Godzilla 2014: Short 'n' sweet review

(Spoiler Free)

A fine addition to the venerable franchise, Godzilla manages to tell a story full of both the giant radioactive monster and human beings worth worrying about.

Notable I-heart-this-very-much moments:

• Godzilla is referred to by his proper name, Gojira. Thank you Ken Watanabe!
• A minor character takes a moment to explain why Godzilla is not just another pretty face.
• Magnificent, low-angle shots of the eponymous beast from our bug's-eye view.
• A protagonist who is a smart guy doing smart things throughout.
• Preserves the form like a good haiku without collapsing under the weight of tradition.

Kaiju to Oranges

 

That Godzilla movie from 1998? '99? You know the one (Matthew Broderick, I think you're wonderful, but, honey...no).

I mainlined Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993) and a couple of other flicks featured on Crackle this month and was surprised at how much I dug them. There's no pretending after you've muttered to yourself, "When's he gonna *roar*??"

Anyway, I remember my dissatisfaction with that 90's too-much-what-we-didn't-want version. They redesigned the monster, for pity's sake. I mean, I get why Hollywood might not have wanted to go with a dude in a suit, but Godzilla is supposed to be unnatural. We understand dinosaur physiology better now, but that's no reason to panic. So, Godzilla is an impossible biped--mutant, yo! Even more so!

I know that they were trying to smack-talk Jurassic Park with that ad campaign (for young whipper-snappers, it went something like "Size Does Matter" with Godzilla's big 'ol foot smashing through the roof of a museum and stomping the Cretaceous out of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton which was hella amusing to a lot of us).

Thing is, though: nobody really cared about that comparison. Because the film makers went with such a radical redesign, the only thing ol' Hollywood Lizard was being compared to was the original.

Toho (who owns Godzilla) said, "Mm-hm, Mm-hm, we see what you did there. That thing? From now on, we're calling that thing 'Zilla'. No relation."
 
There's only one King of the Monsters. 

As I was saying...

This is the paperback edition from 1995. Massive, wonderful. And I bought it with proceeds from my first fiction sale.

Wonder Reference

This is my battered paperback edition of The Science Fiction Encyclopedia.  Wikipedia informs me that the US publisher changed the name of the from The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, who knows why.  I found it remaindered at Waldenbooks a looooong time ago, remaindered, me all starry-eyed like an anime character with the background music soaring and...you get the idea.

That cover with its too-close moon and earthly cataclysm was irresistible.  I used to get lost in a daisy-chain of articles: from an author, to another author, to a movie, to a theme.  All this without hyperlinks, mind.

It became The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction in its second US incarnation, without illustrations sadly, though an update apparently came out on CD-ROM.  The second edition I have, but alas, not the CD.

The third edition moves the endeavor fully online: The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.  The site went live in October 2011 with the caveat that it is in beta, a work in progress. I have high hopes for its future.

John Clute, Peter Nicholls, David Langford, and many others are pounding away at this labor of love.  You can help with donations.

Webcomics I Love: Spacetrawler

Christopher Baldwin is the artist and writer behind Spacetrawler, a science fiction webcomic about humans shanghaied by an alien to help free the Eebs, another alien race exploited and enslaved by just about everyone because they can build...well, anything, but spacetrawlers (star ships) in particular.

Needless to say the situation is way more complicated than that. There are secrets and revelations; bad guys, good guys, and in-betweeners. It's a cautionary tale about the pitfalls of good intentions when coupled with only partial information...

Sounds serious, doesn't it? But it's also very, very funny (consider the mobile toilet, an Artificial Intelligence who only wants to do his job. And be loved for it, I think. And maybe follow you around, just in case--no, that is not indicative of the level of humor in the comic, though possibly indicative of mine).

Spacetrawler is also sweet and bittersweet.

The webcomic is for grown-ups, containing violence, cussing, sexuality amongst the stars (not explicit), some drinking, some heartbreak, some angst, some rollicking, some rampaging.

His art is often adorable. Even the more amoeba-like aliens are...kind of cute.

Christopher Baldwin's work appears often in MAD Magazine (here's a sample).

He's done other webcomics. His Little Dee is a delightful tale of a lost little girl adopted by a very civilized bear until she can be reunited with her folks. Trust me, you will love it. It's a storybook, sweet without saccharine, and sometimes takes a gentle swipe at our so-called real world.

Start from the beginning; these are real stories.

Mark Hamill Gives Good Villainy

I wish I'd gotten to see Mark Hamill onstage in Amadeus, but at least I've gotten to enjoy his voicework as the Joker in Batman:The Animated Series (you lucky gamers have gotten to hear him reprise the role in Batman: Arkham Asylum and Batman: Arkham City)

He says he's done playing the Joker.

A moment of silence.

However, he has brought his talents to a new role in a new animated series on Disney XD called Motorcity.

I've fallen hard for Motorcity because of the animation which is just fantastic, a hot-rod and graffiti hallucination. The linework is alive with indie-comics grit, each moment crammed with detail, depth, and color. Here, lookit: Motorcity Animation Preview

The voice cast as a whole is great, worthy Mark Hamill's villain Abraham Kane...a big, bad man with a big voice full of verve and nuance.

Pep talkin'

The blank page is not an abyss. It's a vessel that deepens only as you fill it.

Let's try to keep that in mind, shall we?