And the kids are like.

Why not just show them the robots?

The kids are like, man, this is lame.

I.

Thought this was a slight of hand.

Trick.

And this motherfucker only has tiny robots.

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 journalist and editor at The Gamer, Eric Switzer.

Eric, how you doing today, bud?

Hello Castle.

Bravo.

Thank you very much for having me.

I'm so excited.

I loved this movie.

I, I got to say I, I, I do love this movie that we're going to talk about today for a wide variety of reasons, yes.

Yes, it confounded me.

It entertained me.

I've got a lot to say about it.

I got to say, so 1st guest of Season 4, this is going to be really fun because everybody, every guest just about that we've had we lined up back when we were in the planning stages before we even fully started the show.

So that's like what years ago that we talked about having you on.

So I'm sure at a certain point you were probably like, did these fuckers forget about me?

I never forgot about it.

I was waiting for my day.

I, I literally have like a spreadsheet document where I'm just going through episode by episode.

You know, again, we'd have we'd have been on this like easily, like nine months ago if if it were not for just like the horrors of 2024 that were inflicted upon me.

But yeah, it's it's fun.

We are here now.

We have a a truly ridiculous movie to talk about.

I think we're going to have a a fantastic time.

Charlotte.

Yeah.

How you doing today?

I'm all right, I have a sinus infection but I have mini drugs in my system so I sound pretty normal.

Hell yeah drugs.

We are pro drugs on Castle Bravo.

Other than that, I mean, yeah, things are good.

Castle Bravo is brought to you by Purdue Pharmaceuticals.

Probably.

Now that you mention it, I'm also on drugs.

I probably have to believe that, even if just for comedy's sake.

Yeah.

God, this has been a really weird.

Like, I'm just going to put it out.

This has been a really weird holiday season for me.

We recorded the Godzilla 2000 episode the previous episode a couple weeks ago, Right, Charlotte?

Or has it been?

It's been.

Longer than that because the last two weeks were both holiday weeks.

Yeah, that's right.

So it's been, it's been close to a month.

Yeah, it would.

Have had to have been four weeks because the week after we recorded the last ones when we planned this one and then two additional weeks out.

So yeah, it's been 4 weeks.

Yeah, yeah.

OK, well, that's fun.

But yeah, like, holidays have been insane.

I don't think anyone had a truly good holiday season this year, this last year.

I think we all just kind of went through it a little bit and we all collectively crashed out a little bit.

And now we're all putting our clothes back on and, you know, wiping the the paint off our faces and pretending we're back to normal.

There's certainly some dread going into 2025.

For a.

Variety of reasons.

I'm I'm afraid to go.

Everyone's like, Derek, this will be your year.

Don't say that.

Don't say that.

I don't want to jinx it.

They keep not being my year.

I but I know you mean it was a slightly spooky holiday season.

I I think it'll be my year.

I think my year can only be a year that's like otherwise horrible.

You've got some good shit coming up which you you you will reveal more of as it happens if you feel like or not.

Whatever.

Keeping the mysteries part of it.

Yeah, I think I, I will reveal that after it's happened.

Yeah.

For good call.

Good call.

So folks, let's talk about where we are at in Godzilla history.

So all through season 3 we covered the hey say era of Godzilla up to the infamous 98 Tristar Godzilla.

So for some sicko that decided to start here and hasn't been listening up to this point, the 80s and 90s had this really fantastic rebooted run of Godzilla movies and going into it, we were like pretty sure we were going to get a little that like 90s edge.

The 90s was infamously fondly remembered for geek culture, but actually a terrible time for most of the franchises we love that had a 90s phase that didn't end up being true for Godzilla.

The 90s run of Godzilla's so fucking good up until, you know, the Tristar movie.

And the Tristar movie was so bad and, and so poorly received that Toho rushed out Godzilla 2000 so they could get like Japanese Godzilla movies going again in under a year.

And you know me and you had some thoughts on that movie.

It's a little messy, but it's a very fun time.

So the original plan, because Godzilla 2000 did pretty good in Japan, it did OK in America, but the marketing push on it was so big that they just didn't recoup those costs 'cause it turns out, you know, you, you do a very expensive relocalization, a pretty expensive redub and marketing campaign to release it in a pretty wide theatrical run that costs a lot of money.

And not a ton of people went to see a Japanese Godzilla movie in theaters.

This was not -1 So the original plan was Toho wanted to make a sequel to Godzilla 2000.

You know, this was going to be just like the 80s and 90s era.

This is our new start to a new series.

And like spoiler alert, there's not a ton of behind the scenes information on today's movie Godzilla versus Megagiris.

What little we know is that at some point, and it seems like it might have been pretty late in pre production, the idea of this being a sequel to Godzilla 2000 was scrapped and it was made another full reboot.

I actually think there's some elements of this being a Godzilla 2000 sequel that still snuck in.

I'll bring those up as they're relevant.

So we have a new director in the director's chair, Masaki Tezeka.

Tezeka, a deed on a bunch of hey say movies.

This is like the move for Toho, right?

When they can't get back the director they've been using, they go to the last AD they could get their hands on.

And it's worked out to varying degrees of success so far.

In the writer's chair, Watari Mimara and Hiroshi Kashiwabara both return.

So they both worked on Godzilla 2000 together.

Remember?

If I remember correctly, Mimara worked on the Heisei Godzilla versus Mecca Godzilla, which we thought was dumb but fun.

And Kashiwabara has an extensive list of credits including like a bunch of Lupon the third.

But then on Godzilla, Wise worked on Godzilla versus Space Godzilla, which was a mess, and Godzilla 2000 on the writing standpoint was nothing to write home about.

So don't know how this duo was doing other than just the fact that they showed up to work that day.

We'll find out.

No, He chuckles in the special effects chair.

Kenji Suzuki returns from working on Godzilla 2000 and I believe at least one of the rebirth of Motha movies before it.

So and and I think like special effects wise, you know, it mostly holds up with some notable exceptions that once again we will get to and and I'll be kind of curious to break down why that may have happened.

The one really fun thing in terms of of people in in the creative chairs for this movie was our new composer is Michiru Oshima, who long list of credits, but you may know for composing the soundtrack to a little show called a fucking full metal alchemist.

Maybe you've heard of it.

That makes so much sense.

Yeah, you can hear that shit now, can't you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, I do think that this movie ends up having very much its own sound that's very different from a lot of previous, well, almost any previous Godzilla movie.

It's kind of like when we had the the Nadeshiko composer in for Godzilla versus Space Godzilla.

It was like, OK, OK, you brought something that's not just poorly recreating Akira Yifukuba score.

It's the thing that stands out the most in this whole.

I would say so, yeah.

So we've got a pretty straightforward idea, right?

We, we Godzilla 2000 did OK, We're rebooting, you know, we're going to make a sequel.

Except, oops, no, we're not.

We've brought back most of the same creative people.

The the main switch around really is the composer, which you know, is, is important for changing up the texture, but shouldn't change too much creatively about the movie.

So, Charlotte.

Yeah.

Why don't you tell us what happens in Godzilla versus Megagiris?

OK, so breaking news, Godzilla raids Tokyo in 1954 again.

But like, it's a really good looking recap.

Like I liked this part, I thought it looked really nice.

It's really interesting that they did.

I don't know if that was just like straight up footage from the original movie or or recreations, but then they've got like the modern Godzilla in the 19, which is so weird to see because up till this point we've only ever seen crusty old 1954 Godzilla, which is a design I love in these old flashbacks.

So yeah.

This he is crusty, I mean.

Yeah, let me, let me ask you guys about the timeline here because this gets reiterated throughout the movie a bunch of times.

And in this timeline, it's the original Godzilla.

And then.

And then no other movie.

And then nothing until attacking Osaka in 1996.

Yeah, it seems kind of like according to what this movie is establishing, which is weird because I think everybody coming in is expecting a sequel to Godzilla 2000 and instead they're like, let's re establish that only original movies happened.

But also we have this very specific couple of like alternate history things that have happened as a result of Godzilla's existence because they talk about like moving the capital of Japan, which is not a thing that happened famously.

