Gamera - Origins

Origins

In the Shōwa era series Gamera was a titanic, fire-breathing, prehistoric species of tortoise who fed on petroleum-based material presumably giving him the ability to breathe fire and fly by "jets" ignited when the monster retracts its legs – it can propel itself by spinning through the air with all 4 legs in and (shown in later films) can fly straight with just the rear legs drawn inside its shell.

The original movie begins showing bombers of the U.S.S.R. being intercepted by American fighters over U.S. air space in the arctic. The Soviet pilots refuse to be forced down because of the presence of atomic bombs on board their aircraft, so they attempt to leave the area. However, the fighters launch an attack and one of the bombers crashes. A nuclear blast ensues, releasing a giant turtle from suspended animation in the ice.

The incident unfolds over the heads of a Japanese research team who have stumbled upon an Eskimo tribe in possession of an artifact, an ancient stone etching, that suggests the giant turtle (maybe more than one) had been observed and duly noted at some earlier time in mankind's history. The tribe refers to the turtle as "Gamera" in their legends.

In the Heisei era series, however, the origin of Gamera was tweaked to make the theme much more directly heroic: a bio-engineered Guardian of the Universe created by Atlantis with the purpose of defeating Gyaos, another ancient creation capable of killing all human life. The giant turtle is found floating adrift in the Pacific, encased in rock and mistaken for an atoll. Within the rock, investigators discover a large monolith explaining Gamera's purpose, as well as dozens of magatama, which allow a psychic link between Gamera and humans.

In the third film of the series, an undersea graveyard is found with many other Gamera fossils, suggesting Gamera was not the only member of his kind created. One character in the film refers to these fossils as "beta versions" of Gamera, possible failures in Atlantis' attempts to create the final version. Another scene provides Gamera with a link to Asian folklore, with a character relating a story in which a giant tortoise is considered the Guardian of the North, with separate, rival creatures defending the East, West and South.

Gamera's continuity was rebooted again in the only film of the Millennium era. The film begins with the original Gamera sacrificing himself to destroy several Gyaos in 1973. 33 years later, a young boy finds a strange, glowing red rock near his home, with a small egg lying on top of it. A fairly normal looking baby tortoise soon hatches from the egg, but begins to grow at an alarming rate. The turtle, now named "Toto" by his pre-adolescent owner, quickly develops Gamera's classic abilities to breathe fire and fly, and attempts to ward off another attacking monster, Zedus, but is too weak to succeed. Only after eating the glowing rock found with his egg does the new Gamera achieve his full power, defeating Zedus and flying off into the sky.