Bela Lugosi's sinister eyes a highlight of 1923 film The Silent Command

 

Check out Bela Lugosi's sinister eyes! Nine years before close ups of Lugosi's eyes were a feature in "White Zombie," audiences at silent theaters enjoyed several scenes of Bela's piercing eyes in the 1923 feature film, "The Silent Command."

Lugosi was not a star in 1923, nor was he after this film. However, his screen presence and dark attractiveness was getting him noticed. Hungarian-born movie mogul William Fox was one who certainly was interested in Bela's talent. He likely saw him in plays such as "The Red Poppy" (in English) and "The Tragedy of Man." Lugosi performed that famous play in Hungarian in New York City. Authors Gary D. Rhodes and Kaffenberger, in "Becoming Dracula: The Early Years of Bela Lugosi, Volume Two," surmise Fox may have seen "The Tragedy of Man," and other Hungarian-language plays featuring Lugosi.

So, Bela got the call to be in his first U.S. film, "The Silent Command," a Fox film made with the participation of the United States Navy. It was a "Top Gun"- type propaganda film 60 years before Tom Cruise, and without jet fighters. Directed by J. Gordon Edwards, it starred Edmund Lowe as the hero, Navy Capt. Richard Decatur. Lugosi, (billed incorrectly as Belo), plays the villain, Benedict Hisston, an evil, wealthy, well-connected hater of America who plots to blow up the Panama Canal and subsequently split the U.S. Navy in half.

To stymie Bela's character's nefarious plans, Lowe's Capt. Decatur takes drastic steps. He intentionally strikes an admiral. He is kicked out of the Navy and separates from his longsuffering wife (Alma Tell). Hisston steps up and recruits Peg Williams (Martha Mansfield), a "vampire" in the romantic sense, to seduce Decatur. This is all designed to get Decatur to help Hisston with the terrorist bombing.

"The Silent Command" was a higher budget A picture, partially filmed in Panama, and also in New York City. There are faux newsreels and excellent scenery shots, particularly on the sea. The climax involves an impressive action fight between Lowe's Decatur and Lugosi's Hisston on a boat. The film drags a little midway but it's a solid three-star movie.

It was praised by military leaders. "Becoming Dracula: The Early Years of Volume Two," has a 1923 newspaper ad with General John J. Pershing, commandeer-in-chief of the U.S. Army, and Theodore Roosevelt Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy, tub-thumping the film. Some showings included military recruiters at the theater. It was generally well reviewed.

Lowe, who was in four other Lugosi films -- including "Chandu the Magician" -- does a capable job. Lugosi is ridiculously listed sixth in the credits. He's clearly the second lead in the film. As usual, Bela has the best screen presence, evoking emotion and intensity in his role. He's also the best actor in the film. He was ignored in press ballyhoo but was interviewed about his role in Hungarian media. As Arthur Lennig has noted in the biography "The Immortal Count," Lugosi in America reconciled himself to not being a "Valentino" type, instead settling for sinister "villain" roles. Lugosi expressed amusement at being from Hungary, a landlocked nation with no navy.

Martha Mansfield plays her vamp role well. The actress would tragically die in late 1923 after suffering burns while filming a movie.

After "The Silent Command," Lugosi would continue his slow trajectory to stardom that would arrive in 1931. He continued to play villains in future films. In "Daughters Who Pay," he was a Russian spy. In "The Midnight Girl," he was a wealthy, insensitive rake who lusted after his son's girlfriend. He would continue in stage performances and roles in films through the Roaring 20s. "The Silent Command" is easy to find for free on streaming services. It can also be purchased.

-- Doug Gibson

Part 2 - Godzilla vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry, Transcript version

By Joe Gibson

 

The following is the second and final part of my review and literary criticism of Godzilla vs Megaguirus. (Here is part one: Plan 9 Crunch: All About Cult Films: Transcript Version - Godzilla Vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities, And Sophistry PART ONE). If you would prefer to watch this essay, here is the link to the YouTube upload Godzilla vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry. If you are stumbling on this without the context of either the first part on the blog or the full video, this part will pick up discussing Kiriko Tsujimori’s standout scene climbing on Godzilla’s back, but you really should look at the setup I described for getting to this point so you can understand my analysis getting to this moment.

 

The G-Graspers take samples of the felled Meganula, and Godzilla approaches the raft where Tsujimori and Okamura are. Tsujimori relocates Okamura back to the ship and puts on her protective gear in the same manner with the same confidence as she puts on her sunglasses. She swims over to Godzilla, the being that terrified her before she lost her commanding officer, and she clings to his back even though the radiation exposure registers on her suit. She shoots the micro transmitter into Godzilla and jumps off into the ocean, so that they can track him without using his energy. Finally, she calls him a lizard just as her CO did.

 

That scene is, for many, a stand out moment in the entire Godzilla franchise, but I seldom hear discussion about how this is evidence that she is acting as her commanding officer in this, her coolest moment. He died trying to get her to safety, with a strategic retreat, when she was so scared of Godzilla that she was not thinking rationally. Now, she swiftly and decisively removes her subordinate from danger, fearlessly climbs on Godzilla’s back and pushes herself to make sure this retreat is not a total loss by planting the tracker and escaping to curse the lizard once more. In that regard, she has surpassed her CO, but the question is if she realizes that. Another question would be if she was only able to do so because of her superior technology or her discipline.