And shutting down all nuclear power.

Yeah.

And then developing plasma energy and then also shutting that down.

Yeah.

I don't want to jump ahead too much, but I do want to talk to you guys about heavy hydrogen plasma derived electricity.

Maybe, maybe we can, we can wait till we get there.

But what?

What?

What is that?

Are you are you are?

I was going to say, are you secretly like a fucking electrical engineer or something?

Because we had, we had a guy on for Godzilla versus Bayonte who turned out to be a geneticist for his real job.

And I didn't know.

I just knew him from writing about video game shit.

So.

Yeah, no, I I play Super Mario.

OK, well, here, I'll keep going.

And then I actually have a spot right after the plasma energy thing where it's just empty for a second.

OK, perfect.

Look, Japan moved its capital to Osaka.

I think that has never happened before, like you said, and they rebuilt it.

Godzilla returns in 1966, destroys the first nuclear plant.

And they're like, you know, maybe nuclear is not not the not the move here.

Maybe maybe we don't do that.

And they're they're trying every kind of power, but they can't find anything that's efficient until we get to 1996 where they are searching for replacement energy and they managed to create plasma generated electricity.

What does that mean?

I don't.

Like I have, I talk about discovering plasma energy, but I as far as I know plasma is fire, right?

Plasma is a state of matter.

I thought right and it like a fourth.

I look, man, I am not this guy, right?

But I'm pretty sure plasma is like a fourth state of yeah, it's a state of matter.

So it's like you solids, liquids, gases, plasmas.

So it's the thing that's above gas.

So it's.

But it's highly ionized.

Yeah.

Well I mean I think that could be true.

Don't quiz me on this.

Plasma is a weapon type in video games.

And is is the implication that they couldn't make this black hole weapon until they discovered plasma driven electricity?

Well, I think the the black hole like that the the movie famously revolves around, you know, actually they don't.

Those aren't really connected at all, right?

I mean, they no, Yeah, because we're going to have to, we're going to have to put I, I just realized why that can't be true, but I can't talk about it because we're talking about a thing that happens very late in the movie.

So I'm going to, I'm going to put a pin in this.

To make a black hole, don't you have to like generate so much power in one spot or something?

No, it's his mass.

A black hole is is simply enough.

OK so this I actually this is physics shit.

I do know because a black hole is when you have so much mass condensed into so small an amount of space that the gravitational pull eventually become so strong that even light cannot escape.

That's the event horizon in a black hole.

Black holes are generated because stars go through nuclear fusion.

That's how they generate energy, right?

So they are continually fusing the matter in the star into denser and heavier atoms.

Elements, right?

Like things off the table of elements that we have.

And eventually those become so neutron dense that the amount of matter packed into such a tight space basically collapses in on itself into a pinpoint.

There's still some astrophysicist who's going to correct me on some small part of that, but that's actually a pretty accurate description of what a black hole is.

You can't just turn a machine on that makes a black hole.

And fire it like a big bullet, yeah.

Like it's a fucking Duke in space.

I will.

I want to say though, about this intro.

I do really like this idea that they they started by trying to live with Godzilla.

They were like, we have to get rid of nuclear so that Godzilla isn't tempted.

It wasn't immediately like, how do we kill this big fucker, right?

It was it was how do we keep keep ourselves safe from him?

And I feel like in America, American interpretation of Godzilla, it's immediately go straight to what's the biggest weapon we can make.

Well, what's interesting is is a lot of the Japanese movies have done that too.

But I really think this is an interesting approach philosophically because it does put Godzilla more in line with being something like a natural disaster rather than like an enemy to defeat, which is an attitude that the the franchise has frequently kind of tried to go towards, right?

It it goes back and forth on the sliding scale between Godzilla as a demon versus Godzilla as a hurricane.

Yeah, yeah.

And that and that's great, right?

Like when, you know, I live in California and we had a crazy earthquake in the 90s and then we started building, making buildings a different way, you know, so this is sort of the same thing.

Like we have to find a new way to to safely produce energy because of this natural threat of Godzilla.

Yeah, I thought that was pretty cool.

So it's really interesting that this movie starts with a very committed to the idea of Godzilla as a hurricane, but then we come to find out that actually that is the.

Wrong approach for this Godzilla because this Godzilla is a demon.

Yes.

So yeah, 'cause they pretty early on say, like, Godzilla is not actually just drawn to nuclear energy as if he's, you know, feeding on it, he comes and fucks up the plasma energy generators too, kind of just to fuck up our day.

And then Moon walks back into the sea.

Yeah.

Basically, which is characteristically the thing that was kind of unique about Godzilla 2000, that Godzilla 2000 was explicitly kind of malicious towards humanity and just showed up to wreck our day every so often because he thought we deserved it.

Yeah, yeah, I one of the most interesting things about Godzilla to me is sort of just trying to interpret his will, you know, like, what is it that he wants?

Why is he doing what he does?

Yeah, like what level of sapiens even is there on any given incarnation?

Like.

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it is fun to think like, obviously he wants to destroy our power, but is that just to hurt us maliciously?

Is that to protect himself from what we might do with that power?

And I think that's always an interesting element, yeah.

Yeah, so Godzilla's in Osaka.

Military's trying to kill it, I wrote in my notes here.

Flying flaming car.

So good.

Yeah.

The car do we fly because.

It was, yeah.

Yeah.

The so the military keeps trying and failing to do damage to Godzilla.

They move in, you know, they they fire on him only to, for to to be sent away multiple times.

Suji Mori, which is our our girl in the military here at the beginning, she stands ready near near this factory to fire her rocket launcher at it.

And she does score a direct hit, but it does nothing, just like everything else does.

And she's like, no, no, I really, I have to kill this thing.

And she wants to fire again, but she gets ordered to retreat.

Godzilla attacks like a nearby building, and that building falls on her commanding officer.

She grips his dog tag and screams and fires again.

And that is her motivation for the rest of this movie, basically.

Then there's a title drop, Godzilla versus Megagiris.

So then we jump to 2001 and we're in Akihabara.

There's, there's some guy and he, he's kind of a doofus and he's teaching kids a magic trick using some food.

Some, some folks walk in and they have hats that say G grasper.

And I was like, there's no way that there's something called G grasper this.

Is.

I love, by the way, his magic trick is like he puts like a couple grains of like uncooked rice.

It like a couple little tiny like dabs of ingredients down and puts a bowl on top.

And then when he lifts the bowl a moment later, he has like a little, little tiny spat of Curry.

Yeah.

And he's like telling the kids.

Man.

Yeah, yeah, the lady's like he's lying.

It's not magic.

He actually has fucking micro machines inside the bowl that do the the cooking and mixing in in seconds.

And also the bowl is a is an oven.

And the kids are like, yeah.

Why not just show them the robots the.

Kids are like man, this is lame.

I.

Thought this was a slight hand trick.

And this motherfucker only has tiny robots.

See, and I was sitting here because I was, I was like messaging Derek about this movie while I was watching it.

And I was like, all right, so we can make multiple assumptions from the scenes, such as technology like this is mundane to children, so it must just be everywhere.

No, actually, but those kids are just hard to impress.

And it's so funny from a Western perspective, too.

You're like, is that what it's like in Japan?

You know, these children are bored by incredible microbots.

Like, yeah, I've got one of those.

This is This is the first of many moments where I stopped and wondered if maybe anyone involved with making this movie had ever met a human being, because there's a lot that happens in this movie that feels real, like we asked aliens to make a human movie.

Yeah.

Yeah, we asked aliens to name our special units.

Yeah, they have G Casper on their hats and and they revealed that the trick is done by these tiny machines and after a little conversation he agrees to go with them to the the counter Godzilla 'cause they're.

Like your ability to make technology very small will be very helpful to us.

Yeah, like so specifically they want that.

What is this guy's deal?

Is he supposed to be a dork or is he supposed?

To be suave because.

Yeah, they can't decide.

Yeah.

He does.

He does act like he's packing 9 inches.

At the same time, everyone does treat him like the biggest dweeb in the world, like no one wants him there.

Yeah, at times, but then other times he's like, well, we'll get to it, yeah.

