Here's what you need to know; after their failure to destroy Godzilla and the annihilation of Mechagodzilla City, all hope seems lost for Haruo and the remnants of Humanity as infighting and religious zeal starts to tear them apart. But a much bigger threat is on the horizon, lurking on the edge of reality is a monster so powerful that the entire Earth is at risk of becoming its next meal, and not even Godzilla is strong enough to stop it, not alone, forcing Haruo confront his personal demons in order to destroy the real ones.
The conclusion of the Godzilla Anime Trilogy is here, the epic finale to the boring, uninspired, ugly, nonsensical, pretentious wank fest that is this experiment crashed its way onto Netflix, two months ago, I'm lazy and easily distracted, and the last few months have been interesting for films, so while I started writing this review in January, it's here in March, because it is. The Godzilla Anime Trilogy has, thus far, failed to justify its own existence and failed to deliver any of what I love about Godzilla, and since I'm so madly in love with the Big G, these films make the Godzilla fan in me die just a little every time I watch one of them, so The Planet Eater, after all this build up, had better be worth it, and is it? I think you already know but in case you somehow don't; not really.
For some reason, this film opens with a painfully long monologue by Metphies as he pontificates about God and human nature, while revealing information to the audience that probably would've made for a novel twist were it not ruined. Like the opening of City on the Edge of Battle, The Planet Eater's prologue assumes that the previous films are fresh in your mind, which they unfortunately are. There is an implication in this prologue however that the Exif played a role in human history to some extent; that they had a plan for humanity and sometimes intervened in our development to progress that plan, this is one of those things that the film probably should have kept secret, something that could have been an at least kind of interesting revelation, but despite being a work of genius written by Japan's greatest intellectual film makers, this film can't help itself, it has to spill the beans on its biggest twist in the first two minutes, that being that the Exif are dicks. But the brilliance doesn't stop with the prologue, because literally seconds later we are treated to someone saying; "I can't help but wonder, what is Godzilla?" Keep in mind that we're three acts into this trilogy now, it's about twenty thousand years too late to ponder on the cosmic and existential meaning of Godzilla, the existential undertones of this trilogy are, despite the appalling lack of subtlety, one of its few positive aspects, but I can't like that when one of the film's characters is asking a question that's so blatantly stupid and so blatantly pretentious. Then the film actually has an interesting scene, one where the real questions get asked in a heated argument on the Aratrum's bridge. This is actually a cool scene, as the human and Bilusaludo perspective of the previous film's finale go head to head, the questions raised in this scene are good ones, like the true purpose of Mechagodzilla being called into question, as well as the intentions of the Bilusaludo, who in case you've forgotten since City on the Edge of Battle, are dicks. I promise I won't be going beat by beat in this review, since that's all I've done so far, but after the solid argument of the previous scene, we get back to the wanking as our resident smart boi pontificates on Haruo's desire not to abandon his humanity to hatred, this scene also establishes the latest threat to humanity; religious fanaticism, as Metphies and the Exif have effectively turned what's left of humanity into their own little Doomsday cult, oh goody.
This film brings Haruo's story to an end, and after two films of practically no characterisation past his blinding hatred, The Planet Eater finally tries to develop him. In The Planet Eater, Haruo is conflicted over the events of the previous film; torn between his hatred for Godzilla and his desire to remain human, while the words of the Bilusaludo ring in his head and Metphies continuously whispers in his ear about divine truth. After two films of practically no development, Haruo's ark actually had a payoff, to my everlasting surprise, as he comes to his own divine revelation that Godzilla is not a monster, letting go of his hatred in the process. It's just a shame then that the film completely throws it away in its ending, but we'll get to that. With most of the crew dead at this point, the film can streamline its themes better, focusing pretty much entirely on Metphies, Haruo and Martin, who's the smart boi if you didn't know. Martin's entire purpose in this trilogy has been to spout exposition and pseudo-philosophical nonsense, and in this film, that hasn't changed, Metphies meanwhile has undertaken quite the change from the previous two, because now he's our main villain. This is another one of those things the prologue shouldn't have told you; but yes, Metphies and his dad have been planning to summon their God and destroy the planet the whole time, their God being Ghidorah, the titular planet eater. This does make for a novel philosophical conundrum as the Exif and Bilusaludo are on opposite sides of the same coin; with the Bilusaludo having embraced technology and been fuelled by hatred while the Exif have embraced faith and been fuelled by devotion and acceptance. Both sides represent the extremes of their respective philosophies; the Bilusaludo will gladly turn themselves into monsters in order to kill one, whereas the Exif will simply submit to their monster, accepting their destruction as the will of God.
