Godzilla VS MechaGodzilla (1974)
Produced and Released by: Toho Co. Ltd.
Director: Jun Fukuda
By Dr Kain

Introduction

In 1974 Godzilla’s career was on a downward spiral due to the recent string of movies that had been released up to that point. One was filled with stock footage, another was just plain lame, and child stars were used in the last four of the five movies. Toho needed to do something different in a last ditch effort to boost the franchise and so in 1974 they went about creating a robot version of Godzilla called MechaGodzilla.

The Story

The movie begins with Anguirus roaring and walking along in an ocean, while Godzilla appears on an island and launches a breath attack.

A celebration is taking place in at a temple called Azumi Shrine where Princess Nami (Beru-Bera Lin) is chanting when she has a horrible vision and falls into the High Priest’s (Masao Imafuku) arms. She tells him she saw a monster destroying the world in this vision, but could not tell which one it was.

In the meantime an archaeologist named Saeko Kaneshiro (Reiko Tejima) explores a cave in Okinawa and finds a statue of a guardian monster called King Seasar. There is a prophecy on the wall that says something like “when the black mountain rises above the clouds, a monster will appear to destroy the world, and when the sun sets in the east and rises in the west, two monsters will appear to save the world.”

On Saeko’s airplane trip to Tokyo, a bunch of black clouds form to look like a mountain, and shortly after Godzilla appears and begins to destroy everything. Out of the blue Anguirus rises from the ground to fight Godzilla, and before he is badly injured, Godzilla’s arm is bashed and it reveals a piece of metal underneath.

While at Professor Wagura’s (Hiroshi Koizuma) home, some man breaks in to steal the King Seasar statue, but his plans are ruined and he escapes.

Later on that night the real Godzilla appears, and it is revealed the other monster is a robot version named MechaGodzilla. Godzilla is injured and falls into the ocean, but MechaGodzilla is damaged. MechaGodzilla was created by aliens who are plotting to take over the world.

There is another failed attempt to steal the statue on a boating trip to return it to Azumi Shrine, but this time it is revealed that the aliens are gorilla men.

The next day, MechaGodzilla is repaired and sent out to destroy King Seasar before he wakes up. Unfortunately, King Seasar is awoken just before MechaGodzilla enters the scene and a battle takes place. During the battle Godzilla rises from the ocean and helps King Seasar fight MechaGodzilla until he is defeated and the aliens are dead.

King Seasar goes back to sleep as Godzilla leaves the island to go back home.

Review

Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla is a pretty decent movie, and is usually enjoyable. Not sure why, but sometimes I don't like it when I watch it, and other times I find it to be a very cool movie.

The costumes are a mixed bad. Sometimes Godzilla looks cool, and other times he doesn't. Two of the scenes were the costume looks cool are during the final battle, which include when he makes his way onto the land from the ocean and when Godzilla becomes a living magnet. King Seasar is an awesome design though. He is based off of a Chinese lion creature, and it looks cool. It is too bad King Seasar did not play a bigger role in this movie, at least on screen. I will definitely be looking forward to him in the upcoming Final Wars movie. As for MechaGodzilla, well he also looks freaking cool. 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. Overall, it is a great looking design.

The human characters are rather dull, but it was the seventies, so it is not surprising, especially the hair styles. As for the aliens, well having ape men is just freaky and a take off on “Planet of the Apes.” Guess everyone wanted to take part in the concept of having ape men, especially after Godzilla vs Gigan’s less than stunning cockroaches.

The soundtrack is done by Masaru Satô, and while it fits most of the time, it still could have used a little more power to it, or more of it. I do miss Ifukube’s work, especially with Godzilla vs Gigan being the only movie of the seventies to use his score at this time. I can live with this, and it is certainly much better than Riichiro Manabe’s Hedorah and Megalon scores.

The special effect are pretty good for the battles, but there are essentially only three battles, MechaGodzilla and Anguirus (which you can see the wires on Anguirus when MechaGodzilla tosses him around), the first battle between Godzilla and MechaGodzilla, and the final battle. Aside from a few buildings and rocks blowing up, there was not that much in boom activity. The biggest explosion was probably the destruction of MechaGodzilla.

Conclusion

In the end, I am quite pleased with this movie, and while I think it is the weakest of the five MechaGodzilla movies, it was the movie to introduce the machine. It is too bad King Seasar never got his own series, or even appeared beyond this movie until Final Wars. I hope he is one monster that gets his own series some day. Highly recommended

My rating, a 3/5 stars.

Dr Kain