Re-invent a kaiju/mech

[DannyBeane]

There are some fan favorite kaiju mechs out there that have pretty ludicrous backgrounds and will probably never make a reappearance on film again. Your mission should you choose to accept it is to take these kaiju and give them a more modern origin. I'll start.

Jet Jaguar
The amount of human casualties suffered by the JSDF and other military forces during giant monster attacks was deemed unacceptable so the Jet Jaguar program was initiated. The program focused on developing android style robots and artificial intelligence to take over for the ground troops. The success of the human sized androids led to the development of a kaiju sized platform. An error in the A.I. programming causes the robot consciousness to go rogue taking over all robot frames as one singular consciousness,while still being friendly to humans. Jet Jaguar is able to switch his consciousness between the giant mech sized chassis and the human sized chassis's as needed.

Gabara
An ancient relic is discovered in some distant island. The lore of the item is that an evil demon named Gabara that feeds on nightmares is trapped within the relic. Gabara is awakened and starts attacking major metropolitan areas to sow fear and discord. The only way to defeat him is to trap him back in his relic.

Gigan/Megalon
A surviving pair of giant biomechanical aliens crash land on earth. The are awakened by governments fighting over the alien technology. The only way for them to survive is to assimilate nearby life into their biomechanical frame. Megalon is obviously a beetle while Gigan is a bird/reptile assimilation.

[klen7]

I like this thread concept. ::thinking::

[XvGojira]

I'm not sure if my ideas are more "modern" or not but I like them.

Hedorah
An apocalyptic cult summons a demon of blight to bring about the end of the world. Able to change shape and split into smaller forms or join into a bigger form. Gaining strength from pollution and toxins it grows into a giant monstrous creature that doesn't just destroy cities but also taints the air, land, and water around it.

MechaGodzilla
A high class terrorist organization had been kidnapping various scientist from around the world but had been silent over the past few years until they threaten to destroy a coastal city if their demands are not met. They claim they have tamed Godzilla to do their bidding. No one believes them until the King of the Monsters rises out of the ocean and starts demolishing the city. Using the best minds they could bribe, blackmail, and imprison the organization has created the ultimate threat. The only thing in their way is the genuine article (or James Bond).

Battra
Mothra wasn't the only ancient moth god worshiped on Infant Island. They were twins and their influence in ancient time was vast. But more started to worship just Mothra and Battra became jealous and the dark emotions began to change and corrupt Battra into a being of Mothra' polar opposite. The twins who ruled are now the twins who war.

Manda
When the seven summoning stones are brought together over a prayer, it calls forth the great dragon Manda who will grant any wish of whom ever summons him.

[Psycho Soldier]

Just a couple ideas right off the top of my head.

Ghidorah and King Ghidorah

There are actually two Ghidorahs. King Ghidorah is a life form from a distant galaxy, but beyond that, not much is known about his origins. He wiped out life on Mars hundreds of millions of years ago, then came to Earth, where he lost one of his heads to Godzilla, Mothra, and Rodan. He retreated into space, presumably to regrow his head. Ghidorah (minus 'King') grew to life from the severed head, lacking King's destructive power and malevolence, but nonetheless doing battle with his rivals over the next millions of years. He inspires myths of multi-headed dragons globally.

Ebirah and Oodako

Scientists in Japan experiment with growing and breeding seafood at colossal sizes to solve the world hunger crisis. But over the decades, a handful of specimens prove far too successful. They grow kaiju-sized before they can be euthanized, and they escape into the South Pacific.

[klen7]

I LOVE Rodan's origin story more than Godzilla or any other kaiju, so that is one i would prefer to see rehashed rather than reimagined.

