where they receive help and cures.

Some humans watched as the Nanometal absorbed its companions, but could not do the same with them, which does not seem to have a logical explanation and that fuels the belief that they have been saved by some type of miracle. Metphies, the priest of the Exif race, justifies the events with sermons typical of his religion, gaining the sympathy of many who had not believed in his cult until then.

Dr. Martin tells Haruo that all those who have survived the Nanometal are the same ones who were cared for by the Houtuas after the first attack against Godzilla, which means that it is not a miracle, but that Houtua medicine has some type of product that generates antibodies that protect you from the Nanometal, something that Metphies already knows, but that he prefers to ignore in order to gain more followers to his religion.

Meanwhile, things on the mother ship that is in Earth orbit are not going too well, since the Bilusaludos who are there consider that Haruo betrayed his comrades by aborting the plan that would have killed Godzilla, while the humans defend Haruo's position. That diplomatic confrontation ends with the Bilusaludos controlling the ship, something that will be interrupted by the arrival of a strange singularity from space, which is also responsible for Godzilla waking up from his rest: Ghidorah has arrived.

If the previous film focused on the militarized Bilusaludos, this one focuses on the religious Exif, which serves to further contrast both species and creates parallels between both ways of proceeding and how humans receive it. Let me explain, in the previous film the Bilusaludos ask humans to merge with Nanometal to make them stronger and thus kill Godzilla and the reaction they get is negative (obviously). On this occasion, the Exif come to ask them for the same thing, but through religion and without making it clear to them that they are going to be sacrificed, and the humans happily agree to join the cult, even though in reality that does not end up being a solution, but rather a problem. In other words, humans prefer a good-sounding lie to a hard truth, which I honestly think is a good representation of our race.

The religious and catastrophic theme of this film seems like a good way to end the trilogy, since it also brings back Godzilla's main enemy: King Ghidorah. It is true that Ghidorah's design is very bad and that the fight against Godzilla is somewhat particular, but I think that small drawback can be overlooked thanks to the symbolism that each of the monsters achieve in this film. The fact that the Exif worship Ghidorah despite having destroyed their planet is still a nod to Godzilla Vs Monster Zero, where something similar happened.

I think this film is a good closing for this particular Netflix trilogy and although it is true that it has flaws, we have seen many of them in the previous films (such as the excessively slow pace at times) and perhaps some are not even flaws for you (for example, I love the serious and catastrophic tone of the series and that there are no funny characters that do stupid things).

Curiosities about the film:

• There is a final scene after the credits where it is shown that Haruo's actions have become a ritual to overcome fears.