Mst3k – 212: Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster

Sorry for the long delay; a combination of trying to find the episode, being really busy, and general laziness is to blame.
Another Godzilla movie! Unfortunately, we immediately hit a few problems with this episode. In the first place, this is actually a pretty good movie; considering the number of truly awful Godzilla movies there are it’s rather puzzling that this is one of the two they decided to do…surely Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster would have been far more appropriate? At any rate, “vs. Sea Monster” is a fresh, frequently clever film that shows what the series looked like before it became wedded to formula. Rather than having a monster show up, wreck havoc, and then be defeated by Godzilla, this film sets up a series of problems for its heroes and forces them to figure out how to solve them. For instance, they are trapped on an island run by a terrorist group called the ‘Red Bamboo,’ which is making nuclear weapons and guarded by a sea monster. Then discovering that the island happens to have Godzilla sleeping in a cave, they take the logical step and rig up an impromptu lightning rod and wake him up. Godzilla then does what he does best, fights the sea monster, smashes the base, and creates general havoc. The story is fast-paced and filled with clever invention as the characters improvise ways to fight the Red Bamboo (my favorite is the foresight they had in solidifying the famous ‘walking-bush’ trick by simply carrying a bird with them), and it’s a good example of taking a world of established rules and playing with it.
The episode, particularly coming after last week’s brilliant ‘Vs. Megalon,’ is a bit of a disappointment. The riffing is still funny, though not up to ‘Megalon’s’ level, and it has some great host segments, but it’s marred by a rare example of ‘cheating.’ It’s generally a rule that the Brains can’t mock a film for something that results from their own treatment of it. In this case, they have a running gag of wondering what the name of the movie is, since Joel and the Bots inexplicably don’t come in until about a minute into the movie and miss the opening titles. This is not only not fair to the film, but it’s a joke the audience doesn’t share, since we know what the name of the movie is, and we know that the Brains know as well and are just pretending not to. It’s a rare ‘what the heck were they thinking?’ moment that doesn’t kill the episode, but definitely brings it down.

Thoughts while watching:

Opening: Joel reads from “The Velvateen Rabbit.” Sort of. The ‘bots are enraptured. (by the way, Servo has a kind of fez top to his head which he’ll keep for a few episodes).

Invention Exchange: Joel has the mind-control guitar. The Mads have squeeze-toy guitars for dogs who love rock-and-roll. They play their new song; ‘Plastic Man.’ It’s pretty amusing.

Okay, honestly, they cheat here, and pointlessly too. Joel and the bots don’t enter until after the credits, leading to a running gag of wondering what the movie’s name is. This results in about a minute of us watching the movie without them and us not being able to share in the joke, since we, of course, know what the movie’s title is.

Anyway, we open with a storm and a ship being attacked by a giant lobsters.

Joel: “Oh, he’s making them into an oriental salad! The horror!”

Cut to two months later, as the narrator helpfully informs us.

Old woman consults a mystic, who tells her her son is not dead.

(as doubtful guy)
Crow: “He’s dead, live with it, okay?”

Cut to a dance contest…

(blank faced-guy watches contest)
Servo: “I’m digging their scene.”

(on the numbered contestants)
Crow: “Keep moving, forty-one.”

Guy and his friends go look for a boat so he can search for his lost brother.

They trespass on a boat to check it out.

Guy 1: “I wonder what the owner looks like?”
Thief: “I’ll show you what he looks like!”
Servo: “He looks like me, only taller. I’ll go get him.”

Guy 2: “This one here, he’s crazy. Boats are the only thing he thinks about.”
Crow: “Shoot him, now.”

Thief-guy lets them stay on the boat.

(shot of sunrise)
Crow: “Let’s visit God now.
Servo: “Hi, this is God. This film is moving slowly my children.”

And the one guy has taken the boat out to look for his brother.

Thief: “What’s the idea?”
Servo: “Well, the wind catches the sail and…”

We get news about the stolen boat and an earlier robbery (it was done by thief guy of course).

(cut to dinner scene)
Crow: “Mmm, Steve is really delicious!”

Thief (on the skeleton key he’s making): “You’ve got your hobbies and this is one of mine.”
Servo: “You like knitting afghans.”