 

Now comes the introduction of a scientist to explain what the child already told us and the film already showed us about the Meganulon life cycle, and this is another example of the film’s odd exposition habits. As a small SGS searches through the flooded Shibuya for Meganulon eggs and finds many, Tsujimori’s composure betrays her, and this makes sense as she is currently not wearing the sunglasses and in a deferential mood to Kudo, who designed the small SGS, and the other experts in the room. She might also have realized just how severe Jun’s mistake was, and she perhaps relates that back to her own mistake long ago. Sugiura plays with a chessboard, and this is the only bit of foreshadowing as to his later heel turn. Next, sans sunglasses but in more formal military wear, she explains the operation to lure Godzilla to Kiganjima island to shoot him with Dimension Tide, and she appeals to the next generation and children, indicating she is likely still thinking of Jun. Sugiura assures their backers that this plan will work.

 

Yoshizawa confronts Sugiura on his assurance to the government that Dimension Tide was ready before any tests, and Tsujimori, in full Major attire including a hat, takes Sugiura’s side but does so politely (so Yoshizawa has only kind words for Tsujimori). During the operation, there is another moment where a sunglasses-less Kiriko looks at Godzilla with fear but then steels herself, marking a change from Kiriko to Major Tsujimori in the operation. At the same time, the Meganula theme begins to play in all of its glory as soldiers floating in Shibuya try to shoot down as many Meganulon as they can before they mature. That is certainly a sentence. The CGI is noticeably bad, but the music augments this scene in a very important way.

 

 

When Godzilla finally arrives at the island, his suit finally shows the brighter green pigment it is known for, but very quickly, he is swarmed by dragonflies, so the contrast may be the intent there. It makes sense that the Meganula would follow him here; they found him before, and there are too many of them for him to kill before they can take some of his energy. During all of this, the Dimension Tide is on a timer, and Sugiura insists that they must proceed with the strike even if the bugs are there.

 

After Godzilla kills most of the Meganula, the strike fires on Godzilla, and Sugiura smiles prematurely. The strike merely displaced Godzilla, either sending him backward or possibly burying him (which will become important next time they fire the Dimension Tide). Godzilla contemplates going after the Meganula, then turns around to glare at Tsujimori and then starts heading to the National Chemistry Institute in Shibuya, which we learn from Sugiura on a phone call as he knocks all of the pieces off his chess board.

 

 

The Meganula return their stolen energy to their queen and die, but we do not have time to think about that as Tsujimori and Kudo argue. Though lacking the physical markers of the change, Tsujimori switches from aggressive to meekly apologetic in a very pronounced manner. Back in Shibuya, Megaguirus’ magnetic powers cause the technology to malfunction, and she bursts out of the water with her iconic design consisting of a reptilian face, tail with a stinger and rapid CGI wings. I like Megaguirus a lot, and I also think her parts of the film are the most unscathed from plot contrivance. It just takes a bit to explain her powerset as I have not adequately done in the past. Her flight causes sonic booms and uncomfortable vibrations in the human ear, and now she can harness Godzilla’s energy. In the past, she was merely fast, strong and territorial. So is Godzilla though, as he is still on his way to Japan. In a brief cameo appearance, we see Jun trying to evacuate with the crowd.

 

Tsujimori finally asks Sugiura why Godzilla is attacking, recapping that it was definitely plasma energy that summoned Godzilla in 1996 and that Japan no longer produces energy. Again, I think that means that the Griffon jet and other advanced technology cannot be plasma powered because that would mean that somewhere else is producing the plasma power and not getting attacked if the contained plasma plant within the Science Institute is enough to summon Godzilla now of all times.

 

Megaguirus interrupts the Griffon’s battle with Godzilla, and this battle theme is another highlight of the movie’s soundtrack. This review will not replace the experience of watching the film, and to prove that point, I will not recap the choreography here. I like this fight a lot and think it shows off the fighting styles of the kaiju involved very well. Despite being so climactic, it technically plays out almost as a cul-de-sac in the film.

 

I will say that as payoff to Megaguirus affecting technology before, she affects the G-Graspers’ tech including Dimension Tide now. In this scene where Tsujimori’s eyes are not covered, she looks more vulnerable than the rest of her team, and this corresponds to the raising stakes. When Kudo returns to the base after his injuries sustained from Megaguirus, Tsujimori shows concern, until he calls her out on it, and she resumes a gruffer mission-oriented demeanor. Throughout the film, she shifts her attitudes very deliberately and constantly, and you’ll see why it is important that I bring this up literally every time it happens in the sophistry section of the essay.

 

 

The dispatch of Megaguirus means that Godzilla can resume his rampage, and Tsujimori finally admits they are helpless against Godzilla. This is an important but very, very understated part of her arc in the film. As the Griffon becomes airworthy, it convenes with Sugiura, who fled to the room and Yoshizawa, who followed him there. Tsujimori, guard fully down, asks Sugiura very emotionally why Godzilla is attacking the Science Institute, and here is the exposition that plasma energy was explicitly banned but Sugiura is still using it anyway to generate wealth and, implicitly, though again this contradicts a lot of the inferences you have to make in the movie, fund and power the G-Graspers. Tsujimori accuses Sugiura, finally blaming him for all of the people he sent to die fighting Godzilla for the last 5 years.

 

Now is the most confusing part of the movie. Her ideals having been broken down by the reveal that the G-Graspers were founded on avoidable casualties and the Dimension Tide literally falling out of the sky, she puts the helmet back on, steels her demeanor again, has Dimension Tide lock on her in the middle of the capital city and detonates Dimension Tide to take out Godzilla. This only somewhat diminishes the strength of her character. The best analogy I can think of is the 1976 King Kong and how it misses the mark for the most part but still somehow has the best version of Jack Driscoll as Jack Prescott and the only actually believable love story in the franchise, yet the wonky themes still mischaracterize Jack briefly towards the end of the film. How can avenging her CO in the most reckless way possible wearing insignias that exacerbated the problem be the ideal way to end this story?

