Showa Godzilla Part 3 (1971-1975), and the End of an Era
Preceded by Showa Godzilla Part 2 (1965-1969): The Decline of the King.
All of the movies are labeled and organized in order, so if you want to read or skip a particular movie you can go straight to it, although most of this is written in retrospect of the previous film in the series, and obviously all of them contain spoilers.
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971) - Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972) and Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973) - Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) - Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) - Conclusion
Godzilla vs. Hedorah/Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster (1971)
Godzilla, as a consequence of being representative of the nuclear bombs, has always had a lot of moral and political undertones. In the 60s and 70s, environmentalism was important; after Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring was released in 1962, detailing many of the environmental effects of pesticides and the World Wars, a surge of preservative movements came to be, essentially kickstarting modern environmentalism. This, of course, meant that by 1971, pollution was a massive concern of the general public, and who better to battle it than the embodiment of a nuclear apocalypse? Godzilla vs. Hedorah (or the Smog Monster in the U.S.), directed by Yoshimitsu Banno in his only work on the Godzilla series, is a freaky, psychedelic trip of a movie. It’s the first movie since Vs. Mothra where Godzilla isn’t teaming with any other monsters, and the movie isn’t really particularly connected to any other movie before or after; Hedorah (the new monster) only appears in one movie after this as well, over 30 years later.
I’m not really going to go over the real detail of the plot, because it’s truly nonsensical in the best way possible, the kind of nonsense where stuff just kind of happens, you laugh and move on without questioning it because of how frequently it happens, I think the most infamous scenes being the club scene and Godzilla flying. Starting with the club scene, which takes place at the same time as the first Hedorah fight in which Godzilla gets massive chemical burns, the main character’s uncle is at a nightclub nearby, and a singer in very 70s-appropriate attire (I think a tie-die full-body suit) sings a song called “Return the Sun!” or “Save the Earth”, as the English version is called, which should be fairly obvious about what it’s about. Then, the man begins hallucinating everyone in the club with fish heads on; it’s never explained why. He could be drunk, high, inhaling Hedorah fumes, something, but it just sort of happens. It’s both hilarious in its insanity and sort of unnerving in its surrealism.
The second scene happens during the final battle. Hedorah’s been practically defeated (his weakness being electricity, for some reason), and he tries to escape by turning into his flying form. Now, if you’ve read this whole set of reviews all the way through, or at least remember back to the Vs. King Kong segment, you may remember me mentioning Godzilla’s slow adoption of Kong’s skillset from that movie as the series progressed. Now, up till this point, Godzilla has been fairly grounded in his skillset, he’s a giant atomic dinosaur, there isn’t really much more you need. At this point, he’s a hero, and he has a personality, but he still uses his breath and sheer brute force for most situations, although over the last couple of movies he had used more Kong-esque hand-to-hand combat with tossing enemies around, this is the first movie where his atomic power is pretty much null, and he’s genuinely outmatched, so he pulls inspiration from his old monkey nemesis and just makes some shit up.
After using MMA moves on Hedorah for the whole movie, and having his breath rendered useless in combat, he uses it for a more effective purpose: flight. Godzilla stands and plants his feet, facing the ground. Opening fire, he blasts at the ground and slowly, slowly begins hovering before launching off like a rocket after Hedorah, managing to knock him out of the sky at maximum velocity. He would then never do this again in any movie after. After this, he then proceeds to rip him apart, tear out his cores (?) and burn the remains, before giving the army a one-eyed glare (his eye having been melted out by Hedorah) and walks off. The fights, and the movie as a whole, may be a little slow, but this is among the coolest climaxes in the series, and one of the funniest out of context. This movie, due to its dated, cheesy theme of early 70s environmentalism, has a lot of ridiculous moments, both humorous and weirdly dark, but I think that’s what makes this one enjoyable.
While I don’t really love Vs. Hedorah for its really slow pace and practically lack of story, despite its average enough runtime, it has a lot of great moments and great elements, they just don’t flow together that well in my opinion. The rest of the music is just as of-its-time as “Return the Sun!”, with a lot of quite jazzy or bouncy sounding songs despite being an otherwise intimidating scene using a lot of electronic effects along with the orchestral score, adding an extra layer of psychedelic atmosphere to the film.
As I mentioned, the movie also has a lot of strangely dark and tense scenes, with people being killed by gases, melted down to skeletons, and covered in sludge, drowning in pollution. It actually does add to the severity of the message quite a lot in the same way Gojira’s horror elements did, just obviously not to the same extent. There are also a couple of weird animated scenes too depicting Hedorah’s consumption of pollution, which, again, adds to its very PSA vibe. The movie is also physically quite dark, both of the main fights taking place at night, which gives them an oddly menacing significance.
