1307-Gamera vs. Jiger

Onscreen Title:  "ガメラ対大魔獣ジャイガー"  ("Gamera vs. Giant Devil Beast Jiger")

Film Year:  1970

Genre:  Kaiju, Science Fiction, Fantasy

Director:  Noriaki Yuasa

Starring:  Tsutomu Takakuwa, Kelly Varis, Katherine Murphy, Kon Omura

MST Season:  13

Host:  Jonah

The Movie

*I HAVE SURVIVED WATCHING THIS MOVIE UNRIFFED*

A Gamera movie without a Sandy Frank dub?  What is this nonsense?

Like most of the original Gamera movies, Gamera vs. Jiger was originally imported to the US by American International Television, which it played under the title of Gamera vs. Monster X.  The Sandy Frank imports happened over a decade later, and Gamera vs. Jiger was one of the titles overlooked by the producer (along with Gamera vs. Viras and Gamera:  Super Monster).  That's why this film wasn't on the original Mystery Science Theater, because their deal was with Sandy Frank and he didn't have the rights to this movie.  It's a little bit of a shame, because Jiger is one of the more enjoyable Gamera entries.  Like any of the original Gamera movies, it's not a great movie, but it is a solidly goofy execution of its formula with some fun expansions upon it to put it ahead of the pack.

Gamera vs. Jiger was scripted around the anticipation of Japan's Expo '70 in Osaka at the time, working it into the storyline to show off locations of the grounds.  The movie sees a mysterious totem being removed from its site on Wester Island (get it?), which unleashes the monster Jiger from its slumber.  Gamera appears to try and subdue the monster, but Jiger proves to be a powerful opponent for the turtle, finally bringing the mighty Friend to All Children down by planting an egg in Gamera's lung with her stinger.  The only way to help Gamera is by venturing inside his body, and the two new Kennies of the movie, Hiroshi and Tommy, take the charge by getting into a minisub and piloting it straight down Gamera's throat and curing the big lug.

All the Gamera movies surrounding this one features the turtle squaring off against cosmic threats (Gamera vs. Viras, Gamera vs. Guiron, Gamera vs. Zigra, Gamera:  Super Monster), which is a lot of outer space to tangle with.  It's almost refreshing that Gamera vs. Jiger not only chooses to keep its story earthbound, but also tackle inner space as well.  The wacky premise of "going inside Gamera" makes Gamera vs. Jiger a bit of treat for this franchise because it allows the filmmakers to do something different.  Noriaki Yuasa isn't a daring enough director to take full advantage of the situation, as he doesn't entirely seem to comprehend that there is a whole world of setpieces open to him with this new opportunity of exploration.  He even sets up the idea that the minisub might see danger if it ventures into Gamera's stomach but instead of exploring that idea they just veer away from it.  Instead the kids just play around in Gamera's lung (which looks like a cluster of artichokes) and get chased by a mini-Jiger.  Yuasa is playful enough to make the situation amusing but with this scenario the audience almost yearns for it to go a bit further.  But in a series this formulaic, one takes innovation however they can get it.

The kaiju action is amusing in that traditional absurdist Gamera style and there is quite a bunch of it this time.  Gamera fights Jiger a grand total of three times throughout the film, almost punctuating each of the film's three acts with a brawl between the two beasts.  The first happens when Jiger is unleashed, where Jiger sticks pins in each of Gamera's limbs ensuring the turtle can't retract into his shell and fly away.  After Jiger rampages through Osaka, Gamera is back for round two but meets Jiger's stinger leading to the Fantastic Voyage twist of the movie.  As Gamera revives, he takes the totem and impales it straight into Jiger's forehead.

Children's entertainment, folks.

It's actually fascinating to me that Gamera films are squarely aimed at kids but they're so nonchalant about death and destruction as they are.  One could probably make the same claim about the Godzilla series but even as Godzilla became a bit more self depreciating and catering to younger audiences, it always seemed to embrace the weight of the circumstances in which it was portraying.  Gamera vs. Jiger features a scene in which Jiger incinerates the entire middle of Osaka and everybody with it, and the movie just plays it as...

While Gamera vs. Jiger is held back by limitations, the truth of the matter is all Gamera movies are held back by limitations.  They're made cheap and fast with ideas so wild that it's hard for them to unearth potential without certain resources at their disposal or maybe fresh blood behind the camera.  Yuasa makes movies with spirit, you got to give him that, and one can't say a Yuasa Gamera film isn't distinctly a Yuasa Gamera film (the one non-Yuasa Gamera film of the original Showa series, Gamera vs. Barugon, is distinctly non-Yuasa).  Gamera vs. Jiger is what you'd expect from a Gamera movie but, based on what formulas it has established for itself, it's playing more outside the box than usual.  Gamera vs. Jiger may not offer much more than the traditional Gamera film with a few new flourishes but it's probably my favorite of the original series.

