Superhero Media: Godzilla The Planet Eater

Oh boy, I hope you, unlike me, weren't hoping to see any Kaiju fights in this series, because there aren't any, turns out. Even the built-up coming of Gidorah turns out to be a spiritual clash of ideologies and much of the action of The Planet Eater happens in the mind of the protagonist whose name I still can't be bothered remembering. Of course, I'm not adverse to Kaiju stories that have deep philosophical messages, I love both Shin Godzilla and Gamera Revenge of Iris after all, but they clearly had a point to make, I'm not sure what The Planet Eater was trying to get across. There are elements of technofear, environmentalism and inter-generational grief, but none of it coalesces into anything more than "anger is destructive", which is pretty reductionist and doesn't tie into Godzilla in any way I can see. As an allegory, Godzilla tends to represent Nuclear power of some form, occasionally natural disaster, but here the King of the Monsters is almost a Moby Dick figure, an insurmountable foe that turns people against each other.

Yeah, don't bother with The Planet Eater, or really, any of this series, especially if you like cohesive narratives, Godzilla or just not wasting your time. Even the interesting Science Fiction elements are gone by this third installment and we're left with, what I have to imagine is, the creator's First Year Philosophy final essay, struggling to account for its own inconsistencies and contradictions. What is Gidorah in The Planet Eater? Some kind of extra-dimensional energy being, or maybe god, that can only interact with our reality when someone gets angry enough. See what I mean? There's clearly meant to be something there, but what, who knows? Also I thought that maybe the series was hinting at a surprise appearance of Mothra, because the primitive humans seem to be worshiping her and keep hinting about eggs and rebirth, but that also comes to nothing and they end up devoted to the human mechs in the end as a messianic figure. Of course, the film ends with suicide, because, well, that's just kind of a thing in a lot of Japanese cinema for complex cultural reasons I'm not qualified to explain.

Why does this series exist? I'm honestly asking, because I can't figure it out. The series creates a new origin and setting for Godzilla, then does nothing with the Kaiju. You could honestly replace every element of the Godzilla series with something from Warhammer 40,000 or Doctor Who or even Marvel Comics and it would make about as much sense; but I think that's the real reason. There are plenty of Doctor Who novels, especially from the 1990s, which are written by up-and-coming Science Fiction authors and don't really fit the setting, but are interesting stories in their own rights. For those looking, The Indestructible Man and The Ultimate Treasure spring to mind. This Godzilla series seems to be in the same vein, with an interesting concept, though not well explored, with a few Godzilla trappings to hang the narrative on. Again, I really don't recommend watching this series, unless you are absolutely starving for some new Science Fiction content, because the generation ship, mechs and living metal are pretty cool on their own merits.