Canon-Strike XIII: Godzilla

[briareos_kerensky]

I absolutely love Mechagodzilla. It's absolutely insane, although there a bit too many aliens trying to invade Earth now. Mechagodzilla is such a fun design and one of the few bad guys that can stand up to Godzilla. It's also a movie firmly in the "for kids" territory yet you have blood gushing out of monsters and aliens like they are from Lady Snowblood.
The song number require to awake Ceasar is so out of the left field and bad that becomes good again and completely fits with the rest of the movie.

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 15 - Terror of Mechagodzilla
Acting as a direct sequel to the previous film, Interpol agents are killed by an undersea creature called Titanosaurus when searching for the remains of Mechgodzilla. The plot then spirals with a mad scientist, end of the world plots, a cyborg woman and the rise of Mechagodzila 2. The film was and remains the least successful entry in the franchise despite decent reviews as the genre was in decline. Following the films release Toho ceased making monster films and kept the franchise frozen until the mid-1980s.




Good fun or utter Terror?

[QualityChimp]

Where is everyone?!

Terror of Mechagodzilla is probably my second Godzilla film as it was shown after Megalon on the C4 Creature Feature season.
Bus kid said it's one of the highly regarded films, so I prepped the VHS again.

I think one of the main things I take from this is how tragic the tale is.
Titanosaurus was a pretty docile monster keeping to himself until he started getting controlled and made to kill and destroy.
He never appears again, so I'm pretty sure he was killed at the end, so he died for actions not of his doing.
Even his kaiju roar sounds pained.

Even more tragic is the story of Dr. Shinzo Mafune and his daughter, Katsura.
He was shunned by his scientific peers for claiming he could control a kaiju, Titanosaurus, and faked his own death.
His daughter's life was saved from a lab accident by mysterious men, who then use that leverage to convince Mafune to use his control of Titanosaurus to exact revenge on those who ostracised him.
Upon her second death, she is unwillingly made into a conduit for the Black Hole Planet 3 aliens to effectively control Mechagodzilla and, in-turn, Mafune.
Spoilers, but she realises the only way to save humanity from the aliens' nefarious plans is to kill herself, just as she finally learns love.

The score is particularly sad, too.
After the pomp of the preceding couple of films, this has a melancholic tone in the first score by Akira Ifukube since 1968's Destroy All Monsters.

Despite the literal and metaphorical control of Titanosaurus, Mifune and Katsura, there's a god damn alien invasion and physchopathic doppelgänger to defeat, so here comes Godzilla!

With no robotic tag-team partner this time, he has to face his toughest foe and a new enemy simultaneously!

There's a really mint moment where Mifune has sent Titanosaurus to Tokyo to prove he's a badass.
People flee, buildings crumble and get swept away by his fan attack, then a heat blast knocks it off its feet.
We see a silhouette and then crash-zoom and Godzilla is revealed!
The camera then pans across Tokyo as the two giant combatants size each other up.




Another fantastic sequence is where the newly rebuilt Kastura launches Mechagodzilla 2.
Her eyes flash, then a mountainside blasts away and the hidden alien base is revealed and a saluting MGZ blasts off to cause a serious rumpus.



I've always been a sucker for a secret base!






Seriously, though, Titanosaurus and Mechagodzilla absolutely tear Tokyo apart.




We're then treated to an absolute monster mashup as Godzilla struggles to make a dent with two combatants taking turns to attack, shooting him in the back, blasting him when he's staggered and burying him alive. They then jump on his grave!

Finally getting the upper hand once Titanosauraus is stunned by the humans, Godzilla starts gaining some ground in the fight and despite the onslaught of missiles and lasers, manages to deliver the same Coup de Grâce as their last encounter and rips Mechagodzilla's head to defeat him.

...EXCEPT! He's still functioning and has a secret laserbeam attack in his cybernetic brain!




Finally, the suicide of Katsura to save the man she loves and the human race is enough to cripple the mechanical behemoth and get sent to the same grave he buried his twin a short while back. Titanosaurus is easily despatched whilst distracted and all the remaining antagonists she shot, blown up or jump of a cliff to a briny death on the rocks below.

Destroying the escaping spaceships, Godzilla swims off into the sunset.

Thus ends the Showa series. Declining ticket sales and soaring budgets meant that Toho parked the giant lizard for nearly a decade. This also marks the last film directed by Ishiro Honda. It had been a real roller coaster of a ride for Godzilla's first period of his films and definitely contains some of my favourite ones.

