Godzilla Says You Can Go F*#k Yourself

There are many a brilliant minds in the writing ocean these days.  Garrett Cook (author of Archelon Ranch, Murderland II: Life During Wartime, Murderland Part I - H8, and the upcoming Jimmy Plush: Teddy Bear Detective) is a little bit of an afficianado when it comes to crap cinema.  Did I say crap?  I meant, one person's crap SyFy B-movie masterpiece is someone else's "Casablanca".  Garrett, when not writing twisted tales for your enjoyment, maintains the blog: http://www.dollarbinmassacre.blogspot.com/.  Dollar Bin Massacre, as you'll see is a veritable shrine to cinema whose merits have been overshadowed by their shortcomings.  Garrett Cook's a knowledgeable guy when it comes to B-grade cinema, and he'd like to drop a few thoughts on you regarding the brainchild of ToHo Pictures.


Godzilla Says You Can Go Fuck Yourselves: Divine Intervention in Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster
by Garrett Cook

In Ishiro Honda’s Gojira, Japan, a country that not along ago had suffered the burning agony of enduring two atomic bombs, becomes a modern day Job as their torments go from disaster and disease to facing the ire of a bonafide Leviathan. He comes out of the sea, a primal predator, a radioactive mutant and a vicious revenant repeating with bursts of atomic flame, the trauma that made it what it is. It’s epic, it’s terrible, it’s biblical in its scope. Because man has shown nature hatred, nature has been taught to hate like it has never hated before. Familiar ground in atomic monster movies. From the harrowing and beautiful experience that is Gojira, one would be tempted to think the candycoated kaiju smackdowns that followed it could never again make such a profound statement or cleave so close to a thematic core.

Godzilla fans will of course argue this is not the case. Many of them will bring up Godzilla vs. Hedorah, the psychedelic environmental parable as an example of how much heart and conscience the films have. Those that don’t take that angle will bring up Godzilla vs. Mothra as a warning against corporate greed. Me? I might start with Godzilla vs. Hedorah, but I’d be wrong in doing so. When it comes to giant monster movies talking about man’s relationship to nature and the divine in a profound and meaningful way, Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster is draconic head and draconic head and draconic head and shoulders ahead of most other kaiju classics.

The movie begins with an indictment against our skeptical mindset and tendency to ignore when either God or the environment are talking to us. The majority of mankind (with the exception of some weirdly open minded and New Agey scientists) proceeds to ignore a crippling heat wave in January, a weird magnetic anomaly and the warnings of someone that might just be a Martian prophetess. Other than these cool, New Agey scientists, mankind seems about ready for a celestial spanking and is likely to get it from not just Godzilla and Rodan, but interstellar space dragon King Ghidorah, Mr. Armageddon, a creature so badass that nobody cares that it makes the most annoying sound on Earth and is probably just about the most wobbly agent of destruction there is. When we first see King Ghidorah land, it is framed in the arch of a temple, angry, blasphemous, a walking antitrinity

Mothra is another face of the divine. In Godzilla vs. Mothra, Mothra died protecting mankind from Godzilla, yet left behind two eggs that hatched out two new larval Mothras that in spite of the loss of their mother, join together to fight Godzilla, to cool off nature’s wrath. While the titan Godzilla’s relationship with mankind is akin to that of Zeus or an Old Testament God, Mothra is the granola chomping hughappy Christ that Three Dog Night believes is waiting with s’mores on the road to Shamballah. Although in Godzilla vs. Mothra, Mothra’s cute but sort of creepy but sort of hot twin emissaries were kidnapped by unscrupulous corporate goons, in Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, they have no qualms appearing on TV to tell a small child Mothra is still out there, on the island of love and forgiveness, which is a great place to be, a place with people you should be more like, but you don’t have to, because Mothra wants you to do your own thing and decide for yourself, even though Mothra saved you from Godzilla that time and would really like it if you stopped wrecking the planet and stuff…or don’t…just read this pamphlet and decide for yourself and come to the spaghetti dinner…but only if you want to. The twins also wanna tell people about a trip to Six Flags that’s mostly people from the congregation but anyone can go and it’s more about having fun and making friends than Mothra. Sadly, you cannot purchase a Mothrafish for your car. But, anyway, Godzilla = wrathful god, Mothra = Jesus/Horus/other loveable redeemer figure, Ghidorah = nondenominational Satanic Orochi thing and Rodan, the fourth party in all of this = totally stupid pterodactyl thing that just wants to antagonize Godzilla. Rodan must be a symbol of these mysterious ways world religion/Bono tells us deities work in.

