Godzilla - General Thoughts

Godzilla has always been a favorite character of mine, and ahead, as my first reviews for the site, are quick little capsule reviews covering every Godzilla movie ever made, with the exception of the most recent, Gojira: Fainaru uôzu (one will be added whenever I finally get a chance to see it.) I plan to do fuller reviews for the films, but as I don’t own the entire series, it’ll have to wait until another day.

Before all of that, I thought I’d share a few brief thoughts on the monster, to give a tiny bit of context to what follows.

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Personal Prefrence

My preferred Godzilla is that of the Showa era (the Godzilla films made between 1954 and 1974). I especially like the later ones where Godzilla is more of a hero, but I think the good stories back then were better. Perhaps not in craft, but in heart. There was less concern about delivering morals (though there were morals) and more effort to make an engaging, if in some cases silly, tale.

The Showa Godzilla also always strikes me as having more soul. The fights seem more personal to me, and less about the colored beams being spouted hither and yond. The Heisei Godzilla (the Godzilla featured in the films made between 1984 and 1995) was, to me, too stiff, as if the special effects department was afraid he’d break.

I don’t want to give the impression I don’t like the Heisei Godzilla movies, or the Millennium movies that followed, for that matter. It’s just that I grew up with the Showa Godzilla. When I think of towering dinosaurs crushing landscapes, it’s of a rubbery suit with eyes, more often than not, pointed in a direction other than where he’s supposed to be looking. The love I have for him and his movies is hard to beat, even with the most advance special effects, even with the heights of animatronics.

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The Godzilla Plot

While I do love Godzilla movies, and Kaijû (Japanese Giant Monster) movies in general, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many of them are built on the same basic plot, with the occasional variations. They tend to go something like this:

• Invader Kaijû attacks the given Locality - Usually, but not always, that Locality is Japan.
• Guardian Kaijû fights Invader and loses - On rare occasions this means the death of Guardian. When that happens, kin of the Guardian comes to finish the score
• Guardian fights Invader again and defeats Invader - Again, in rare cases this means the death of the Invader.
• Guardian leaves Locality in peace - Or, more often than not, pieces. Kaijû are not the most careful of beasts

Invader is any Kaijû that is more interested in destruction than anything else. Guardian is any Kaijû that is specifically guarding a place, or shows an interest in something other than rearranging landscape.

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Secret Shame

One further thing before I wrap this essay up. I like the 1998 Godzilla. It’s a terrible movie, and it’s probably more than a little bit disrespectful of it’s source, but I can’t help it. I find the monster parts vastly entertaining.

To differentiate between mammoth lizards, I’m going to follow the lead of Gojira Fainaru uôzu and refer to the American Godzilla as Jira, which, for whatever reasons, strikes me as a far classier and clever name than “GINO” or “Deanzilla”

Endings

No endings were spoiled in the making of this essay on endings

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When I was but a wee lad, I knew good endings from bad. The good ending had the Heroes beating up the Bad Guys and living Happily Ever After. The bad endings had the good guys dying and the villains winning. Nothing could be simpler.

As I've grown to adulthood, this position hasn't changed, exactly. While I now have a tendency to refer to the good guys as the more neutral protagonist and the bad guys by the equally neutral Antagonist, I still prefer watching movies and reading books where Good triumphs.

However, I've come to realize that there are better definitions for a good ending and a bad ending. The following are some of my thoughts on what composes the two.

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Clean Arrival

A good ending fits the story like a glove. When looking back on the course of the plot, it should be clear how the characters reached this outcome. Whether you like the outcome or not is another ending.

Cheating can be forgiven here and there during the course of the tale, but never ever at the end. A minor cheat brings the roll of the eyes, a lessening of regard for what has come before. A major one means the story shouldn't have been made in the first place.

Using this line of thought, stories where the protagonist dies, or where Evil does triumph over Good, can qualify as good endings. It helps, however, if the protagonists succeed in some way. It could be a major victory, such as with the protagonists trapping themselves in a parallel dimension in order to stem off an alien invasion, or a minor one, such as a protagonist sacrificing his or her life to defeat an monstrous creature.

Crafting the right ending is a vital part of the story. It is the creator's final word on the matter. It should match what has come before and not be something completely and totally different. After spending an hour or so worth of comedic adventurers with a group of protagonist, one really doesn't need to see each and every one of them brutally murdered. On the flipside, switching to dumb comedy at the end of a horror movie is equally disastrous.

