npinkham19
MemberMothra LarvaeMar-30-2014 2:27 PMI'm planning on watching the entire Showa era of Gamera films even though I don't particularly remember them being good. I have watched snippets lately and I've noticed two things. Firstly the production values are actually pretty big dispite some awfully cheap lookings suits. In Gamera vs. Gyaos I spotted so many different life sized props, from Gyaos's foot, arm and Gamera's shell. There was also a fair amount of minature work and they even used a life sized prop to show a plane cut in half. Second thing I noticed brings me to the subject header.
Gamera is known during his first series as the friend of children. These movies all focus on children caught up in the monster action. Gamera goes out of his way to protect them and the kids joyously root him on. However . . . .these movies are INCREDIBLY violent. Every film Gamera is bleeding all over the place, getting skewered, needles shot through his body. Monsters are torn apart, beheaded, roaring out in pain. Are kids really the target audience? Is it a cultural thing? I know in Japan some things may be less taboo. Maybe children over there are a bit more hardened than over here. There is a huge cultural shock over there. I watched a rather interesting video not too long ago about Japan's population shrinking because adult entertainment and simulated relationships are so readily available that people aren't reproducing, but I guess I'm getting off topic here.
Seriously, though . . .who were those Gamera films targeted towards?
godzillafan1995
MemberMothra LarvaeMar-30-2014 2:42 PMi think it was aimed at kids becuase i think that the godzilla movies showed that most of the demograpic who watched these movies were kids and while godzilla hadn't aimed at kids yet i think gamera stared straight away.
Danzilla93
MemberBaragonMar-30-2014 2:52 PMWell, it depends on the film. The first film was more adult oriented, but featured some kiddy elements so the kids that Daiei knew would go the the movie weren't board. Gamera vs Barugon was VERY adult oriented, with little monster action and a heavy human plot that would have lost the kiddies. Noriaki Yuasa returned to direct the third film, Gamera vs Gyaos, and he was far more willing to, for lack of a better term, pander to the child audience that was consuming monster films in the mid 1960's. Following Gyaos's success, the series was aimed ENTIRELY at kids. This is when the famous Gamera song was introduced, and the plots featured children as the main characters. Apparently kids in Japan were less sensitive than kids here were, because, or so I've read, the kiddies ate up the violence and gore that became a staple of the Gamera franchise. If you ever wondered why Godzilla shed so much blood in the 70's films, its Gamera's fault. :) The plots got more silly, the budgets got smaller, and by the time of Gamera vs Zigra in 1971, the only adults in the theater were those that brought their children to see the latest adventure of their giant, fire breathing hero.
"Fantasy is the impossible made probable. Science Fiction is the improbable made possible." -Rod Serling
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