TALKBACK #14: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla

[kiryugoji04]

[klen7]

[Giganfan]

This is the third Godzilla movie I can remember seeing as a child, along with the New World Video release of Godzilla vs. Gigan back in 1988. I was, around five years old at the time, and so this film has tons of sentimental value to me. Teruyoshi Nakano brought to life is masterpiece, the Mechagodzilla, in what would be a solid effort by Godzilla's second-string director, Jun Fukuda. To me, this is Fukuda's most..."vintage", or "signature" film in the Godzilla series, though his first two are clearly better. Cosmic monster, as I like to call it, contains all of the traditional hallmarks of what one would associate with a Jun Fukuda production, lightning-fast fight scenes, secret INTERPOL agents creeping around everywhere, a slippery, sadistic bad guy, played to perfection by Goro Mutsu (he would reprise the role, as a signature Honda villain in the next movie) and an undeniably entertaining Masaru Sato score. I swear, that guy is genius, because you really want to hate the music in this film, and cannot. Case in point, the piece he wrote for the fight scene between Masaki Daimon and the Simian thug in Hiroshi Koizumi's living room, it just sounds like a bunch of random, off-the-wall sounds being mashed together, but it is so complete, and jaunting, and bouncy and all-around fun to listen to. The whole score is really terrific. He wrote a perfect seventies-era Godzilla theme to go along with a brilliant, jazzy, battle theme that I think every Godzilla fan agrees is great. And even though I am a fan of the two movies that came before it, Godzilla vs. the Cosmic Monster is like a breath of fresh air to the Godzilla series, because it doesn't rely on stock-footage, or stock-music to pad out the running time. Fukuda and Nakano were very smart about the budget, and made sure the film was rich in production value.Overall, I think it's a good, slightly underrated Godzilla movie.

[Benjamin Haines]

[eabaker]

It just occurred to me the other day, this is one of maybe only two Godzilla movies (the other being the '93 GvsMG) that I basically watch exclusively for the monster scenes.

That's not to say that these two have the worst human drama in the whole series, as I'd give that dubious honor to Tokyo SOS, but I don't even watch that one for the monsters; it's really only valuable to me as a sleep aid.

I don't dislike the human story in the '74 flick (other than the action sequences, which I find pretty terrible), but I basically nothing it.

Thankfully, those monster scenes (and the score) are great, despite the utter pointlessness of the monster that all the human characters spend the whole movie running around trying to revive.

[lhb412]

^I don't hate the human characters of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, but I do think that if they were stronger it'd easily be my favorite '70s movie. As is, that honor goes to Godzilla vs. Gigan, which has a delightful cast.

[DannyBeane]

Nanbara the Interpol agent is one of my favorite Godzilla characters. I always hoped if Toho ever decided to do a mishmash retelling/reimagining of some of the showa films, he would be a returning character in charge of investigating aliens/the red bamboo.

[Benjamin Haines]

[battrafan]

I guess I'm just not as high on this film as most others.

Yeah, Mechagodzilla is cool, the film is visually beautiful, villains are great, monster sequences are terrific(I love the production quality of the refinery scene)....but human parts/characters with the exception of some of the scenes on mount fuji/when the good guys get captured are just so boring I can't really sit through the film without skipping through.

Gigan is miles above it in regard to the human characters/scenes.

[eabaker]

[Kailem]

I rewatched this for the first time in years over the weekend in honour of its 50th anniversary, and I must say I think it's grown on me. The Showa films are divided into two distinct camps for me, the ones I grew up with and the ones I didn't. As a result, even the ones that might not be the best hold a lot of nostalgic value for me if they fall into the former camp, whereas films like Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla don't, and I tend to be less forgiving of their flaws than I am with others I grew up with.

When I first imported the 50th anniversary DVD years ago (*Godzilla's* 50th; has it really been that long already?!) and watched it for the first time, I remember liking it, but not loving it. And I think that's till largely where I'm at now, only I think I liked it more after this rewatch than I did the first go round. King Caesar holds his own against Mechagodzilla more than I remembered him doing, though he's still largely inconsequential when it comes to Mechagodzilla actually being defeated given how much of the story revolves around the characters trying to wake him/stop him from being woken up. And I'd forgotten how long that random musical interlude was! That really could have done with another editing pass.

Still, the movie itself was fun! Some really nice location filming, and the aliens' base set was really cool too. The characters aren't really memorable or fleshed-out as well as those of various other films (though Nanbara was cool), but the film moves along at a nice pace, and actually feels kinda tense and high-stakes a lot of the time, despite the whole prophecy angle not really amounting to much and the aliens' invasion plan being as basic as they come. The score is cool, with both some memorable new themes and interesting twists on others, we get multiple monsters, fun action, and of course, the introduction of one of Godzilla's greatest foes in what is, in my opinion, the best version of Mechagodzilla ever.