So their plan is to kill Godzilla and they have like 3 sections, Section 1 seeking Godzilla, Section 2 studying it, Section 3 simulating an evacuation of Osaka because they know that's going to happen.

And our doofus boy, his name is Kudo, and he meets with the rest of the G Grasper team.

And then another named character, Miss Yoshizawa walks in and she taught him physics in university because he's not only a dork, he's a dork.

That that was like physics and how to how to, you know, make tiny little robots to do anything you want.

Professor ladies and this is kind of weird, huh?

Yeah, this scene is where the score really starts to stand out.

It's it's almost like John Williams esque.

Sort of.

Sweeps through as they're like exploring this facility.

John Williams, a great call, actually, yeah.

Yeah, so she tells Kudo like, hey, we want you to join us.

You can do things other people can't do.

And he scoffs at first.

He's like, what?

Why?

So I can get killed like everyone else that helps you.

And then so she's always like, well, look, right.

I mean, I don't blame him, but she's like, hey, look, we're creating a micro black hole.

OK, In my notes it does say they make it with plasma energy to to just delete Godzilla.

They they just want to make Godzilla not there anymore.

So kudos.

Pretty impressed.

I mean, it's the first man made black hole and they're like, not only is it the first man made black hole, it's being fired from a satellite in space.

And also we want the device to be two meters wide.

Why?

They other than them saying we have to fire it from space to keep Earth safe, there is unbelievably little regard for the dangers.

Of creating a black hole.

Like, nobody really even brings up, Yeah, it's really not a concern for Ed.

Down at the fucking ground.

I don't know if you've thought about this.

There's really no one even has a throwaway line like, Are you sure this is safe?

There are just like, Yup, this is the plan and we're doing it.

What if it goes like 50 feet further than you intended it to like?

What if it doesn't stop?

Yeah, so suddenly an alarm blares and Godzilla has appeared for the first time in three years.

Then there's a three month time skip.

We, we go now to A, to a family who's getting ready to move and their son, whose name I did not decide to remember, is rushing some bug samples to his friend.

He runs into this little military roadblock and he's he sneaks around and he realizes that the school nearby has been taken over by the military.

The head of the The Counter Godzilla Force appears, and Yoshizawa says that once they kill Godzilla, they're going to dispose of this black hole technology.

But what they're doing with the school right now is they're testing the black hole weapon on this school.

Why is this family in this movie?

They they needed a reason for the egg to be moved.

No, they don't.

And that's it.

But the egg, they don't.

Hatch this I know but someone thought they did cause.

The egg could just have been in the place it needed to be to begin with.

Yeah, they could have been laid anywhere.

They didn't have to get laid in a in an inconvenient place that only a child would find.

Yeah, and his whole role in this movie is done at after one more scene, he will continue to appear.

And have literally 0 impact on anything.

Nothing.

Yeah.

I think genuinely it was just that they knew kids would see this movie and there needed to be a kid on the screen that's.

Got to be it.

That's my question.

Is there a lot of like a child's perspective?

And throughout the series there's.

Off and on, yeah.

Yeah, off and on, I would say definitely a lot of the like the 80s and 90s didn't do this really.

But then again, they were aimed a little older, I think.

I think this is the thing that started to become common in like the late 60s into the 70s where they were like, dude, we got to get kids in there and it's because they were being aimed like at kids.

So he's.

Also like he's also connected to which we're about to get to this like very loose gender politics theme that the movie has.

Oh yeah, fucking welcome to Japan.

Gender is here, Yeah.

Yeah, we're almost there.

I got a whole thing on that, but so that there was also a stint in the past where Godzilla was basically just, he was just Godzilla, defender of children, like very specifically.

So I think there's just there's some DNA in here for that.

So the school's gone because there is a black hole now.

This was cool.

It was very cool.

It looked.

Good.

Yeah, a lot of a lot of the special effects do not look good, and I thought this one was pretty cool.

Yeah, so the the black hole leaves a, like a special distortion behind temporarily, and no one questions it.

They're just like, oh, OK, yeah, black holes do that.

So some soldiers catch the boy in the forest.

And having seen the experiment, you know, they have to come talk to him and be like, don't tell your parents about this.

But during that conversation, the boy is like, hey, why are you here?

You're a woman.

Yeah, yeah.

You're a woman, why are you fighting Godzilla?

Yeah.

What's that?

What why?

Why would he?

Why does he say that?

Because when?

Because she ignores it, right?

She's just like, get out of here, little guy.

And then later she does bring it back up, but doesn't confront it at all.

She just goes, well, you should fight the things you're afraid of, right?

Like why does he say this?

We're cancelling this child today.

It's there.

So there's a lot of women in positions of power in this movie.

In in this series, right, this series is not afraid of of women characters like it's so and I mean again, like the the kid bringing it up is not because the movie thinks the kid is right, like the kid is supposed to be like it's supposed to be like a dumb chot like thing that A and maybe that's what it is, is they thought like this is a wrong thing that a child could say, but like.

Why?

But when does he learn the lesson that it's wrong?

Yeah, like what?

Where does this come from?

How does it get corrected?

What would that mean for the movie there?

Needed to be him witnessing her heroic sacrifice at the end.

You, you know what I mean there Needed it.

Needed a circle back around.

But in because it doesn't.

It's just a kid being sexist.

Yeah, it.

It it almost ends up reading more like we know that a bunch of our audience is going to think this, So what if we had someone say it so that we could we could just acknowledge that people are thinking that.

But that's an insane thing too.

He is, and he's just a cute little kid.

It's not like he's like a little prick or something, like, you know what I mean?

He's not villainous, Yeah.

He does.

He does move a prehistoric dragonfly egg.

But, well, we'll, we'll let Charlotte get to it.

Well, so she does.

She doesn't really respond to this.

She hands him his bugs and leaves.

That evening, the boy sees the shadow of a giant dragonfly Passover his.

Window I'm I'm sorry one more thing sorry don't tell your parents about the the fact that what that we blew up the school and left a.

Crater, where are you going?

On my paper, but they're.

Going to notice.

Yeah, I think they might know.

They might know we're going.

To build a new school overnight and it'll be just as shitty as the old.

1.

Yeah, there's a there's a dragonfly shadow goes over his window.

He goes outside, finds finds this egg that was laid by this dragonfly before it went back into the black hole.

The the boys finally moved.

Like he's in his new home with his mother and he's like, oh, the egg is oozing now and then he just puts it in the sewer for like, no reason.

OK, here's my thing about the egg.

Little little kid loves bugs, finds a weird egg and takes it on.

That all makes sense, but this little boy lives in a world where Godzilla exists, and I have to imagine that you, just like you tell your children, don't get into any white vans with strangers.

Offering you candy.

You probably also would tell them, hey, don't pick up any weird magical eggs, right?

Like I feel like everybody knows in a world where Godzilla exists, don't mess with things that look like Godzilla.

Don't mess with weird shit.

Don't mess with weird monster shit.

It's bad.

Could it be is it like 10% chance of weird monster shit?

Don't, just don't.

And then he puts it down the sewer, which lucky for us, I don't know why it's not the the thing he would do other than it has to end up in the water because it's a dragonfly egg.

So it's going to hatch into amphibious like first forms.

That's how dragonflies work.

So I, I don't, I at least I assume that's what the point is.

They don't explicitly say that, but that it is how dragonflies.

Work, I guess, like he knew he had to get it, get rid of it, but he didn't want to leave it like in a dumpster by his house because then it might.

Come back, there's someone in the neighbor's yard.

Make it their problem.

I would have just smashed it with a hammer.

I would have got your friends together and fucking ET that motherfucker up, yeah.

He would have stopped it.

You know what?

I'm just, I'm sitting here thinking now like it's been ridiculous this whole time.

Would you and your friends have killed that egg with with hammers?

You were my friends, but you.

Can't.

Yes, I.

Don't I don't Yeah, I think we we probably would have, but no, I'm thinking if he found it in a pool in the forest, that pool would probably dry up.

And if he knows the life cycle, he'd probably be like, aw, this egg won't survive here, so maybe it.