Visually, Vs. Hedorah is pretty good. While not quite up to the standards of Destroy All Monsters, and having a heavy lack of pyrotechnics since Godzilla barely uses his beam or really destroys a whole lot at all, and Hedorah’s attacks are primarily sewage, it makes up for that by having an incredible sense of weight that really only Destroy had managed to achieve before. Hedorah is bigger than Godzilla in terms of pure mass, and all of his wild attacks have a great murderous intent behind them, even going as far as to taunt Godzilla before spitting in his face, partially blinding him, and Godzilla himself is at his best in sheer brutality up to this point, relentlessly beating Hedorah with punches, kicks, slams, and throws, and ending with sheer obliteration to the point where the smog monster is nothing but a steaming pile of ashes.
Godzilla’s suit is practically the same with a slightly angrier expression and movable eyeballs and is in slightly worse condition after one of the most action-heavy movies in the series, but it’s not too noticeable. Hedorah, on the other hand, is a completely new monster and has a pretty ambitious look that’s actually pretty effectively executed. Being essentially a living swamp, he constantly looks disgusting and goopy, almost as if he’s constantly on the verge of falling apart. In the goop lies two piercing, unmoving red eyes with green irises, and the body has highlights of a similarly fleshy color. Swamp or garbage based monsters can be difficult to design, failing completely with things like Swamp Thing 1982 or the Pokémon Garbodor that are too simple or too ugly in their color pallets, or succeeding with designs like Swamp Thing 2019 or the Pokémon Grimer and Muk, which fully embraces the grimy slime of a swamp or properly communicate just how disgusting pollution is, and I think Hedorah perfectly puts together all the elements that make a good, gross garbage monster.
It’s not something I would usually notice in any other series, but the wirework in this movie is fantastic too. Normally in a Godzilla movie, there wouldn’t be this much airtime between two monsters who are by nature ground-based, but a lot of the best acting is fluid and almost looks like martial arts, and yet you can’t see a single wire hanging down as far as I could tell, which is incredibly impressive for such a large monster as Hedorah, since Ghidorah had similar movement but was cursed with having strings and wires visible on him frequently.
All around, Godzilla vs. Hedorah is a weird movie. A good movie? Disputable. But it has a lot of great elements and a ton of entertainment value. As a 1971 PSA against the horrors of pollution starring Godzilla, it’s both surprisingly effective and as expectedly cheesy as that premise. I would say it’s worth a watch even if you do have to skip through some of its more menial scenes and get to the great stuff.
Godzilla vs. Gigan/Godzilla on Monster Island (1972) and Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
Eleven movies in, Godzilla was again beginning to lose steam just as it had in ‘67, but with a lack of money only worsening the lack of new ideas after All Monsters Attack made only half of the ticket sales of Destroy All Monsters and Vs. Hedorah only just managed to earn a couple hundred thousand ticket sales more. The next movie would determine the sales of the last few movies, so it had to be good. Unfortunately, it was Godzilla vs. Gigan.
Godzilla vs. Gigan isn’t really the worst Godzilla movie (that will always go to All Monsters Attack), it’s just my least favorite of the Showa era. Generally, I’m not one to care if a movie is boring as long as it has a point or has a couple exciting parts, but in a series as long and diverse as Godzilla, there’s almost nothing of value in this movie. As another alien story, this one doesn’t really do anything interesting; it’s just more aliens that want to take over the world, this time from a planet called “Space Hunter Nebula M”, which is a name that sounds like it came out of a sci-fi name generator. Their true forms are cockroaches (similar to the Kilaaks) and they put up a friendly front to establish a base (similar to the aliens from Planet X), this time being a fake amusement park called World Children’s Land, which has a huge Godzilla tower.
This tower works as a sort of communications center for two aliens, the familiar Ghidorah (the weaker one from Invasion of Astro-Monster, since this takes place before Destroy All Monsters), and the namesake of this movie, Gigan, who’s both the most conceptually stupid-looking monster in this era and one of the coolest in execution. Gigan is an alien cyborg chicken dinosaur, and he has a chainsaw stomach, scythe arms, and a Cyclops-style laser visor. When the Nebula M aliens call the monsters, they also accidentally alert Godzilla and Anguirus, the former of which sends the latter to investigate (which actually shows them talking in speech bubbles, or speaking to each other directly in the English version, which isn’t quite as dumb as them straight-up talking during dream sequences like Minilla in All Monsters Attack, but still more ridiculous than the twins translating in Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).