Plus the movie is just so earnestly silly in places that you can't help but enjoy it. Kidnapping a human scientist who knows about "space titanium" to repair Mechagodzilla because the aliens don't have the manpower to do it themselves? Godzilla gaining super magnetism powers from lightning?! Sure, why not! I love it when such silliness is introduced and played straight like that, especially when it's just fun.

Oh, and the timing of this rewatch worked out pretty well as it meant I also recognised the main alien henchman from one of the last episodes of Ultraman Taro I recently watched as well! And he played an alien disguised as a human in that too!

So yeah, while it still might not be one of my favourites, it's definitely gone up a bit in my estimation now compared to what I thought of it back then.

[Benjamin Haines]

^ That actor was Daigo Kusano. That is one of the cool things about classic Ultraman and other tokusatsu shows, seeing so many familiar faces from Godzilla movies. Nanbara is played by Shin Kishida from Return of Ultraman, and if you ever watch Zone Fighter you'll recognize that show's lead actor Kazuya Aoyama as the guy who played cave explorer Masahiko in this film.

I feel lucky to have seen all of the Showa Godzilla movies from a young age. Even though Hedorah and GRA remained elusive for what felt like a long time, I still managed to see them both by age 12. GvsMG was one of the earliest for me, although I did see Terror first, and both of the '70s Mechagodzilla flicks have been my top two favorite Godzilla movies for as long as I can remember.

This is one movie where the flaws still don't bother me at all, and I certainly didn't see any flaws in it as a kid, but now I can see just how rudimentary the premise is and how much it hinges on some pretty forced contrivances. Godzilla gains a brand new magnetism superpower, which is conveniently perfect for defeating his mechanical double, and he obtains it by repeatedly getting struck by lightning. Of course the notion that aliens would need a human scientist to help them expedite repairs of their own giant robot is something that doesn't hold up to any sort of scrutiny but, to me, the thing that really strains credulity is the introduction of Nanbara's partner Tamura. From early in the film, Nanbara is this mysterious figure shadowing the main characters, and then we only briefly see this other guy tailing Shimizu and Saeko after they arrive in Okinawa, more than halfway through the movie. Nanbara reveals himself as an Interpol agent soon thereafter, and then while he goes back into the alien base with Professor Miyajima and Masahiko, the other guy finally reveals himself as Nanbara's partner more than an hour into the movie after he rescues the other characters from two aliens at the Azumi shrine, which is the only thing he actually does in the whole movie. He's like a duplicate of Nanbara's character who was written into the story solely to allow for one more thrilling 'Interpol agent to the rescue' action scene while Nanbara was in another location, so his role in the story is complete before he even introduces himself.

Even with all of those contrivances, everything about this movie just works. It's written without any compunctions about the sort of story it's telling and it's directed with more of Jun Fukuda's signature flair than any of his prior Godzilla movies. From the pacing to the tension, from the fun cast to the colorful cinematography, from the quest to keep the statue away from the aliens to the dynamic monster battles, it all comes together and Masaru Sato's transcendent score plays a big part in that. Later incarnations of Mechagodzilla are cool but there's no topping the original take!

Speaking of Godzilla's newfound magnetic power, it really seems to portend future portrayals of the character in the Heisei Series and beyond. For the first 20 years of Godzilla movies, his onscreen bioluminescence was limited to how his dorsal fins glowed when he used his atomic breath, and then this second-to-last entry in the Showa Series has him obtain a power-up in which his whole body glows blue while bright white sparks burst from his back. Godzilla obtaining power-ups, making his whole body light up and discharging energy from his body in ways other than atomic fire breath are concepts that subsequent eras have utilized heavily, especially the later Heisei flicks, Shin Godzilla, the anime film trilogy and the Monsterverse sequels.

Has there ever been a worse English-language rendition of a Japanese character's name than King Caesar? His Japanese name is Kingu Shisa (キングシーサー), just a Japanese pronunciation of the English word king followed by the Japanese word shisa, because he's clearly a kaiju based on the shisa of Okinawan tradition. His likeness is even represented by that little shisa statue that the characters carry throughout the movie, and the characters are audibly saying "Kingu Shisa" every time they say his name in the original dialogue, so his English name really should have been King Shisa from the beginning. The Hong Kong voice actors in Toho's export English dub pronounced his name as King Seesar while Toho's export English trailer (viewable here: dailymotion.com/video/x6fvsst) spelled his name as King Seeser onscreen, suggesting that "Seeser" was the official English spelling that Toho kept in their printed records as of 1974. Toho started using standardized English names for each of their monsters in the mid '90s with the goal of being consistent across merchandising, advertising and publishing, and that was when the name King Caesar first appeared. It seems like whoever was in charge took a look at their 1974 records for King Seeser and, without realizing that the character is supposed to be a shisa, they just assumed that "Seeser" was a misspelling of "Caesar", as in Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. It's like Toho hired some third-party English translation service and those people had no idea what a shisa is, so they thought they were correcting the spelling when they changed King Seeser to King Caesar. That's why I tend to just ignore all of that mistranslation and call the character King Shisa. It is depressing to see his name spelled as King Caesar in both Sony's and Criterion's subtitles.