It almost.

Makes sense.

See here's the thing, it almost would have worked better if he did it on purpose because he thought the egg was cool and he wanted to hatch the bug.

Like then the whole lesson of oops I did a bad would at least be something.

Yeah.

Oh.

I agree.

Well, now Suji Mori's working out.

You know, she's, she's just pumping iron Kudo tries to start spark up some conversation about this black hole, and he gives her a special bullet that she can fire if she ever needs to be rescued.

Because this dude's like Qi don't know.

What is?

What is this about?

Why?

Because they needed some way to call people later.

That's just.

But that's the only reason I can think of half this stuff happening.

I OK like his job, his job on this black hole project is to make the tracking work right like they need they need it to be very precise.

And so part of that is putting this tracker on Godzilla.

So I thought that's what he was giving her is like, hey, I've finished this tracker.

But he says if you ever are in danger, just fire this and I'll come find you.

And it's like, that's from what?

Like danger from what?

Hobos.

Very strange, very strange.

After he's like, after he's like, hey, why, why are you working out your body?

We we're going to black hole Godzilla.

There's nothing to worry about.

Why are you, as a woman, worried about working out?

Like, are you as a woman worried about being fit?

But yeah, she does tell him she's like, you know, you should probably build up your body first.

Like, things are going to happen, some stuff's going to go down.

But he he grabs her dog tag, like her her commander's dog tag.

And she like, gets mad and she basically lure dumps to him.

And then she test fires the special bullet and like, OK, it works great.

The egg, meanwhile, is now in the ocean, and it's morphing, and water is starting to leak out of the ground beneath the city.

Some workers come in.

They're like OK A.

Feasible amount of water by.

The way it is not like the offset amount of an egg, I don't know where it's coming from.

Is the flood just something that happens?

The flood is like the flood is is is Me when?

Me when?

Me when?

But that's like that has nothing to do with Godzilla or the Dragonfly's.

That's just also Tokyo's flooding.

So the the.

The only thing I can think of is that like the sheer amount of biomass in the sewers is causing like the water to overflow as the dragonflies like mass reproduce.

But that's still insane because Tokyo is suddenly so underwater.

Yes, it's like, it's like it's like 80 feet underwater.

They're driving boats.

There's not that much water in the sewers, guys.

Well, the workers are coming to fix it, and there's a giant dragonfly looking down at them from above.

The dragonfly, like, just starts eating people.

Oh.

My God, it sure does take that dude.

There's like head crunch, Yeah, incredible head crunch.

Yeah.

Top tier practicals there.

Yeah, like this one dragonfly eats, eats a couple out on the street and then just starts molting 'cause I guess it has enough meat now.

The the boy sees the dragonfly swooping around outside and he finally tells someone what's going on.

Like, hey, I had this egg.

And Suji Mori like confronts him finally about everything and is just like, look, I, I fight Godzilla because my commanding officer fought Godzilla and you got to face what you're afraid of.

And so like, I guess he accepts that, but then he he shows her that the dragonfly is a mega neulon, which is I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

You are.

It can't fucking be.

But it can't be.

Yeah.

Mega Neulon.

This bothered me a lot.

They're not that big.

This bothered me so much because it because it came out of a.

Portal So I think the idea is it came from like the past, right?

It's a prehistoric thing that like got like time jumped through a wormhole or something.

But then it has like energy beam powers and like this is obviously not a creature from Earth.

Yeah, I don't know.

So here's the thing.

A mega.

So this this gets complicated.

OK, so the Mega Neulons first showed up in the original Rodin back in 1950, what, 556, something like that.

And what we said then is it's very likely that what they're actually saying is Mega Neura, right?

Because the Mega Neura is a famous like foot long prehistoric dragonfly, an apex predator of the time for its class, very, very famous prehistoric insect.

And of course in Japanese there is no distinction between the R&L sound.

It's a singular sound in their phonetic alphabet.

So it's very likely that Meganeula is Meganeura.

So here we are.

We're bringing back this prehistoric dragonfly monster that was already oversized in Rodin.

But at least it's maybe the idea was they were irradiated here.

But no, these things straight up come from a wormhole from the past and are also laser dragonflies.

Yeah, they can suck the energy out of things with their stingers.

Like why?

Why does this need to be?

How?

Do these go extinct?

Yeah.

Very and and how do we know about them?

Very strange.

I don't know why, it could just be.

You'd think it would have been a bigger deal if we were like, Also there were Godzilla dragonflies back in the day.

Right.

Yeah, I mean, it's got to be like a different dimension or something.

I.

Think if there were 10 foot dragonflies back in the day.

It's the only thing anyone would ever talk about.

We would never have invented sports.

We'd just be talking about the dragonflies.

Real.

So back in headquarters, a light appears on the sensors and Godzilla is fighting with one of the dragonflies in the ocean.

They launched this ship of the Griffin.

They they then leave the Griffin to go out in a boat and observe the the corpse of the dragonfly.

And the score is going nuts.

No, it's popping the fuck off.

Yeah.

Godzilla's right below them.

Suji Mori helps the other guy back into the Griffin but she gets left in the boat near Godzilla and they they drop the The Search Godzilla system is what it's called after she shoots her her special bullet and the Godzilla's high.

That way they can track Godzilla.

They then launch because.

You don't want to miss with the black hole gun.

Yeah, they launched the black hole device into space and they take a sample of the dragonfly corpse back and discuss that it's definitely a mega Nula.

Right.

Yeah.

And they're like, it's a violent insect that makes clusters of eggs.

And now they're like, well, Shibuya is completely flooded.

I don't.

I don't know if it's because of the clusters of eggs, but I guess it's got to be the.

Water level here is makes no sense because like there's there's like establishing shots where skyscrapers are half underwater and then it cuts to people running like, OK, where they where are they running?

That's not underwater?

And then it cut and then it cuts to a boat and then it cuts to people walking in the water and it's like knee deep.

Like it's like I cannot get a grasp of how flooded the city.

Was and later we're going to see a, a, a, a piece of the city that has at least like 200 feet of water.

Yeah, like it's an amount of water that could never have been in that sewer system.

Even if you clogged that son of a bitch from from tailpipe to tailpipe with dragonflies, you are not getting that much water out of those sewers displaced.

The only thing that I was able to to think about at the time was like, it is an island nation.

I don't know.

They just thought it would look real cool to have most of this be underwater.

They played Sonic Adventure and they were all about it.

You know, real.

It is cool.

It is a cool way to raise the stakes.

Yeah.

It's and and to tie imagery.

Natural disaster, Yeah.

Yeah, and if you want to do the whole, well, dragonfly larva are aquatic before they, you know, become their adult forms.

Like it's it's again like a good idea, but the sewer's flooded because there's lots of dragonflies.

Makes no sense.

It ain't the way.

Yeah, but like big dragonfly needs big water.

I think it does work.

Yeah, So Kudo makes a tiny search Godzilla system because, I mean, he can make anything tiny.

I don't know.

It has an infrared camera.

So they they evacuate the city.

Well, he's, well, he's getting this thing ready.

And one thing of note that happens when they evacuate the city is that they have an entire boat of Yaru girls.

Just love the shots.

Love this shot as a certified as as a certified fucking Gonguro Disrespector.

This is such a funny shot.

Very extinct now, so.

Thank God.

Worst form of gyaru fashion?

So they, they find the the AG cluster in Shibuya and then they managed to find Godzilla and they go, OK, we're going to use the dimension tide against it, which is.

The dimension a real good there's a real good like Level 3 super attack in a fighting game move y'all so.

Good.

I really liked the like underwater drone shot like going through the city to find that big cluster of eggs.

I loved that imagery of like that metropolitan OH.

Yeah, it was super.

I get the imagery rips.

Yeah.

And then, sorry, have we gotten to like the guys shooting at the building that's covered in all the dragonflies?

I didn't make a particular note of that.

But I do love it because nobody can aim.

But yeah.

Here's I think the dragonflies.

Dragonflies like, grouped together like mayflies in a mating season, right?

Just like covering this building and dudes are unloading automatic weapons at it.