When King Ghidorah comes, man is left to work with not just the monster that loves them, but also the monsters/gods that hate them. Which is interesting from a theological standpoint. Why should you have faith in a just God or a perfect universe when life shits on you? Why should we pick up our trash when hurricanes blow our house away? Why do bad things happen to good people? Godzilla doesn’t just stomp on greedy corporate types or people who design nuclear weapons. He doesn’t choose to only leave war mongers to suffer. Why shouldn’t we hate the Earth, God, Nature, Isis, Superman, The Spectre, giant monsters and the wizard Shazam? The conclusion to Ghidorah:The Three Headed Monster reveals to us why not.

So, the people of the Earth realize they need giant monster aid to stop King Ghidorah, because our tiny tanks and weird satellite dish cars that shoot lightning just won’t cut it. Of course, we go to the tiny twins and they decide to talk to Mothra, who will in turn talk to Godzilla and Rodan, which is very nice and bold of Mothra because Godzilla and Mothra don’t really get along and Rodan is a giant pterodactyl with a nasty sense of humor and mean case of ADD. Godzilla says no. Godzilla and Rodan want to fight. Mankind hasn’t been good to Godzilla, or the Earth or each other, so why should we not have to deal with the wrath of the three headed outsider? Mothra wants Godzilla and Rodan to help anyway, and the twins, still interpreting censure Godzilla for bad languages because, I speculate, what he says is the very title of this essay (minus the serious part that tells you what the essay is about of course.) This conversation is what makes me love this movie and its message, but what Mothra does next makes me love it much more.

The plucky little caterpillar goes against King Ghidorah alone and for a moment, we get to see a sad eyed Godzilla realizing his rival knows something about mankind and the world that he doesn’t and that maybe he should know and maybe for the next several movies when his robot twin or a cybernetic chicken with a buzzsaw chest or a lightning cockroach come around maybe he should do something about it. While Godzilla sees the evil to punish, Mothra sees the good to protect. And what happened then? Well, on Monster Island, they say Godzilla's Thermonuclear heart grew three sizes that day. So, Godzilla, Rodan and Mothta mop the floor with the Orochi Setite Lovecraftian Antichrist and we’re left with insights about how to live our lives that rival most religious texts. We must be loving, but vigilant, forgiving, but forceful and we must not be utter douchebags to each other, the Earth or princesses from weird countries we’ve never heard of that have martian prophecy powers. Amen.

 Garrett Cook is the author of Archelon Ranch, Murderland, and the upcoming Jimmy Plush.  He invites fans to visit his website: http://thegarrettcook.blogspot.com.  Also, he encourages people to read Archelon Ranch (especially if you're a foreigner) and review it.  He feels that a review from you loyal fans are far more beneficial than a review from one of his 817 endearing pseudonyms.  He also invites afforementioned fans to purchase him beer should their paths cross.















This marks the close of The Author's Speak: Giant Monster Week.  However, I'll leave you with a little tidbit.  This press release just came to me, and I figured I would share.  I've not read the book, not looked at it, or even placed it against my forehead (charging osmosis), so I've no way to endorse it.  It does tie-in with our themed week, though.

“MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN -- The Fantastic Cinema of Ishiro Honda” by Peter H. Brothers.
For the first time in America, a book has been published on Japan's foremost director of Fantasy Films. Known primarily for directing such classic Japanese monster movies as Rodan, Mothra, Attack of the Mushroom People and the original Godzilla, Honda has been a much-overlooked figure in mainstream international cinema.

MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN is the first book to cover in English print Honda’s life as well comprehensively evaluates all 25 of his fantasy films. It is also gives objective and critical analysis of Honda's filmmaking methods, themes and relationships with actors and technicians.

Making use of extensive interviews from Honda’s colleagues, as well as a wealth of original source material never before gathered into one volume (including unpublished essays), MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN is an affectionate tribute to arguably the most-prolific and influential director in the history of fantasy films.

MUSHROOM CLOUDS AND MUSHROOM MEN (ISBN No.: 978-1-4490-2771-1) is available online and at AuthorHouse.com at: http://www.authorhouse.com/Bookstore/ItemDetail.aspx?bookid=65692

Join us next week when we have more fun than a Zombie at a Mensa meet-n-greet.  S.G. Browne, author of the national bestseller Breathers, joins us to chit chat the shambling undead.  We'll also spotlight those zombie haikus that you sent in!  Join us next week.

Until then, keep reading.