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Replanting Godzilla Vs. Biollante (1989)

Exploring the Wild World of Tokusatsu

May 7, 2019

Originally the Big G was intended to sit out of this column for quite some time, as there have been a copious amount of writing detailing his storied career. However given that this is Scriptophobic’s 1 year anniversary, we’re bringing out the biggest name in tokusatsu to celebrate. Godzilla has an incredibly long and storied career starting in 1954, amazingly there are still new entries in the series being created today. Asides from a few lulls in production, Japan’s nuclear monstrosity never ceases to remind the Japanese people of his destructive abilities. This week we’ll be looking at Godzilla vs. Biollante which just like our dear website is celebrating an anniversary this year. Godzilla vs. Biollante is thirty years old, having been released December 16th of 1989 (Ryfle, Steve). This is a film I’ve been writing about for nearly ten years, having first written about it in a project for my high school biology class. We had to create a magazine detailing various scientific topics and relate them to what we had learned throughout the year. Naturally, I chose to discuss Godzilla vs. Biollante, needless to say, I did not receive a great grade as the magazine had more to do with cinematic criticism than it had to do with science. This split cannot be given to the film itself, however, as it has as much to say about modern science as it has great monster action. Godzilla vs. Biollante is a clear outlier in the Heisei Godzilla franchise (if you want to learn about what the Heisei era is read my article on Kamen Rider J link here) and is one of the strongest entries in the entire franchise.

Similar to the upcoming Godzilla King of The Monsters, this film has a five-year gap between it and its predecessor Return of Godzilla (Godzilla 1985 in the states), and the final script was actually surmised by a dentist. Shinichiro Kobayashi was not new to the world of Tokusatsu as at the age of 16 he had written an episode of the TV series The Return of Ultraman in 1971 (Lemay, John). Kobayashi had his story produced due to winning a story contest cooked up by Godzilla producer Tomoyuki Tanaka. The amount of entries varies from source to source with some places saying over 3, 000 entries (Lemay, John) and others saying over 5, 000 (Ryfle, Steve); regardless of the exact amounts, there were a lot of entries. The panel to chose the victor included legendary Manga artist Osamu Tezuka (Ryfle, Steve) who created the hit series Astro Boy among a myriad of other properties. The end script has a lot in common with Kobayashi’s Return of Ultraman script even after Director/Writer Kazuki Omori had rewritten it. The Return of Ultraman episode is an odd one to be sure, featuring a mad scientist who fuses plant and animal DNA causing a giant monster to wreak havoc. The monster Leogon has plantlike tentacles (similar to Biollante) and is even fought at the same lake (Lake Ashi) as Biollante in the feature film. Godzilla vs. Biollante has a few ties to Return of Ultraman as Koichi Sugiyama composed the theme song for the TV series and did all of the music for Biollante.

Godzilla vs. Biollante touches on a myriad of complex moral quandaries, whilst delivering a fast-paced and energetic monster movie. There are a lot of espionage and political machinations going on in the film, yet Kazuki Omori manages to tie it all together nicely. This film has humans play a huge role in the final outcome and unlike some films in the franchise, humanity is not left to the sidelines. The biggest message of the film has to do with a very prescient topic in today’s society: GMOs. The titular monster might as well be called GMOzilla as Biollante is in its very essence a genetically modified plant monster. Early in the film, Doctor Shiragami is working in Saradia (much like Mothra’s Rolisica this is a clear stand-in for a world superpower) and his goal in the country is to make better more resilient wheat in order to better feed their people. The human characters go out of their way to warn about the dangers of humankind going too far with genetic modification, however, in the film itself, you can easily have the opposite reaction. The monster Biollante is rather benevolent, her only beef appears to be with her reptilian doppelganger and in this film Godzilla is definitely put into more of a villain role. Biollante does not destroy cities, the most she does is kill a human invader to her home, and blow up a few tanks. In the realm of Kaiju-ega, I bet Ultraman has more collateral damage to his name than her. In fact, the film ends with Biollante ascending to be a giant rose in the sky, like some sort of monster satellite. The real villains of the film are the greedy humans who cannot allow another country to benefit from Anti-Nuclear bacteria, a serum derived from Godzilla cells. This technology would practically cease the nuclear arms race overnight and instead of sharing it with the world greedy politicians want it for themselves. The greed of humanity gets to its most nihilistic tendencies in this film when the Saradian agent is ordered to kill Shiragami because if Saradia can’t have the ANB then no one should.

The tantrums of greedy man-children hold the world back from reaching its true potential.