Nothing.

You don't hit one.

Yeah.

Really.

Nothing.

Yeah.

And this is where, like, I really appreciated this idea of the black hole gun because it is the perfect weapon for Godzilla.

Like, let's just delete him.

But would have no effect on a swarm of bugs.

Yeah, right.

Like, it's a weapon designed for one big dude.

And any other monster they had put in this movie, you would have just been like, well, OK, They'll just.

They'll just.

Vaporize Godzilla and then they'll black hole this other big guy.

But you can't do that to this giant swarm.

I thought that was really cool.

Yeah, yeah, my, my main note about that is that is that I wrote there are a lot of dragonflies in Shibuya and they all fan out and fly away.

So I didn't mention that they were being shot at, but.

Unfortunately, the swarm looks horrible.

Yeah.

This is such an awkward era for CGI.

It just like some of the stuff works and some of it like anytime we saw a big swarm or them all on the building and it's all just like copy pasted the same bug.

Yeah, it's that.

But here's the problem too.

Is that like some of the practical stuff is a bit messy too that we will eventually talk about so.

Yeah, I, I, it's so interesting because Godzilla, like the, the thing it's most famous for is it's like practicals.

It's miniatures, guys in suits and it's all considered like hokey and old timey.

But then in this case, a lot of the practical stuff, even from the 60s, seventies, 80s or whatever.

Actually holds up better than this 2000s era.

Yeah.

Well, so what's funny is like, I am a big believer that a lot of attitudes about the production design of of older Godzilla movies is basically just steeped in racism.

Like, I'm not afraid to just use the artwork here because you go back and watch those and recognize how much work and craft went into that, how well these these, you know, directors and special effects designers knew how to light, how to shoot right, how to frame, you know, everything they were doing.

Like it puts a lot of American sci-fi of the era to shame.

And like, then we get to this movie, right?

And Godzilla 2000 is kind of the same way where the Godzilla suit is great.

A lot of the miniature work is really good.

The compositing, the ways they interact, the awkward CG feels really out of place.

Right.

Yeah.

Well, it's because it doesn't have the lighting and the reflections.

It doesn't have the depth.

It all looks so flat.

And that's just like sort of a symptom of the limits of the technology.

Yeah.

In a sad way that it doesn't.

The 98 Tristar Godzilla looks so much better than anything in these in Godzilla 2000 or this movie.

I hate that I just said something nice about Godzilla 98.

I hate that.

Well their plan is that they had to lower Godzilla on the land and then fire it.

Which makes sense because if they fire it in the ocean that would be worse you.

Just get rid of a bunch of ocean.

Hey guys, we just lowered ocean levels by 37 feet.

Hey, that'll be useful soon.

Yeah, later.

We got to save Miami.

So they choose the island of Kikanjima to to do this and Kudo shows off his really cool cyber deck with like a custom OS and it reminded me that I really want to make a cyber deck you.

Want to make a custom OS that runs off an anime made girl?

It it's a nurse.

Anime nurse girl.

Excuse me.

That's right.

Yes, because she has the needle.

Yeah, some very classic you would.

Prefer a made girl?

Going on here.

Of course I would.

So Yoshi Zara, words are hard.

Yoshi Zawa says that the weapon isn't ready to fire from space, but Chi and Chi and Kudo are just like they're blown off, like we have to do it.

They fire weapons at Godzilla to try to draw it towards land, including a photon gun, and Godzilla retaliates with atomic breath, killing a few people.

While they're doing this, T&T is being used to clear Shibuya of the eggs and this is where there are a bunch of dragonflies all over the the buildings and they fire at.

Rudnake's making.

Huge.

Strides in getting rid of bugs.

So they begin the firing sequence the But when this happens, the dragonfly swarm that just flew away from those people is flying like all over Godzilla.

And because there's a bunch of dragonflies everywhere, the targeting system can't lock onto Godzilla.

That was weird to me because I think there isn't.

Aren't they tracking like the bullet thing?

Yeah, that's right.

It's.

Not visual.

It's also.

A radio transmitter.

It's not a visual.

That's so, yeah, that's so funny.

I thought it was clever, but you're right, that makes no sense.

Yeah, and like it's supposed to be radio also.

And the the last movie we watched before this was talking about what happens to radios when they're near things that are radioactive.

Whatever.

So I.

Can't.

It's almost like I can't.

Believe the drivers.

Almost like chaff.

Yeah.

Like they show us the point of view, like from the satellite.

It's like, oh, I can't get a clear shot, but it's almost like CAPTCHA.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like the bugs are like distort a distortion field.

It's like chaff.

Yeah.

I don't know it it works for me.

Yeah, fair enough.

So they they bug Godzilla enough that Godzilla they start to atomic breath on them.

Yeah, I wrote it that way on purpose.

The bug swarm Godzilla and it does not atomic pulse them.

For some reason he just doesn't think to do that, but instead just struggles a lot while the the they drain energy from him.

Once Godzilla's killed enough of them, they finally are able to fire the weapon, but it doesn't kill Godzilla because the shot missed and.

Yeah, does it though, Because he's buried I.

Think he just digs into the gravel sort of?

Or is he just far enough away that he is covered in dirt?

Also, that shouldn't matter, it's a black hole.

It's a black hole, it's not a bomb.

Well, that's right, right That I mean like their, their explanation's like, oh, we missed.

But you know what?

It should be really hard to miss with a fucking black hole.

I don't think they did miss.

Yeah, I don't.

Godzilla just framed perfect.

Parried it, Yeah.

Yeah, something, something like that.

Well they they miss with it I guess and it also takes an hour to cool the gun in space.

Sure.

Hey, how does Yeah, how does a black hole create heat?

God I love this fucking movie.

Well, anyway, they're convinced that Godzilla will come to Tokyo to destroy the Plasma project, because they kept the plasma project actually.

But back in Shibuya, the Dragonfly swarm has gathered around this huge cocoon, and they're like any energy they've taken from Godzilla they put into the cocoon.

Suji Mori tries to blame Kudo for things falling apart.

Even though, like, Kudo was like, I told you it wasn't ready to fire.

So, you know, whatever.

Did my job, yeah.

Yeah, Kudo's working on the on the mini SGS.

Still, all the electronics in the area are having issues, and Kudo realizes it's because there must be something magnetic in the lake.

And as they discuss this, Megagiris, the the biggest dragonfly, rises from the lake.

And and the swarm dies.

Yes, Swarm's gone now, basically.

And thank God, that problem solved itself.

Because.

No one else was going to.

Like honestly I think the swarm is more dangerous than the one big because like this is it.

It ruins the black hole thing because now you'll just shoot that thing with the black hole.

Yeah, yeah.

But yeah, they just, they gave off their energy and they all just died.

So good problem.

Solved.

Well Megagiras's wings start moving so quickly it creates a high pitched whine and then like jets off and destroys a bunch of buildings with the shockwave.

Which that part was pretty cool.

It looks so bad though.

It looks.

Here's the thing.

So I got a lot to say about the reveal of Megagiras, right?

The sequence of the dragonfly is all like cult like dive bombing the water and like struggling down to the cocoon and like giving all of their life force to it to like empower it and dying and then Mega Gear's being born.

Great.

Mega Gear is design not 100% working for me as insectoid, you know what I mean?

It does have a crocodile mouth for some reason.

And the biggest wings you've ever seen that do not move at all, correct?

They don't move.

It it flaps, it never looks like it's flying.

It looks like a mistake.

It looks like it's like a placeholder.

You can see the strings in at least one shot, which is a thing that has not happened in I, I, I genuinely think maybe one of the early 60s movies maybe.

Like we have not seen a string in a long time and we can see the strings in this made in 2000 movie.

Really depressing.

And then the wings are at different angles, right?

Like whenever it's flying, one of the wings is like out mostly to the side and moves up and down at like these angles.

And then the other one's just like angled a little higher for no reason.

So it just it's like asymmetrical wings.

It's it's Oh my God, it's the effects work on mega gears.

It's not a great.

Puppet Yeah, I agree.

I I mean, obviously a flying thing is hard, but it it just it.