As Anguirus arrives, the army confronts him since they obviously can’t understand him, but he figures out more or less what’s coming somehow and goes back to Godzilla, who prepares for battle. Coming to shore, they’re immediately confronted by the two space monsters (Ghidorah with his same flaming birth introduction, and Gigan materializing through a shot of a diamond exploding with the explosion reversed and then played normally with increasing speed until it finally bursts). Meanwhile, the aliens hit Godzilla with a laser beam from the tower, which proves effective, and Gigan manages to cut him, making this the first time Godzilla has bled in the series. As Ghidorah and Gigan pummel Anguirus and Godzilla, the army manages to destroy the tower and the aliens with it. The monsters have no orders and the tables are quickly turned, so the space monsters leave in defeat, barely managing to escape. Godzilla and Anguirus return to sea as the humans cheer.
The story is really as barebones as it gets, and there really isn’t any threat, the cast isn’t interesting (and there are characters, they’re just so unimportant I didn’t bother mentioning them), and nothing in it is something we haven’t seen done better. The fight is short and kind of boring other than the blood, as is the rest of the movie really. Gigan looks cool but doesn’t really do a whole lot to the point where the second Ghidorah had to help out, and the film uses a lot of stock footage and the old suits (this is the last film with the awesome Destroy All Monsters suit, in visibly poor condition) as well as using pretty much a single location. The soundtrack is quite good, composed of a bunch of music from a bunch of other movies composed by the legendary Akira Ifukube, but again, it’s nothing original or creative; a lot of shots are also stock footage from a ton of older Godzilla films, although not the same extent as All Monsters Attack.
Gigan, the cyborg chicken dinosaur alien.
So, really, this movie isn’t as necessarily bad as it is painfully subpar and boring. If you skipped it, you’d miss absolutely nothing, but there’s no real shame in enjoying it I guess. However, it absolutely doomed the financial outcome of the remaining few movies, and subsequently their budgets. Despite earning more than Vs. Hedorah by an okay amount, the last three films in the series would go on to make less than any other film in the series other than the Netflix trilogy, two of them making less than a million ticket sales.
After this came Godzilla vs. Megalon, which has a sort of weird position in the Godzilla series as a lot of people’s first Godzilla movie, especially older fans, having been released in the U.S. theaters in 1976. It’s not really a great movie considering the context under which it was created, but the last third of the film and its general ridiculousness and charm make up for a lot of its slow pace and general similarity to the many other previous movies, making it easily one of the most entertaining in this latter half of the era.
The story is familiar, although it’s sort of a reversal of the alien trope, instead featuring an underground society called the Seatopians. They’re pissed that the Japanese have been testing underground nukes, so they decide to send their god, Megalon (a giant beetle) to destroy them. At the same time, three inventors (one being a little boy) are hanging out at a lake when it suddenly drains, the bottom being used as the Seatopian’s base of operations. As they’re going home, the Seatopians attack them and try to steal a robot they’re building called Jet Jaguar, but the Seatopians are terrible at everything and don’t even get close to getting it.
Later they finish Jet Jaguar, but are kidnapped. The Seatopians then use Jet Jaguar to guide Megalon (who’s remarkably dumb) to Tokyo. He manages to get there and the army fails to defeat him. The inventors, however, manage to escape and get Jet Jaguar back under their control, and send him to get Godzilla. As Megalon fumbles around in the outskirts of town, the Seatopians panic and call up the Space Hunter Nebula M aliens from the last movie to send Gigan. Jet Jaguar then inexplicably gains sentience and grows to the size of Megalon, and after he calls up Godzilla, he goes back to Japan to keep Megalon busy, but Gigan arrives and begins to overwhelm the robot before Godzilla shows up to help out.
Godzilla takes on the two monsters on his own for a while as Jet Jaguar recovers and jumps back into the fray. Turning the tide almost immediately, Gigan retreats once more and poor Megalon is stuck with Godzilla and Jet. The latter picks up Megalon, holds his arms so he can’t move, and Godzilla jump kicks him in the gut twice before he runs off and finally retreats, the Seatopians defeated. Godzilla shakes Jet Jaguar’s hand and heads back to Monster Island as Jet Jaguar shrinks back to normal size, back with his creators.
Godzilla’s classic jump kick (and new design).
A lot of the story takes place in the very beginning and very end, which can make the middle 45 minutes or so a little bit tedious, but I think this movie is remembered so fondly because of how innately cheesy and hilarious it is in its finale. Gigan wasn’t really intimidating in his own movie and Megalon sure as hell isn’t either, being basically a giant beetle with drill arms. As previously mentioned, he’s a bit dumb too, so for a god he’s a bit of a dope; it makes the ending with Godzilla and Jet Jaguar beating him up like school bullies all the more humorous. While it isn’t particularly creative, it feels like it doesn’t really take itself seriously, which I think is a good thing for a movie on a budget.