 

 

Well, that stumped me before, but let’s draw to make sense of this. That is the point of this video after all. The imagery is very similar to the later circumstances of Minus One’s final charge, but I only bring that up for your benefit to understand this scene better. Obviously, this film existed independent of Minus One for about 20 years, but nonetheless in the same manner as Shikishima putting Noriko’s picture on the dashboard, she puts the dog tags, the symbol of her lost commander in front of her, executes a kamikaze run and ejects her seat at just the right moment to deal a critical blow to Godzilla. In this context, I wonder if we can view this as the death of the split Tsujimori and the beginning of a character free to live as she wants to. She immediately makes fun of Kudo for his concern over her, so the reading also exists that the Kiriko part is what died, but then the film shows us that she let her hair down finally, and she stands on top of a building surveying the damage, quite literally where she was before her CO died. In a bookend, she visits Kudo once more for help but with her hair down and sunglasses off. They tease each other to close out the film, though I have made the mistake in the past of implying there is not still a dutiful formality to their interaction that muddles the romantic interest.

 

Of course, the real end of the film is a post credits scene where Jun, at school trying to move on with his life, hears Godzilla roar. Plot recaps indicate that Godzilla also emerges from the ground similarly to how he did on the abandoned island, but I never noticed that before, nor had I about it in the discourse of the film. The building rattles, and we hear an explosion, and he reacts in shock as if something happened. That’s what is actually in the film. I find it more interesting if Godzilla is trapped in some other dimension able to imprint ripples on the world still, but that is an idea popularized in the discourse that I have already established overwrites certain aspects of the film. Fittingly though, it is ambiguous and hard to tell exactly what it is trying to say. All evidence in the film suggests however that if you do not destroy every part of Godzilla decisively, he will come back very soon after.

 

(Partial) Conclusion (Keep Reading For Sophistry Section)

 

 

There is a tension in this review that may or may not be obvious to you at this time. I clearly like the film a lot because I spent so much time embroiled in this, and yet, as I indicated was a possibility, this review is far more negative than positive. There is also an air of incompleteness, I am sure, as we have only talked about the strengths and the stupidities, but I promised sophistry. Going into this project, I assumed that the movie would be a 2 out 10, but with the strengths in mind, as inconsistent as they are, I think the movie deserves a 3 out of 10 for including certain narrative short-hands that mitigate the problems without really solving any of them. For context, again, I believe a 5 out of 10 film would be perfectly balanced in strengths and stupidities and also would round up to a good film, so it actually is a sizable victory that this film achieved that extra point that takes it that much closer to being good.

 

One of the things reviewing these films has taught me is that my opinion on and feelings about a movie can be wholly separate to its actual quality, as best as I can determine it. Though it is tragic and often frustrating when a piece of art does not live up to its full potential, appreciating a film, respecting a film, and liking a film can be about honoring it, including its lessened quality. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is a 4 out 10 movie (maybe lower), but I love it for how close it gets to crossing that threshold into being an actually good film. I do not need to pretend that there are not systemic issues in the film to like it, but also how much I like it and how much I care about appraising it fairly means I also try not to invent problems with it to be able to share my assessments without having to defend them. I like a lot of 4 out of 10 movies and will argue that people oversimplify every score below a 7 out of 10 as simply bad with no degree of nuance and thus no productive takeaway on what the successes and failures present should teach us about writing stories. At the end of the day, my argument is that if any film deserves respect, all do, and my opinion is that I like certain movies a lot.

 

But Wait, There’s More?

 

More than even just wanting to review it fairly, I now have a vested interest in trying to formulate a schema where this movie makes sense. And technically speaking, at least based on my forays into an English degree, that is generally where actual literary criticism comes from as opposed to what I define as a review. The bias that Hamlet should make sense and be cohesive is the point from which New Criticism analyzes it according to every single plot point to conclude, in opposition to authorial intent and audience consensus, that Hamlet has an Oedipal Complex. There are aspects of this that are important to the kind of reviews I like to write; authorial intent is not Word of God, the general audience seldom is as clinical in their assessments as a review should be, and the best stories have total cohesion and consistency across every plot point, theme and character arc. 

 

However, New Criticism is an egotistical scam, allowing the Critics to write incredibly cryptically and teach each other’s works to keep each other employed all while getting increasingly self-important and pretentious about the role of the Critic as they define it. Indeed, I like to say that every literary theory basically serves to commodify tactics every audience member uses (whether consciously or subconsciously) to advance the careers of whichever old white man got to coin the term. As I see it, being a card-carrying practitioner of any of these theories means you are respecting the theory and its progenitors over the art. Similarly, someone that focuses on supplementary material (Word of God statements in interviews or a commentary track) respects the author over the art, and someone who reviews a film based predominantly on their own emotions respects themselves more than the art. Though each of those has their place in the discourse (and further, each of those aspects can and should appear in a review), I believe the art deserves the most respect out of these options in a true review. 

 

However, to do what I am about to do, I have to ignore the film’s narrative shortcomings, not actually meeting the film where it is at and thus disrespecting it, because of my respect for Tezuka’s later films using these archetypes, my subjective like of this film and my participation in the institution of literary criticism. I will write any kind of essay that I can, but I will call out when I am not living up to the standard I hold for Reviews. So, for the Sophistry part of this essay, allow me to attempt to convince you that this 3 out of 10 film is actually a 10 out of 10 through the esteemed scholarly practice of using big words and abstract concepts as trickery to pretend a story I like is better than it is.

 

How This Movie Is Actually The Best If You Ignore Everything Except Me Right Now But Including Me Five Seconds Ago

 

So where to go about rehabilitating this movie’s reputation? The first thing we need to do is accept that everything needed to understand this story is in the film itself. In this cohesive experience with a collaborative script, a prolific director (in the Millennium series at least), some amount of studio meddling, and wildly variable audience opinion, the one true objective view of this film cannot come from any of those components, only the finished film itself. If the movie is good, for it to be good, the things within it must all work together toward it being good. Again, as I mentioned, good stories are cohesive, but cohesion is defined by the film itself, so the organic unity of this film’s execution is what legitimizes it.