The Episode

We're halfway through this new Gizmoplex season of Mystery Science Theater and I feel I've seen enough to hope it's the first of many.  I started out cool on this season with a pair of episodes that had their moments but were unmemorable, however in the months since have seen the series on a smooth incline.  Emily's run smashed expectations with the wildly funny Beyond Atlantis and Jonah's crew unleashed the hilarious horrors of Munchie on us.  This culminated in an episode that was just pure joy from top to bottom in Demon Squad, which gave me something that no other episode has given me so far this season and that's the desire to rewatch immediately.  Beyond Atlantis and Munchie were both solid, don't get me wrong, but I haven't had an urge to revisit them, especially with new MST content on the horizon to fill the MST voids in my life.  Demon Squad, on the other hand, I have watched four times since it debuted and each time just fills me with ecstasy.  Has the new season peaked?

Not if an old friend has anything to say about it.

So, as I have made note of in the last two seasons, the relaunched Mystery Science Theater is not above going for a shameless nostalgic power play in a movie selection (Hercules and Ator, respectively).  Gamera is one that I didn't think we should have expected, but during the Kickstarter I started noticing little clues that seemed to be falling into a pattern, such as an out-of-the-blue renewal of the Gamera license by Shout Factory to bring both the DVD box set back in print and also those episodes to streaming coming just months before the Kickstarter launched, which eventually saw the announcement that Joel wanted to announce select movie titles during a live stream of Gamera vs. Guiron during the campaign.  That announcement wound up not happening, as they did a last minute delay to a later stream where they announced Demon Squad and Robot Wars instead, but then wound up announcing Gamera vs. Jiger the day after the Kickstarter ended, vindicating my hypothesis.  I'm not a conspiracy theory guy, but I'm still absolutely certain they wanted to announce this movie during the Gamera vs. Guiron stream but ran into overtime on negotiation.  I mean, not to knock Demon Squad and Robot Wars, but those two titles didn't really set the fan anticipation on fire.

But Gamera is back, baby!  Turtle soup is finally back on the menu!

Jonah and his Bots are the ones tackling this movie, even though original Gamera episode host Joel is back on the show.  While the purist in me is bummed to see that the cycle of Gamera episodes being hosted by Joel is broken, it's also somewhat of a christening for the new blood to be able to take on the beloved icon.  Adding some cushion is the fact that Gamera vs. Jiger is likely my favorite of the original Gamera series, which gives them a soft and watchable movie to work with.  But the writers for the show have been vocal about how they were unable to edit this film for the MST version, due to insistence by the rightsholders, which means we're here for the full ride.  Blessing and a curse.  On one hand, sometimes the editing of the films can be unfair.  Demon Squad's editing wasn't entirely plot friendly, but Gamera vs. Jiger can play out without having to worry about that.  And the movie is only eighty-three minutes long, so this isn't some impossible task as the film still runs shorter than the average MST episode.  At the same time, you can see several parts of this flick they could have cut to improve the pace of the film, while sometimes the jokes tend to run on at several points to fill the movie's dead air.  This isn't an obvious problem, mind you, because they take it like professionals and constantly keep the flow smoother than it probably should be.

Still, this episode runs one hour and forty-eight minutes, which makes it the longest episode in the history of Mystery Science Theater 3000.  The only other episodes that ran over an hour forty are episodes from the KTMA days, and even those didn't run that long.

(For prosperity's sake, the shortest "episode" is still The Movie/This Island Earth, and you can thank Universal on that one.  Shortest actual episode is Lords of the Deep, which is the only one to run less than eighty minutes.)

"Your move, Charles Darwin!"

While the weight of "too much movie" seems to be a concern for the people who make this show, Gamera vs. Jiger is an argument that they probably shouldn't worry about it.  The episode is wildly funny and impressively is able to keep that humor momentum consistent.  While I did feel they were running out of steam toward the end, it wasn't really enough to kill the mood that they had successfully created by reintroducing this beloved series and just hitting hard with everything they had for about three-quarters of the episode.  I loved modern reference barbs at Gamera's flying saucer mode, which is referred to as "a flying Roomba."  I howled as they notice that Gamera can't seem to land without crashing, to which Crow asks "Did Gamera just defeat himself?"  I enjoyed the crack at the sudden appearance of American excavators in this Japanese monster movie where Servo claims "It's a lovely day for some light colonialism!"  I even loved Crow's pun about the movie's "SUB plot."  One of my favorite bits of the entire episode happens during a lengthy "Gamera is in pain and chewing scenery" sequence, which you know would have been a scene on the chopping block if they were allowed to edit this movie, but they plow through it as if Gamera is putting on a Broadway musical number, which is absolutely inspired.

And also, I did not expect a reference to The Critic.  I lolled.  "BUY MY BOOK!  BUY MY BOOK!"

(Warning for the weak-stomached:  a fairly graphic scene featuring an elephant's trunk being cut open with parasites spilling out is in this movie and is absolutely gross.  The guys are just as disgusted as we are, but they do their best.  "And that's lunch!")