Gigan is the same as he is in the last movie, Anguirus doesn’t really ever change in design so his suit looks more or less the same, and Megalon is new with a fairly cool design despite its relative cheapness, but Godzilla actually gets a fairly drastic change from the suit he’s been using for the last 4 years, and I quite like it. To fit with his much more heroic demeanor, he’s a lot more friendly looking, having a sort of dog or cat-like face, with similar proportions to the Destroy All Monsters suit but with much larger eyes and slightly smoother skin around his face. He’s also a bit more skinny, and his back spines are more rounded. All around, while a lot of people understandably think this suit is too cute looking, I think it works really well for a purely heroic Godzilla even though at this point the series has strayed immensely from its origins.
Jet Jaguar is also an amazing monster, reminiscent of something out of Ultraman or Super Sentai (the latter of which is actually where most of the footage for the original Power Rangers came from, intercut with new scenes for the live action parts), and really a whole lot of this movie feels like a long episode of early Ultraman, although that is sort of the point. The movie was originally supposed to be Jet Jaguar’s own movie. His design was actually made by a kid who won a contest Toho organized in 1972 to create a monster. The kid’s design, called Red Alone, was originally white with wings, so he was upset with the final suit being significantly different in color to the original design, and was used in promotional images. They had the character, renamed Jet Jaguar, redesigned to keep the colors, and we got the Jet Jaguar we know.
Megalon and Jet Jaguar squaring off.
Jet Jaguar, with this supposed to be his own movie, even has a theme song called “Godzilla and Jet Jaguar: Punch! Punch! Punch!”, which sounds like a children’s show intro, and it’s great. The soundtrack keeps up the 70s movie’s jazzy overtone and the generally upbeat music, although a bit of orchestral music backtracks it this time around, returning a bit of the cinematic charm while keeping with the newer style.
While this movie is in no way well-made, being cheap, slow for two-thirds of its runtime, and taking place in one location for that last third as well as a heavy amount of stock footage, it makes up for its mostly budgetarily-caused faults with a fun climax that understands exactly what the movie is, like a more child-friendly version of the best of the 60s Godzilla movies. It’s not up to par with those movies, as they’re genuinely well made, but Vs. Megalon still manages to be an entertaining movie nonetheless, even if it made next to no money.
This did mean, however, that they’d have to pull out a last option, a counter to the King of the Monsters, a new nemesis made better in every way: a Mechagodzilla.
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla/Godzilla vs. The Cosmic Monster (1974)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, directed by Jun Fukuda alone feels like a true return to form for the series, even if it was one of the last of the era. Whereas All Monsters Attack is a terrible children’s film, Vs. Hedorah is a weird environmental acid trip, and Vs. Gigan and Megalon are incredibly lackluster and formulaic, with the latter at the very least pulling out all the stops for its incredible finale, Vs. Mechagodzilla (or Vs. The Bionic, and then Cosmic after some legal issues, Monster in the U.S.) feels exactly like the classic 60s films, just stretched on a budget, and works oddly enough as sort of a half spy-thriller, half alien sci-fi film.
One day in Okinawa, a Priestess has a prophecy about Japan being destroyed by a giant monster (which at this point is just a thing that happens every once in a while). At the same time, a man, Masahiko Shimizu, exploring a cave finds an odd, shiny piece of metal. Bringing it to the lab of Dr. Miyajima, they find that it’s a material called space titanium (which, again, I guess they just know exists because of all the alien invasions). His brother Keisuke then finds a hidden chamber in the ground with a small statue and a prophecy on the wall written in odd symbols.
At the chamber, an archaeologist, Saeko, appears on the scene, and deciphers the prophecy, stating it says, "When a black mountain appears above the clouds, a huge monster will arise and try to destroy the world; but when the red moon sets and the sun rises in the West, two monsters shall appear to save the people." which is impossible, since the sun rises in the East. She inspects the small statue, saying it looks like the legendary deity monster King Caesar, while two men watch them as they go back to the lab, one attempting to steal the artifact. The two get on a plane, and as Saeko looks out the window, she sees an enormous black cloud that looks like a mountain, the first sign of the prophecy, and mutters to herself, overheard by the other man who was watching them, who claims to be just a reporter.
Suddenly, Godzilla appears, bursting out of Mt. Fuji in a fiery blaze, illuminated by lightning and seemingly the monster from the prophecy. Soon, though, Anguirus strangely comes to confront Godzilla despite generally being an ally, and Godzilla’s alliance with the human race since Ghidorah. However, as Anguirus confronts Godzilla, the larger monster brutally beats Anguirus, stomping it and slamming him, and then snapping his jaw, leaving him to retreat as Godzilla continues his march, destroying any buildings in his path. Anguirus did manage to score one hit on Godzilla though, leaving a piece of his skin ripped off with something shiny appearing underneath.