Thief (laughing): “Do I look like a robber?”
(Servo gives a French ‘oh hohoho!’)

And a storm blows up. (incidentally, this is the same footage from the beginning; spliced in by the American distrubuters).

Joel: “Well, welcome to the “Wrath of God” weekend present by KT.”

The briefcase of money and a game-board fall over and spill into each other.
Joel: “Hey, you got your backgammon in my money!”
Crow: “Well you’ve got your money in my backgammon.”

Joel: “Try to look for an uncharted desert isle!”

(and in the morning they wash up on an island)

Crow: “For once this was a boating accident.”

Joel: “We’re so lucky we washed up on what could be a hostile land with no food, we’re saved!”

The bots panic at the prospect of rock climbing, but it’s a very quick scene.

(at the top)
Servo: “Look, Cesar Romero and Hugh Beaumont?”

And they find a machete and some fruit.

Guy: “I feel like a monkey.”
Crow: “Me too, where can we find one?”

Crow (as they walk through the jungle to music): “We gotta find that rhythm combo.”

And they spot a ship coming and then find a whole harbor and facility guarded by armed men.

(two guards pass each other)
Servo: “Morning Steve,”
Crow: “Morning Phil.”

(eye-patched guy comes in smiling)
Crow: “Smiles everyone, smiles!”

And the ship drops off some slaves.

Servo (upon seeing Kumi Mizuno): “H, E, double-L, O!”
(pretty much standard reaction)

Few slaves try to escape...grab a convenient canoe.

(guards fire wildly while close together)
Crow (as eye-patch guy): “Ah! Not me you idiots!”
Servo: “Good shooting, you killed eight of our own men.”

And would-be escapees get eaten by giant lobster, Ebirah.

Crow (seeing guys impaled on Ebirah’s claw): “Ka-Bob, and Ka-Steve!”

Joel: “I just saw half-a-crab kill a guy.”

Big bad (to eye-patch): “You must be losing your sight!”
Servo: “I don’t think that’s funny sir, but go on.”

Joel: “Salute higher, idiot!”

Girl meets guys, runs off.

Crow: “Wait! I’m a good-guy with a steady future! I want you to see my etchings!”

They join forces.

First Host Segment: Godzilla Genealogy Bop. It’s amusing, even if they insist Godzilla is green, which he is not (he’s dark grey).

Cut to the slaves working and praying to Mothra.

(eye-patch gets their attention by shooting)
Crow: “Oh, couldn’t he just knock?”

Guy: “Don’t make fun of her.”
Crow: “Yeah, that’s our job!”

Cut to Infant Island, where the natives are worshiping Mothra.

Servo: “Rocketing its way to number one, it’s ‘Mothra, you are our god,’ it’s got a great beat and you can worship to it.”

Thief: “I don’t think you’ve ever had the police after you.”
Servo: “Okay, you’ve got bragging rights.”

And they find that Godzilla is sleeping in the cave with them.

That’s the third time Crow did that ‘Planet where apes evolved from men’ bit.

The guys try to sneak into the base using the bush trick to investigate and try to help free the slaves.

(they release a dove as distraction)
Servo: “Oh, a symbol of peace. Kill it!”

Servo: “He’s got a hedge trimmer! Scatter everybody!”

Get in, sneak around…

Crow: “Why are they breaking in?”
Servo: “Life hurts them, so they hurt back.”

Big bad berates scientists.

Scientist: “It’s easy for them to issue orders.”
Crow: “They have everything, I have nothing!”

A lot of ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ jokes for some reason…

Guy: “It’s a heavy water factory.”
Guy 2: “What can they do with that?”
Crow: “They could take a heavy bath.”

(suddenly crawl around corner to find a boot).
Servo: “Oh, my God! It’s a boot! And there’s a leg attached to it!”

Eye-Patch: “You weren’t killed I see.”
Servo: “That was my fault.”

Crow: “Pass the bush up, quick!”

They make their escape using some gas canisters.

Joel: “Meanwhile in Lego-Land, kids learn at their own rate, the slow way.”

Brother-guy gets caught on a weather-balloon and floats off towards Infant Island. Another guy just gets captured.