 

We will ignore the ‘heresy of paraphrase’ for this exercise because that really only applies to poetry, and a ‘review’ is necessarily a separate experience from a film itself. Still, that is actually the main reason I did not describe the final battle, so that a New Critic cannot accuse me of ignorance about the “heresy of paraphrase.” Otherwise, I hope this to be an accurate depiction of the process and outcome of New Criticism. The marriage of structure and meaning in New Criticism means I cannot continue to complain about the exposition habits in this movie but must figure out why they are the way they are. The elements of form are also significant, as I have paired the soundtrack to the action as Godzilla and the Meganula both have significant leitmotifs.

 

In New Criticism, we have to be very stringent about what outside information we use. A notable allusion to a previous work counts, and, in much the same vein that New Critics read Hamlet and used his symptoms to justify bringing in a discussion about the Oedipus complex, the objective correlative can only include an external concept if you truly justify it. However, for the most part, the only thing that matters right now is the film and the critic, so if you have any notes on the director Masaaki Tezuka and his intentions, burn them now!

 

Or maybe don’t; you see, this is where it gets a little difficult. New Critics have to be well read scholars aware of major allusions in a text, as that becomes a narrative shorthand to group together concepts. Tezuka’s name, naturally, appears in the credits and thus within the film itself. Is that a notable enough allusion to the primary creative of the world we are seeing to implicate him in its creation? Even if that does not count, Tezuka actually plays a character in the film: the teacher in the post credits scene. Tentatively, I would still say we cannot discuss him without better reason, especially because his other films came after this one, but I am open to contrary opinions in the comment section. In any case, the allusions I made to Spider-Man 2, Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, Godzilla vs Biollante, and the Tell Tale Heart are all irrelevant and have to be ignored in New Criticism of the film. More to the point, my speculation that more of Godzilla 1954 is canon than we realize must also disappear. The film never mentions the Oxygen Destroyer and only juxtaposes rocket launcher guns to a black hole gun, so I do not have warrant to read that into the text.

 

The goal of New Criticism is to find the objective correlative that unites the film, the whole film and nothing but the film so help you God, and I did some of that in the Strengths and Stupidities segment in order to make this a little easier on both you and me. The relationship between Tsujimori and her commanding officer is the focus of her arc, as she takes on the role of him as a source of strength to alleviate her guilt. Nothing says this explicitly in the film, but I walked you through all the little moments that lead us there, thus proving, with every scene in the film, that she is a well-rounded consistent character. I still believe her character to be a great one, but it was ultimately circular logic, and to do the task I set out to do, to use New Criticism on this movie, the rational part of me that explains the trick of this sophistry will have to leave you as abruptly as the Jun left the movie.

 

Since I eventually settled on the themes of masculinity vs femininity in regards to understanding her personality split, firing a gun to prove her strength at two notable moments, and letting down her hair once she left her CO’s dog tags behind when defeating Godzilla, I could maybe read in specific stories like Mulan or the writings of Qiu Jin, but probably not. Even those still feel a little bit off topic, and we have more stuff to explain with the objective correlative.

 

 

The expository habits in the film are functional, bringing in foreshadowing directly when relevant and abridging very important events for some reason. The revelations about plasma technology feel like an afterthought, but character considerations are put in the forefront, as we see the scenes introducing Tsujimori and Sugiura in full, when they may have been better summarized, and even Yoshizawa’s truncated backstory still informs aspects of her character, see how the stilted snapshot nature of the flashback is likely how she allows herself to experience it. One of the few plot devices that gets set-up many scenes ahead of its payoff is Kudo’s Dimension Tide Operating System, first designed as a Nurse and then after Tsujimori. This connects to how he tries to protect the feminine side of Tsujimori in the gym and as a Chibi sprite, but, in both instances, she forces out the “real” Tsujimori to shoot a gun very well. In that sense, the character relation of the Dimension Tide to grief is more important to the film than the presence of black holes in the equation, and the fact that Tsujimori can use this endless grief for good even in reckless circumstances means that the characters are primary to the theme as well.

 

Within this film, it seems that the optimal morality in this film is a system wherein we judge actions and plot points by their consequences, specifically the Godzilla related ones. So, Godzilla-repelling ends justify the means. Society bans nuclear energy because it attracts Godzilla; once plasma does the same, they ban it as well. The emergence of Megaguirus uses material from the Meganula and Godzilla, so even the Big Bad of the film can only become such with Godzilla and his power within her. Before this, the child that carries her to Shibuya is a sympathetic character; after, we do not see him in that same light, mainly because he disappears from the movie. But what this means is that this sympathetic aspect of the Meganula is gone after that point. The grown Megaguirus is coded with the reptilian ferocity of Godzilla, not with the childlike innocence of an egg. The flooding of Shibuya is not a holy baptism or necessarily a yonic image but relates Megaguirus to Godzilla further as they both rise out of the water. Also, the Meganula seek energy but only Godzilla’s, making it reflective of him rather than continuing the motif of plasma summoning monsters.