Keisuke checks on Masahiko and they find another piece of space titanium. At the same time, Godzilla has arrived at an oil refinery, and begins to blow stuff up, but out of nowhere, a second Godzilla appears out of a warehouse and the two square off, seemingly equal in power. We then see a control room, and some men in shiny clothing (which means they’re aliens in these movies) decide to expose their weapon since Godzilla’s showed up earlier than expected. The villainous Godzilla goes in a blaze of blue fire and, in a pan up, is revealed to be a giant robot doppelganger: Mechagodzilla.
The real Godzilla and Mechagodzilla go at it briefly, but before long the two fire their ray weapons at each other in the first beam clash in the series, I believe, and cause a massive explosion that sends Godzilla flying into the ocean. The seas turn red with blood as he sinks, and Mechagodzilla, badly damaged, flies off. After this battle, Saeko and Keisuke decide to bring the statue back to the temple, but on the cruise ship on the way back, they’re confronted by the thief from earlier, who takes the statue and fights Keisuke (revealing his true form, an ape-like alien) before getting shot overboard by the reporter, with the statue, but it’s revealed it was a fake to psych out the thief, and the real statue is safe. Meanwhile, we see Godzilla has washed up back on Monster Island, and as a storm blares around him, he’s struck by lightning, given newfound strength (which also happened in Vs. Hedorah despite electricity having been his weakness in the first three movies).
Masahiko, Dr. Miyajima, and his daughter Ikuku all head back to the place where Masahiko first found the space titanium, but they’re found and kidnapped by the ape-aliens, who are apparently from the Third Planet of the Black Hole (which is explained as the only planet that somehow survived being destroyed by a black hole, the other two having been consumed, and they’re taking over the world with Mecha G for… some reason). Miyajima is then forced to repair Mechagodzilla, his friend and daughter taken to be executed if he refuses. Keisuke, going to check on his brother, is stopped by the reporter, who reveals he’s actually an INTERPOL agent named Nanbara. Sneaking into the base, they free the prisoners, but Miyajima, Keisuke, and Nanbara get captured after they split up, leaving Saeko, Masahiko, and Ikuku to figure out how to stop Mechagodzilla and the aliens.
The next morning, an eclipse causes a red moon and makes it look like the sun is rising in the west. The trio take the statue to try and awaken King Caesar, meeting with the priestess from the beginning, who it turns out is an ancient descendant of the Azumi people who worshipped Caesar, and the only people who can call upon the deity for help with the help of the statue. As the newly reconstructed Mechagodzilla emerges from the ground and begins his march towards them, the priestess sings a song, which eventually (after the full nearly 3 minute tune) awakens King Caesar, who immediately begins fighting Mechagodzilla.
King Caesar is at an advantage at first, as he can absorb the robot’s energy attacks and send them flying back, but Mecha G wises up, dodges the counterattack, and fires missiles from his fingers that damage Caesar quite a lot, and then proceed to remorselessly beat him down with chops, kicks, and a even an attempt at a choke, shoving his arm down Caesar's throat. Before the robot can finish him off though, Godzilla emerges from the sea in a glow of light. Mechagodzilla, however, is no normal enemy. He wastes no time dodging a beam from Godzilla and then firing back one of his own, flying around.
As he lands, and Caesar gets up, he swivels his head around to face Caesar and fire a beam as his front fires missiles at Godzilla, knocking both of them to the ground. Godzilla is barraged with missiles and beams and is unable to touch Mecha G at first because of the monster’s forcefield, and the robot even manages to score two hits on Godzilla’s neck, causing it to spray blood everywhere, before sticking him full of harpoons. On his last legs, Godzilla uses the lightning from earlier to inexplicably turn into a magnet (once again calling back to Kong and making up another power that would never be used again). Godzilla manages to pull Mechagodzilla in close enough to grab him and then twists the robot’s head clean off.
Back at the base, the captors manage to break free and take out all of the remaining aliens, reverting them back to their normal form before blowing it up, causing Mechagodzilla to explode as well. Godzilla is once again blown back into the sea, but he emerges right after, perfectly fine and victorious. All the humans reunite, Caesar returns to his resting place, and Godzilla heads back home, his job done.