For Mechagodzilla, he's pretty much been an oversized tank in his last 3 appearances, so maybe to put some distance between Pacific Rim and previous iterations you can take a "drone" approach, where he is piloted remotely by a team... more like the Star Trek crew where different engineers and pilots are responsible for different subsystems rather than one or two guy controlling everything. I guess that would get rid of some of the power fantasy that people like about Kiryu, but it grounds it a bit which i think could give a giant robot a little more gravitas.
Part of my favorite aspect of the Millennial MechaG was the engineering aspect so it would be fun to have some design scenes to kind of explain why you would make a tank that looked like what you were trying to defeat.
"At this scale it's becoming increasingly difficult to overcome some of the balance issues when the robot takes a highly placed impact"
"what if we gave it some sort of counterbalance.. like a third leg or a TAIL"

[jellydonut25]

I'm sure I'll think of some others, but...
Mechagodzilla bring him back to his evil roots by borrowing the Millennium rationale behind building a MechaGODZILLA (using the bones of the original Godzilla) but have it be a mad scientist whose goal is to create a GODZILLA that he can control and obviously it goes berserk but it's never brought back under control and now a giant evil robot is destroying stuff and it's basically Godzilla, but with missiles and such.

Gigan I think I may have heard this elsewhere, but I kinda like it: He's the Godzilla of his homeworld, and he's fought off various other monsters on like Kumonga/Ebirah/Kamacuras level. Slight re-design to replace a lot of his metal components with bone and maybe even make his scales a duller, more organic color. Then the Xiliens send Ghidorah to destroy his world. Gigan fights well, and the Xiliens are impressed with his fortitude. After Ghidorah kills him, they re-make him as a cyborg that they control.

[DannyBeane]

@Jelly
I do like the idea of Gigan being an anti-hero/alien Godzilla that's turned into a villain against his will. It definitely gives him a back story that makes him seem tragic. Plus having his organic form be slayed by KG would finally give KG some street cred. Seriously has KG ever actually killed a kaiju (Heisei Mothra in the ROM series doesn't count)

My idea for Mechagodzilla involves a skynet/wargames like scenario. I love the idea of a rogue AI. Imagine if the JSDF comes up with an AI algorithm that's designed to come up with strategies for fighting Godzilla and learns after every fight. The AI takes goes rogue taking over production and research facilities and starts throwing advanced new technologies at Godzilla. Eventually the AI determines that the only way to fight Godzilla is to make a mechanical Godzilla that best replicates his abilities. The humans are forced to sort of team up with Godzilla to help defeat the computer program and the new hostile mechagodzilla. I feel like this would be a chance to make Mechagodzilla feel really different and alien from the other incarnations. Godzilla vs The Computer.

[klen7]

Did you just try and pitch us Godzilla vs Gunhed?

[DannyBeane]

[Mexigojira]

Ok, this looks interesting:

Jet Jaguar

After their defeat at the hands of Godzilla, the evil organization Red Bamboo realized that their power was not enough to face not only Godzilla, but any living kaiju that could posess a threat to their plans of world conquest, so they began a secret operation to acquire scientist from all over the world to began the construction of what were labelled as Machine Soldiers, robots capable of adapting to the circumstances they were facing, including battling giant monsters. The scientist worked with the threat of being killed if they tried to escape, but one of their scientist, Goro Ibuki, began a escape plan, he programmed one of the Machine Soldiers with a special A.I. that responded only to him. Goro manages to escape with his creation. Now, Red Bamboo wants to have the robot with the special A.I. and the head of Ibuki, even if they have to sent their machine soldiers to capture Ibukis guardian, Jet Jaguar, who with the help of Ibuki, Ibuki's childhood friend and now agent of Interpol Hiroshi Jinkawa, and Ibuki's kid nephew, Rokuro, will fight the evil Red Bamboo army and his plans of world conquest.

Jet Jaguar will retain the powers from Godzilla vs Megalon, but as the show progress, he will learn new techniques (for ex. the special beam from the PS2 Games),a nd yes, Godzilla will show to help JJ battle the machine soldiers.

Season 2 will have the Seatopian Kingdom invading the surface world.

[MekaGojira3k]

MechaGodzilla - I don't have a specific story for mine, but I always liked the idea of MechaGodzilla that starts out as alien technology. A nano-cloud that can sort of integrate other machines and take new forms (Mecha-Sized T-1000 kind of shenanigans but it can create complex mechanisms). It goes up against Godzilla, scans it and immediately becomes a Goji approximation. I think it could also be an interesting alternate origin for a dead King Ghidorah. Especially if they discovery the technology after a Destroy All Monsters-esque event. Ghidorah gets resurrected to work alongside this technology that just wants to finish the job it was programmed for.
/Dumb idea.