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By Joe Gibson
The following is the first part of the transcript of a
recent video on Plan9Crunch’s YouTube page that you can watch here: Godzilla's Anime Trilogy:
Attack On Titan On PCP
Hi. Welcome back to Plan9Crunch. I am Joe Gibson.
In all my time talking about Godzilla here, I have
been quite open about my disdain for Polygon’s Godzilla anime trilogy. In the
deepest part of my being, I know these movies to be terrible and among the
worst the franchise has to offer, and I have never really given myself the
opportunity to lay out my best arguments for that case. However, even now I
don’t really want to do that. Let’s set aside how that is poisoning the well to
the audience about experiencing what is perhaps the most niche sector of this
franchise that still involves feature films; it is just not that interesting to
me to try to tear down a trilogy without some nuanced gimmick. I have also
grown to appreciate these films in their own way. The design for Godzilla
Earth, while slow, immobile and barely qualifying as something that only
animation could create, is actually probably one of my top ten designs for
Godzilla. I just think it’s neat with some sleek muscle patterns and a very
meme-able face.
I also have a warped kind of nostalgia for these films
because I was there following along with the updates before the films came out,
catching every new report about what the first Godzilla anime would be like. I
witnessed when the officially reported title for the first film changed from
Godzilla: Monster Planet to Godzilla: Planet Of The Monsters, and I was there
when we got early translations for what would eventually become City On The
Edge Of Battle as Mobile Battle Breeder City. In both cases, the earlier title
was technically more accurate to the film than the later, but that’s not the
point. I have experienced both hype and letdown with this trilogy, and I’m
really not that devoted to trashing on it outside of throwaway jabs and
tangents in other videos. That said, I still think the trilogy deserves a
slightly negative video essay exploring some of my issues with it. One common
critique of the trilogy is how derivative it seems of Attack on Titan, and,
don’t worry, I’ll unpack what all that means in a second, but the discussion I
want to create here is that the Godzilla Anime Trilogy is very much like AOT
but far less mature in its storytelling and implementation of themes.
And this is important to note. Even though I am using
Attack On Titan as the positive example by comparison, my criticisms will not
simply be “this is not what Attack on Titan did so it is bad.” That wouldn’t
really make much sense. This trilogy never had a chance of doing exactly what
Attack On Titan did because the manga was still ongoing when this trilogy was
in production. Heck, this trilogy managed to preemptively include a plot point
from AOT before AOT’s manga even got around to that (I’ll explain that when it
comes up later), so if that were my metric, rest assured it wouldn’t be an
unfair hindrance to these films.
So how else do I frame this comparison if not “living
up to a source material.” Well, have you ever heard the expression that X thing
is like Y thing on crack, as in crack cocaine, the drug? Maybe you have, maybe
you haven’t. Essentially, it is a comparative tool wherein I acknowledge base
level similarity but through the lens of hyperactive, frenetic or melodramatic
exaggeration of certain elements. The problem is that it does not really work
in this instance. Though undeniably similar, as we will get to, the anime
trilogy is a lot more subdued and restrained than the comparative high energy
battle anime of AOT. Okay so then it was all about finding a different drug
with the desired exaggerations from AOT’s tone, and that was difficult to find
with an innocuous google search term. But eventually I settled on PCP, so
please indulge me as I run through the side effects of PCP we’ll want to keep
in mind. This part of the video is technically a drug abuse PSA, so if the
YouTube algorithm suppresses this video, well I shouldn’t finish that thought.
On that note though, this essay will discuss topics pertaining to drug abuse
obviously but also depression and suicide, so viewer discretion is advised.
Phencyclidine, known for the purposes of this essay as
PCP or Angel Dust, is a hallucinogenic and dissociative drug that can lead to
many side effects but especially lethargy, disorientation, hallucinations,
sense of detachment, lack of concentration, loss of coordination, agitation,
bizarre behavior, a dangerously inflated sense of strength and invulnerability,
memory loss and unconsciousness. I am getting this information from Americanaddictioncenters.org.
The image you see on your screen is from The Carolina Center recovery .com and
adds suicidality and coma to this list. So, basically, the methodology of this
exercise is to pinpoint how the anime trilogy expresses its themes about
humanity and see if the tone registers with a certain disorientation and sense
of detachment or lack of concentration or if the choreography entails a sense
of lethargy and relies on unconscious hallucinations or if the ways characters
act are informed by the side effects of dissociative drugs instead of rational
acting. If the lead for example demonstrates violent suicidal behavior,
delusions of grandeur, a sense of detachment from his life, stupor and notable
memory loss, then there you go. I think it is a fair criticism to say “the
emotional maturity of this series is akin to that of someone addicted to PCP.”
