So we watched Gamera vs Guiron for the Watch Party, which was clearly a slam dunk. It was the Japanese language version, which isn’t any issue for me, but also in widescreen and with a beautiful print. Anyway, even if you prefer the English tracks for kajiu movies, what you want is the ones we heard on TV as kids. Sadly, those are mostly unavailable due to rights issues, and for the Toho ones at least, their own “international dubs” are pretty awful.
Anyway, this is widely considered, I think, the most fun of the series, with the brain-eating space babes and lots of monster action (and, yes, a long swatch of stock footage at one point). They also had a magic machine that made you doughnuts, which (as I noted in the WP), is what I believe destroyed the Krell.
Guiron is a fun monster, more on him tomorrow. However, they sort of Mary Sue him to start with. To make sure we get that he’s especially awesome, he makes short work of Space Gyaos (he’s the one who’s spray painted silver), who just randomly shows up on this alien planet. Because, you know, space. At least in the Japanese cut we get to see Space Gyaos get cut into slices, which again they cut out for American TV viewings. Anyway, great stuff. All the Gamera movies are on Amazon Prime right now, and I’m sure we’ll revisit this.
Next watch party is a week from Friday. I’ll be tied up both weekends at the end of February, so that will probably be the only one next month. Not that I’m essential by myself–any of you guys could run one–but several of our regulars will also be tied up as well. So after that I guess we’ll wait until March.
