Godzilla vs. Megaguirus | Through the Shattered Lens

It has always bothered me whenever a long-running franchise decides that the best way to reboot things is to wipe away its own history.

Consider the James Bond films, in which the current producers apparently decided that Daniel Craig’s grim and whiny interpretation of the character was so definitive that it would be no big deal to wipe all of the previous Bond films out of existence. Sorry, Sean Connery. Sorry, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and even George Lazenby. Sorry, everyone who enjoyed the original Bond films and who enjoys spies who are relatively free of angst and self-pity. Your films are now no longer canon, all because someone thought it would be a good idea for Bond and Blofeld to be brothers.

Consider the DC films, in which there are so many different versions of the same characters floating around that it’s next to impossible to keep straight what is an “official” film and what isn’t. Admittedly, the majority of the DC films weren’t that good but still, there’s just something kind of annoying in the way that franchise in particular tends to just shrug and say, “Okay, that film doesn’t really count.” Own your mistakes.

And then there’s my beloved Halloween franchise, ruined by David Gordon Green’s belief that he was better than the genre. After years of brother/sister drama between Laurie Strode and Michael Myers, Green simply decided to do away with all of that and, in the process, he made the entire story (and Laurie Strode as a character) far less interesting.

Usually I think of this as being a relatively new phenomena but, as I watched 2000’s Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, I realized that reboots that do away with years of continuity are nothing new. Godzilla vs. Megagurius opens with a narrator literally telling us to forget about all the films that came out after the original Gojira. And we’re also told to forget about the ending of Gojira because that never happened either. The Oxygen Destroyer was not used and Tokyo had to be abandoned. Godzilla survived the end of Gojira and he continues to use Japan as his own personal power source, attacking not only a nuclear reactor but also a plasma reactor. So, sorry, Mothra. Sorry, Rodan. Sorry, all of you fans of Ghidorah. Sorry everyone who enjoyed the classic Godzilla films. We’re now in a universe where none of that happened.

That’s not to say that Godzilla vs. Megagurius is a bad film, of course. The majority of the people who watch these films (and films in general) could hardly care less about continuity. They want to see a fight between giant monsters and they want to hear Godzilla’s roar and this film provides both of them. After Japan attempts to destroy Godzilla with a satellite that shoots — I kid you not — miniature black holes, it finds itself being attacked by prehistoric dragonflys. While Godzilla searches for a new power source, the dragonflys attempt to siphon off Godzilla’s energy for their own uses. As so often happened with these movies, humanity’s attempt to destroy Godzilla actually leads to far more destruction than if they had just left Godzilla alone. It turns out that creating miniature black holes and ripping open the time/space continuum is not the solution to all the world’s problems. It’s the human beings who are ultimately the bigger threat than the giant monsters.

It’s an entertaining film. The Megagurius is a good monster and a worthy opponent to Godzilla. Godzilla does what he does best. The film wiped out a decades worth of continuity but at least it kept the Godzilla roar. In the end, you can’t silence a good giant monster.

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