The host segments aren't the strongest of the season, but I got some solid chuckles out of them.  Donna St. Phibes is back, but unfortunately she doesn't have anything to say about the monsters in the film but instead examines X-rays of Jonah and the Bots before feeding a giant Brain monster, a reference to a movie shown on one of the Live tours.  Jonah and the Bots also put together their own Expo and later make fun of the voice of the little girl from the film (who's voice is funny but not as extreme as they think it is.  They also close out with a fun little Irish pub song eulogizing Jiger, which is no Mother Crabber but a lot of fun on its own terms.  The Invention Exchange is cute, offering up a TV show lie-detector test and a plasma microwave.  Meanwhile, Kinga seems to be going on vacation with Pearl and leaving Max in charge.  Shenanigans ensue?  I think we'll find out next time!

Gamera vs. Jiger very swiftly became one of the best Gamera episodes of the series, probably second only to Guiron in my books, as I laughed nonstop and may even have peed a little at several points.  Like Demon Squad, I already have a hankering to watch it again, even after watching it twice for this review.  If that's the method of measurement for what makes my favorite episodes of MST3K, then so be it.  I have no scientific method to any sort of critical theory or analysis method, I just go where my gut tells me.  And my gut tells me I'm going to be watching this episode a lot.

I kind of hope that there is a lesson they can learn from this episode where they shouldn't necessarily be afraid of the film they're showing.  They should trust the audience's attention span more and trust their writers to work with it.  I get the desire to keep things tight, like avoiding when RiffTrax takes on a two-hour-plus blockbuster which can really wear you down, but they can afford to keep things loose as well.  We're in the streaming era of the show so hitting specific runtimes shouldn't be a factor.  I'd love to see them open up to pushing episodes to an hour forty-five on a regular basis, especially since most of us classic era fans used to sit through this show for two hours straight with commercials.  And I certainly hope the door is open to bring Gamera vs. Viras to the series in a proposed fourteenth season.  And if we make that play, we should give Emily's team a crack.  It seems only fair.

Then we highjack Mike and make him watch Super Monster.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Classic

The Livestream

The Gamera vs. Jiger livestream is unique, because for once everything goes off without a hitch.  Matt's not on mute, nobody is having trouble joining in, the Gizmoplex isn't crashed for over an hour...I'm impressed.  Good job, guys!  Keep it up!

Anyway, previous livestreams have usually revolved around onscreen talent fucking around and completely throwing uniform event structure out the window (Emily, Conor, Kelsey, and Yvonne more than anyone else) and fun talks with people who have worked on the films themselves.  Tonight is something different, as it's more of a tribute to the MST3K writers' room and the fun, colorful people who inhabit it.  Tonight's guests feature producer Matt McGinnis, host Jonah Ray, and writers Lesley Kinzel, Kennedy Allen, and Ross Bryant as they discuss the writing process of the series.  Kennedy and Ross haven't yet participated in these streams yet, so it's fun to have some fresh faces on the screen and they're funny people, so I'd like to see them on more (Kennedy mentions the only other episode she worked on was Demon Squad, so that's probably not going to happen, while Ross says he worked on The Mask, so maybe...).

Discussion starts off with a little bit of storytelling as Lesley, Kennedy, and Ross all tell of how they met Joel and how he asked them to be a writer on the show.  Moving on to writing for this specific movie, one thing they love to harp on is the little girl, Susan, who they claim is the evil entity of the film, which they claim has malevolent looks throughout (and they're not wrong).  They also discuss the girth of the film, which they were not allowed to edit down.  Matt and Jonah claim it was excruciating, while Kennedy and Ross seem accepting but worn down by it, and Lesley just says she was happy to be there.  Jonah and Ross seem to have mostly found the monster fights repetitive, having to find different jokes for similar looking fights.  Jonah also points out the scene (that upon first glance I was already certain they wanted to trim out of the movie) where a wounded Gamera just stumbles around for a full minute and the thought process it took to get to the song, which they called "Gamera's Lament."  I'm really glad they talked about this scene specifically, because it's the moment in the episode that really stands out as being both brutally long in the film but hilarious in the riffing approach.

This livestream is a bit shorter than previous ones, running less than fifty minutes, which they attribute to the length of the episode.  Also they decide to not do the traditional "Backer Thanks," because of the lack of cast members on the stream to do them (though they do have Jonah, so...).  It's a pretty swift stream and it goes down easy.  There is not a whole lot to talk about in a recap, but these are fun personalities having a fun conversation.  And it ends with Matt plugging the next event as A Tribute to Pumaman, which he claims is "specially enhanced."  Now I have to know what that is.  Jonah claims it has walkie talkies instead of guns and more Ewoks, while Matt plays along by saying they sing Yub Nub at the end now.

Yub Nub to the Pumaman theme?

Yub, Nub-Nub, Yub-Nub-Nub-Nub-Yub-Nub...

This I gotta see!