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla has an incredibly cinematic story. It can get a bit convoluted with all of its characters, I know I didn’t know them half of the time, but there’s so much action in this movie with such incredible build-up that it doesn’t even matter. We get an actual Hero’s Fall and Rise in this movie with Godzilla meeting his match before finding the power he needs to win (cheating), which is something quite a few later films would explore and marks an interesting place in the development of Godzilla as a character.
Speaking of Godzilla as a character, his design is more or less the same as the last movie, except I think it works a bit better here. Godzilla looks more expressive and is clearly the powerful protagonist rather than sort of the Deus Ex Machina he was in the last movie; first and foremost, this is the first movie in a long time where Godzilla’s name in the title is actually earned, because this is his story, as short as the movie is. King Caesar has a pretty interesting backstory too, based on a Shiisaa, which are stone lion statues based on the myth of a village that was protected from an attacking sea dragon by a necklace with a Shiisaa pendant on it, Mechagodzilla representing the dragon in this movie. The movie also takes place in Okinawa, where the myth originated long ago. It also references the Azumi people, who had one of Japan’s earliest seafaring religions, although they lived primarily in Northern Kyushu rather than Okinawa.
Then, of course, there’s Mechagodzilla, who is, by far, the coolest Showa Godzilla villain even if King Ghidorah is stronger. As a replica of Godzilla, Mechagodzilla’s suit is much more stiff and does genuinely look metallic, and his design is generally a lot more stocky and sharp looking than Godzilla’s, with a look of angles used. He looks very steampunk-ish in this first reincarnation as opposed to his much sleeker designs in 1993 and 2002/3 respectively, and I really like that. It makes him look like he’s futuristic but still relatively plausible, efficient, remorseless, but still a bit clunky. I do like Mechagodzilla 3 (better known as Kiryu, from 2002/3) a little more, but his Showa look is a very close runner up. It would be slightly touched up in the next movie with Mechagodzilla 2 (not to be confused with Mechagodzilla II from 1993), but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. Mecha G also has a lot of really cool mannerisms, most notably him copying Godzilla in a slightly more robotic way, my favorite being when he puts up his fists before a brawl, and well as his utter brutality, easily being the most personally threatening monster Godzilla’s ever been up against at this point. Cleverly, he also has some slight differences when he’s fake Godzilla that can clue you in early as to what he is, notably a different, high pitched roar, as well as a yellow colored atomic breath as opposed to Godzilla’s blue one.
The pyrotechnics on this film are also amazing, even beating out Destroy All Monsters as the most explosive Godzilla movie so far. Anything that can explode does explode in this movie, and Mecha G’s immense barrages of weaponry more than supply the firepower to do so. Mechagodzilla’s fiery reveal is one of the best looking effects in the era, with a shimmer glow accompanying the dramatic blue flames, and there’s a surprising amount of violence throughout the film that mostly looks good, especially the performance of Kazunari Mori as Mechagodzilla. Along with the improved effects, the cinematography is also incredible, with the use of dramatic lighting and fiery backdrops in a nighttime battle only expanding the drama of a scene. From Fake Godzilla’s explosion out of Mt. Fuji, to the first battle, to Godzilla being powered up, silhouetted only by the lightning, it's amazing how well-made this movie looks despite its extremely low budget as well as considering it was made in 1972.
The music keeps its jazzy 70s flair from the last few movies, but it also doubles down on the orchestral backdrop of Vs. Megalon as well, the main theme being a combination of heavy drums and a trumpet-filled Jazz piece. King Caesar’s theme, called “Miyarabi’s Prayer,” is a wonderful piece of orchestral music with jazz undertones as well, even if it goes on for way too long in the context of the film itself, with the lovely voice of Beru-Bera Lin, a Korean woman who plays the priestess. She also sings in the vocal version of the main theme, “Defeat Mechagodzilla!”, which doesn’t add a whole lot lyrically, just kind of talking about the monster and that we need to kill him, which is a bit self-explanatory.
All around, Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla is a movie that shouldn’t have been as spectacular as it is based on all the circumstances that surrounded its mere existence, let alone its production. It has a lot of the best action, effects, and monsters in the entire Showa series, easily, and could have been what the series really needed to push itself forward, even garnering a decent amount more ticket sales than Vs. Megalon. In 1974, it was then followed up by Terror of Mechagodzilla, the final movie of the Showa era.
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)
Terror of Mechagodzilla is a bit different from a lot of the other movies in this era, in that it’s the first tragedy since, really, the original Gojira and Raids Again, as well as the final film in the series directed by Ishiro Honda, fittingly. Following Vs. Mechagodzilla, a submarine searches the ocean for pieces of the robot, but they’re suddenly attacked by a giant dinosaur that surfaces briefly before being dragged down and destroyed. The disaster is reported and several witnesses say they saw the dinosaur as well as flying saucers, so a marine biologist named Akira Ichinose is called in to investigate, as well as an INTERPOL agent, Jiro Murakoshi.