 

The averted fate of an all-consuming Godzilla-caused nuclear meltdown juxtaposes the all-consuming deluge of Shibuya, which juxtaposes the all-consuming nature of revenge and a black hole gun, but the actions of Godzilla and of the power of Godzilla in the Meganula are what is evil, and the actions that prevent Godzilla are good. This is what the film shows us, and it remains entirely consistent to this theme, as this understanding solely resolves the paradox of Tsujimori’s recklessness and the ambiguity of Dimension Tide and the G-Graspers. Furthermore, Kudo’s presence wholly augments the G-Graspers’ efforts, debatably being what redeems them. The Dimension Tide can only work if he helps, the Godzilla tracker is his invention, and he develops a mini version of the Search Godzilla System just in time for it to help them with the Meganula infestation. Furthermore, his automated chibi Nurse operating system takes on the visage of Tsujimori when it fixes the problems with Dimension Tide, communicating that the union of Kudo and Tsujimori is what can win against Godzilla in this movie.

 

Under the schema of New Criticism, the horror imagery is more important. We are ignoring other kaiju movies except for possibly Rodan (but it is safer not to even bring him in anymore), and the Meganulon in this film stars in a suspenseful and gory scene against a human couple in Shibuya, then the horde menaces Godzilla. In the final battle, Megaguirus sneaks up on Godzilla several times, stabs him and smiles wickedly, flying over the Griffon in the same kind of misdirect as the two city workers that the Meganulon passed before striking the couple. It does not matter that the director had no considerable horror experience; that is actually preferred. The art speaks for itself, and this is a film with deep horror elements.

 

The film’s confusing morality, ambiguous storytelling and withholding of certain crucial information until it is almost pointless to know also effectively puts the viewer further on edge about the experience. I cannot invoke specific strains of horror, but I can conclude by saying that this means that Godzilla vs Megaguirus, like a New Critic’s poetry, is a work that you cannot just summarize, because it behaves as its own experience, inspiring all sorts of different feelings to make its own unapologetic whole. I started this essay off by explaining how Godzilla vs Megaguirus is overwritten in popular discourse, and though I am showing disdain for New Criticism while doing this, I think New Criticism gives us a schema for how to visualize that, very effectively.

 

Thank you for getting this far in the essay; whether you found it through the blog or previously watched the YouTube version, it helps us all the same, and I hope this gives you a reason to revisit Godzilla vs Megaguirus, which you can stream for free on Tubi. If you do, I would ask you to do so without Godzilla 2000 in mind, without knowing that Misato Tanaka will actually play a nurse in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, a film that makes the plot points of this one seem more cohesive and without a tendency to overwrite the film's meaning...unless you find it more fun that way.

 

 

Transcript Version - Godzilla Vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities, And Sophistry PART ONE

 

 

By Joe Gibson

 

Godzilla vs Megaguirus has an interesting place in the discourse surrounding the Godzilla series, underappreciated and overshadowed by both what came before and after. This is the second film of the Millennium series, produced as a response to Tristar’s 1998 Godzilla, and Godzilla vs Megaguirus is actually the only Millennium Era film to actually come out in 2000. However, if someone were to say Godzilla 2000 or Godzilla 2000: Millennium, they would be referring to the previous film titled such from 1999. Godzilla 2000 overwrites Godzilla vs Megaguirus in that one simple way, but also the Godzilla suit in both films is functionally the same one, with a more exaggerated color scheme on the Megaguirus suit. When discussing these suits, MireGoji summarizes both itself and the slightly adjusted GiraGoji. Within the Godzilla series, Godzilla vs Megaguirus represents director Masaaki Tezuka’s first attempt, but fans remember a lot more fondly his later attempt, Millennium series films 4 and 5, fans focusing on how he improved tropes from Vs Megaguirus for Against Mechagodzilla. Megaguirus, herself, is a popular monster, but the discourse often surrounds the potential of bringing her back to fight Rodan as her base form the Meganulon originated in Rodan’s first film. I cannot say with certainty that few people care about the film, but few people focus solely on the film itself when discussing it in a way I find interesting.

 

Because of this, I find it prudent to test out a new format, this Triple S review, on this film in particular. The title of this article invokes Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry, and, so, my goal is to review the movie per my usual standards and then experiment with some literary criticism to overwrite the film’s meaning myself as is so uniquely popular to do with this Godzilla film.

 

 

I need to lay out a couple terms to clarify what I am trying to achieve with this article before I can get too deep into it. A review is a very odd thing to be as poorly defined as it is within modern discourse. At its most basic, I am engaging with a text to test if it functions properly, such as a peer review for an argumentative essay. But at its most extreme, it can get quite messy.

 

When we review a film, we are trying to encapsulate the entirety of it, its characters, plot, theme work, shot composition, soundtrack, special effects, symbolism, etc, into a single explanation of a score or rating. For someone as young and inexperienced as I am, this is difficult to do effectively without a lot of time and space.

I have experimented with different formats to do this; an article that leads with the conclusions and brings in textual evidence to serve the argument is shorter, sweeter, simpler and always reads (to me anyway) as a stronger and better organized rhetorical appeal. That said, it is both substantially harder and a little more dishonest to write that way. I end up forcing the art into a direction I set instead of analyzing its aspects as they come about naturally. The other strategy I have tried is to recap the text in as great of detail as necessary, putting special emphasis on the most important aspects to the case I am trying to build for the eventual conclusion. Depending on how meticulous each essay is, I am basically participating in a close read when I do this, and I find that to be a better form for a review to take than most of the alternatives.

 

I do not want to name names since they almost exclusively have larger audiences than I do and still do make good points with the format and framework adopted, but the general trends I see with reviewing this movie is that the negative aspects of the film and an overall disdain for it color their interpretation. 

Few people tackle the entire movie with each scene, subplot, flourish and blemish getting its own consideration (and even I have some difficulty doing so). Though I am less qualified than these other commentators, that is what I try to do, truly view a movie again to chart the strengths and weaknesses of the entire movie to hopefully feel confident in an argument about the overall quality that can prompt a score out of 10 and also a discussion that better represents the art going forward. Though I focus on the Strengths and Stupidities, I cannot merely balance them. That would be more disingenuous, as it requires me to pretend that both are equally valid and prevalent. Though every movie is a mix between Strengths and Stupidities, some films genuinely are more stupid than good or more impressive than idiotic, so my approach has to account for that. That feels like enough preamble though, and this essay is difficult enough without adding further goals, so let us just begin with the review section.