In the middle of this dichotomy is humanity, who, after the failure of technology to kill Godzilla, are fanatically turning to faith and falling right into the Exif's trap. To its credit, this is the cleverest this trilogy has been so far and seeing how City on the Edge of Battle worked to set up this ending, I might end up mellowing to at least the pseudo-philosophical aspects of that film, Mechagodzilla however is something I will never mellow to. The philosophical meaning of Godzilla as the true ruler of Earth isn't new, and it's certainly been done better in other films, but the notion that humanity were never ruling the earth and merely existed to set the stage for Godzilla is about as nihilistic as this film gets, and for once this trilogy actually seems to get something right about Godzilla, that being the Lovecraftian notion that he is simply bigger than humanity, figuratively. Adding to the Lovecraftian undertones is the film's questioning of the definition of the word monster. Metphies' pontificating about Godzilla only being a monster because he is feared is actually an interesting conundrum, one that reflects the conclusion of the second film in a surprisingly interesting way, while also foreshadowing the conclusion of this film. It's an ending that I almost don't want to spoil, but you know what, this trilogy is still a joke, so sod it. Obviously, Godzilla saves the day and sends Ghidorah back to whatever realm he came from, but not before Ghidorah blows up the Aratrum and kills its entire crew, leaving the handful of humans that are still alive permanently stranded on Earth. In keeping with Metphies' philosophy of a monster only being a monster because we fear it, the surviving humans stop fighting Godzilla and assimilate into the native population, teaching the natives to talk while also learning about and embracing their culture. This is communicated to us via a montage, because of course it is, but the film established something in its first act and for the entire film, I'd wondered if that had just been forgotten, but it hadn't.
Martin manages to get the surviving Vulture from City on the Edge of Battle working again, and ecstatically tells Haruo that they can use nano-machines to start rebuilding society. The film very blatantly reminds us of Ghidorah and Metphies' final warning, resulting in Haruo taking Yoku's nanometal infused body in the Vulture and flying towards Godzilla, Haruo finds peace before Godzilla atomizes him. This is not the ending I was expecting for Haruo or this trilogy, and you know what, while I liked it at first, me being lazy has given me time to think more about it, and I'm conflicted on the matter. A nihilistic ending isn't out of the ordinary for Godzilla; a very relevant example of this being the 2014 film as well as the original 1954 film, but this trilogy had been such a train wreck up until this point that an ending this in the spirit of Godzilla wasn't even possible in my mind, yet here we are, with a trilogy that concludes with humanity abandoning its arrogance and accepting its insignificance. The film passes on an epilogue too, strangely, since for the rest of the trilogy it's been so subtle, but the abrupt ending works in the film's favour precisely because the film doesn't then ruin it with a bloated epilogue, instead simply leaving us with an implication of what the future holds, one we can actually ponder about rather than having it explained to us. But this doesn't take into account the fact that Haruo abandoned his new life in the way he did, leaving his pregnant wife and deciding to destroy the Vulture and kill himself, so while the film clearly wants this to be a meaningful sacrifice, it comes across more as the actions of an irrational, angry man, the only thing that Haruo has been for the entire trilogy. But this time is different because of Metphies, who had chosen Haruo for his plan to summon Ghidorah because of his burning hatred for Godzilla. The problem here is that, as Metphies tells him, so long as Haruo lives, Ghidorah will be watching, partially negating the film's existential themes, but the bigger issue is that Haruo doesn't change because of Ghidorah. Knowing that Ghidorah drawn to his anger, and also knowing that Godzilla is no longer a threat, and with a pregnant wife at home, it makes his decision to kill himself very confusing and stupid, and it completely undermines any development he may or may not have had.