Never doing this shit great back in the 60s.

Yeah, they were you.

Know what's wild to Yeah, like the original Mothra in the 1950s looks so much better than this, and it's a shame because there's a lot of it.

Mega Gear is that I should really love as a monster, right?

As a queen of a swarm type scenario, it is kind of an objectively pretty cool design, even if it doesn't read Dragonfly.

I love some of the gimmicks.

I love the idea of a monster that is just stupid fast and like hypersonic, you know, and, and and vibrations and stuff.

A lot of cool shit going on.

This is a an almost kind of mundane monster.

It just special effects wise is pulled off so poorly.

Right.

Yeah, it kind of looks like a mutilisk.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, that's a good call.

I think, I think we passed this part already when when Kudo after they fail and like the the head of the anti Godzilla's is all pissed off at them and they're all blaming each other and Kudo tells him machines need fine adjustments by men.

Did you catch that?

Yeah, yeah.

So.

That's weird, right?

Like it is only him, Like there is no scenario where a woman is going to be making the adjustments.

Why is he saying this is a man's job?

It's his job.

It's his job like this.

Movie is insane.

Yeah, I don't know, Everyone's just like, needlessly sexist out of nowhere.

Very strange.

Yeah, well he is injured now and he he may be the only one left alive after all that.

Godzilla heads towards Tokyo and they evacuate everyone and Godzilla hates clean energy so he's going straight for this plasma energy.

They they try to lure Godzilla to a safer location but then Megagiris shows up and it took me a minute to understand that the weird choppy frames were supposed to be from Megagiris perspective.

Yeah, yeah.

But Even so, I don't fucking like it.

Just do the bug eye thing where it's like a yeah, like put a put a stupid filter over it.

This weird fucking PowerPoint slideshow is hideous.

It feels so fucking lazy like.

I think they're just trying to convey that Mega Gears is really fast so everything else is slow to hit but.

But The thing is then they should have shot everything like they should have like crazy, overcranked the film and then just shot like slow MO, I guess.

I don't know.

God, it doesn't.

Fuck, man.

Yeah, Godzilla gets sidewinded and knocked over and they finally start fighting and mega gears like Revs up.

Godzilla charges, they're finally able to recharge the gun, Godzilla misses and destroys a building and Megagiris tries to clamp through Godzilla's neck.

And like they say that Megagiris frequency makes the weapon inoperable so they can't fire it.

OK so Megagiris stabs Godzilla and starts draining energy like shoving shoving him around.

Godzilla falls underneath part of a building that Megagurus collapse on top of it after doing like this weird evil face warp they're like.

Yeah it they make it smile by doing like a stretch effect in Photoshop like.

Yeah, it was really weird.

The the the structure of this fight scene is like very typical.

It's like the the hero is Godzilla, he's getting trounced and then he comes back in the second-half after learning his enemies movements and wins the fight.

But in the first half of this, I'm thinking there is no way Godzilla wins this fight 'cause this thing, first of all, it's way faster than him, it's floor in him, it's it's stronger than him.

It picks him up and throws him.

It stamps him right in the FUPA.

It stabs him in the FUPA and drains his energy, taking away his biggest weapon, right?

Like.

It it does everything better than Godzilla.

And I feel like in the second-half it just like stops doing all of its cool moves.

Like it would have killed Godzilla if it had just kept doing what it started doing in the first half of this fight.

But in the second-half, he's just like, I'm going to fly at him straight on.

Like here's my next move.

I'm going to fly straight at Godzilla's face a couple of times.

What?

Could go wrong.

So they charged at each other and they pass each other Godzilla's spine like cuts, one of mega gurus claws, you know, and.

In in one of those in one of these fucking like like anime ass like they clash and then they they like sit there for a moment and then the claw falls off.

Right.

Or like the slice on his cheek, like the first drop of blood.

Genuinely sick.

Yeah.

It's like Graham, you killed it today, Sir.

Megagiras gets slammed like at Sonic speed, like through a building.

Kudo shows up to fix the weapon and Godzilla's still throwing himself at Megagiras.

Kudo's operating system eventually fixes the gun 'cause it's like a thing operating systems do.

And apparently he named the little nurse girl after Suji Mori 'cause that's a very normal thing you should do.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Before, before he fixes it.

Kudo, who we have been told has a fractured arm, rips his cast off.

He's been wearing this cast for an hour, maybe rips off of his plaster cast so that he can type faster.

I fucking love this shit.

He's got to type faster so he can hack better.

Yeah, Mega Garrus ends up shooting a fireball, and the fight basically continues until Mega Garrus's Stinger gets caught in Godzilla's mouth and Godzilla just bites it off.

Yeah, then after a couple blasts, it's basically over.

Yeah, mega gear.

This is not built to take any hits whatsoever.

Yeah, and then is to say that the fight is over.

Godzilla just continues to rampage through the city.

The Griffin relaunches and heads to Shibuya.

The counter Godzilla leader leaves because he's hiding something and meanwhile the satellite starts falling out of the sky.

Like all this stuff just is just happening now.

Why is the satellite falling out of the sky?

Well, because the the wings vibrated too hard down on Earth.

Yeah.

Is that, was that the connection?

Yeah.

Yeah, Mega Gear just did a thing and it caused the satellite to fall.

The satellite, That's that's a thing that could happen.

No, just that one.

Just that 10.

Just that one.

So I think 1 contention this this movie has is you have to assume that the atmosphere isn't real.

That's true.

Because otherwise you can't really fire things through it without.

Like if you're firing a black hole through the atmosphere, you eat through the atmosphere first of all.

Yeah.

But whenever everyone learns that they that they had an additional plasma energy reactor that was being kept in the Bureau of Science, which is the reason Godzilla came back at all and that's why the leader left because he was high well.

He got he got the plans in a fucking FOIA request.

Right, the weapon can fire so long as they can walk on to it.

Suji Mori gets in the Griffin, flies over to Godzilla and is like wait.

Wait, wait.

I'm sorry.

Yeah, go ahead.

But what is the contention with the leader?

He so this secret energy base?

So the idea was they weren't supposed to have any more plasma energy, but he secretly built one because profits.

He built one because profits and he wanted to be like you know, we'll have the secret in Japan will be a superpower we.

Also want to point out this is ostensibly like a very efficient green energy source.

So like, it is a solution to like a lot of problems that the Godzilla franchise has heavily cared about in the past.

Yeah, but it sets him up as the villain for.

Doing you're a bad guy for investing in clean energy because it makes Godzilla mad, Yeah.

And so that has.

A Republican donor.

So when they are confronting him and he's like, well, that's I put this team together to deal with Godzilla, this wouldn't have been a problem.

But do you remember what he says?

He he calls them a gang of asses.

God, what a great, what a fantastic.

That's the only way I'm referring to NDGC from now on.

Just a gang of asses.

Yeah, talking about video game.

Headlines.

I love that so much.

Yeah, I'm, I'm keeping that one.

So Suji Mori flies the Griffin over Godzilla and it's like, OK, you can use the Griffin to target Godzilla.

I don't know why they couldn't do literally anything else, but OK, so they do that.

She.

I thought, yeah, I.

Thought the plane could get close enough to the satellite that the satellite could target it better and then once they targeted the plane then the plane would fly in.

That's how I took.

Maybe.

Maybe.

That's probably the best answer.

Any of us have it?

Was it is a stretch for sure.

So they do that.

She ejects just in time and Godzilla's gone.

Kudo goes goes back to his little machines.

Suji Mori comes in with potential evidence that could Godzilla survive.

Because you can't kill Godzilla.

It's not like we saw something earlier in the movie where it appeared they hit Godzilla and then he popped out from underground, right?

That wouldn't happen a second time.

And also also, they've now fired this thing three times.

The first time it created a little wormy hole to the, I guess the.

Fucking shadow realm, yeah.

The second and third time nothing like it's that's only when you black hole in elementary school, yeah, is when you get when you get the wormhole the you know the the.

Elementary school 2 times you fire flies is.

Of course.

The the other two times you fire it, no problem.

Right.

Right.

Well, they roll credits.

