Terror of MechaGodzilla (1975)
Produced and Released by: Toho Co. Ltd.
Director: Ishiro Honda
By Dr Kain

Introduction

Godzilla’s popularity started to dwindle during the seventies and some of the movies became redundant with the same idea, used stock footage, or were just bad concepts to begin with. It was only a matter of time before Toho released a movie with a robot clone of Godzilla, which they did in 1974 with “Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla.” “Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla” not only introduced MechaGodzilla, but it also introduced a new heroic monster named King Ceasar, who was not seen again until 2004’s “Godzilla Final Wars.” Toho also released a sequel which is known as “Terror of MechaGodzilla” in the US, and it introduced another new monster, Titanosaurus, which fought against Godzilla.

The Story

It has been one year since MechaGodzilla was destroyed by Godzilla. A group of scientists are searching for its remains in a submarine when they are attacked by a dinosaur. During a meeting at the International Police Organization building, a conference is held to discuss this incident. Biologist Akira Ichinose (Katsuhiko Sasaki) enters the room with the tape the sub’s crew members last reported, which contains the roar of a dinosaur.

In the meantime, two aliens from the Black Hole named Mugal (Goro Mutsumi) and Tsuda (Toru Ibuki) discuss their new plans to take over the Earth. Tsuda also mentions they have a human friend to help them by the name of Dr. Shinji Mafune (Akihiko Hirata), who has uncovered a dinosaur.

Akira goes to a university where Dr. Mafune works at to ask him about a dinosaur in the water that he believed to still exist, but he was told Dr. Mafune was forced to leave years ago. He gives Akira Mafune’s address, and he and an Interpol Agent go to see him. They meet Katsura (Tomoko Ai), Mafune’s daughter, but she tells them her father died years ago, and that she burned all of his notes and journals. After leaving, Katsura walks into a room where Mafune is celebrating with Tsuda about Titanosaurus. Shortly afterwards, Tsuda takes them to his base to introduce his commander Mugal before showing them the newly constructed MechaGodzilla.

A man with a scar on his throat escapes from the base and is chased by some of the space men. He manages to give some metal to a man working in the sewer line before he is shot to death. The man takes the metal to Interpol as the guy with the scar requested, and it turns out it is a piece of space titanium.

Akira meets up with Katsura and asks her to join him on a search for Titanosaurus, but she tells him not to go because it is dangerous. Later on she talks with him on the phone, still trying to get him to not go, but he does not listen. Tsuda overhears the conversation and shoots her with a laser beam which knocks her to the ground. He forces her to think about the past when she was electrocuted and would have died if his staff did not make her a partial cyborg.

Titanosaurus attacks the sub Akira is in and it turns out that Katsura and Tsuda are controlling its movements until the machines start to short circuit. Akira notices this before they get away and has a feeling it is being controlled by something. Later on he goes to Mafune’s house, and follows a car that speeds by him. It leads to a cave, but he is found by the aliens and almost killed when an Interpol Agent rescues him.

The military decides to come up with a device to disrupt the control on Titanosaurus with the help of Akira. Katsura gives Akira one of her father’s journals, which helps to develop this sonic generator. She also tells her father that she is worried he is going to turn Titanosaurus into a monster like Ghidorah, Rodan, and Manda are, but he tells her not to worry about it.

Titanosaurus rises from the ocean and by nightfall it has been attacked by the army, which proves to be useless against the monster. Godzilla finally appears and battles the dinosaur while an Interpol agent sees Katsura by the battle. He and a group of soldiers chase after her until she is shot and falls off a cliff into the ocean. Titanosaurus retreats to the sea.

Katsura’s body was recovered by Tsuda and he has her brought back to life with even more cybernetic enhancements than she had before. In fact, she is now able to control MechaGodzilla mentally, which was Tsuda’s way of making sure Dr. Mafune does not betray them. Akira returns to Mafune’s house once again, but is taken prisoner, and meets Dr. Mafune and the “new” Katsura. She activates the now completed MechaGodzilla to destroy Japan and Titanosaurus is controlled to help it.