[briareos_kerensky]

Poor Titanosaur, the only Godzilla movie he's ever been in. I'm always amused on how he waltzes on Godzilla's "grave", like even was mashing grapes into wine.

[Neon Ignition]

That volcano base is so reminiscent of the one from You Only Live Twice

[CMcK]

Where is everyone?!

Give me a chance! Just watched Godzilla Raids Again and have started on the American version of Godzilla versus King Kong.

Shows how bad my memory of Raids was it felt like watching a new movie. It certainly follows a similar formula to the original and is overall quite enjoyable.
Changing to the Americanised follow up, in colour no less, is a bit of a culture shock.

[QualityChimp]

That volcano base is so reminiscent of the one from You Only Live Twice

To clarify, I put the Macross and YOLT bases in as examples of secret bases I love!

See also Thunderbirds and Terrahawks:

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 16 - The Return of Godzilla
1984 and Godzilla finally returned in the first of the Hensei era films. The new entry pushed aside most of what had come before and reset the canon by acting as a sequel to the original 1954 movie. With a darker tone, the film deals with the panic that emerges when it is revealed that the existence of a second Godzilla has been kept secret. The result was a box office disappointment with the film being retooled for a US edition the next year to try and claw back money, though this would be far from the end of Godzilla.




Return of the King?

[QualityChimp]

Another one I've not seen.
It was always sketchy as to how you'd get hold of these in the mid to early 90s, waaay before DVD and the internet was a thing.

It's never really interested me, I think it's because there was no monster to fight against, which was my original fascination with the series. However, now I've seen the OG film and Shin Godzilla, two of my faves with no monster punch-ups, I think I'd get a lot from this, plus the golden age of pre-CGI model sets.

This video caught my eye just the other week and I may try and track this down.
Even now that's tricky because although it was released in the Showa era (Hirohito died in '89) it's classed as Heisei, so not on that Criterion set. It's not on any streaming platform, even Tubi. Only archive dot org have it.

[briareos_kerensky]

One of my favourites. I always prefer Godzilla as a serious monster, and this one nails it down perfectly, without resorting to aliens or no particularly strange plot devices. Well, the whole bird song to defeat Godzilla is weird, but the Super X is a cool little toy, the new Godzilla costume is cool, and the atmosphere of the movie is absolutely fantastic.
The American scenes are terrible, but Raymond Burr still gives the appropriate pathos to what's going on. The American version also changes one subplot about a Russian nuclear missile, because 'Murica.

[Dogg Thang]

I am so behind on this thread. Expect a vomit of Godzilla opinions at some point. And yes, it’s a shame this one isn’t so readily available. I really hope we get a proper Heisei collection at some point soon.

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 17 - Godzilla vs Biollante
Four more years would pass before the franchise returned and when it did it would be a continuation of the previous film with Megfumi Odaka entering the cast as Miki Saegusa, a recurring role for several films moving forward. Scientists use Godzilla's cells to creative a monster that combines Godzilla, a plant and a woman to create Biollante. Once again, the Japanese box office suffered despite decent reviews but Toho was able to keep the chain going.




A Homegrown Hit?

[briareos_kerensky]

Most probably my favourite movie of the whole franchise, along GMK. I love the theme, Biollante looks wonderful, and the human story is OK...almost good. The forreign actors are...uhmm...acting...I think...and are the lowest point in the movie, and it's always nice for Toho to try and build up a continuity between movies without going overboard with references.

[QualityChimp]

Biollante is another I've not seen, but of all the Godzilla films, this is the trickiest to get hold of and has bragging rights on Kaiju fan groups every time someone bags a copy.

I'd like to see it, but Godzilla Vs. A Rosebush doesn't sound that thrilling!

Going back to a point I made earlier, here are the books I have.

Godzilla Movie Chronicle 1954 - 2004
Japan's Favourite Mon-Star
The Big Book of Japanese Monster Movies
Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 18 - Godzilla vs King Ghidorah
1991 and this entry continued the second timeline of Godzilla movies with time travelers from the future who come back to present day to prevent Godzilla from mutating. Chaos is unleashed however when they reveal their true plan is to unleash King Ghidorah who is defeated but by now Godzilla is enraged and destroys all of Tokyo leading Mech-King Ghodirah to be brough back from the future to fend off the threat.




Where does this King stand in the Godzilla legacy?