Ah yes and the ways people abuse PCP are plenty: it can be a white powder, a
yellow liquid, a tablet, eye drops, an injection or in a cigar. So very
adaptable and I think ultimately very fair to use for such a sweeping
analysis. In any case, let us proceed to some background information on
the trilogy itself so we can actually begin the analysis proper.
Between 2017 and 2019, Netflix released three Godzilla
anime films. Animated by Polygon Pictures, these were to be Godzilla’s first
official feature film foray into animation, though as I understand it the 2021
Netflix series Godzilla Singular Point went into production first. Recently, I
have heard commentators posit that the trilogy is not really that good of a
demonstration to anime fans what Godzilla represents nor to Godzilla fans what
anime entails, and that is largely because the style of animation was a costly
3DCG that simulates live action but resulted in a very sluggish Godzilla with
very little screentime. So a limitation of the technology, same as the goofy
suits between 1955 and 1975. Also a very experimental format that settled the
uncanny valley in regards to how tokusatsu and anime are usually shot.
(Consider the way this distorts our sensory perceptions of the ways characters
can move and their body awareness.)
The premise is equally uncanny between old and new,
traditional and experimental. Giant monsters have pushed the remains of
humanity into one cramped area (that’s the Attack On Titan part), but it is to
the spaceship Aratrum, and, while humanity is in space for 20 years before they
decide to come back, 20,000 years have passed on Earth. The Xilien and Simeon
aliens from the Showa series are back but as members of this defeated
coalition, as their plans to defeat the monsters have failed. Also, it is best
to get to this out of the way now, the Xiliens became the Aryan Exif aliens,
and the space monkey Simeons became the dark skinned humanoid Bilusaludo
aliens. This is not a Critical Race Theory Essay, so I’m not going to read too
deep into that except to say they act more like deconstructions of fantasy
elves and dwarves than they do real world stereotypes. The lead character is
Captain Haruo Sakaki, and you can recognize his first name from the original
Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima and his fierce and petulant anger from
Attack on Titan’s protagonist Eren Jaeger, but, as you will soon find out,
there is a lot more to talk about this trilogy as a whole than what just came
before. Still, maybe I should expand on that history first.
Running between 2009 and 2021, Attack On Titan,
originally called Shingeki no Kyojin, is a very popular manga and eventually
anime series by Hajime Isayama. The basic premise there is that man-eating
ogres called Titans have forced the remnants of humanity that they have not
already killed into German towns housed within three massive walls, and
everything appears to be somewhere between medieval times and the 1800s, though
the title of episode one clarifies that 2000 years of history are relevant to
this world. Within the desperate struggle to survive, one teenager is angry
enough to try and fight all of the Titans to reclaim his world. That is Eren
Jaeger, and his best friends Mikasa and Armin seem skilled and smart enough
respectively to help him achieve his goal if they and their allies can survive
long enough to see it through. I am trying not to spoil too much…Yet, but that
is roughly what you will need to understand going into the first few arcs of
AOT. After that point, twists and turns abound with realistic government
corruption, dangerous political intrigue, betrayals, doomed love, and a final
stretch that decodes the subtext of the Titans and lays bare as text what the
whole story was really about the whole time. I think it is really a masterclass
and an amazing political thought experiment while delivering on amazing fight
scenes. Not everyone sees it that way, and, fair enough, Attack on Titan is not
on trial today. Maybe you will prefer the approach of the trilogy. With all
this context out of the way, let us begin.
So the title is Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters, what
if I call it–
GODZILLA: Planet of PCP
In this film, Haruo is the driver on the mission to
return to Earth. Put as simply as possible, he comes up with a battle strategy
that could have defeated Godzilla in the past that motivates his human, Exif
and Bilusaludo allies to help him test it out.
Haruo is very clearly an Eren expy because of his
tragic backstory and how that shapes him into an angry yet cunning and
charismatic leader among his equals. Eren always wanted to fight for his
freedom even when he was a child, but, in episode one, we are there with him
when Titans breach Wall Maria and eat his mother in front of him, and, from
that point on, we empathize with him and understand why he takes military
training so seriously and how he inspires the other cadets in the battle of
Trost. Even though Haruo also witnessed Godzilla killing his parents,
traumatizing him as a child, the introduction we as the audience get to him is
not that, but we see him attempting suicide terrorism, threatening him to blow
himself up in an effort to prevent their scout ship from leaving to a nearby
prospective planet.
