Monster Movie of the Week: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974)

GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA (1974)
Director: Ichiro Honda
Genre: Kaiju eiga
Country: Japan

THE MOVIE

By the mid-1970’s, the Godzilla series was beginning to fizzle out with increasingly silly and cheaply made entries into the franchise. Movies like Godzilla’s Revenge and Godzilla vs. Megalon represent an all time low for the series. These movies introduced us to characters like Jet Jaguar, an Ultraman wannabe who can change his size at will, an army of short shorts wearing Kennys and the most horrifying incarnation of Godzilla’s spawn, Minya, who is a spiritual forefather to both Jar Jar Binks and the Ewoks.

If his father is Godzilla, then who's his mother? Carol Channing?

While 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is a step above those entries, it is also fairly representative of this fairly miserable period in Godzilla’s history. It features the hated “Muppet” Godzilla suit with its googly eyes and throw pillow dorsal spines as well as a cheesy plot involving yet another group of aliens trying to take over the earth. What’s more telling is the movie’s plot, in which aliens attempt to frame Godzilla by building a mechanical doppelganger. Think about that for a second. At this point in Godzilla’s career he has lost so much street cred that he can actually be framed for destroying a city. When a monster is prophesied to destroy the earth, one of the characters states, “I never thought it would be Godzilla.” Um, what? At some point between 1954 and 1974 Godzilla went from nuclear hell beast to Cookie Monster.

Cooookies!

That being said, the movie does introduce us to one Godzilla’s most popular antagonists, Mechagodzilla, who was one the few monsters from the late Showa movies to actually be carried over into the later Heisei and Shinsei series of movies. Mechagodzilla is, of course, a mechanical version of Godzilla.

In these later Showa movies, Godzilla and his opponents always manage to meet up in strangely deserted rural areas.

In his original two Showa appearances he is an evil robot created by aliens to fight Godzilla. In this movie he even sports a fake skin so that he can impersonate the big guy, sort of a kaiju version of the Terminator. The Showa Mechagodzilla has remained a popular character due to his unique powers and retro design. There doesn't seem to be any part of his body that does not shoot lasers or missles and he even features finger and toes projectiles. The classic Mechagodziila is more portly and less svelte than his later versions and is made from “Space Titanium” with a boilerplate aesthetic that is almost steampunk by today’s standards.

This movie also popularized the "mecha" concept in the Godzilla series, although it was previously introduced in the Toho-verse in King Kong Escapes, which featured Mechanikong. In addition to the other two Mechagodzillas, there was also a cyborg version of King Ghidorah in 1991's Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. In the cartoon series based off of the American Godzilla movie, the mechanically resurrected version of that monster was known as Cyber Godzilla.

INFLUENCES/RIPOFFS

I love Godzilla movies but they are pretty shameless in their, um, homages to other movies. This movie features some dreadful gorilla aliens that can only have been inspired by the then popular Planet of the Apes movies and an Interpol subplot seemingly rejected from a James Bond movie.

"This is another fine mess you've gotten us into Cornelius."

MONSTERS/EFFECTS

This movie also features an appearance from Anguirus who looses a surprisingly bloody fight to Mechagodzilla that ends with a neat visual reference to King Kong. King Seesar makes his first (and until 2004, his only) appearance. Seesar is an monster visually inspired by various Asian mythological creatures, although his little statue actually looks a lot cooler than he does. He can only be described as a dragon/bunny/monkey man who has reflective eye powers and no other abilities to speak of.

King Seesar's day job consists of sitting in front of a Chinese restaurant.

DVD AVAILABILITY

Available in various versions. The movie was re-released back in the late 1990’s in time for the American Godzilla movie.

SEQUELS

Mechagodzilla, shooting his LSD ray.

Okay, this movie was directly followed by Terror of Mechagodzilla the next year marking the creature’s second appearance and the end of the Showa series of Godzilla movies.

Mechagodzilla also appeared (as a human creation based on technology recovered from Mecha King Ghidorah) in 1993’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II which was NOT a sequel to this movie.

In the Millenium series, came a pair of movies (the only interconnected movies in that series), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and its sequel Tokyo SOS which again featured Mechagodzilla as a human creation designed to battle Godzilla and in this case a cyborg made from the bones of the ’54 Godzilla.

Anguirus and King Seesar would both not appear again until 2004’s Godzilla Final Wars. Anguirus would become a mainstay of Atari’s Godzilla fighting games starting with 2001’s Destroy All Monsters Melee and Seesar would make his first fighting game appearance in Godzilla Unleashed for the Wii, which also features all three Mechagodzillas as playable characters.

TRAILER