GvsMG74 Vs ToMG

[kiryugoji04]

[china]

[BlackLabelSociety]

[china]

[Legion]

[kiryugoji04]

[Xenorama]

Actually, lion is "shishi" and Kimba the White Lion was around long before Shisa or disney's the lyin' king.

[planetxman]

[Lord Ghidorah]

The first choice wasn't a really bad movie. It introduced MechaGodzilla, after all. The battle scenes were pretty good. I especially liked the scene in which MG blasted both its opponents - while they were on opposite sides of it.
However, I dislike the lion/foo dog thing. Perhaps if it haden't been played up soooooooo much during the bulk of the movie. Also, stopping the movie dead for a Mothra priestess wanna-be musical number did not strike me as being good for the flow.
Godzilla put up an impressive fight, but in the end the beloved Goji fighting spirit isn't enough. Godzilla wins ONLY because some magnetic powers ball dropped from waaaayyy out in left field and bonked MG. It was like Godzilla flying in GvsH - a completely and utterly contrived plot save.

Having written that, I'll pan ToMG a bit to get that out of the way. We know the chopped American version suffers, so I won't hold those particular flaws against the "uncut" version (which I was lucky enough to see on its television debut). I do dislike the way Ichinose was kept on the case even though he had a major conflict of interest. That's just bad writing. The same goes for the utterly convenient way only one sonic weapon was constructed. One might expect that with MechaGodzilla escorting Titanosaurus, whatever carrier vehicle was used might need back-up.
Oh, and the sports car strikes me as being tacky. I'm not sure why, but there you have it.

Now to praise what I consider ToMG's high points over the previous movie. I liked the way the aliens were continuously fiddling with MechaGodzilla after having largely rebuilt it. It showed that they were adapting, giving them a bit of intelligence to go along with their merely technical abilities. Mugal's mind games and nastiness were amusing, but for characterization I prefer the mad doctor and his daughter.
The doc's uneasy mix of vengeful insanity and resignation over what he came to recognize as an evil bargain were not exactly subtle, but were played well enough. Katsura's own loss of humanity mirrors her father's, ironically because she died during one of his "mad" experiments. It may seem sufficient to explain her increasingly cold attitude by pointing out Mugal's brainwashing. However, IIRC there is a school of Japanese thought that holds that physical deformity is a reflection of bad karma. Katsura's withdrawal from humanity can be said to take place not because her body is not quite human (a common sci-fi cliche) but because she thinks her soul itself is tainted. I feel that gives her sacrifice even more weight. She couldn't even decide to kill herself without dredging up her feelings for her father and others; essentially, becoming a person who should live only to realize she couldn't. 'Nice touch.
MechaGodzilla's stuck in a semi-supporting role, to be sure, but it gets good destruction scenes and maintains a degree of waiting menace. The huge barrage it unleashes upon a furious Godzilla is impressive (would've been more impressive if it retained its earlier accuracy, but what the heck). Right at the point where Godzilla is supposed to win by ripping off the mechanical head - *zap*. 'Nice touch.

Overall, I feel the human plot mattered more in ToMG than in GvsMG, and had more impact. Godzilla may have won only because of the culmination of the human plot, but at least he didn't have to pull a new power out of his butt.

[UberGorsa]

[angilas]

[Garasharp K7]