 

Strengths and Stupidities

 

 

This film begins with a broadcast from Nichei News, explaining that in 1954, Godzilla attacked Japan. However, in this continuity, the creature in 1954 was in his spikier green Giragoji look and did not die. That is the general understanding of the differences between this universe and the standard Godzilla timelines, but upon a rewatch, I am not exactly sure that is what this is saying. Likely, this is due to the wonkiness of the translation, but the newscaster says that Godzilla “again” attacked Japan, brought "back to life" by the advancement and threat of nuclear weaponry. The monologue does not explicitly reference any previous attack from Godzilla, but it also might not preclude the actual 54 events we are used to if the Giragoji design is meant to be a regenerated 54 Godzilla in a similar vein to GMK’s Godzilla. The sloppiness of the exposition in this movie is a major weakness, so I want to emphasize it appropriately. But also, perhaps more importantly, this exercise is to look very closely at this film and see what it is trying to say, not what we expect to see. The organic unity of this story is what will legitimize it, and that sentiment will guide us far later on, so let’s get back into the film.

 

The film switches to a nondiegetic narrator explaining that Godzilla attacked Japan’s first nuclear power plant in 1966, so they replaced nuclear with renewable energy sources. This narration includes other journalists on the field reporting the news as it happens. In 1996, the government established the Bureau of Science and Technology, and this organization will be dominant in the film, employing the main cast and developing tools for the G-Graspers. The first diegetic dialogue from a named character starts with the words “As you all know,” and that is the third example of this sloppy exposition as Motohiko Sugiura, the man who is going to go on to drive the entire plot is first written as a plot function to catch the audience up on a plot point the narrator just explained in detail. In the actual context of the scene, it makes sense as a cliche for Sugiura to say on his podium to reassure the public about their new plasma energy, but there are better ways to write that, and the scene itself is unnecessary as it is redundant and wastes time getting to Kiriko Tsujimori and the inciting incident of her journey.

 

The narrator trails off and introduces us to Kiriko Tsujimori in the middle of a defense force operation to stop an attacking Godzilla. Many commentators have criticized these characters using mere bazookas against Godzilla as incredibly stupid, and, in the past, I have defended this plot point with the argument that this impotent effort in 1996 is meant to contrast the BST and G-Graspers’ tech in 2001. (Also, these bazookas are actually the same type of recoilless rifle that Goro Gondo used against Godzilla to fan acclaim in Godzilla vs Biollante.) Two things can be true however, and this is not exactly an unimportant cul-de-sac of a scene; it will serve as the inciting incident and motivation for our heroine, and it is the tragedy that will endear her revenge quest to us, a revenge that the film lets her achieve even when later themes would indicate she should not. So, a very important scene to get right. Because of our lead's takeaway of this mission, there is a theme here about the utter powerlessness of humanity against Godzilla and also about the importance of process. Tsujimori hesitates to respond to her commanding officer, stares at Godzilla in fear, wastes her shot on Godzilla’s neck instead of his legs to fell him, stays in position too long so her CO has to evacuate her, and finally her CO gives his life to save her from falling rubble. She retrieves his dog tag and fires his bazooka on Godzilla. Her resolution in this film will include a very contentious decision, but the idea here is that while their weaponry was insufficient to win, she specifically made a mistake and thinks she needs to take on attributes of her CO, including the guilt and shame for his death in order to win the day.

 

On a technical level, this scene is very good. The Godzilla suit is gorgeous, the dark lighting and low angles make him even more imposing, and the miniatures and composite shots are sufficient for the budget. Some shots include an orange glow that could be the result of his destruction or serve as foreshadowing for the manner in which the plasma energy summons Godzilla, an aspect of the film that is sorely lacking if we just focus on the script as I am prone to. Finally, Michiru Oshima’s score for this movie is incredible and augments every scene of Godzilla and the Meganula.

 

 

Finally, we get into the main bit of the story in 2001 as Kiriko, now with the G-Graspers and wearing sunglasses, tries to recruit inventor magician Hajime Kudo into the fight against Godzilla. As he performs a trick using robots to mix ingredients under a microwave shaped like a bowl (just go with it, it actually makes more sense than the bazookas in context), Tsujimori immediately guesses the solution and then proves it. I believe this is here to immediately contrast her more timid nature and inform us more about what she believes the ideal type of leader would do, how she is romanticizing her deceased commanding officer. This type of plot point actually happens three times in Attack on Titan, so I do not have to give any specific spoilers, but the idea of a character losing an authority figure or friend and then trying to act like them in a way that ultimately tells us more about the surviving character is a really interesting plot point when done right, and it is the main difference between Tsujimori and the later evolutions of her archetype Akane Yashiro and Koichi Shikishima. For that reason, further discussion of Akane and Shikishima is mostly irrelevant, as, outside of the obvious posturing in the story and a couple key scenes, they are actually very different types of characters. However, again, you only realize this difference when you let go of the noise and discourse and just focus on the film, which can be done responsibly and irresponsibly as I hope to demonstrate both in this article (though this transcript version will be two parts).