The boy finally gets his bug samples back where they're supposed to be, and Godzilla didn't die.

The end.

And then?

Presumably a child gets killed in the Godzilla attack.

I guess these nameless child.

So before the post credits, so like, kudos back at his, he's doing his little magic tricks and his microbots, and she comes in and she invites him to come back because Godzilla's not dead.

And he's like, Nah, I don't think so.

And he's like, oh, OK, I'm just kidding.

She punches him in the arm.

He goes ow, my broken arm.

And she goes, oh, I'm so sorry.

Freeze frame on her face rolled.

On it.

Great.

Great fucking bizarre 70s sitcom.

End of an episode ass editing choice, yeah.

Utterly bizarre ending to this movie.

Oh sorry, freeze frame.

They need to play like a happy saxophone at that exact moment.

Yeah.

Oh God, this movie's insane.

It's bad.

Like, let's make this abundant.

It's a bad movie.

It's pretty bad.

This is bad in a super entertaining way, unlike like Godzilla versus Space, Godzilla's bad in a way that I just don't want to watch it right.

This is.

Hilarious it is so plot oriented.

And unlike a lot of the 70s Godzilla movies, like those were funny because they were funny.

This is funny because it's bad.

Like they did not set out to make a funny movie.

They tried to make sci-fi peek.

They thought they were getting Urubochi up in this bitch and they fucked it.

And it's so good as a result.

The only thing that really drags it down for me is like the bad CGI stuff is not funny, it's just bad, you know?

It's, it's not like a lot of low budget sci-fi stuff where you can kind of laugh along with the bad effects.

It just doesn't work.

Well because the shitty mega gears effect is is great.

I love when that stupid thing has a has a fucking string showing or they like stretch AJ peg sideways to make the mouth move.

Like I love that shit That's bad and hilarious way.

So you know, it's kind of talk about the monsters really briefly, right, Because, you know, we've talked about like a lot of the effects work being very hit or miss.

Let's start with Godzilla himself.

So this is just like a report of the Godzilla 2000 suit, but I think colored slightly differently.

And I I got this is it's still good.

It still hits like a.

I.

Love the Godzilla.

2000 So much person.

Yes, it's got the little cat ears and the the the much more elongated crocodilian face, the gigantic sharp spikes.

This is the silhouette this in Godzilla 2000 that we are using for Castle Bravo's logo.

It's just iconic to me, but like.

I love I love how much definition is in a silhouette.

Sometimes they make Godzilla just look like a big turd, you know, just like a big boiled lump.

But I love how much how angular he is in this.

Yeah, yeah, Godzilla has a tendency to look like a very wide Cellulite laden boy.

And this is a very slick design that works for this very aggressive era of Godzilla.

But like Godzilla doesn't do anything necessarily like super, like the fact that it's just Godzilla 2000 again also means that there's less to say.

Meanwhile, then there's the the giant dragonflies, the Meganulas.

And what a mixed bag, right?

I kind of like the puppet like peace thing that they use in a couple of scenes where it's like hiding on a wall over somebody or something.

But so much of it's CG and like you said, it's not good.

It's not composited well, it's not lit, it's lit too flat.

You see copy paste model animations all over the place.

Like it's ambitious and I don't know what else I wouldn't have told them to do for this concept because what are they going to do?

Make dozens of like prop dragonflies?

I don't think so.

Like.

I I just think further away less detail like represent them as this horde rather than like individual creatures.

You know 'cause when anytime you can see detail, you can see how bad the detail is.

Well, and you'll get these shots of them swarming around Godzilla, like you said, where it's a little bit more zoomed out and like, you can almost squint your eyes and it's fine.

But then you'll cut to, like, a close up where there's just three, like, hanging out like mosquitoes on him, and the energy is completely lost.

Right, Right.

Yeah.

Whereas that first scene where they they crunch those two people in that house where you bear, you really don't glimpse on that much.

It's just like these intense, close, disgusting shots of like bodies being ripped apart that rules.

That works so well, but you don't really get to see them yet.

Yeah, but of course, they're really just there to fill time until Megagiris herself shows up.

And I mean, like I said, I'm, I'm such mixed opinions because like, I do kind of like Mega Gear's design.

It's just the Batra color scheme, which works very well.

It's, it's, it's honestly very Batra esque in terms of like we took a bug and made it very covered in ridges and spikes.

We made it.

We made a bug that's so sick and twisted.

Just a look into my evil wine.

It's.

Like a normal bug to me.

I liked those moments where it leaned into horror, like I mentioned with the alley, and then at the beginning of the the last fight where this thing's zooming around, Godzilla can't find him.

There's a really fun like Godzilla POV shot, like a Godzilla Vision where it's, it goes totally silent and he's just looking in a circle around the empty sky and then all of a sudden this thing is in his face super close up and it's such a creepy looking thing.

I think when they when they did do those sort of like horror moments, it worked really well.

Yeah, I and and what's funny is that they can't figure out how to keep their tone right, because you have that, but then you have like anime ass moments in the fight.

You have Megagiras like flying up above that suspended pyramid and doing like a fucking WWE like like showing off to the crowd.

Like, Anil, I'm about to have smacked us down on this jabroni like before doing it like, well, Godzilla just sits there like, Oh no, he's going to do it right.

And Godzilla does like a off the top rope move too, right?

Like does the full body slam It's.

It like it can't figure out what it wants to be and I wish it had pick a tone and stuck with it more of the movie was batshit insane on purpose.

The way that the most of the fight is.

Like I almost would have leaned into that more right?

Alternatively, if they had just stuck with the more horror tone, I think this would white Godzilla 2000 be messy but interesting in what it was trying to do and it it just can't pick a lane.

Yeah, yeah.

So I did tell you all up front there is a shot like I do as much research as I can into what happened with these movies.

What what is the context that they are put in?

What caused certain decisions to be made?

There is so little about this movie out there, I think as a lot of that has to do maybe with a lack of interest in this movie in general in the West and well, in Japan too, right?

I mean, it, it, it comes in between Godzilla 2000, which is a a very notable movie, right?

In terms of like everything that it stands for as this attempt to like claw back Godzilla's relevance after the 98 Tristar movie, but then the next movie to come along.

Spoiler alert, GMK is one of the most highly regarded and memorable Godzilla movies in the franchise.

And then you have this weird one in between where it's just like we made another Godzilla 2000, but it wasn't as good.

And I think it took forever to come to the West too.

So I I struggled to find out what all happened that made this movie this way.

I can't figure out why, if it was like, a budgetary problem that caused so much, the effects work to be so rough because Suzuki's done better than this, right?

I mean, obviously the CGI was rough, but like, Megagiris did not have to be so badly puppeted, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't know.

I will.

I will tell you this, these folks don't come back for the next movie to my knowledge.

Just I, I think every single seat we talked about in the beginning of this episode is swapped out for the next movie.

So I don't know, I try not to look ahead for if these people are going to return in the future, but I'll tell you they ain't back for the next 1 so.

So this movie really doesn't matter.

Yeah, pretty much.

Like in every conceivable way.

I mean, I think it doesn't even get to be a sequel to Godzilla 2000, right?

Which would have made it maybe more relevant.

Instead it's like so completely its own thing with very little to speak for that's super original other than just the fact that it's insane and it's primary lasting impact really is it for better or worse like this defined the Millennium era as one of stand alone movies.

You know, Godzilla 2000 was a reboot and instead of following that up with a sequel and making sequel after sequel after sequel for a while, they went, well, this one will be a reboot too.

And then the next movie's going to be a reboot and the one after that's going to be a reboot.

Like all through the 2000s, they just, and kind of even today, the Japanese Godzilla has never really gone back to a serialized story format.

And this is kind of where that serialization finally fully breaks at Toho.

So, you know, good or bad, we'll find out.

But that's maybe its primary impact on the franchise at this point.

Cause Megagiras hasn't come back.

You know, it did.

Give us a motherfucker name.

The dimension tide Dimension Final Fantasy final boss soundtrack attack.

Yeah, yeah.

Great score, great weapon.

Yeah.

Black hole gun.

Black.

Hole, gun sick.

