MechaCthulhu vs. Godzilla: The movie that could be, but never will be.

[LoA]

[ic]LoA
I was thinking the same thing.
sparkletwist
This more than needs a thread by now.
Steerpike
That's interesting. One way of thinking about the two monsters is that Godzilla is essentially allegorical - he has a particular meaning, atomic power. Chthulhu's meaning is way more elusive; he's as much about antimeaning and the essential meaninglessness of things as he is a symbol or metaphor for anything.
LoA
So if Cthulhu were willing to take a level in Bard he could totally win! All jokes aside, While I'm not the Lovecraft Guru I wish I was, I am very familiar with Godzilla on a philosophical level. They seem to represent two different ethos in my mind. Both are always-existing crisis that are inevitably going to come and wreck our way of life. Cthulhu though is all about the horror we feel when facing our insignifigance in the universe. Godzilla is something else entirely. He's a political statement about the misuse of science, and the unintended consequences thereof. But that's understandable. Scientists have studied Godzilla, they track him, they know him inside and out. There's nothing they can really do about him, but they understand him. A Godzilla vs Cthulhu movie needs to happen though. It's perfectly legal for Toho to do it to.
Steerpike
You're right of course. Fortunately Pathfinder has stats for Chthulhu - http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/aberrations/great-old-ones/great-old-one-cthulhu - and an off-brand Godzilla - http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/magical-beasts/kaiju/kaiju-mogaru.
LoA
Then why did you bring it up on the internet? Don't you know how this place works?
Steerpike
I tend to think that his powers aren't really the point of the story. I was being very facetious with my godzilla matchup :p
Rhamnousia
Him stirring in his sleep sparked a global wave of murders and suicides so it stands to reason that he'd cause even more chaos awake.
Rhamnousia
That's all he needs to be to wipe out all life on Earth, but I believe like most Mythos gods, his presence induces insanity.
LoA
Ok I've read Call of Cthulhu, but what kind of "power" does he have? Is he just big and unkillable?
Steerpike
I think part of the problem is that Lovecraft was writing in a time before atomic bombs or even major tank warfare, so to him and readers at the time, the boat crashing into Chthulhu reads as a lot more "powerful" than it does to us.
Ghostman
I always read it as stars *not* being right at the time, so he was prematurely awakened and at but a fraction of his normal power. Kinda like myself at 6 a.m.
Steerpike
To be fair, he begins "recombining" within a sentence of having his head split in two.
Rhamnousia
But then, I assume all Mythos lore is filtered through an unreliable and paranoid narrator
Rhamnousia
I mean, canonically, a light blow to the head from a boat KO's him instantly.
LoA
Either way were screwed.

Still I guess it depends. Is Cthulhu outright immortal, or can he be killed? Godzilla is kind of immortal in his own right though (I have watched the movies since I was twelve). So it would depend.
Steerpike
Of course the real question is who would win in a fight - Godzilla or Chthulu  -http://orig07.deviantart.net/ba15/f/2012/144/a/d/godzilla_vs__cthulhu_by_paulhanley-d50x6z3.jpg
Steerpike
I suppose that depends on your definition. They're aliens from another dimension, they're huge, some are tentacled, and they're from the sea. Certainly they're not mythos specific and they clearly owe more to Godzilla than Lovecraft, but del Toro is a well-known Lovecraft fanatic. One could argue that the way they seem to dwarf humanity and make us seem insignificant and vulnerable isn't that far off. I wouldn't call it a Lovecraftian film, but it's more Lovecraftian than, say, Crimson Peak. It definitely taps into what China Mieville would call the "subcanny," the
"particular specific flesh-creep of the Weird from that of the underwater," an affect of which Lovecraft is especially fond.
Llum
I don't think Pacific Rim was Lovecraft. It was aliens, but nothing remotely Lovecraftian about it.
Ninja D!
That sounds fantastic.
LoA
AAaaaahhhh. I see now.
Rhamnousia
Pacific Rim was mecha versus Lovecraft. NGE was Lovecraftian mecha.
LoA
Well I mean isn't that what Pacific Rim was?
Weave
A Lovecraftian-mecha fusion setting sounds like something I would play in instantly.
LoA
So just come up with my own lovecraftian-mecha fusion setting? Understood.
sparkletwist
The system is also crap, so whatever you can salvage of the fluff would probably have to be plugged into Fate or some such thing.
Rhamnousia
It's underwhelming. Way too scattered. It would've been better if they'd done a direct lift of NGE with the Mythos replacing all the weird Christian symbolism.
Rose-of-Vellum
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
LoA
Man I want to check out Cthulhu Tech so badly.... Does anyone have anything to say on that?
[/ic]

And there we go. Since I was the one that started this glorious mess.

Steerpike
That's interesting. One way of thinking about the two monsters is that Godzilla is essentially allegorical - he has a particular meaning, atomic power. Chthulhu's meaning is way more elusive; he's as much about antimeaning and the essential meaninglessness of things as he is a symbol or metaphor for anything.

And that's the scary thing about Cthulhu. He's not evil, he's just higher on the food chain.