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The Saturation Effect

The Saturation Effect is where everything goes right for the protagonists through the course of the movie. Or, on the other hand, where everything goes wrong. It is an overdose of the positive or the negative and it leads to a less that enjoyable experience, depending how the work ends.

In the first case, a happy ending is less than satisfying. What was the point? Where was the challenge? The majority of cartoons suffer from the Saturation Effect. If the story are silly enough or diverting enough, one might not notice it happening. But why risk it?

With the second case, a downbeat ending is uncalled for, even if the rest of the movie is moving to that point. This varies, of course, with how bad things go wrong, but the darker the work, the less cause for such an outcome. Might as well go out into the world and do something rather than partake in such entertainment.

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The Point of No Redemption

A companion to the Saturation Effect is the Point of No Redemption. Sometimes an audience will watch a film or read a story and reach a point in the narrative where they say, "Things have to turn out this way. Otherwise I'm due a portion of my life back."

This is something the creator has little control over, as audiences vary. However, avoiding the Saturation Effect helps here. It helps a lot.

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In Conclusion

At the end of the day, all of these thoughts are merely guidelines at best, personal opinion at worst. The talented creator can ignore this point or that point and get away with doing so. It is a risk to do so and always will be. But if the story demands it...

Site Report

As I'm figutively spinning my wheels on how to approach the next essay and the novel is doing its weird holding pattern (I'm writing stuff I think it needs, but there's no backing to it yet), I thought I'd add the first Index Pages I talked about in the revised Statement of Intent. They will be for Poems and Essays, as those are the two I have the most (any) of. I'm going to set the time to before this post in the hopes of avoiding confusion.

On Writing in General

On some of the message boards I've been frequenting, I've been talking about my opinions on writing. This should show the type of writer I am working towards being. As they also form some of the basis for how I judge certain entertainments, I figured it could double as a start for the previously promised standards of review.

Every writer, no matter the field, promises to divert, to inform, or to provide some combination of the two. Failure to deliver on this promise leads to an unsatisfactory reading experience. Whether or not a story, poem, or essay fails is not always up to the writer. No matter how well a piece is written, there will be some people left cold by what they've read. Worse, there will be people who'll be infuriated.

The only thing a writer can do is write the best, truest way possible. Which means make sure facts are straight, dates are right, and the last sentence written really says what it's supposed to say. Clarity is a virtue, not a sin.

The fiction writer has additional concerns. The characters should behave in a believable way. For instance, the kindly family dog shouldn't turn into a killer for no reason; there has to be a cause for the effect. The dog has gone rabid, or has been mistreat. Something like that.

On this, the story should continue on it way in an equally believable fashion. Cheats such as a deus ex machina (the gods rescuing the good guys) or a diabolus ex machina (the other team rescuing the bad guys) should be avoided like a hungry tiger searching for a little breakfast. When the story ends, whether with the protagonist in triumph or failure, the reader should be able to look back at what was read and say, "I believe that could happen."

Now, I don't believe that any of this is engraved in stone. One can be long winded and not bore and audience; one can lower the gods from on high for a last ditch rescue and not alienate the audience. It's just risky to do so. One would have to really know their stuff to get away with it, or be lucky enough to catch the reader in a good mood.

The next couple of days, I think I'm going to go into the subject of writing a little bit more. In and amidst that, I'm going to say what I think makes a good ending and a bad ending, my opinion on the nature of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and just why I call myself a Writer of the Fantastic. There is also a chance of Short Story and more bad poetry, with even more tweeking of the site and adding of pictures of dubious artistic worth.

Hopefully with a loose schedule of things to do, I'll cut back on the frothy posts and seem a little more like a man of 30+ and less like a teenager new at the whole writing gig. Not that that's a bad thing.

Entirely.

Stealth Post!

BWAHAHAHAHA! The day's just begun, and already I've made my daily quota!

Actually, I'm going to put out a larger one later. I just wanted to use that title. So silly!

I'm in good humor right now. Between this blog and some of the message boards I've been posting on, I've begun to feel like a real writer. Now if only I could write something of substance.

Keeping the Streak Alive!

I'm in sort of a blah mood right now, so I'm not sure how much writing I'm going to do. However! As this is the longest I've kept ANY JOURNAL EVER, I felt more than a little obligated to make at least a small post.

Easter came and went at my household. A good day by far. Hopefully everything came out okay for everyone else.

And with that, I'm outie. I'll try and give a bigger post later, and DEFINITELY will post again tomorrow.

Keeping my streak going!

Happy Easter

For those who celibrate the season, Happy Easter.

Iffin I can, I'll post again later today. If I can't... well, this'll have to do.