Captured guy makes contact with slaves, who are making a liquid the bad guys use to protect themselves against Ebirah…another scene of worshiping Mothra.

Crow (as Mothra): “That’s pretty good, but do it again, and this time with feeling. And Kasy, I’ll see you later.”

Brother guy lands on Infant Island, meets his brother.

Guards search for them, randomly shooting around.
Crow: “Well, I guess it’s frogs legs and cricket soup for dinner tonight.”

Guys get idea to wake Godzilla up to distract/destroy bad guys.

They improvise a lightning rod to wake Godzilla up.

(pan down the wire)
Crow: “This is the only thread I’ve been able to follow this whole film.”

Captured guy gets the idea to make a phony batch of liquid.

Second Host Segment: Joel’s miniature city. The bots are concerned for his sanity and destroy it. It’s pretty funny. (“I’m Servotron, destroyer of worlds!”)

Brothers canoe from Infant Island back to evil isle.

(on storm clouds)
Crow (deep voice): “I’m not pleased!”

Servo (on the soldiers): “Okay, look for the silver lining, men!”

Crow (same): “I’m still not pleased!”

Crow (same): “Now I’m really ticked!”

Huh, actually I don’t think this scene looks fakey at all.

(as Godzilla starts waking up)
Servo: “Make sure he doesn’t hit the snooze button!”

(Godzilla’s eye opens)
Joel: “This had better be good.”

Brothers are threatened by Ebirah…

Godzilla bursts out of cave…

Crow: “Good morning Godzilla. Your mission, should choose to accept it, save those two Japanese guys.”

Joel (Godzilla sees Ebirah): “You woke me up for THAT?”

Servo (as Ebirah): “Oh, I’ll give you such a pinch!”

Really funny scene where Godzilla and Eibrah batter a boulder back and forth like their playing catch.

Crow: “Run before they make us play outfield!”

And they volley it back and forth a bit…goes too far and hits the base.

Ebirah splashes Godzilla.
Joel: “Oh, now that was low!”

Servo: “Look at Godzilla go! I guess there’s no sea-food lover in him!”

Pretty cool scene where Godzilla gets dragged underwater and they fight.

Crow (as Llloyd Bridges): “I grabbed a rock; and by this time my lungs were aching for air.”

(bushes start shaking)
Crow: “Hey that bush trick doesn’t work around here pal, we invented it!”

(brothers are caught in snares)
Crow: “Oh, how hideous; hung by their feet till their dead!”

Eye-Patch (whipping slaves): “You can work faster! And you there!”
Crow: “…Nice job.”

(soldiers fire wildly)
Servo: “Ow, ow, you shot my other eye you idiots!”

(soldiers chasing girl get scared off by Godzilla)
Joel: “Don’t even mess with my chick!”

Joel (as Godzilla): “Hey were are you going? You owe me babe!”

Girl: “Help me!”
Crow: “Dibs! I got dibs, I said it first!”

Guys arrive and see Godzilla.
Servo: “Woah! Baby you are on your own!”

Joel: “Be careful, we look like corn-cobs to him!”

Giant bird suddenly appears and attacks Godzilla.

Crow: “Hey, what do you think I am, Tippi Hedron? Get out of here!”

And Godzilla blasts it.
Joel: “Oh, now he’s a wonder-roast chicken.”

(bird crashes into the ocean)
Joel: “Thank you for flying Northwest.”

And now jets attack him.

(he smashes a plane)
Servo: “Oh, there goes Tom Cruise.”

(alarm sounds)
All: “It’s not going well. It’s not going well. It’s not going well.”

(Big Bad and Eye-patch look out window)
Crow: “Do you see half of what I see?”

Eye-Patch: “Turn the atomic power on! Destroy him!”
Joel: “Uh, whatever you say, sir, but we’re right at ground-zero…”

Guy: “Where’s my brother?”
Crow: “Oh, will you shut up about your brother!?”

(Godzilla throws a rock at the base)
Servo: “Oh no, he’s learned to use tools! Careful people he’s evolving!”

Cave starts collapsing on slaves under Godzilla’s weight.

Eye-Patch: “Put it on nuclear, it will destroy the base!”
Crow: “Oh, great, what was it on before, defrost?”

Crow: “Ah, here comes the death with dignity committee.”