Okay there is actually more to it than just that.
Haruo justifies his dissidence by giving a fair argument that the central
council is knowingly sacrificing the elderly people aboard the ship just to
make sure there are less mouths to feed. This is driven by necessity with
willing participants as we find out but still represents an inability of the
existing governmental structure to take care of its people. This plot point of
sending the elderly on a mission outside of the walls also appears in AOT, and
it was the first of many scenes showing a logical but terrible human cost to
survival, raising the question of if it is worth it. The trilogy does not have
the same time or space as a four season show, but this, as the introduction to
this question, is sufficient and snappy. Haruo is vindicated as the scout ship
explodes, and he is remanded into military custody. And then we learn his
backstory. But why, oh why did they choose to write it this way?
PCP is not the reason this trilogy is the way it is
(that’s post hoc wishful thinking); Gen Urobuchi was the writer, and Kobun
Shizuno and Hiroyuki Seshita codirected. As I understand from post-mortem
interviews after the fact, Gen Urobuchi is to blame for the nihilism on
display, Seshita brought an enthusiasm for using the Godzilla IP and its
staples to bring in a new audience, and Shizuno had no prior knowledge of
Godzilla and adjusted the other two men’s suggestions into new trajectories. So
stuff like the technology obsession and worship migrating from the Xiliens to
the Bilusaludo is more likely an inconsistent reference changed by Shizuno than
the work of Seshita or Urobuchi, and, well from Gamera Rebirth, we know that
the details of Void Ghidorah were precious enough to Seshita to retrofit onto
Viras though with a more weighty flesh and blood fight. So all this to say that
yes, a trio where one man is writing a depressing treatise on nihilism with
franchise references, another guy loves the franchise and wants to expand the
audience, and the third guy has no clue of the first thing in the franchise and
shoots down or warps the other two guys’ suggestions is absolutely a scenario
that fits the PCP abuse side effects of lack of concentration, sense of
detachment, and memory loss in a very unique way that I hope you can
appreciate.
In Attack On Titan, despite being the protagonist
through the entire run and the main character by runtime for the first three
seasons, Eren is not the narrator; his friend Armin is. And immediately that
works into the themes and tone the show is portraying. Armin, as a character,
has an unparalleled hope for the future, and framing Eren through his narration
allows for us to see a great range of Eren’s emotional capacity. In Planet of
The Monsters, Haruo gives the narration of the backstory of the monsters and
fall of humanity, and, again, the way that we explore these events are through
his perception and worldview, so very angry and bitter. He has characters to
balance out his extremism, but the script does not elevate them to major
characters until the sequel.
It kills me that right after Haruo’s failed suicide
terrorism, almost every shot has warm hues cast over it and lights going in and
out of focus that make it hard to focus on what we are seeing, but when he
literally narrates that he still remembers the flames from Godzilla’s
destruction, the shot is the clearest blue it could possibly be. And yes uh I
bet you didn’t expect so early to find a match for the blurred vision and
dizziness PCP symptoms, but yeah. I didn’t even draw too much attention to those,
but already the film is playing along with me here.
Okay, this whole visual element is actually very odd
because the characters make a point of space and the Aratrum being functionally
a frozen hell. The planet they are seeking, Tau-e, is warm, so it is more
interesting to look at complicated shots that incorporate both, but the
juxtaposition would be better served if Earth wasn't also blue and
Mechagodzilla City also a dead and sterile environment.
Okay back to the guiding narration. I actually am a
proponent of telling and not showing a good deal of the time. There simply is
not enough time in a movie to show everything you need to get across to the
audience, especially in diegetic ramblings. I mean that more in the regards to
“kaiju started appearing in the late 1990s, Godzilla came last and was
unstoppable by human or monster, then the aliens came and also failed to stop
him, then the survivors evacuated.” Haruo has a very personal connection to Godzilla
that takes a more show don't tell approach, but the majority of information in
this flashback has to be told. Still, I do criticize Haruo's moment with
Godzilla because I think it could have communicated its point better overall,
and actually Attack on Titan does that plot point better so we can look at that
again.
