Gamera II: Attack of Legion *Unlocked*

The second film in the Heisei Gamera trilogy reunites director Shusuke Kaneko, SFX specialist Shinji Higuchi, and writer Kazunori Ito for an ambitious alien invasion film. This time, the titanic turtle’s opponent is the creepy-crawly colony of space bugs, the Symbiotic Legion; a kaiju that brings the biblical barbarism from Neon Genesis Evangelion front-and-center to the Gamera experience.

Legion’s got Ian asking, “What’s up with bugs in the ‘90s?” He and Joseph go on an exciting excursion through the canon of great pre-millennium insect critters – the Zerg from Starcraft, the Arachnids from Paul Verhoeven’s now-beloved but then-derided Starship Troopers, and so on. Later, Joseph drops another cortex-crushing take on the psychological subtext to Gamera’s triumphant return to the screen. All that plus a solid discussion of post-apocalypses in film and video games and why we could use fewer of them.

Notes: ‘Video Games Are Giving Up On The Idea that We Can Save The World’ by Michael Lee, via Kotaku