CCC’s GAMERA-THON! Gamera: A Brief History of Cinema Issue #5

Gamera: A Brief History of Cinema Issue #5

 

Pretty much everyone has heard of Godzilla, but not everyone is as familiar with one of the most bizarre and hilarious giant monsters to have spawned from Big G’s success: the kaiju who has been called the Guardian of the Universe, the Friend of All Children, and a Godzilla rip-off, but he’s most well known as simply GAMERA.

What, exactly, is Gamera? In short, he’s a giant prehistoric flying atomic mutant turtle that can eat fire. No, I’m not kidding, and yes, he is awesome.

I first stumbled across this puzzling monster in a department store when I was in grade six. It was among the first few DVDs I bought myself with my own allowance: Gamera: The Ultimate Collection. While the title for that DVD collection would prove to be erroneous in comparison to the many future releases I sought out, it had three movies on one disc and a fold-out cover with Gamera facts and images inside—not bad for ten bucks. I became the resident Gamera expert in my class (and my school…and probably my town…and probably one of only a few in my entire province) and looked for more Gamera movies to add to my collection.

This year, I obtained the Arrow Video blu ray releases of every movie, and while the two box sets may not be nearly as impressive as Arrow’s now-out-of-print Complete Collection that included the one dozen films to-date in a single box set plus lots of extras and a re-print of a Gamera comic book series, it’s still awesome to have them. I almost had that Complete Collection, but due to an ordering error on Amazon, they never sent one to me before they sold out. Criterion Collection put out the giant blu ray set of the Showa era Godzilla films, and Arrow Video put out the giant Gamera box set, both of which are very impressive, but unlike the Godzilla set, Arrow’s Complete Gamera Collection became an instant rarity, and in a way that’s kind of fitting. Gamera has always been in the shadow of Godzilla, never having reached the same level of notoriety.

I haven’t done an entry in my Brief History of Cinema series in seven years (since Batman v Superman came out!) but I’ve been meaning to give Gamera the justice he deserves and do a proper breakdown for many years now. I finally have the perfect excuse: after far too many years, Gamera is back, in a limited anime series on Netflix called Gamera: Rebirth set to premiere this year. Instead of just summing up the whole franchise at once, I’m going to do a whole Gamera marathon—a Ga-mera-thon, if you will—and review every single movie, because Gamera deserves to have the spotlight shone upon him, and sharing my love for this strange and hysterical series of films is something I have wanted to do ever since I first discovered it.

Unlike the Godzilla series, which is currently broken down into four eras, Arrow Video collectively distinguishes the Gamera films with only two eras, the Showa Era and Heisei Era. Technically there are three eras, but the third era only had one film, so I guess it gets lumped into the second era. It all started with Gamera, the Giant Monster (1965), and that original DVD set I bought claims it was the last film of its kind to be shot in black and white. That likely is true, as Godzilla films had been shot in colour since 1962. The American version of the first Gamera movie was released a year later and retitled Gammera the Invincible. In addition to adding another M to his name, they added new footage and English dubbed dialogue, in a comparable way to what was done with the North American release of the original Godzilla. My favourite addition is the Gamera theme song—yes, the American version has an upbeat theme song, and the main lyric, repeated over and over, is, unsurprisingly, just “Gamera!”

After the original, the Gamera series imitated the Godzilla series further by pitting the giant turtle against other giant monsters and titling them accordingly. There was Gamera vs. Barugon (1966), Gamera vs. Gyaos (1967), Gamera vs. Viras (1968), Gamera vs. Guiron (1969), Gamera vs. Jiger (1970), and Gamera vs. Zigra (1971), all of which quickly received North American re-releases with English dubbing and new titles (minus new added footage like the original). In the same order, they were War of the Monsters, Return of the Giant Monsters, Destroy all Planets, Attack of the Monsters, and Gamera vs. Monster X. What about Gamera vs. Zigra, you ask? Was that the only one not to be retitled? Well, it was actually the only one not to receive a North American release immediately following its Japanese release, because the studio Daiei Film went bankrupt the year it came out, and that halted production on the Gamera series for nearly a decade.

You might be wondering why most of the American titles mask the fact that they are Gamera films. I don’t have an answer. If you think those titles are odd, get a load of some of the other foreign titles. Germany has an intense obsession with the Frankenstein monster, so they’ve often re-titled monster movies to include Frankenstein in there somewhere, whether the movie has anything to do with Frankenstein or not. Gamera, the Giant Monster was called Gamera – Frankenstein’s Monster from the Ice. Um, nope, Gamera was not made by Frankenstein, according to the actual movie. Germany made it even more confusing when they changed Gamera vs. Barugon to something that would make you think it was part of a different kaiju series entirely: Godzilla – The Dragon from the Jungle. Then, for the German video title, they changed it again to Gamera vs. Godzilla! How dare they try to trick viewers like that? For the record, Gamera and Godzilla have never fought in a movie (yet, as of writing this), and then they re-titled it again for the DVD release to Gamera vs. Barugon – Frankenstein’s Dragon from the Jungle. Oh good, so now they think Barugon is also a product of Dr. Frankenstein. Calling him Godzilla was actually closer to the truth.  

I’m not making any of these title changes up, by the way. Germany turned Gamera vs. Gyaos into Gamera Against Gaos – Frankenstein’s Fight of the Monsters, but Germany isn’t the only country responsible for absurd title changes. Brazil tried to copy the U.S. title for Gamera vs. Viras, which was Destroy All Planets. They called it Destroy the Whole Earth. Italy started giving out goofy titles with the release of Gamera vs. Guiron. They called it King Kong Against Godzilla! I guess they figured Guiron was close enough to King Kong, even though the two monsters have literally nothing in common aside from being big? Then for Gamera vs. Jiger they called it Kinkong – the empire of dragons. Not even King Kong! Kinkong? What, is it kinkier with one less “K”, is that why? So was Gamera supposed to be King Kong, or Kinkong? I don’t even know anymore.        

The last film in the Showa Era was Gamera: Super Monster (1980), which was only made due to a contractual obligation. The company Tokuma Shoten bought Daiei and the movie was made as an attempt to get them out of financial trouble, so it was done very cheap, and as a result is largely made up of stock footage of previous Gamera films. Another fifteen years passed before the Heisei series began, and while it ended up being much shorter than the previous Showa era, that also meant it didn’t degrade to such a sad state. First there was Gamera: Guardian of the Universe (1995) which brought the monster back to form and actually made him cooler than he had ever been, then it was followed up with Gamera 2: Attack of Legion (1996) only a year later, and the trilogy concluded with Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999). A reboot, Gamera the Brave (2006), came out shortly after the end of Godzilla’s third era, the Millennium era, but this is the one that gets lumped in to the Gamera Heisei era because it ended up being a one-off reboot with no sequels. 

So, that’s my Brief History of the Gamera Series, but this is just the start of the Gamera-thon! I’m going to review the Japanese versions of all twelve Gamera movies before the new series premieres. Tune in next time for my full review of the original Gamera, the Giant Monster and watch for reviews of all the Gamera films every other day throughout the month of June!