When it comes to Godzilla's emotions and intent, he is
often ambiguous especially now that we don't have the benefit of a human acting
in his suit. It is very difficult to understand Shin Godzilla's motivations
just looking at him moving forward and spewing beams. Actually ironically
enough, that movie has to tell us through the nondiegetic lyrics of Who Will
Know what is going through his head. That's not a critique of Shin Godzilla,
just evidence of my point. The Godzilla in Minus One is much more easily understandable
because you can see his rage when he steps on people, tears through buildings
and tries to bite the Shinden. The tooth and nail destruction Godzilla does in
the original film is the most visceral, and the crocodile melee crawl and
slashing of Kong he does in GvK sticks with you as much as his best atomic
breath finishers do.
Eren Jaeger has to witness a very disturbing Smiling
Titan eat his mother, and Haruo has to witness Godzilla shoot down a transport
that also contains his parents. This is not a measuring contest, but let us
compare for a moment how hard of a punch that packs. Eren is ripped away from
the rubble of his home, dragged as he tries to go back and save his mother,
while Haruo is at a much safer distance, dragged and unable to go back for a
necklace while we don’t even see his parents die. Yes, there is such a thing as
subtlety (we’ll actually soon get to why I don’t think this trilogy understands
it as well as AOT), but this is supposed to motivate us to follow Haruo on his
journey because of our attachment to revenge for what Godzilla did to him. It
would be a small change but admittedly might balloon the budget because of this
art style to have Godzilla actually crush Haruo’s parents and then we see how
Yuko’s grandfather saved him so that his death on the emigration shuttle a
scene ago now retroactively carries more weight. This is a minor point; let’s
carry on.
Haruo finishes his recap monologue by asking
variations of the same question why. Why are they still alive? Why did this
happen to them? And those are what we will have to examine throughout the film,
but he also states that kindness and pride are gone in this Aratrum culture.
For one thing, the film will later prove him wrong on the kindness part, and he
very clearly is prideful by thinking he is the only one who can or wants to
draft a plan to defeat Godzilla, but genuinely having thought about this, I think
the only reason he said that is so we can have the immediate juxtaposition to
Metphies being nice to Haruo and think ‘maybe this guy is manipulating him,’
Metphies of course being derived from Mephistopheles and being the main Exif
character and I guess priest in their religion who offers forgiveness rites to
prisoners.
The way that this trilogy builds up to plot twists in
comparison to Attack on Titan is a lot more simple. “What if the character that
is high up in a cult and literally gives Haruo information about the past while
lying to the council is lying to and manipulating Haruo’s psyche and memories?”
is one such example. Also, let’s have Haruo ask if the reason this happened to
them is that it was an inevitable punishment for humanity but he then says no
and that it is because they did not give it their all against Godzilla so that
when the trilogy ends and they all failed to kill Godzilla again, the only
other option on the table is that it was punishment for humanity and their
technology when Godzilla, especially one that is made of plant life, could come
from anywhere for any reason.
Again I do not want to just say “well this isn’t
Attack on Titan so it’s bad.” It is just inviting comparison by ripping off
Attack on Titan and then self aggrandizing over its themes and foreshadowing
even while it strips down the amount of characterization and action that went
hand in hand with AOT’s reveals.
Haruo releases his manifesto/Godzilla battle plan, and
it is important enough for the council to discuss it amongst their bleak
survival possibilities because everyone on the ship is reading it. Earlier,
Haruo broadcast his terroristic opposition to the Tau-e emigration to the
entire ship. And this matches how especially pre Trost in Attack on Titan
season one, Eren was very charismatic, setting a standard for grit and
determination that inspired the other cadets…notably before he had to watch
some of them die too. Eren ends up questioning himself a lot after that, but
the point that I am making here is that we are entirely replacing the other
cadets seeing Eren barely manage to balance in a training ODM gear rig and then
realizing that it was busted, and he actually did something more impressive
than any of them, we’re replacing that with broadcasts and an anonymous battle
plan.
