90s Gamera Trilogy
 

Alrighty, I picked up a little Blu-ray boxed set of the Gamera trilogy, which has Guardian of the Universe, Attack of the Legion, and Revenge of Iris.

...And get this...

It was only about fifteen bucks.

For $15 I said "Why the hell not?!", and took it home.

Now, I haven't gotten around to finishing the movies yet, I've finished Guardian of the Universe and half of Attack of the Legion (Due to a stupid Blu-ray player mishap), but I can say the set is already worth it for the first movie alone.

There were moments in the 1 1/2 movies I've watched that made me want to smack my face on a desk (They've dropped an out of place environmental message in both movies), but they were short and didn't dwell on them too long. Everything else though is quite spectacular, especially coming off my last kaiju film, Godzilla: Final Wars. The Blu-ray conversion is really amazing, I honestly forgot that these things weren't made in the late 2000s while watching them.

Anyone else see these? Have opinions on them?

Let me just toss this out there real quick - be wary of the third disc. There are two major issues with it - the subtitles getting gradually out of sync, especially on the special features, and a number of subtitle lines getting lost, leaving incomplete conversations compared to the dub or the old ADV version on DVD. Mill Creek is working on a fix of some kind.

Yep, was gonna say that. I emailed them right after watching Movie 3 and got a response in moments, that was clearly written right then and not an auto-response.

These movies are freaking amazing. You must have already figured out that movie 1 is the weakest...probably because it is the most like a Godzilla movie, which love to hit you in the face with a clumsy environmental message*.

Movie 2 is sort of like Aliens combined with a disaster movie. Very hard sci-fi, as far as these movies ever get. In fact at times Gamera seems almost like a secondary character...but hen he does something REALLY important that sets the stage for movie 3.

Movie 3 then chucks sci-fi totally and thrusts us into the last act of a mythic epic played out over thousands of years. The plot is a little obtuse and hard to follow, perhaps intentionally, but after yanking you a little off-balance with lore it then PUNCHES you with the most visceral, creative, real-seeming brutal kaiju footage ever. I can't think of anything remotely similar except Cloverfield, TEN years later, and that lacked the sucker punch of being done with Gamera. It is literally apocalyptic and forges the other two films into a complete saga.

* I am an environmentalist, but as such I actually repudiate the mindlessly anti-nuclear message of many of the movies in this genre.

Hands down the best kaiju movies I've seen. They come HIGHLY recommended.

Normally, I wouldn't judge a director who has more than four films based on just four films of their's, but after seeing his kaiju movies (The Gamera trilogy, GMK), I'm gonna say it:

Shusuke Kaneko is fucking genius.

It took me a long time to finally get my hands on these movies. I've just seen Revenge of Iris for the first time a few days ago and I loved it! The 90's Gamera series is one of the best there is.

The trilogy was always my favorite Gamera films but it's just too bad there wasn't a continuation of the Revenge of Iris ending. I suppose the last Gamera film could be considered a continuation though seeing as how he was fighting multiple Gyaos in the beginning of it.

I bought the first release on Blu-ray (feat. the two films) from Mill Creek but saw the trilogy on sale during Black Friday for $6...was struggling to get because of the criticism of the third disc...I may end up getting it still. It's still cheap online.

The timeline definitely doesn't work out. I think it's more of a thematic continuation, and definitely a reconstruction of the idea of Gamera, which was brutally deconstructed in G3.

Pity it forgot to give Gamera his trademark cry at ANY time. >_< Can't underestimate the value of the cry for making a kaiju seem unique and full of character.