License:
Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike

by Troler

Free Software fundamentally misses the point. It fails on a practical, ideological, economic, and political level. Let’s examine precisely how (in a slightly different order for the purposes of presentation).

In the crevices, deep down in the National Film Archive of Japan lays a copy of 1956 film Rodan. It was a commercial success, attributing it to the popularity of Gojira. As the name entails, it is not Gojira, rather a monster movie planted in ripe soil tilled by the 1954 classic. It made a splash both locally and abroad, as was said in a 1959 Variety release:

Coming 2 years after it, the goal was set to innovate. Just making 38 Gojira films would not do, innovation was needed and it had to fly the viewers of their seats!.. That's what was done. It is a movie about flying dinosaurs.

Directed by the mastermind behind Gojira Ishiro Honda, it is nearly the same story. Besides it being about flying dinosaurs, plural, the story diverges by only having the mere knowledge of the monsters existence mid-way in the movie. Then what in the heckindy doo did the writer Ken Kuronuma do, to make us wait so long? The introductory shots are that of a coal-mine village. With the main plot-thread starting with an argument between Goro and Yoshi. As the workers descent to the mines, all hell breaks loose, water floods the shaft. As a result, Yoshi is found dead, his body harmed by a mysterious wound. Goro, mysteriously, is nowhere to be found. The cleverness of this set-up is in part due to the familiarity with Gojira. Here everything seems to inverted on its head. The location is not an open ocean, no, it's of a submerged mine within mountains. One of these elements is scary on its own, when there is a potential serial murderer, even more so when all of the 3 elements are combined. As the men come to rescue the potential murderer Goro, they are taken to the depths of the water. I am speechless of the idea of having gothic horror aesthetic together with some unknown force at the end of the submerged subterranean tunnel, taking life of anyone who come too close to it.

This it is actually a human sized worm called meganulon, played by Haruo Nakajima. This struck me as odd. Isn't the film supposed to be about a flying dinosaur, I thought to myself while watching. I imagined how the worm would go into a catacomb and come out as a destructive butterfly. I had to watch and see. As with most monsters within Toho movies, the worm-caterpillar is bulletproof. Although guns didn't stop it, tonnes of rocks falling on did. In the incident's crossfire was caught one little Shigeru Kawamura (Kenji Sahara). I am not going to dig into weeds about his acting, since this is not going the last I speak of him, just be aware he also plays the role of a helicopter pilot in Mothra. Intriguingly there are shots of the before mentioned cave-in, of the earth collapsing into a giant pit hole. For 1956 they are kuso (糞) impressive, excuse me for my vulgar language. This intense quake not only tenses up the viewers, it also sets up a next plot point about Shigeru losing his memory. As the doctors try to piece his shattered mind together, there are glimpses to the Rodan's damage caused just by casual flights. This A and B plot switching doesn't allow the movie to get stale: the excitement of seeing soft mutilation of humans and the slow churning PTSD flashbacks of an amnesiac.

In the flashback, the movie goes full on Avatar with a serene cave filled to the brim with meganulons. They are nothing when the eyes shutter at size of the rodan's egg. The dinosaur hatches and to capture the ravenous hunger of it, the bulletproof horrors, that are magunulon, are eaten one after another. To the dinosaur they are nothing more than vermin, a food full of proteins. This, this right here, is what I'd term the greatest moment of the film. It is the horror of realizing how weak the humans are. It is the realization of the vanity of most human endeavors to conquer the Earth. If they struggled with mere worms, what can be expected with a 12 storey high pteranodon!

Just few days separating my watching of Gojira and this film, my interest lies on where it innovates over its predecessor. Here, I raise up against Leonard Maltin's statement of the movie being "colorful comic book stuff". The problem with coming as a spiritual successor to a classic as profound as Gojira, it is near impossible to shake of comparisons. This is exactly what I did. My opinion diverges with the reviewer by by considering the film how it was perceived back then. It could have yet another movie about a giant monster wrecking the cities, ravaging and in the end being defeated by some cleaver move. It could've been yet another Gojira movie... Yet it plays with the viewers expectations. It starts of a gothic horror with the mysterious death of miners. The viewers are warmed up to the great foe that are meganulon for be eaten like what they truly are - worms. In Gojira the monster attack is already seen from the first scene. I admit of my strenuous defence of the Toho kaiju films. I was too young to experience the 60s monsterdom, with its pterrifying ptitanic pterodactyls

To be critical of the media, the critic must admit of their own affinities, which are always present. After watching all 49 episodes of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (2003), I must admit I love, love, love heavy use of practical special effects in movies and shows, so called tokustatsu. In some shots it is apparent flying dinosaur is actually a puppet hanging from a string. Yet tokusatsu does not entail a cheesy story, I cried at the end of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon.

Here the story takes a slight dive from the sky. With its greatness in the gothic aesthetic, it falls short in landing the plane. The use of these specific idioms is justified by the fact rodans flying sound effect is just a recording of a jet engine. That is as ludicrous as meganulon chirping, which is actually the case. What's more, there is just a single throw-away mention of the dinosaurs being awoken by the radiation. The focus is no longer about radiation and its impact in society, this is 1956 and Godzilla already serves as an all encompassing representation of the nuclear waste and Japan at that time. I reckon, the main justification for why the radiation was mentioned even once was to even further tie in the movie with Gojira. From it borrows fighter jets attacking the big bad monster and tanks shooting with full force. The second half of the movie very much feels like Gojira. The battles feel okay. It is unfortunate rodan doesn't move that much, it just flails its wings and causes hurricanes. Creating this appearance of it just sitting there, soaking in the missiles, as if it were a sponge. In Gojira's case, it stumbled through a city. Here the destruction is localized. Some damage is done when the dinosaur is heft up by the wind and flies at supersonic speeds, causing damage.There are plenty impressive Bayhem!-type shots of a bridge falling and the explosion of the volcano. Due to the lack of screen-time, the movie being only 90 minutes, there is not much emotional connection or empathy formed for the monster(s). In Gojira, the destruction is from the first moments of the film. That movie about the monster and the tragedy of the people.

The stakes of Rodan are amplified by the news of there being two rodans, one male the other female. Then the movie shifts to being a romance of the dinosaurs, as they are haunted by humans and their never ending tirade of bullets. The main reasoning behind the love-ties is to experience the fore-coming death more poignantly and emotionally. In a twisted fashion this trick worked. As their home is bombed by humans, the rodans flock together, rejoicing in each others company. One falls to the ground, on the flowing lava. Seeing the desperate situation, the last rodan down on top and in an act of love and is subsequently set ablaze by the now on-fire rodan. With the last moments of regret, it flies to the sky, to its avail, the fire has left the mark on the body and it can't escape the fate.

This may be called a Romeo and Juliet ending. I would not be so quick. The parts where I wrote about lovers and love were produced as a result of me looking them up. From the first viewing, there was not even the hint of understanding of there being any sort of romantic affection. To make it clear, the actor Haruo Nakajima was inside the suit and was held up by string. There was a person inside, flailing his arms. That was the extent to the movement that could be conveyed.

The end was dramatic, it was an echo of the end of Gojira. It didn't move me like Gojira, not because it is not decent movie, it is. Rather so, I knew what to expect from Gojira. The composer's Akira Ifukube score did not touch me like it did the first time. I got more familiar with it. The same director, same actors, same composer are working on the same genre movie. Their greatest achievement was made 2 years prior. The audience were in euphoria and desired more and more of these types of films. The movie is still watchable and enjoyable to this day. The fact it resisted the urge to be too derivative of its ancestor is praiseworthy.

Fin.

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