In a confusing twist, it's only when he accepts his own destruction that he lets go of his hatred, which throws one hell of a wrench in the film's philosophical undertones. It was the philosophy of the Exif that acceptance of death was the answer, yet the Exif are portrayed as insane, manipulative cowards, making the themes of this suicide very inconsistent, as if the Exif, despite being wrong, might have also been right. The key factor in this death though is his letting go of his hatred, something he didn't need to die to achieve, as, again, Godzilla was no longer a threat and he had a kid, he had, to some extent, achieved his goal of building a home for future generations, and should have at least come to the realisation that Godzilla isn't that bad. but in keeping with the pseudo-philosophical nature of this trilogy, the Vulture represents humanity's self-destruction, for some reason, and must be destroyed to deny humanity the chance to destroy itself, it's a kind of neat idea, but Haruo still didn't need to die, and his decision to die negates any development this film tried to give him. The best word I have for this film's philosophical element is confused; after two films that completely blew all their potential, this film actually seems to have a point, it's just that that point isn't very well expressed, and is muddled by inconsistencies and contradictions in its ideas, to the point that I don't really know what the film is trying to say. If it's an indictment of religion, it's a bad one because the Exif were right, if the film is an indictment of technology, that's at least better conveyed than its indictment of religion, but humanity is an inventive bunch, Haruo destroying the Vulture will therefore not stop our redevelopment, only slow it down. And to top it all off is a hero whose ark is about learning to forgive and forget, yet he doesn't and his final decision to kill himself is motivated by the very hatred he was supposed to overcome, negating his development while being justified by the film's pseudo-philosophical notions of mankind eventually destroying itself. This film is the most successful of the three in conveying its themes, I'll give it that, but even then, I don't know what it's trying to say, and I don't think the film knows either.
But like the previous two films, The Planet Eater has a big problem, a very big problem, and that's that while it finally reaches some basic level of success on the Kaiju genre's philosophical aspect, it once again completely fails at a more important aspect, in fact the most important; the Kaiju themselves. I hated City on the Edge of Battle's decision to scrap what could have been an epic battle with Mechagodzilla in favour of a recycling of Planet of the Monsters' climax, but I hated the film's handling of both Godzilla and Mechagodzilla even more. Despite being the biggest and most powerful version of Godzilla ever put to screen, Anime Godzilla is easily the most boring, he's a big, dumb, slow tree that never interacts with his surroundings or attacks with anything other than the Atomic beam, all he does is walk in a straight line and shoot the atomic beam at the humans, that's all he has ever done, and in this film that changes, slightly. One change is that he doesn't move, literally, he spends the entire film standing in one spot while Ghidorah nibbles at him, and the only attack he uses for most of the film is, you guessed it, the atomic beam. He also goes into meltdown mode again like he did in City on the Edge of Battle, though at least they did something interesting with it this time by having Ghidorah suck all the heat out of him and cause him to freeze. And when Ghidorah's already defeated, he does rip one of Ghidorah's jaws off, which would be cool if we hadn't seen it done a million times better in the 2014 film, when Godzilla ripped the MUTO's mouth open and fired his atomic breath down her throat. This 'battle' isn't a battle at all, it's Godzilla standing in place, occasionally trying to claw at Ghidorah's necks before Haruo gets the upper hand on Methpies, which magically and conveniently kills Ghidorah, allowing Godzilla to destroy the singularities and save the day. Of all the films in this trilogy, it's the first time Godzilla has taken on another monster, yet he's so unimportant and inactive in this film that he might as well not even be there, this film is about Haruo's emotional conflict with Metphies before anything else, and Godzilla just isn't all that important.