Still, this is when the film actually begins to
introduce us to more characters. Uh, Colonel Leland, Dr. Martin Lazzari and
Adam Bindewald are all white blonde humans with the major design differences
being their hair style. Leland we’ll put a pin in since he’s actually my
favorite character in this whole trilogy, Adam winds up in Metphies’ religion
though in this introductory scene he is very cynical about how quote “the ship
leaders turn to the gods, as usual,” and Martin will give exposition about nature
but also becomes anti religion once Gen Urobuchi decides Adam isn’t I guess. We
have had several shots of Yuko Tani reacting to things, and Metphies has a
conversation with one of the Bilusaludo Mulu-elu Galu-gu, which reveals they
are on the same page about using Haruo’s research paper to undermine the
committee and return to Earth. As the flashback briefly showed, Galu-gu was
behind the failed Mechagodzilla project, and Metphies speculates that, had it
worked, Mechagodzilla would have then subjugated humanity after Galu-gu
insinuates that that was the purpose and aim of the Exif’s cult.
Adam’s friend Marco sits with some other characters,
who voice an earnest wish to see the real Earth and see the ocean, and if you
have experienced Attack on Titan, particularly season 3, you will have in your
head how this story would be able to leverage so efficiently two characters
talking about wanting to experience the sea. It is the dream that Eren and
Armin share but gradually begins to take on a different meaning for each of
them. Here, a bunch of nameless extras gather around and instantly see the blue
ocean, gazing at how beautiful and blue it is when the ship that was their hell
is the same dull blue. Haruo even has his moment of angrily staring at the sea
and only seeing their enemy when Attack on Titan used these same pieces to
paint a much more poignant picture.
But again this is not about Attack on Titan; it is
about how this trilogy’s immaturity seems to manifest as a diluted Attack on
Titan. The focus of the scene is on scout drones scanning the new Earth and
finding Godzilla. Earlier, Eren’s charisma was replaced by Haruo utilizing
technology, and his strategy for defeating Godzilla hinges on details he can
only find out through Metphies’ technology and the Gematron calculator, so it
is official, that as a motif, this trilogy is diverting from more personal human
connection and ingenuity into using technology, so let us put a pin in that.
The Captain of the vessel, Unberto Mori realizes with
horror that although thousands of years have passed and the terrain has
changed, Godzilla still remains on the planet in some form. Haruo also realizes
this somehow, but he does not have the benefit of Martin Lazzari’s dissertation
to the council on how Godzilla cannot be considered a normal living creature
and thus any number of explanations could explain why at least one remains.
Metphies pushes for the extermination of Godzilla and negotiates dropping the
charges on Haruo, and now Haruo is in front of the committee explaining his
plan as good diegetic exposition…until it dips into literal “As You Know”
dialogue and I am reminded of my feelings for the trilogy. Mori opposes the
plan because it will cost lives, and he does not want to risk the 600 people
Haruo needs (Deputy Director Hamamoto also declares it out of the question).
Somehow, Haruo gets his way anyway, and I really am not sure of the cause and
effect that got us to this point from one scene ago. The council members were
discussing how it would drastically affect public perception of them if they
were unable to land on Earth, and we never saw Mori too torn up about
sacrificing the elderly to Tau-e (even if he did not think that would happen, the
calculations given in the film still revealed it was not an optimally safe
planet). Unless the Exif and Bilusaludo came together to strongarm the literal
captain of their ship, there is really not sufficient justification for Mori to
immediately reverse his stance, but we know that isn’t true because somehow
human Colonel Elliot Leland becomes commander of the Earth Landing Brigade and
not Metphies or Galu-gu.
Leland is a very different character than Commander
Erwin Smith from Attack on Titan, but they share a voice actor, hair color,
insubordination to the government and willingness to put their own life on the
line in these risky military maneuvers, so the inspiration is evident. Leland’s
selfishness is on display sooner, as he claims that defeating Godzilla will
appoint a new era for him as a pampered hero, a much more shallow and stock
secret motivation than wanting proof that more is outside the walls in order to
vindicate your father’s secret theory that you feel a lot of guilt for outing
to the government as a child. That contained some spoilers for Erwin, I am
sorry, but we are already exposing both the official and hidden motivations for
Leland in his first scene, a hallmark of great writing. Where Leland comes into
his own as the most dynamic character of the movie though is his past with
Haruo. They are childhood friends, and, since Haruo is the criminal on bail
that they are technically following in this mission, Leland has to weigh
following chain of command against listening to his friend.