Scientist: “Stay were you are!”
Servo: “Or I’m going to fill a prescription!”

Third host segment: Crow and Servo play as the Shobijin, then Mothra shows up. It’s pretty funny, even though they voice her as a guy.

Guy: “They’re escaping!”
(Godzilla roars off camera)
Crow: “And they sound funny too.”

And Ebirah smashes the boat with the bad guys on it.

Godzilla and Ebirah fight again, with some amusing trash talking from Crow and Servo.

Joel: “Whenever their underwater it sounds like a James Bond movie.”

So, there’s only ten minutes before the island self-destructs.

And Mothra wakes up.

Crow: “I just talked to Ziegfeld; we open in New Haven in two weeks!”

(as Mothra flies off)
Joel: “Oh I am a jumbo Bumblebee!”

And Godzilla rips Ebirah’s claws off.

Servo (as Ebirah): “Oh, leave me one!”
(he doesn’t)

(Mothra hovers straight down)
Servo: “He’s a harrier-moth”

Shobijin (from on top of Mothra): “She’ll take you; you must get into the net!”
Servo/Crow: “How did we get up here anyway?”

Joel (as Godzilla): “Oh, I’m getting beaten up by a bug, how humiliating!”

And the humans call to Godzilla to get off the island.

Joel: “Let’s see, there’s some beeping and everybody left, I wonder what…oh no!”

And there’s the shot they used for their stinger last week in its proper place.

(as the island blows up)
Servo: “Irwin Allen slept here.”

Really good animated distance shot of Mothra, and we’re done.

Closing: Lines never really said in movies, like “Play it again Sam.” The results of the ‘Cool Thing Contest’ from ‘Lost Continent.’ Some nice pictures. The Mads consider changing their business plan. It’s pretty amusing.

Stinger: Worshiping Mothra. Meh, I would have gone with the giant bird attack.


Movie Quality Rating:

1. Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster
2. The Crawling Eye
3. The Black Scorpion
4. Mad Monster
5. Lost Continent
6. First Spaceship to Venus
7. Rocketship XM
8. Moon Zero Two
9. Godzilla vs. Megalon
10. The Crawling Hand
11. Catalina Caper
12. King Dinosaur
13. Jungle Goddess
14. Wild Rebels
15. The Corpse Vanishes
16. Ring of Terror
17. Untamed Youth
18. The Slime People
19. Project Moonbase
20. The Sidehackers
21. Women of the Prehistoric Planet
22. Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy
23. Hellcats
24. Rocket Attack USA
25. Robot Holocaust
26. Robot Monster

Conclusion: Good movie, with pretty funny riffing and decent host segments, but marred by cheating.

Final Rating: 7/10.

Dr. Strangelove or Why We Should Stop Worrying and Let God Handle Things

Another school paper article.

Once for an Honors final I was asked if I thought the American Governmental system was doomed to go the same way as the Roman one. I said that, while the American system is fundamentally stronger, ‘humans always find a way to screw things up.’
That, in a nutshell, is the thesis of Stanley Kubrick’s classic satire, Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. One of the greatest of comedies, it has for its subject matter the distinctly unfunny subject of nuclear holocaust. The film tells of an insane air-force commander who manages to launch an all-out attack on the Soviet Union and the scrambling of the U.S. Government to stop him. The funny part is that the skill and professionalism of the pilots and the safeguards against a nuclear disaster are the exact things that make it so difficult to recall the bombers heading to Russia…where a new Russian ‘Doomsday Machine’ is all set to go off and end life on Earth if they drop their bombs.
The thing that sets this film apart from almost every other military/political satire ever made is that it is largely populated with intelligent, professional individuals…and it is because they are so intelligent and professional that they are in the mess they’re in. For example, when the President finds out they have no hope of figuring out the recall code to abort the mission he takes the logical step of helping the Soviets shoot the planes down. This works fine…except one of the planes is only damaged. The leaves it without a radio and forces it to divert from the expected targets where the Soviets have concentrated their defenses. Thus ensuring it will drop its payload.
This whole ridiculous situation calls to mind a passage in ‘The Screwtape Letters’ where Screwtape laughs at men’s tendency to try to plan for every contingency and panic when these fail. It’s the same situation; the world has set up all these elaborate safeguards to prevent ‘the worst coming to the worst,’ but, of course, it’s impossible to foresee every contingency, and it just takes a “small slip-up” to allow the worst to come to the worst.
How many times do we try to control our lives like this? We try to foresee and prepare for every possible contingency, trusting our own cleverness to see us through. The only trouble is, no matter how clever we are, we can’t foresee everything…or even most things. All it takes is someone responding in an unexpected way, or not paying attention, or going insane over the fluoride in his water to render all our elaborate planning moot. Then, most of the time, we try to recover by making even more elaborate plans, which tend to create an entirely new problem.
But that is not the end of the story. Dr. Strangelove ends with mankind’s elaborate safety measures resulting in the apocalypse, but even then the film seems confident that man will weasel his way out of this mess and into another one. Despite ending in a nuclear holocaust the film is not gloomy about our future and neither should we be. Generally things are not the end of the world, and even if they are, we usually can muddle through. We simply need to take things as they come and trust in God…and the purity of our bodily fluids.