Heading to a marine institute to check for any evidence of the dinosaur historically, they find out that 15 years ago, a scientist named Shinzo Mafune was researching how to make undersea ranches and controlling undersea life revolutionarily, but then he claimed to have discovered a dinosaur in the bay and managed to get his tech working to control it, and was outcast from the institute, everyone else thinking he was an insane liar. The two then visit his home, but find he’s passed away and his daughter Katsura lives there now. However, after they leave, it’s revealed after they leave that Dr. Mafune is alive and well and he’s working with the remaining Black Hole Planet 3 aliens to rebuild Mechagodzilla and use the dinosaur, Titanosaurus, to destroy humanity after they ridiculed him.
Throughout the middle of the film, as Mechagodzilla 2 is being built and INTERPOL builds a second sub, Ichinose calls Katsura and asks her to join their voyage to clear up her father’s name, but she refuses and warns him not to. Going anyways, but keeping caution in mind, the trip goes awry and they only manage to escape Titanosaurus using sonar, which he seems weak to; they decide to build a sonar machine as soon as they get back to shore. Katsura, hanging around the building, gives Ichinose some of her father's notes, and he tells her their plan to use the sonar, which she reports back to her father. He’s determined Titanosaurus can be useful, and sends him off to Tokyo without the permission of the aliens. He’s successful at first, but soon Godzilla arrives and quickly overtakes him. Katsuru is seen sabotaging the sonar device by INTERPOL and they manage to track her down and shoot her, and she falls into the sea. Mafune, upset, lets Titanosaurus free from control and he confusedly jumps back into the sea.
The aliens retrieve Katsuru’s body and fix her, since it was earlier revealed she was a cyborg, having been nearly killed in one of her father’s experiments, and repaired by the alien surgeons, leaving him in their debt. However, they later install the controls for Mechagodzilla 2 in her brain, and he breaks down, horrified. Mechagodzilla 2 and Titanosaurus are released in the countryside and begin their march to Tokyo, destroying cities in their wake. Godzilla soon arrives to stop them, but is quickly overpowered by the combination of Titanosaurus’s hurricane attacks and Mecha G2’s onslaught of weaponry, and ends up buried alive by Titanosaurus. INTERPOL, having reconstructed the sonar beam, manages to get on the scene and subdue Titanosaurus, which allows Godzilla to free himself before Mechagodzilla 2 can destroy the helicopter that holds the sonar machine. Godzilla charges at the robot, avoiding the torrent of fire shot at him, and manages to grab him by the tail, and then the body, and rips off his head again, although this time there’s a brain underneath that continues to attack Godzilla.
While all this is going on, Ichinose sneaks back to Katsura’s house, but is kidnapped and forced to watch as she controls the monsters. He soon manages to free himself and take out the aliens, but Katsura confronts him with a gun. He says she won’t shoot, but she isn’t given the chance when Murakoshi bursts in and shoots her instead. More agents break in and kill every alien left as well as Dr. Mufune, much to the dismay of the still alive Katsura, finally free from the alien programming that left her unable to control herself. She then realizes that the Mechagodzilla 2 controls are still inside her, so she begs Ichinose to kill her. He refuses, and tries to cradle her and tell her he loves him, but, as she tells him that she loves him too, shoots herself in the chest, dying.
As Mecha G2 breaks down, Godzilla finally throws him in a ditch and blows him up. Titanosaurus is then also blasted, assumedly killing him and knocking him into the sea, never to be seen again in the whole series. As flying saucers fly out of the ocean to try and escape, Godzilla blasts them out of the sky, taking out the Black Hole Planet 3 aliens once and for all. It’s a victory for humanity, but not necessarily for everyone, as Ichinose takes Katsura’s body to a beautiful field overlooking the sea. They watch as Godzilla walks out to sea once more.
It’s surprisingly impactful for a movie so deep in the cheesiness of the 70s, especially in this series. While the story in the middle meanders a little, being mostly a back and forth between INTERPOL trying to stop the monsters, Ichinose falling in love with Katsura, and the aliens and Mafune’s megalomania, the end makes it worth it (and the movie is only about an hour and 18 minutes long anyways). I liked that, while it was still waist deep in ridiculous sci-fi nonsense, the movie has a genuinely good Shakespearean-style romantic tragedy entwined in its monster action. It’s one of my favorite stories in this era even if it isn’t as fleshed out as Vs. Mothra, Astro-Monster, or Destroy All Monsters, but it has a lot of the sentimental, emotional heart that’s been missing from the series since Raids Again. Interestingly, it’s the first female-written Godzilla movie, by Yukiko Takayama, as the winner of a story contest for the next film in the series. The script was revised a few times by her, as a result of budget constraints, but was ultimately completed in October of 1974. Ishiro Honda cites that he regrets not getting the chance to work with her more, noting that “a woman’s perspective was especially fresh.”
