Days of Future Godzilla Past

Just when I started complaining about the glut of mediocre Netflix Originals, they go ahead and release two highly anticipated anime programs around the same time. I’ve yet to watch Devilman: Crybaby, but I got everything I wanted upon watching Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters.

I had read about this movie a while back and was surprised to hear it was the first time Godzilla was going to star in an anime. As someone who remembers the Hannah-Barbara Godzooky (I can’t believed it’s spelled that way) cartoons with zero fondness, a Godzilla anime sounded like a pretty good idea.

What I didn’t expect was for it to hit so many “Andre loves this sci-fi concept” notes.  The story moves at a lightspeed clip, with barely enough time to introduce characters in-between all the other elements. In a familiar montage sequence, humanity finds itself assaulted by all sorts of familiar kaiju at the end of the 20th century…okay, so far so good. Except then not just one but TWO different alien races show up out of nowhere with promises of helping humanity out of their rut. This happens so quickly that I barely register that they fail miserably, resulting in a final slap-dash exodus of humanity from Earth.

THEN I’m treated to my most favorite sci-fi concept of generation ships struggling to survive in their voyage across space. It’s here that we’re finally formally introduced to our main character (name starts with an “H” but I’ll refer to as the Captain from now on), who nicely sets the stakes by threatening to blow up their ship. The reason? Well, it seems they’ve arrived at a completely non-hospitable planet but are willing to sacrifice a few old souls to ease resources after 20 years of traveling. It’s a heavy concept and it really works to sell the dire predicament humanity finds themselves in.

Honestly, I could spend hundreds of words just detailing all the different ideas the Godzilla anime throws around within a few minutes. Overall,  I get the sense that they introduce the two alien species mainly as a way to hand-wave technology jumps and have them comment cryptically on the fate of humanity. I’m 100% okay with this.

Long story short, the Captain and the super computer have figured out a way to *gasp* defeat Godzilla and this somehow convinces everyone to just return to Earth and try again. Oh, except starjumping/lightspeed tech means over 10,000 years have passed since they left. Yet another way to add another wrinkle to whatever slapdash plans the humans think they have.

Even if I can’t remember everyone’s name and the CGI nature of the animation causes everyone to look vaguely similar, the small character beats are super effective. Despite my musing about the breakneck pacing of the show, it works because it keeps us on our toes as to the eventual fate of humanity. Everything sucks on this journey, this planet, and all subsequent fights. And just when the Captain looks to sacrifice everything, we’re treated to a surprise/twist at the end that i’m absolutely okay with even if it’s technically a cliffhanger.