I am not sure if this is from lack of subtlety in the
storytelling, inability to read finer emotions in the art style or to further
show Metphies’ manipulation of Haruo’s emotions, but he feels the need to say
outright that Haruo is still angry even though he is getting his goal. Haruo
responds that he is unsure if everything will go to plan, and Metphies repeats
a line from Leland about trusting in a hero, but Metphies says that the hero he
trusts in is Haruo. Now, again I mentioned how Eren was singularly confident in
himself before he faced any real opposition from the Titans. Haruo said earlier
that kindness and pride are dead, so this would almost further that except that
his ego clearly informed his terrorism attempt and his confidence in writing,
updating regularly and presenting his paper to the leaders of the ship. Heck,
forget all that, Leland is Haruo’s childhood friend and is as proud as ever.
True, we are only seeing him now after they are within Earth’s orbit, but he
had to have this belief to choose to be commander of this mission, and if he
was a child same as Haruo when they entered this ship but became his superior,
he needed his same motivation to achieve his rank. In any case, it is just
strange that Metphies has to elicit in Haruo what his archetype already bore
from the beginning, and Metphies’s AOT analog and actual role in this story is
a foil to Haruo/Eren.
When the party lands, they unload their mechs, traps
and command centers to begin their plan. I do not think it productive to give
an exact play by play of the conversation between the characters, but Martin
slots into the Zoe Hange role from AOT, and Yuko Tani becomes Haruo’s official
handler 38 minutes into the film as a scout team goes out, at which point they
realize how different the flora/fauna have become. Leaves are sharper than
razors, and a masked humanoid watches the operation from the razor bushes. Yuko
now explains her motivation; she joined this operation because Haruo was here.
She always wanted to meet him and is curious if the central committee used his
bombs to destroy the Tau-e shuttle. Haruo shuts this down, stating that he does
not want to be so judgmental of humans, but this is against his own philosophy
expressed through the opening scene and then the narration of the committee
sacrificing them and kindness being dead. Yuko’s grandfather is who saved Haruo
as a child and talked him down from his terrorism attempt, so maybe there was a
double meaning to his “kindness is dead” remark that he could rediscover in
Yuko, but that would be if the trilogy cared about Yuko outside of her
obsession with Haruo, which is not likely because instead Haruo blames Godzilla
for taking away justice, pride and faith. He says that fighting Godzilla again
can take back that dignity, but clearly they never lost pride or faith through
Leland and Metphies but also they have a working justice system as he got court
martialed for terrorism. This primes us for a story where he realizes they
still have humanity, exemplified through Yuko, but she will entirely orbit his
character and eventually get fridged to make room for other characters.
Okay so the three leads of Attack On Titan are Eren
Jaeger, Armin Arlert and Mikasa Ackerman. Mikasa is another childhood friend
of Eren who the Jaegers took in after human traffickers killed her parents, and
the moment when Eren saved her by killing one of the traffickers and then
wrapped his scarf around her awoke something in her that indebted her to Eren.
This also manifests as romantic feelings as the cast goes from ten years old to
mid teens to young adults over the show. Mikasa bears a strength that Eren
never gets though, and she has to save him as often as he saves her. Mikasa is
the least developed of the three main characters, but she still grows a lot in
her outlook, and she winds up the deciding factor of many of the action scenes
in the show. Eren, Mikasa and Armin balance each other, and this trilogy took
Armin out entirely and relegated Mikasa to a weak damsel that completely loses
agency midway through the story. I feel the need to reiterate that Attack On
Titan is not the only way to tell a story of this scale, but legitimately, as I
think you will come to see, this trilogy is the kind of story where failing the
Bechdel test legitimately does make it is somewhat misogynistic, and Mikasa is
an example of a well written character that is still obsessed with the main
hero that they chose to deviate from because their inspiration was clearly AOT.
The party stumbles upon the ruins of some buildings
that have almost transformed into the Earth. As Martin explains, lichen
attached itself to the buildings’ rubble and fossilized, with further flora
growing on top of that. Haruo loses his balance, a symptom of PCP addiction,
nah kidding he intentionally drops to his knees, and declares, as the music
swells that “Although we’ve forgotten, this planet has always remembered us,”
and that they must take it back. This is a very effective emotional moment, but
we have to actually examine what happened here because Haruo is wrong and that
is part of the point of this whole trilogy. As we learn in scenes before and
after this one, the florafauna of the Earth changed while they were gone.
