Monster Zero x SciFi Japan - Archive Only

I think the monster fights in themselves were pretty good. And Godzilla's characterization works here too. I just wish it was better edited. You can tell enough was left on the cutting room, because the flow of the fight is so weird at times.

Interestingly enough, I think Jun Fukuda would have pulled off a good effort in this movie too if he worked on it.

^Hmmm... I need to see ESPY, too.

This year I'm gonna make a concerted effort to fill in all the gaps of my genre knowledge when it comes to other Toho genre films, obscure kaiju, ect.

^They're on the list!

Having just seen this again recently, one of my biggest grips about this movie (among many), was how they played Akihiko Hirata. I thought, he as a good enough actor to play "older" and not needing a white wig and mustache, because they really do stick out like a sore thumb. But since he was in the previous Mechagodzilla movie, I guess they figure that they had to make him up to be that older and eccentric character. It is ashamed they could not get Takashi Shimura to play Mafune. That would have been a major coup!

At one point, this was probably my all time favorite Godzilla film. That honor has since been won by Monster Zero, but ToMG remains a movie I really like despite some obvious flaws. The editing is especially bad at times, and the characters don't quite hit home the way I would expect them to for such a straight forward movie. It also feels like everyone dies in this, sometimes brutally so, and it's kind of a downer. Mugal beats people with a whip and sentences them to death after. Katsura kills herself. Her Father is shot and dies. People have their vocal chords slashed, and the lone escapee is shot 100 times on camera. For a Godzilla film, the level of violence feels out of place. Still, Titanosaurus is an awesome monster and Showa MG has some fantastic destruction scenes. I especially like the fact that the battles were often filmed outside and the miniatures are so well done. There are some very unique camera angles used in this movie, and most of them pay off in a big way. I also love Ifukube's score.

All that said, this is a movie I would probably knock down a few pegs after this latest rewatch (I really need to redo my rankings).

Terror of Mechagodzilla has always been one of my very favorites out of all the Godzilla movies, for a number of reasons I won't go into here. What I do want to discuss is how, whenever discussing this film, or it's predecessor, it's hard not to draw comparisons between the two. Teruyoshi Nakano got the opportunity to bring to life his greatest creation, Mechagodzilla, with the help of both, the first string (Honda and Ifukube) and second string (Fukuda and Sato) of Godzilla filmmakers. So naturally, with both teams getting a crack at the same subject matter, comparisons are unavoidable. Over the years, I've bounced back and forth with regards to Jun Fukuda's Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster. Honda's movie is better on almost every level, however, the production values are much richer in style, and in color for Fukuda's film. He and Nakano were very economic when it came to the limited budget they had to work with, which makes for a long, somewhat boring mid-section of human drama. However, the effects sequences benefited enormously from this decision, as this is the first Godzilla movie in two years that didn't incorporate tons of stock-footage to pad out the running time. And though I feel Terror of Mechagodzilla is the better film, Honda's particular style of shooting seems completely oblivious to how cheap and flimsy the sets and costumes look. Both films look cheap, but while Fukuda's film looks much more solid and refined, Honda's grittiness makes for a much gloomier experience. As I sit here today, Terror of Mechagodzilla is still a top-fiver, while Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster is hovering around the top-ten spot. I really got a kick out of it the last time I watched it (this morning).

What I love about this movie is the "epic" feel it has like the 60's films...the only other 70's film to even come close to this in that regard is Gigan and that film can be a bit too goofy at times lessening the effect.

Also love the old school animalistic look of Titanosaurus, and his roar which is one of the best in the series.

I like Gigan and Megalon's designs as space monsters/cyborgs, but I generally don't find monsters like megagauris or orga interesting at all, they just look too fake and over the top to me.

Was listening to some of Ifukube's work for the '90s movies and then listened to some of his work for this film (one of his more underrated scores) and I was just struck by how much more lively and interesting his music was in the Showa series.

I don't think I've properly appreciated how out-there Ifukube's score gets for Terror of Mechagodzilla.

There's a ton of neat stuff in the soundtrack, the opening is so great. The other day I got it stuck in my head and gave the soundtrack a listen to and now it's locked in there.

This whole movie has rose a couple of notches in my estimation over the last few years. It has such an interesting tone, and while some of the stuff has been done in the series before it's never been done quite like this.

^ Poor choice of words: "interesting" is more appropriate.

Akira Ifukube's score for Terror of Mechagodzilla has a real melancholy vibe that fits the Shakespearean theatrics of the film. It's terrific.