Stupid, but sick.

I'm going to toss this first to Charlotte because Charlotte, you are usually the best at managing to snatch some form of meaning from the ass crack of emptiness that is some of these movies.

Charlotte, do you think this movie had any interesting thematic elements it was trying to get at?

What are the politics of this movie?

Do you think Margaret Thatcher was giving off girlboss energy?

When?

You'll note from the fact that I didn't immediately start talking that I don't have as good of an answer for this one as I normally would.

It's, it's, it's trying to say something about sexism.

I, I don't think it actually finishes its sentence about that.

And it I think it's also trying to do something with like, you know, facing your demons, that sort of thing.

It, it doesn't seem like it has a lot to say.

Like it just it's a big dragonfly.

Eric, I want to toss if, if there's anything, I've got something, but it's not an intentional thing, but it it's of note, but I'm curious if you've got anything to throw at, throw at the wall and see if it sticks.

Yeah, I mean, I always start with our protagonist and what what their arc is.

And here it's about, I guess, redemption.

Her someone that was very important to her was killed by Godzilla and so she needs to kill Godzilla and she sort of does that at the end, but then she doesn't because Godzilla can't die.

So yeah, I just, it's not so much that it the themes don't land.

It's it's almost like it doesn't really even try to have any.

Yeah, I think, I think I agree with you all that like, I don't think it's actually trying for much.

What I think it accidentally ends up on, weirdly enough, is like climate doomerism.

And bear with me here, it's really interesting that the movie starts by treating Godzilla as as openly and compassionately as as it possibly can.

That humanity standpoint is a Godzilla is a natural disaster, right?

That we have to learn to manage around and live with.

And it is first nuclear energy, which is one of our best paths out of climate change at this point, like one of the best green energy sources we have, despite cultural fears around it that that is continues to make Godzilla like a problem, right.

OK, well, this series has always had a contentious relationship with radio or with radiation.

I mean, dating back to the fact that this comes from bombs, right?

But then plasma energy, they're like, OK, we found a new green energy.

Plasma energy.

It's better.

Even this is great is no drawbacks to this other than it makes Godzilla kill us more.

So we've got to give up on green energy.

The the one guy is of is framed as a villain for continuing to develop into green energy because it's what's best for humanity because he's going to keep drawing Godzilla even though he also tried to set up anti Godzilla like countermeasures so that they could continue to develop into green energy.

Like this movie kind of accidentally makes the people trying to solve our biggest problems the bad guys for trying.

It does.

Yeah, it it.

You're absolutely right.

It has a commentary about alternate energy, and that commentary is it's just as dangerous, which is bizarre, like there's no other way to read it.

And I, I, I don't, I don't think that they thought this through that much, but like, that's what you accidentally wrote.

So that's, it's very interesting.

We have our first like truly conservative Godzilla movie.

It's very fucking wild.

I know right?

Which which makes the fact that it's so stupid and insane so funny.

It would be so much worse if this was like a, a, a real a movie with like really dark conservative themes that was also really well made and extremely popular and and maybe had the involvement of like Hideyakiano.

I am going to get killed by someone for our Shin Godzilla episode.

I wish.

I wish it would have ended with a resolution for.

Energy.

Because the whole point of getting rid of Godzilla was so you could go back to clean energy.

And they just go, well, we got rid of them, maybe time to keep looking.

Yeah.

What about what about green energy?

What about the everything?

Right.

Like what are we going to build next?

Like what are we going to go back to?

Is it back to nuclear like what it like?

You altered history like because it was so important that our green energy rush was like the center of technological development and then you gave up on it as soon as the barrier was gone.

This movie was also made in like entire year, so which not horribly uncommon with these Godzilla movies, but I do think a lot of them at least start.

I'll, I'll give you this, a lot of these movies start pre production much earlier, right?

Like through the 90s, especially.

What we were seeing a lot of, even though these movies were coming out every year, is they were dusting off a script that it had four or five passes on it already and was put on a shelf and going what if we work off of this and do like one more pass at it?

So a lot of times some of the heaviest work of pre production in terms of writing is already done before they start like working on a move.

So like that plus the fact that, you know, yeah, you could pump pump these out in a shorter time frame.

But this is the same team just got done miraculously turning around Godzilla 2000 in under a year, and then immediately get to work on Godzilla versus Megagiris.

Like, you know, they didn't have fucking time.

Yeah, so I'm gonna give them that too.

I do think you calling it like conservative because of that accidental energy message and the pair that with the sexism, it makes it very funny.

I don't like that.

Yeah, take it back.

We don't condone this movie.

Guys, I think I fucking love this movie.

Oh.

God, So I guess like as what about this movie?

What is the thing that you're you're going to if somebody brings this movie up and it's like Godzilla versus Mega Gears?

Oh, that's the one with blank.

Like what's the blank for you?

What's the defining thing about this movie?

Oh, it's the.

It's the.

It's.

Got to be the black more than the dragonflies.

It's the black hole gun.

Yeah, yeah, Satellite that shooting.

A black hole satellite for some reason.

This is Godzilla versus Black Hole baby.

Yeah, yeah, that's such a fun idea because like, we don't know what a black hole does, and they don't either.

And they don't.

They know a lot it.

Makes things go away, they.

Don't know what a black hole is in a very different way than I don't know what a black hole is.

And I I love that they figured out how to use it and are not concerned at all about what.

He does.

Fuck it, we'll just see what happens.

It's like it will make Godzilla go away.

We'll deal with whatever problems we've.

Created.

We're going to bring in the gorillas to fight the snakes.

Oh, any other final thoughts y'all?

I want that G graspers hat really really bad.

Probably not in any merch store.

Yeah, that's all I got.

Yeah.

Fun.

Bloody.

Yeah, couldn't.

If they could contain a black hole, can't they use that for power?

It has infinite pole I.

Think you're right.

I think that's how it should have it.

It should have been Black Hole guys.

It makes as much sense as anything else in this fucking movie.

Because like it didn't work the first time.

So they like, so they were like, we'll recalibrate, we'll find Godzilla, we'll do it again.

It didn't work the second time.

So why wouldn't you just say, well, we'll recalibrate it and we'll find him and we'll do it again.

But we never see the black hole gun again.

So they could have very easily been like.

Crash.

The weapon we needed.

Yeah, I guess it.

Yeah.

I don't know.

We'll, we'll rebuild it and we'll use this as our energy and we'll create energy in orbit.

And Godzilla won't bother us because he can't get to the satellite.

You know, there could have been something to be like, oh, we'll use this technology as you.

Know how sick it would have been if Godzilla beamed that satellite out of orbit and Godzilla, like they fired at him and missed and he like looked up and just fucking shot the panel off that thing and that's what sent it careening to Earth?

Guys, hire me to write these movies.

Yeah, fuck, I wish that's what would have knocked it out.

I didn't understand what knocked it.

Out Honestly, I still think the mega gears thing is a like this movie does it just it just was crashing suddenly.

I and I didn't care enough to rewind to find out why I could have I just didn't want to.

Oh God.

Yeah, so pretty much yeah.

G Graspers and gang of asses.

Those are my main table.

This is the movie with the gang of asses.

Well, folks, that is a wrap on this episode.

Thank you all so much for joining us on our journey so far.

Eric, where can people find you and do you have anything to plug?

I'm not the gamer thegamer.com, that's my site and I'm very proud of it.

So please check out articles there.

And if you want to get in touch with me, I'm on Twitter and Blue Sky at Epic Switzer all.

Right.

And you can follow me on Blue Sky at Derek Van Dyke dot B sky dot Social.

And you can follow me on Blue Sky at at blood dot doll dot church.

If you've enjoyed this episode of Castle Bravo, please consider rating and reviewing us on your podcast app of choice and recommend the show to your friends and cohorts to help us beat the whims of the almighty algorithms.

That's all we've got this week.

See you next, whenever and take care everyone.

Castle Bravo is a production of Derek Van Dyke and Charlotte Landale.

All editing is performed by Derek Van Dyke.

Special thanks to Kirier Lamont for our art assets and to David Van Dyke for our theme song Pools of Memory.