The cast is extremely expansive in this film; however, it’s very well balanced with the characters being easily understood and their arcs being satisfying whether it be a romantic relationship or a series of military characters willing to sacrifice everything in order to save Japan. This heroism and sense of sacrifice is seen in the monster battles as well, with Biollante taking on a similar role. The standout of the human cast is by far Tohru Minegishi who plays Gondo. Gondo has been assigned to defend the country against Godzilla if he is to reappear and his attitude is so aloof you can’t help but love him. At one point he says the line “Otherwise I’d become the monster who eats up tax money” when asked if he expects Godzilla to make a reappearance. This film also introduces Megumi Odaka who plays Miki Saegusa a character who would reappear in the remaining Godzilla films of the 1990s. Miki Saegusa doesn’t get to do a lot in this film although she is seen as an incredibly powerful asset to the Japanese Self-Defense Force and what little she does do is memorable. The rest of the cast fulfills their roles well but aren’t going to blow you away with their performances, the biggest flaw to the film is undoubtedly the English acting. Godzilla films have always had some truly cringe-worthy performances by Western actors and in the pantheon of bad English performances at least the ones here are hilarious. At one point the Saradian agent corners some Americans and delivers the line “Kiss…you guys!” which is just a wonder to behold.

The effects in this film really set it over the top. This is the first Godzilla film for special effects director Koichi Kawakita and he blows it out of the park. In later Godzilla films, his monster battles wouldn’t reach the physicality and ferociousness seen here. Godzilla gets his hand impaled, barfed on, tripped, and nearly has his head bitten off. It is a brutal fight and one that we don’t often get in Godzilla movies. The beam effects are on full display but they aren’t overused as is often the complaint levied at the remainder of the films Kawakita did the effects for. Some of the most impressive miniatures in the film are little things that help to draw you into the world. At one point characters are drinking at a bar that has a giant Godzilla footprint visible on its ceiling. The idea that a swanky restaurant would use a Godzilla footprint for decoration really helps to sell the universe of the film and make it feel like a more lived in world. Both of Biollante’s forms are distinct and executed beautifully. The scene where we first meet Biollante is lit and scored in such a way that you really feel the majesty of this roselike creature. The designs in general for this film are top notch. The Godzilla suit in this film (called BioGoji by fans) is the iconic Godzilla design. Future films would do slight tweaks here and there but as a whole, this suit would be the template for the iconic Godzilla design. So much so that a statue of this design was erected by Toho and the head of the iconic Godzilla Hotel in downtown Tokyo is from this era. The statue has since been replaced by a statue of Shin Godzilla however the original statue has merely been moved to another indoor location rather than be destroyed entirely. The design of the super weapon, The Super X 2, is likewise a delight. It is rather similar to the original Super X from The Return of Godzilla, however this time it has a mirror to reflect Godzilla’s atomic breath. Interestingly The Super X 2 is a drone weapon with no pilot which for 1989 is very forward thinking. A similar approach can be seen in Destroy all Monsters as the military weapons in that film are similarly remote controlled. A common criticism of the film is that the music is lackluster and I couldn’t disagree more. Koichi Sugiyama presents a beautiful score, with beats that are instantly conjured within my head. Sure this is not typical Akira Ifukube and when they play the iconic Ifukube music in the film it can be a little jarring but the different style is still effective.

In 2014 there was a Japanese poll asking the public to vote for their favourite Godzilla film and Godzilla vs. Biollante came out on top (Lemay, John). This is not a surprise as this film has an abundance of depth and dissection to be had. I’ve read claims of it being nationalistic, claims of it being about handing the reigns over to a new generation (Kalat, David), and that’s only scratching the surface. The film is not without its issues to be sure as some of the English acting will be sure to take you out of its serious plot; however, pound for pound, this is my second favourite film of the franchise. No film is capable of surpassing the original at least thus far but as far as what the series would evolve into and how Godzilla would be seen on an international scale Godzilla vs. Biollante is worthy of all the praise it receives. The Blu-ray for this film is long out of print, which assuredly as something to do with the fact that American distributor Miramax has a bit of tenuous ownership to the film. There was a court case by Toho suing Miramax as they were stated to have supposedly made an oral agreement to distribute the film, the lawsuit was settled out of court and Miramax released the film to little fanfare (Ryfle, Steve). Hopefully, we’ll see a proper reissue of the film soon and if you are lucky enough to own a copy treasure it closely for now. Godzilla vs. Biollante is an example of the best of the Tokusatsu genre. Contemplative, intense, and rife with fantastic special effects.