And then there's Ghidorah, the titular planet eater and certainly one of my favourite monsters from the Godzilla series. I cannot wait to see what Legendary does with him in King of the Monsters, Polygon Pictures and The Planet Eater however, I'll be honest, I was dreading it, and I was right to. Like Mechagodzilla before him, Polygon and Toho got a little experimental with the design, and like Mechagodzilla, they went a little too far. Mechagodzilla's hideous design has nothing on this however because at least that pile of scrap metal had arms and legs and a tail, Ghidorah on the other hand is a black hole and a trio of giant glowing space noodles. That really isn't a joke, Ghidorah is three big snake things that come down from the sky, no body, no wings, no tails, just the heads. But like Mechagodzilla, this still didn't have to be a failure, even with a design so abstract and different as to be unrecognisable, actually doing something cool with that design could have at least been something. But in the 'fight' at the end of this film, Ghidorah curls around Godzilla a bit before biting him, and that's it. Even with this weird arse design, it still could have been cool; Ghidorah could have used his heads as weapons; firing his gravity beams, biting and whipping at Godzilla, or wrapped up around him and tried to crush him, all while Godzilla tries to keep up with three impossibly mobile targets, but that would require both Ghidorah and Godzilla to move, and maybe that was too hard or expensive to animate, or maybe they just didn't care, I wouldn't put anything past them at this point. This isn't a fight because neither party of the fight does anything until after Ghidorah is already dying, kind of like how City on the Edge of Battle's fight wasn't a fight, just a bunch of buildings shooting at Godzilla before getting melted. I may love when a film has something deeper to say, but most people aren't obsessed with films like I am, to a normie, a film is just a way to kill a few hours and have fun, and the beauty of the Kaiju genre is that a good Kaiju film can appeal to both mind-sets. The Planet Eater however does not appeal to both, in fact it only just manages to appeal to one of them and that's at the expense of the other, the other being the primary reason most people would even watch a Godzilla film.
Then there are Godzilla fanatics like me, people who adore this monster and would watch anything with his name on it, and The Planet Eater doesn't even appeal to them through its handling of the monsters, a problem that it shares with the rest of the trilogy. Going radically different and weird with the monsters is a risky game to play, especially when it fails, and the Anime Trilogy fails because it meddles with the monsters to the point that they're unrecognisable, and then does nothing interesting with them. Mechagodzilla gets turned into a city; that still could have been cool, but instead it just grew guns and shot at Godzilla. Ghidorah gets turned into a space noodle, yet they still could have done weird and cool things with that, but they didn't, he bites, that's it, that's all he does. Neither of these 'battles' are entertaining to watch, and when the film also happens to be ugly, that just makes it worse. This film does have some pretty colours though, they're just at the very end, because for some reason, after three films of dark, dull, dreary skies, the sun comes out and we get some nice, vibrant blues, oranges and pinks, it's just a shame that the rest of the trilogy wasn't like this, because at least then I wouldn't find the mere act of looking at it boring. It's even worse when you consider the redesigns of the monsters, Godzilla has fought some colourful monsters over the years; Gigan, Biollante, Kumonga, Destoroyah, Space Godzilla, and obviously, Mothra, the most colourful of them all. And yet none of this trilogy's monsters have any colour to them whatsoever; like the planet, they're all dull, ugly solid colours, even Mothra, who appears as a vision in this film, is a silhouette, because what a great idea that was; take a rainbow-coloured monster and make it solid black. I'm very rarely not of the opinion that less is more; I often find myself thinking that a film could have trusted it's audience a little more than it did, but The Planet Eater and this trilogy doesn't do either of them right; it goes overboard on exposition and philosophy, while not doing nearly enough visually interesting things to keep the audience engaged, making a fight between a civilisation ending Kaiju and a literal planet eater boring in the process.
Rid us of the curses of the past
Godzilla: The Planet Eater is the best of the trilogy in some ways, but it's also the worst of the trilogy in other ways, and it still kind of sucks regardless. It barely manages to convey some interesting ideas about its aliens and their respective philosophies, and it does manage to work in some of the Godzilla series' Lovecraftian undertones in an interesting way. But the film clearly doesn't know what it's trying to say because it contradicts and undermines itself at every turn, and gives us a muddled, confusing and abrupt ending that would have worked if it made sense, but it didn't. And then The Planet Eater tries to be a Kaiju movie, and it fails epically because this trilogy clearly has no idea what people actually want so see out of a Kaiju movie, moreover, the people making these films seeming have no idea how to do these monsters justice, and so this trilogy's monsters are unrecognisable, boring, bastardised shadows of what they could have been, literally in Mortha's case. The Planet Eater wraps up a trilogy that could have and should have been something special, but instead I'm left not knowing whether to take a nap or headbutt a wall. The Planet Eater is dreadful, and I'd recommend you avoid it and this trilogy, it's not worth the time or the brain cells.
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