The effects, while not as impressive or cinematic as Vs. Mechagodzilla, still bring a lot of massive pyrotechnic displays, since they really have to blow up everything around Mechagodzilla as soon as he fires. Godzilla’s suit looks more or less the same again, but has slightly smaller eyes and angrier brows, keeping his generally friendly look while making him look a bit more intimidating. Mechagodzilla is also mostly unchanged other than some minor details, with slightly darker metal, slightly less stocky proportion, and an all-around slightly sleaker, sharper design, as well as adding some new weaponry into his arsenal and his new mechanical brain. It’s a minor improvement, but an improvement nonetheless. Titanosaurus is fine too, just kinda what you’d imagine an aquatic rubber dinosaur looking like, kinda like a crocodile with a long neck crossed with a catfish. I do like that he’s sort of a reflection of the suffering Katsura suffers because of her father’s lust for revenge, and he dies just as unceremoniously as she does, although it probably could have been explored a little more if they had the budget to do so.
The music is also decent, back to being fully orchestrated, with Akira Ifukube being back, which is in no way a bad thing (and with some incredibly beautiful pieces on this soundtrack, some of my favorites in the series, such as “Katsura’s Memories”, an oddly cerebral organ song, and “Katsura’s Death”, which has a sort of double sadness as both the tragic death of a great character and the end of the era), I was just enjoying the jazzy vibe of the 70s the last few movies were providing. Ifukube would return to the series in 1991’s Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (upon the insistence of his daughter allegedly), and would completely revitalize the often overlooked music of the series with completely original OSTs that occasionally harkened back to their Showa contemporaries, but I’ll get to that more in depth if I ever get around to discussing the Heisei series, which I almost certainly will since it’s my favorite era.
Back on topic, while I don’t think Terror of Mechagodzilla is as exhilarating as Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, it’s still a really great movie, and among the best in the latter half. Its emotional heart and still really entertaining fights (with some great unintentional humor with Godzilla just coming out of nowhere several times), it’s certainly worth a watch, and I’m glad this was the final movie in the Showa era. However, it was unfortunately the last film in the era because it was the lowest grossing theatrical Godzilla movie ever made, having only 970,000 ticket sales, 10,000 less than Vs. Megalon. For a few years Toho tried to figure out ways to reboot the series, but it wouldn’t be for another nine years with Godzilla (1984).
Conclusion
The Showa Era is a really special time in the history of Godzilla. It was a time when the series was figuring things out, fresh off the heels of one of the most historically significant films ever, and a potential international icon in the making. Fumbling its way through how to be a Godzilla film, finally finding something that worked, and then fumbling through how to keep it fresh was tough. A real lack of continuity after Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was really a large flaw of the era, even though it made each film unique. But that uniqueness built what kaiju movies can be. Beyond the drama, tragedy, and seriousness of Gojira, there’s a lovingly-made, funny, entertaining piece of cinema in even the worst of the series, and that would never change.
Godzilla, for me, will personally signify when I was going through some of the worst points in my life, and my dad just got a pizza and we could sit and laugh for a while at the dudes in rubber suits beating each other up. Regardless of whether they’re great, artistic pieces of film, which, objectively, a whole lot aren’t, it doesn’t really matter. They’re good movies because they know exactly what they are and they’re made to be enjoyed, and that’s the real magic of the Showa era.
If I had to rank each movie objectively I’d say Ghidorah and Mothra are the two best, followed by King Kong, Astro-Monster, Raids Again, Destroy, Mechagodzilla, and Terror in no particular order, with Hedorah, Son, Ebirah, and Megalon middling, and with the worst being Gigan, and All Monsters especially. I probably enjoyed Mechagodzilla, Destroy, and King Kong the most, the 1964 suit is the best one while my favorite is the King Kong one, and my favorite soundtrack is Vs. Mothra. This is all not counting the original movie, which is first in almost every category for the era, and I’ll most certainly get to that masterpiece at one point. I really enjoyed rewatching through a lot of these and getting a fresh perspective with some research, although I do very much wish it didn’t take me a month and a half to write.
That being said, I can’t wait till the day I get to talk about the rest of the series, and with a lot less movies in the rest of the eras, it shouldn’t take me as long. You’ll find out eventually how long it takes when I get to talk about the rebirth of Godzilla in 1984 in another tangent some other time.