Leaves are stronger than steel, and the native animals
are just as strong but seem like offshoots of Godzilla; these Servum as they
are called attack the base camp, and this batch is winged but there are also
terrestrial ones later. The metallic and magnetic properties of the Servum and
the plants are in common with Godzilla, and the trilogy later confirms it is
not Godzilla’s doing but natural mimicry across nature. So nature has absorbed
the humans’ buildings, yes, but did so to become Godzilla. There is an old
poster that came out before we knew much about what the 2014 film would entail,
I believe it was a Comic Con exclusive, and it showed building rubble
coalescing into an effigy of Godzilla. It equates Godzilla with destruction and
dominion over what he has destroyed. A Monster-Planet (now you can see why I
said that title made more sense) growing over the remains of humanity is a win
condition for Godzilla not an inspiring moment for humanity. Haruo is of course
allowed to be wrong, he’ll be wrong a lot, it just is important to note that as
often as it happens.
Leland listens to Martin’s explanation of the
florafauna and comes to the reasonable conclusion that they need to retreat,
saying it would be the height of stupidity to fight Godzilla for a planet like
this. Haruo has an emotional attachment obviously to staying but he gets so
angry at this that he literally attacks his good friend Leland, pinning him up
against the wall. Haruo confronts Leland on abandoning his goal of being
humanity’s hero by taking down Godzilla, and Leland, again correctly, explains
that they have already taken heavy losses, their manpower is not trained in
fighting, and he frankly underestimated the mission. Now, since Leland is now
abdicating the “hero of humanity” title, and Metphies applied it to Haruo’s
holy mission, we can fairly expect it to be Haruo that this journey
immortalizes into some kind of legend (we’ll get there) and not Leland. Now
notably, Metphies followed these two when they ran off, so he is able to
manipulate Leland by saying he agrees with him, but the Servum damaged their
equipment so they cannot leave. Metphies keeps going, explaining that the only
plan for retreat they even have is pretty much verbatim the choreography of
Haruo’s attack plan. Later, Metphies tells Haruo that he knows that Godzilla
will not let them escape and will seek them out.
There’re certainly things to appraise as well or poorly
written in this trilogy, and that’s not my focus here. The movie has been
functionally speaking good so far. Haruo is not going to have an arc until the
next film, the side characters are more of a Greek chorus than individuals, and
the specific details built up in this movie are going to destroy some plot
points of the later films, but, so far, nothing has contradicted itself, and I
think Leland’s arc ground this film pretty well. Still, now Godzilla shows up,
and we have another point of comparison to AOT.
Eren Jaeger winds up in military custody after his
actions in the Battle of Trost, and, after a trial, Captain Levi becomes Eren’s
official handler, Levi being humanity’s strongest soldier, a very dynamic role
that toes the line between mentor and main cast member. Levi’s deal is that he
is so strong and skilled that eventually he has to watch everyone around him
die. His “Levi Squad” consists of very skilled handpicked soldiers, and, on a
mission outside of the walls midway through season one, they are responsible
for protecting Eren. Now, at that point, an intelligent 15 meter Titan starts
hunting after Eren, and Levi Squad races through a wooded area as this huge
Titan follows them. Levi Squad begs Eren to trust them and not go off and fight
the Titan by himself. Eventually, Levi Squad has to fight this Titan because
the plan did not work, and Eren chooses to believe in them. Levi tells him
that, after all of these missions, he does not know which is the correct
option, if he should trust in his comrades or in himself. Levi tells Eren to
“do as his conscious dictates,” and then Eren watches this intelligent Titan
systematically kill the other soldiers in Levi Squad, and then Eren fights the
Titan himself. That scene is so crucial to the entire show and Eren’s
development, and Planet of the Monsters has a scene so similar I think the
inspiration is clear. (Just so you know that the reference is possible, you
should know this movie came out in 2017, and season one dropped in 2013, so
yeah they had time to copy this part.)
When Godzilla appears, it is in a wooded area where he
poses a big danger to their convoy. Even though by all accounts, Yuko is
Haruo’s official handler, Metphies has control over Hauro’s handcuffs and
releases him. Specifically, Metphies says the words, “Do as your soul is crying
out to do,” and Haruo races off on a speeder to fight Godzilla. In this case,
he wants to record Godzilla’s force field pattern, which is crucial to his
annihilation strategy, but all of the speeder’s attacks are too light so he preps
a kamikaze run. This is at the beginning of Haruo’s journey, and it would be
rather embarrassing if this exact visual becomes the wrap-around to the end of
his arc, but I digress. Delusions of grandeur and inflated strength as well as
violent suicidal actions are side effects of PCP use. Taking a scene that was
so complex and driven by the strong personalities of a large cast and turning
it into Haruo distracting Godzilla to selfishly advance his plan while killing
himself is just so weird to see as a consumer of both pieces of media.
