Gamera: Super Monster is the eighth and final Gamera movie in the Showa era.
Review:
When an alien ship arrived to Earth, three super women decide to summon Gamera from a young boy's turtle to fight the monsters the aliens unleashed on the planet.
I have gave some compliments to them whether it was how Gamera acted more animalistic in terms of how he first fought these monsters and how I liked the more adult themes. Even when Gamera became more and more geared towards children, I would at least find something that I would like about the movies regardless of how mediocre they were. Gamera: Super Monster, however, had to be one of the most painful movies to sit through from beginning to end. There is very little to no redeeming qualities to this movie at all.
To start off, the story revolves these three women superheroes that detected an alien ship approaching Earth seeking to invade the planet by using giant monsters. Instead of fighting off these monsters themselves, they convince a small boy to allow them to transform his pet turtle into Gamera and have Gamera fight the monsters for them. When you read it like that, it sounds like a cool "Destroy All Monsters" style movie. In retrospect, it is exactly that. All of the monsters that Gamera has fought in his previous movies all appear in this one movie. There is only one problem. Almost all of the scenes that include Gamera and the fight scenes are stock footage from previous films. The reason for this is because by the time the movie was being made the studio Daiei Co. was on its last leg financially and was about to go bankrupt. So director Noriaki Yuasa did not have the budget he would have needed to film new scenes.
In all honesty, I could not sit through this film in one sitting. I had to watch it in segments and fast forwarded past the stock footage that make up more than half the movie. If it was not for the heavy use of the stock footage I would be down for a "Destroy All Monsters" style of film because this is what Gamera: Super Monster seemed like it was going for with all of the monsters appearing in the film. And yet, the movie went with this idea in the worst way imaginable. Luckily based on how Gamera: Rebirth looks, we will actually get to see a Gamera version of a "Destroy All Monsters" kind of show that is well deserved.
What I thought amazed me a little bit was the blatant plagiarism with the space ship and the movie's prologue. Since this movie came out in 1980, Star Wars was the movie that people would ever talk about. So it would no surprise if other studios tried to capitalize on the "Star Wars" craze either through parody or just as a small reference. Gamera: Super Monster, however, did a copy-paste. While the prologue is not a scene for scene copy it is very easy to spot. The ship in this movie is a star destroyer that was chasing a small rebel ship and this space ship is seen throughout the movie. It is unknown if George Lucas was made aware of this or not. It would not be a shocker if he hasn't since nobody has really heard of Gamera nor cared. If he has then perhaps he could not really care less about it seeing this movie bombed in the Japanese box office. No point in fanning a flame if there is no smoke to begin with.
Speaking of fanning the flame, I did laugh at the ending of the movie. It tried to be snarky by having Gamera step on a poster of Godzilla. Before Daiei Co. filed for bankruptcy they have proposed to Toho Co. to do a crossover movie where Godzilla and Gamera would come together for a fight much like King Kong vs Godzilla. However, Toho Co. declined responding to them believing the two franchises should stay separate. Back then, Gamera was the underdog like Rocky Balboa and Godzilla was Apollo Creed of the franchises, except everyone liked Creed over Balboa in this case. Toho Co. wanted nothing to do with Gamera nor with Daiei Co. Overall, it was completely laughable that Daiei Co. tried to stir the flames over a barely existent rivalry.
Final Thoughts:
Gamera: Super Monster is easily the top contender for being the worst Gamera movie with heavy use of stock footage. Daiei Co. knew they were bleeding money and they relied on this movie as their saving grace to recover from their financial debt, which did not do them any favors. They even tried to force a rivalry between Gamera and Godzilla without really knowing why Godzilla was so successful in the first place and not even Toho Co. wanted Godzilla anywhere near Gamera in a movie seeing it was a waste of their time. However, their rivalry that barely existed will actually start coming to fruition in 1995. As Toho Co. ended their Heisei era of Godzilla movies with Godzilla vs Destroyah, Daiei Co. is about to reboot Gamera with an all new look and pizazz that will take Gamera in a much more serious and dark direction.
What are your thoughts on Gamera: Super Monster? Do you like this movie or do you think it's a lame duck? Do you think Godzilla and Gamera will ever feature together in a future movie? Leave a comment in the comments section of your thoughts on this movie. Make sure to follow me on Facebook, Minds, MeWe, Gab, and TRUTH Social to stay up to date for more news, reviews, and discussions.
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