Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a review of that flick that Moriarty (and a good amount of the geek community) creamed his pants during the trailer for. If you missed that one CLICK HERE FOR THAT STORY WITH THE TRAILER LINKS!!! Turns out that the flick is a 22 minute short film, which is a shame because after watching that trailer I'm convinced that no less than 90 minutes will suffice. However, it sounds like it's a grand slam and I am absolutely foaming at the mouth to see this fucker myself. Enjoy the review, but beware... it tells ya' about every single step of the short!!!
Harry and Moriarty,
This past Sunday I caught the screening of “NEGADON The Monster from Mars” on the last day of the 2005 Tokyo International Fantastic Film Festival. NEGADON was the winner of the festival’s Digital Short Awards category. Unfortunately I had to sit through all of the finalist submissions, but NEGADON fucking rocked! It runs a total of about 22 minuets and is entirely done in CG. NEGADON was single handedly written, directed, and animated by Jun Awaza.
Every frame projected on screen will make any Kaiju fan that grew up watching movies like Invasion of the Astor Monster, Destroy All Monsters, and X from outer space melt. Obviously I’m a diehard Kaiju fan and being that Johnny Sokko’s Giant Flying Robot (Giant Robo) is my all time favorite Kaiju entity, this short film just blew my mind! I have nothing but praise and admiration for what Awaza has done.
It all unfolds like this, in the 1960’s the Japanese government are terra forming the surface of Mars. A large rock is taken from beneath the surface and unwisely taken back to Earth aboard a cargo ship. The cargo ship is destroyed while re-entering Earth’s atmosphere and the payload crashes into a Japan where the monster “NEGADON” raises from the ashes.
All military efforts to stop the monster are pointless, as always. Only an old man named Narasaki and his MI-6 2 robot can destroy the monster. Narasaki has nothing to live for and has lived the last 10 years of his life in guilt over his only daughter’s death. The battle between the two Kaijus is short but sweet, a hell of a lot sweeter than the bullshit fights that were in Godzilla Final Wars. With no other alternative Narasaki captures NEGADON with his tow arm clamp and launches into space. He then uses the robot’s maximum power to drill bit mega punch NEGADON. The MI-6 2 impales NEGADON killing the monster almost instantly and both are blown to bits in the process.
Unless you have done a sort film of this magnitude entirely yourself, then any and all criticism should be left at the door. Pointing out any flaws in this film will obviously come from clueless critics. Awaza has done what all-most all Kaiju fans only dream of doing. I hope ComicWave has plans for a US release soon, unfortunately I’m sure it will hit the bootleg DVD-R comic convention tables soon enough.
Otsukarisamadeshita!
SaveRobotech
