#kaijusaurus

Return to the Showa era of Godzilla movies with a new full-cast audio production, written and directed by Steven Sloss.

Listen to the end for an exclusive preview of the Pharaoh of Eels audio experience!

ESSAY: JURASSIC CITY* Recently the hosts of the @kaijusaurus podcast covered the film GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II (Dir. Takao Okawara). Unfortunately Stephen and Ross didn’t think much of it. I, however, have always been a fan of this film (really there isn’t a Godzilla film I’m not a fan of, so maybe that’s not a fair metric by which to judge) so I wanted to offer a different perspective on the movie. GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II was released in 1993, the same year as JURASSIC PARK (Dir. Stephen Spielberg). As a result of their close production schedules it seems unlikely that either film was directly influenced by the other in any real way. Nevertheless one of the things which I find fascinating is how thematically similar the two films are. As noted by David Kalat, in the revised edition of his book A CRITICAL HISTORY AND FILMOGRAPHY OF TOHO’S GODZILLA SERIES (2010), the theme of GvsMG2 is “life verses artificial life” as articulated by MechaGodzilla pilot Lt. Berger (Sherry Sweeney). In the film we are introduced, for the first time, to G-Force; a United Nations scientific-military organization dedicated to the eradication of Godzilla and other monsters like him. To this end, G-Force has constructed two weapons: MechaGodzilla and Garuda - the second being a souped up fighter jet that can attach itself to MechaGodzilla’s back to provide the robotic doppelgänger with extra fire power. As a unit MechaGodzilla and Garuda stand in opposition to the dinosaurian-kaiju Godzilla and Rodan. The reason for their tussle? G-Force has recently come into the possession of (i.e. kidnapped) a baby Godzillasaurus which they want to study in order to build more effective anti-Godzilla weapons. As any viewer well versed in the genre of dinosaur and kaiju movies can tell you, taking a baby away from a parent is never a good idea. Didn’t work out in GORGO (1961, Dir. Eugène Lourié). Or in GAPPA (1967, Dir. Haruyasu Noguchi). Or in BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND (1985, Dir. Bill L. Norton). And it isn’t going to work out here. As Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) would later say in THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997, Dir. Stephen Spielberg) the only thing you succeed in doing in such an instance is making “mommy very angry.” As is to be expected, despite a tough battle, in the end Godzilla and Rodan triumph over man’s machines. As Kalat writes, the moral of the story is clear, “Humans cannot hope to build anything superior to what nature can create.” Thus organic life triumphs over artificial life. This sentiment has always struck me as being, in spirit, similar to Ian Malcolm’s pronouncement in JURASSIC PARK that “life finds a way.” If you don’t see it perhaps it’s necessary to back up and consider the bit of dialogue right before this, spoken by Malcolm to Jurassic Park’s creator John Hammond, after being told that the resident scientists are fully capable of completely controlling the park’s dinosaurs… “John, the kind of control you’re attempting simply is… it’s not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh… well, there it is.” Just like the scientists in Jurassic Park, the scientists and soldiers working for G-Force are attempting to control nature; symbolized here by dinosaurs. Both in their capture and exploitation of the baby Godzillasaurus but also in their attempt to create better (i.e. artificial) versions of living creatures in the form of MechaGodzilla/Godzilla and Garuda/Rodan - this is an idea that the Jurassic Park franchise would not fully explore until the recent film JURASSIC WORLD (2015, Dir. Colin Trevorrow) which, as film critic and horror author Kim Newman observed, breaks the mold of previous JP films by bringing a certain “kaiju feel to the game.”** Of course in both cases mankind fails. The dinosaurs - whether they be Godzilla and Rodan or T. Rex and Velociraptors - break free, expand into new territories and crash through buildings, often violently. Despite our most advance technology - be it robotics or genetic engineering - mankind has yet to triumph over nature.                    *This is actually the title which GODZILLA VS MECHAGODZILLA II was released under in Hindi speaking markets. Clearly someone saw the connection between these two movies before me. **I both agree and disagree with Newman here. I agree that JURASSIC WORLD is far more like a kaiju movie then any previous JP film. I disagree however that it was the first film in the series to do this. In fact I would argue that the entire JP series owes a certain debt to the kaiju genre. The whole idea of Jurassic Park was anticipated 25-years prior by the Godzilla film DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968, Dir. Ishiro Honda) and Spielberg himself cited the original GODZILLA (1954, Dir. ishiro Honda) as a key influence on the first Jurassic Park. He also said that the climax of the second JP was added - it wasn’t a part of the original screenplay - because it fulfilled his lifelong desire to make a Godzilla-type film.         

This arrived in the post today from good friend @stevenscrivello / @kaijusaurus! I am blown away by your generosity, Steven. Thank you so much!

This audio experience surfaces in early 2020, after the release of the fully illustrated print version with art by Alex Gayhart.

Narrated by Steven Sloss, written and featuring music by Raffael Coronelli.