 

Tsujimori and Kudo disagree about explaining the trick to the nearby kids, as the kids leave the building in response, but Tsujimori justifies it, saying that the kids are old enough to know the truth, and she will later on be able to have a healthy friendship with another child, so it is merely a matter of perspective, not a trait of alienating children on her part. I wonder how old she thinks is old enough to know the truth. These were actual children, but this new stage of her life is only 5 years old, younger than they appeared to be. She takes Kudo to the Self Defense Corps Shibaura Base, and he criticizes the look of the warehouse turned G-Grasper headquarters. Kiriko explains that even though, in theory, Godzilla only responds to energy leaks, the only way to be sure they are safe “would be to eliminate Godzilla once and for all.” It is worth mentioning at this point that the subtitle for the film is The G Annihilation Strategy and that Tsujimori, despite acting like the mentor character bringing Kudo into the fight, is actually the protagonist, but this is again because she is acting like what she thinks her CO was like. Still, he talked of saving lives, and she talks of eliminating Godzilla. Keep this in mind for when she detonates a highly dangerous superweapon in public to destroy Godzilla at the end of the movie.

 

As she explains, different sections exist in the workforce of their fight; the first searches for Godzilla, the second studies his behavior, the third handles statistics for evacuation scenarios, and the combat section are the G-Graspers. Tsujimori introduces the small team she leads on the G-Graspers: Makoto Nikura, Kazuo Mima, Seiichi Hosono, and Tomoharu Okumura. Our last main character, Professor Yoshizawa, has a preexisting connection to Kudo, having taught his high school physics class. This is a lot to cover in just a few minutes, and I will pose the question of why the film allowed this exposition to play out in dialogue between characters with complicated yet understandable relationships to each other, when so much else was left up to dueling narration between newscasts and a real narrator. I am not claiming one is better than the other, just that this film is not purposeful with how it delivers exposition to the audience. People would not criticize Tsujimori’s tragic backstory as much if we did not see the types of weapons they were trying to use, and how irresponsibly everybody used them. Similarly, the film has barely even hinted so far that plasma energy is anything less than the magical clean energy source Sugiura told us it was, so the later plot points concerning Godzilla and the illegal plasma energy are going to seem to come out of nowhere.

 

Yoshizawa now asks Kudo to join them, and his flippant response about not wanting to die young brings still images of Yoshizawa’s own tragic backstory with Godzilla to her mind. She lost her team before and has similar trauma to Tsujimori, just that she was the one in charge, not cosplaying as her superior now. And this is what I was talking about with how the film truncates some things and lets others play out dramatically. The film effectively communicates Yoshizawa’s grief without showing me a contrived setup to distract from it. It also works to characterize Yoshizawa, since we just saw her flashback, but she cannot bear to remember it as more than a series of still images, so that is all we get to see. Kudo apologizes, and she states her desire to prevent such tragedies from ever happening again with a plasma black hole gun. Let us table the obvious stupidity for one second.

 

At this point in history, Godzilla feeds on plasma energy. The film is a bit half-hearted as to whether or not an energy leak is required to summon Godzilla because that was the coverup response, and it certainly wasn’t the case for the nuclear power plant attack in 1966. Plasma is a symbol of caution, at best, and a bad idea masquerading as a viable replacement at worst. In other thematic considerations, an ever-expanding void that swallows Godzilla fired from a gun by Tsujimori is actually an excellent visual metaphor for her all-consuming grief. The issue is that it is Yoshizawa’s idea and will be Kudo’s invention. And now we can talk about how stupid it is. A black hole is obviously one of the most dangerous cosmic events, quite literally uncontrollable destruction. Miniaturizing the black hole does not fix the problem, and the logical leap from trying bazookas to using a black hole is a chasm in the plot, especially as there is no hint of satire here.

 

 

Kudo, as our established super genius, sees no issue with the plan, and his later Deus ex Machina levels of plot importance and technical prowess means he again is not the subject of satire. Somehow, working with black holes is enough to resolve Kudo’s “Refusal of the Call.” Again, that does not really matter, as the Hero’s Journey is Tsujimori’s, but it is interesting nonetheless.

 

Now, we jump three months into the future, and insect obsessed child Jun Hayasaka enters the movie for complicated reasons. We need him here to progress the plot and also humanize Tsujimori. The movie does not need him through the entire runtime though, so he will abruptly disappear eventually. He tries to enter the cordoned off Dimension Tide testing zone because he is an easily impressed distractible child and, more importantly, to me anyway, he looks old enough to know the truth. (I say that partially because his knowledge of the Meganula is on par with or possibly better than that of the scientist our heroes bring in to replace him, because, unlike the scientist, Jun will directly identify the extinct Meganula out of any of the thousands of types of insects he knows.)

 

In a conversation between Sugiura and Yoshizawa, we learn that the Dimension Tide black hole is necessary because they do not want to make the same mistake again and must make sure no trace of him remains, so this feels like the Oxygen Destroyer did happen in the universe, but he grew back within the same year. That would explain the escalation, and, crap, that would have been a good Cult Film Curiosities video idea. I won’t actually be able to use that for the Sophistry part of the essay for reasons you’ll eventually see, but uh, let me know in the comments if you want that Cult Film Curiosity “What Really Happened to Giragoji in 1954?”.

 

Once again, the film associates Yoshizawa with Dimension Tide even though the subtext only really matches Tsujimori, and she launches a miniature black hole at an abandoned building. The test works as intended, only it opens up a wormhole in the place of the building. The wormhole dissipates for some reason, but it’ll be back soon to facilitate some plot points. Wormholes are an odd scientific topic that I understand even less than I do black holes, but as far as I know, a wormhole needs to connect between two points of spacetime, insinuating a subject that has been in both places at once. Again, it is possible I am wrong about this, but this may be a major contrivance for Megaguirus’ egg to make it through the wormhole, and it is at least a small contrivance that the wormhole appeared to close for everybody except Jun later.