Lessons of Ghandi

Another one of my School Paper articles.

Occasionally one finds the rare film which cannot be discussed without considering the real-life ideas and events behind it. In such cases the ideas of the film are the ideas of the philosophy or the man behind it. One such film is ‘Gandhi,’ directed by Richard Attenborough and starring Ben Kingsley in the title role of the small Indian attorney who conquered the British Empire without firing a shot.
The film itself is truly excellent. In the midst of all its epic scenes and moral philosophizing, it never fails to emphasize the humanity of its subjects. A sweet scene has Gandhi and his wife reenacting their marriage vows, their words and actions full of simple love and something almost like shyness. A humorous earlier scene has a priest friend of Gandhi’s nervously climbing up to the top of a moving railcar to join the travelers riding up there…and having to be reminded to duck as the train enters a tunnel.
However, I found watching it that I was more excited by the figure of Gandhi than anything in the film itself. That is not to say the film failed to hold my interest; far from it. Rather, it is meant to show how fascinating the film’s subject truly is. Before this I had only the vaguest knowledge of Gandhi; I knew he was an attorney who broke British colonial rule in India through passive resistance and was then assassinated, but little more. In the film, I found out both how little I knew, and where I was mistaken. As Gandhi himself points out in the film, there is nothing ‘passive’ about the resistance he proposes; it is simply aggressive on a different line. “Our goal is to provoke them,” he says, “if they don’t react, we will go on provoking them until they do.”
The principle is laid out very clearly at several points in the film; if a subject simply refuses to obey his ruler, the ruler has only two options: to lessen his rule over the subject or to become a monster. But even if he chooses the latter option the subject has still won, since people cannot be monsters for long. Sooner or later either their own conscience or the conscience of others will step in and stop them. This is demonstrated in several striking scenes, the first being during Gandhi’s (rather pathetic) first rally, when South-African Indians burn their ‘passes’ (which non-whites were required to carry at all times). A brutal police sergeant starts beating Gandhi as he tries to burn them, but he continues to try even after he’s been beaten to the ground, finally causing the policeman to almost tearfully ask him to stop (and it’s later noted that Gandhi could have pressed charges against him).
Even worse is the Amritsar Massacre, a historical incident where British troops under General Dyer opened fire on an unarmed crowd, including women and children. The film immediately cuts from that brutal scene to Dyer being court marshaled and cuttingly rebuked by his superiors, who are ostensibly on the side of the British. Later comes a wrenching sequence in which wave after wave of quiet, unarmed protesters walk straight into the waiting clubs of policemen. They do not fight or resist, they simply try to get past and are brutally and repeatedly cut down, but keep going for what are later told was hours. After the incident an American reporter (Martin Sheen) comments that any moral superiority the occupiers had was lost. Not long afterwards, India is free.
The most inspirational aspect about the film is not the obvious fact that a small, humble man did what armies had been unable to do, nor the idea that tyrants and oppression cannot last forever, but something deeper. Gandhi’s principle is based on the basic decency of humanity; that man is not naturally a monster. His victory did more than free India. It did more than just show the power of nonviolence. It proved, before the eyes of the world, the essential goodness of man.