Godzilla eventually steps in to fight these two monsters, but it appears that he is no match for their combined strength until the sonic generator device is completed and used against Titanosaurus. This causes Titanosaurus to leave the battle in pain, and Godzilla gets up supercharged. He blasts MechaGodzilla and rips his head off just to reveal a second head that looks like a brain. At the same time, Akira breaks free of his bindings and strangles Tsuda, revealing his true gorilla-like form. Mugal pulls Dr. Mafune in the way of Akira’s gun and he is killed. Katsura’s arm is wounded and Akira notices that she is a cyborg, but does not care. She grabs a gun and kills herself, which causes MechaGodzilla to shut down and Godzilla destroys the mechanical menace a second time.

The space ship Mugal takes off and is destroyed by Godzilla’s fire attack and Titanosaurus is beaten unconscious, falling into the ocean. Akira holds Katsura’s body in his arms as Godzilla leaves.

Review

Well, this was it, the final movie to the Showa series in the Godzilla universe. Not only is it an enjoyable finale, but the special effects look superb compared to the last few movies and it looks like a film made in the eighties. The alien plot is a little redundant by now, but seeing as how this was a continuation to “Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla,” it fits quite well. It shows that not all of the aliens came to Earth last time, where as once the X-Seijins, Killaks, and cockroaches (from “Godzilla vs. Gigan”) were destroyed in the movie, they were never heard from again. Unfortunately the movie’s plot is nearly a rehash of the previous one, only with a monster on the villain’s side this time. Godzilla ripping off MechaGodzilla’s head is redundant, but having a second head made it more interesting, although MechaGodzilla did not do much afterwards but shoot some beams. Toho could have taken this one to the extreme, but they did not. Regardless, this is one of my personal favorites to the Showa series. There is a short battle between Titanosaurus and Godzilla and a big finale between the three monsters, but what do you expect from an eighty minute movie. Actually, it is eighty-three minutes, but the first three to four minutes is a recap of the previous movie’s ending between Godzilla and MechaGodzilla. It is an enjoyable and seems to help the movie move a little faster in to the monster action later on.

The designs themselves are pretty basic. Godzilla looks just the way he did in the previous movie. Godzilla has that grin he has had with him for most of the past few movies, which sometimes fits, sometimes it does not. MechaGodzilla is also similar. His body does not have a shiny metallic tint like he does when you just see his arm uncovered, but it works. Unlike later versions though, this MechaGodzilla does not have too much in the way of ammo, which is unfortunate. The brain head was a new innovation and it worked, but he does not do much of anything but stand there and fire a laser beam before he deactivates. Overall, it is a great looking design. Titanosaurus steals the show in the design department though. The colors on him look natural and work really well, which is surprising considering they are mostly shades of brown. The end of his tail can separate like a fan and blow everything away with its powerful force when he waves it. It is too bad Titanosaurus has never seen the light of day beyond this movie as he would make an interesting modern monster.

Just like the last entry in the series, the human designs are nothing spectacular being in the time period the movie was filmed in. The aliens are also the same. The most interesting design is Katsura’s outfit she has on when she becomes MechaGodzilla’s controller. It is stylish and is a silvery color to.

As mentioned above, the special effects look really excellent in this movie. With Toho’s remastered print on the Region 2 DVDs, this movie looks like one made in the late eighties because there are only two or three shots that look okay.

The best way to end an era of Godzilla movies is to have Akira Ifukube to the score to it. His score at the beginning of the movie is one of the factors that cause the clips from the last movie to be really enjoyable. As does his score throughout the rest of the movie. His score is subtle when it should be, and becomes powerful when needed. This is also the only movie he did the score to in the seventies, which is why it is the best of the six from that time.

Conclusion

Being the final movie in the Showa series, this is a must see. Titanosaurus is such a great and interesting monster; it is too bad he only starred in this one. Highly recommended for any Godzilla fan.

I give it a 4.5/5 stars.

Dr Kain