 

An agent catches Jun, and Tsujimori tries to handle the situation, first by taking off her sunglasses and then crouching down to his level. If my analysis of her taking on the role of her CO is correct, then this is her relinquishing that identity for a moment, showing Jun her eyes that we, the audience, have not seen since 1996. She speaks more softly, and, in opposition to her previous sunglasses laden attitude, she says that he should not tell anybody else about what he saw, specifically his parents who would definitely be old enough to know. She picks up his insect display and leaves, putting back on her sunglasses. This connection between the humanity in the jaded, ashamed veteran and the innocence of a young child is better handled in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, but you can see many of the same building blocks in a different but equally interesting package with Masaaki Tezuka’s first attempt here. I will continue to point out the presence or lack of sunglasses or military equipment as masks, as it pertains to this idea, sometimes shakily, but always at least a little bit.

 

Jun sees a Meganula fly past his window, and he returns to the testing site, where the wormhole has reopened so that the Meganula could fly through, lay an egg and fly back. Once again, the darkness, camera angles (higher up this time to emphasize the small stature of Jun) and the soundtrack show off the darker horror movie tone this movie will dip its toe into soon. A small fog on the ground surrounding the egg makes the scene somewhat dreamlike. Jun taking the egg back to Shibuya is a massive mistake, but the far larger one is disposing of the egg in the sewers. This one action will result in a flood that consumes the entire city. As it stands, this feels arbitrary too, but it fits the motif of a small action, the grief for one man that consumes Kiriko and a gun that can consume Godzilla. Once again, the film does not associate it with Tsujimori until later.

 

At this point, Kudo visits Tsujimori while she is working out with her platoon members. Trying to flirt, he diminishes her pursuit but then gives her Chekov’s micro transmitter that she can use to ask for his help. He strolls over to her personal effects and picks up her CO’s dog tag; we learn his name is Miyagawa. She snatches it back and storms off. Now, in this scene, for practical reasons, she was not wearing the sunglasses, and she also was not warm to Kudo, mainly because he insulted her discipline and then implied he could save her. But, as soon as she grabs the dog tags, she composes herself and tests off his micro transmitter with a dead shot on a large weight across the room, basically winning the phallic measuring contest, and that only makes sense because she is embodying her dead CO, a man. For this project, I sort of married myself to the imagery of clothing as symbols, but I would ask you upon a rewatch to look out for her hair as well as the other symbols, how rigid in her beliefs and process she is when it is tied up and what other emotions she shows when it is done.

 

Deep below Shibuya, the egg breaks off into multiple, and this is as good a time as any to explain the lifecycle of these beasts. So, Meganulon is an insect that originated in the original Rodan film, sort of a bait and switch monster that attacks the cast before we realize that the true threat is Rodan, who feasts on the Meganulon. In this film, Meganulon is what we will call the nymph or larval form of the creature, and, once it sprouts wings and flies, it is the dragonfly Meganula. Megaguirus is their queen, who probably would be special on her own in the past, but she bears reptilian facial features because Godzilla’s DNA and energy winds up inside of her. Jun sees the initial sewer overflow and immediately recognizes his mistake. This is a sort of Telltale Heart situation, but Jun’s mistake has not killed anybody…yet.

 

 

 So anyway, two city ordinance workers also spot the flooding, and a Meganulon perches on the wall above them. In Hitchcockian suspense, the two workers are talking about their job, and nobody cares because there is a violent murderous bug above them that they haven’t noticed yet. It starts to move, and then we meet a couple out on the town nearby. The man sits, smoking, and the soundtrack kicks into high gear with the shrill string noises that accompany the Meganulon as it creeps closer. The movie even puts us in Meganulon’s perspective for part of the kill, because there is a very effective horror movie somewhere in here. The girlfriend is next, and much of it is offscreen. Following the kill, the Meganulon sprouts wings and becomes a Meganula, leaving its original skin behind.

 

In the past, I have likened that scene to the hospital scene in Spider-Man 2, because it is the same kind of idea. This superhero movie suddenly became an Evil Dead film for a few minutes just because the director wanted it that way, and almost everyone agrees that was the right choice. What makes it strange here is that I cannot find any evidence that Tezuka directed any horror films, and he served as assistant director mainly on Toho kaiju films, samurai films, and political crime dramas. One of the films he was assistant director on, in particular, was Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, which could inform the similarly confused morality that we’ll get into later, but I have no idea why he directed the film this way, especially as it was his first directorial feature and his later Kiryu duology does not include this same talent for horror on display.

 

A guilty Jun meets with Tsujimori, who again has taken off her glasses to address the child. She takes full responsibility for the tragedy, claiming that the test must have mutated a nearby insect. Because Jun will leave the movie very soon, we do not get as much to follow up on this as in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, but Tsujimori is able to try and absolve Jun of the blame in a way she is not willing to do for herself in either personality. Still, Jun then shares his knowledge of the Meganula life cycle.

 

The G-Graspers discover through their sensors that near the Ogasawara islands, Godzilla is emitting heat rapidly and strangely against an enemy, which turns out to be a Meganula, and the soundtrack gives a sneak peak of its evolved version of the Meganulon theme that adds a vibrato and dissonance to the downward violin strokes. The G-Graspers take off in the Gx-813 Fighter Griffon ship, and this is probably the best time to talk about the film’s advanced “present day” technology. I refuse to believe that the monorail and the Griffon are plasma powered, because I noticed nothing in the film to indicate such, and the emissions should summon Godzilla wherever they go. Still, plasma power is the easy answer for the futurism on display, and there still is plasma power tied into industry, underground as it is, in this movie.

 

This is an abrupt stopping point, but the video version of this essay has debuted alongside this post (Godzilla vs Megaguirus: Strengths, Stupidities and Sophistry). You can watch the full thing there, but if you would rather read this argument, the second part of this essay will go up on this blog in a couple days.

Next Time: The Thrilling Conclusion