The only reason Haruo does not go through with it is
because Leland commandeers some heavier artillery to get Godzilla’s attention,
and Godzilla returns fire, killing Leland. As I am rewatching and reviewing
this, I am realizing that this film is rather light on Leland, and this is not
a case where he has a top 10 or even top 20 character arc in this franchise,
but I gravitated toward him because his is the only character arc in the film,
he is a well-intentioned and level headed character, and the conflict between
his ideals and Haruo’s is actually very interesting in a movie where the only
other main character is Metphies, who just agrees with Haruo. I like Leland
because he had a simple arc of choosing between his military role or his
childhood friend, that is to say choosing between what is best for humanity and
his childish goal of being the ultimate hero, and it always felt to me watching
this movie that there was a complexity to his choices instead of just vague
confused writing that I see in the trilogy as a whole. He died to save another
soldier, but that soldier was specifically Haruo, and, in so doing, he helped
Haruo get the data he needed for the plan Leland at least professionally
opposed (but Leland must have been on board enough to initially take the
mission).
Metphies immediately defers leadership to Haruo, which
confirms they will do his plan. Despite there being an entire chain of command
composed of a coalition of three humanoid species, Haruo’s acceptance speech is
enough to convince everybody there not to mutiny and instead follow him to
their certain death fighting Godzilla. Again, AOT being a good show is not
really relevant to this point, but this specific plot point made a lot more
sense when it was cadet Eren Jaeger who finished top 10 of his training year
inspiring other cadets, one of which was Armin, in the lead-up to the Battle of
Trost. There is no reason that Adam Bindewald, Belu-be, Galu-gu and Martin
should all listen to Haruo, and we cannot argue that the earlier scenes of
Haruo not being confident in this mission means he had an arc because he was
willing to ask the entire ship to implement this plan anonymously and then also
presented it to the central committee. Nothing changed in Haruo from the
beginning even though his friend died saving him from recklessly carrying out
this plan. The Servum swarm also poses a major roadbloack in operational
security.
Godzilla’s part of the battle is looking around and
firing his beam. Throughout the entire trilogy, Godzilla will be very sluggish
and lethargic, another symptom of PCP we haven’t covered yet, and believe me it
is actually very notable how lethargic this Godzilla is. During Leland’s death,
Haruo’s attacks were not hard enough to register on Godzilla’s force field, and
yet after sustaining those, a volley of shots from Leland that did register on
the force field and shooting one atomic breath at Leland, Godzilla was spent
and retreated instead of finishing off the people Metphies was so sure he would
not let escape. This is not even a case like in Minus One where using the beam
hurts him. He got so tired from doing nothing that he had to retreat. And
Godzilla will spend most of film 2 and like half of film 3 sleeping, actually
Godzilla has spent most of this film sleeping, and you’ll find out soon enough
how I can say that so confidently.
After a battle where Godzilla can barely register how
fast (comparatively) the machinery around him is moving, Godzilla explodes. Now
this still required Haruo risking his life, but it kind of screwed with the
stakes because no one saved Haruo, he just managed to survive the guns shooting
on his power suit like there was no tomorrow. Okay so Godzilla just died, and
we’ve got 14 more minutes and then two more movies. Martin starts talking to
Haruo, because Martin is the exposition guy as I am sure you remember, about
how biologically the Godzilla they just killed is unlikely to be the real
capital G Godzilla let’s say because nature always changes. And yeah that
wasn’t the Godzilla this trilogy bears in its title. That 50 meter creature was
Godzilla Filius, and the original Godzilla now wakes up, demolishing the
mountain he was sleeping under because he is 300 meters tall and has a beard.
Okay so anyway he issues a super oscillatory wave out of his mouth and creates
a huge shockwave from whipping his tail, and that destroys at least the vehicle
Haruo was in, knocking him out.
It is difficult to actually use the built in stopping
points of these films for one thing because it is meant as one big story but
also because the novel adaptations literally chopped the second film in half in
order to make the whole story just two books.
Even so, we will stop here for now. The video upload (Godzilla's Anime Trilogy:
Attack On Titan On PCP) of this still wound up at an hour and thirty seven
minutes (the whole thing was 15,000 words), and I invite you to watch the video
while you wait for the next part of the transcript. Also, watch Attack on Titan
in the meantime, as the next parts will significantly spoil several plot
points.
