flash-hammer's Full Review: Terror of Mechagodzilla
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
While Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla may not have been the huge hit Toho studioes were looking for, it did at least see a decent increase in ticket sales over the dismal Godzilla Vs. Megalon's performance at the box office. With the dwindling financial safety of Japanese cinema, it can be assumed that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka could sense the series was limping to an end, and to try and ignite some of the spark that once powered it and bring the audiences of the 1960s back, he tried to re-piece together as good as possible the team who created the monster. The best of all Godzilla directors, the legendary Ishiro Honda was tempted back into the directors chair, one of cinema's finest composers, Akira Ifukube was brought back to score the movie, and seeing as the loss of special effects guru Eiji Tsuburaya prevented the true original team gathering, Tanaka brought together a lot of the other special effects crew who had worked on the first movie, as well as keeping the solid Teruyoshi Nakano on hand for special effects.
However, while it was the classic quality they were going for, bolstered by the presence of series stalwart Akihiko Hirata, Tanaka figured mixing this with a fresh approach to the story might be a better idea, and Toho hosted a competition for writers to submit scripts and one would be chosen as a winner. Yukiko Takayama, a female student, proved the victor in the end, although it's debateable how much of her script actually made it to the finished film. She herself has declared it doesn't bother her that much, a lot of the changes were done to make it on a more workable scale, Titanosaurus was supposed to be two monsters that fused into one, and the entire city of Tokyo was supposed to be destroyed, but Takayama insists that the one important part of her story remains, which means she clearly hasn't seen the American version.
You see, American distributors clearly thought the transition to the states of the last few movies went far too smoothly, so the story of the film's American incarnations is quite amusing. Initially the rights were purchased under the impression that they were only going to be used for broadcast on TV, seeing as the popularity of Kaiju Eiga was waning on both sides of the Pacific. In an attempt to make the movie more kiddie-friendly, American producer Henry Saperstein removed most of the violent scenes, as well as the Godzilla series infamous one shot of nudity, and renamed the movie Terror of Godzilla, so as children would actually know it was a Godzilla flick. However, somewhere along the line he decided to give it a very limited theatrical run, under the more correct title of Terror of Mechagodzilla, which was cut less, but still lacked the famous breast shot and, most criminally of all, a very key scene towards the end of the movie that really makes the outcome look different.
In a most bizarre way, the UK actually ended up better off when it comes to this movie. While originally released under the utterly bizarre title of Monsters from an Unknown Planet, it was uncut, and even the later VHS releases, which gave the movie it's correct English title remain uncut. Sadly Godzilla isn't as big in the UK, and none of his movies, short of that Tristar debacle, are available on DVD, so good luck tracking down a now out of print VHS tape of the movie.
The movie follows an Ocean Exploiter(I think that could be a dubbing error) named Ichinose(Katsuhiko Sasaki - Godzilla Vs. Megalon), who is called in by Interpol to investigate when a submarine sank off the coast of Japan while searching for the remains of Mechagodzilla, has it's last transmission to base listened to, and the crew declares they are being attacked by a giant dinosaur.
While, bizarrely, nobody even seems to mention Godzilla, Ichinose believes the story, and sets about trying to research what could have been the cause. One story which really piques his interest is one that goes about his work, and revolves around a chap named Dr.Mafune(Akihiko Hirata - Gojira), who was trying to learn how to control marine life. He claimed to also have discovered a giant dinosaur at the bottom of the sea, and named it Titanosaurus. He was fired from the institute 15 years ago, but it appears that Titanosaurus has chosen now to surface.
Along with his Interpol buddy Murakoshi(Katsumasa Uchida - ESPY) the pair visit Dr.Mafune's old home in the North of Japan, where the only people they find are a creepy, mute gardener and Mafune's beautiful daughter Katsura(Tomoko Ai - The Friendly Killer). She tells them that Mafune is dead, and all of his notes have been burned. Ichinose suspects something is up, but leaves anyway.
As it turns out, Mafune is anything but dead, and has just struck a deal with those pesky aliens from the third planet out of the Black Hole, which will soon destroy their world. For being laughed out of the scientific community, Mafune hungers revenge, and he thinks Titanosaurus is his key to it.
They have dredged up the Mechagodzilla and rebuilt him as Mechagodzilla 2, and with him under their control, and Katsura's revealed as almost psychic connection to Titanosaurus bolstered by Mafune's device to control him, they plan to level Tokyo and rebuild it as their own utopia.
Their plans are jeopardised as Katsura and Ichinose fall in love, but she is wounded, and as it turns out, has actually been a cyborg, thanks to the aliens, for a few years, and seeing this as a great opportunity to cement Mafune's loyalty, they insert the controls for the Mechagodzilla 2 within her.
However, things aren't all gloomy, as Interpol have been working on a Sonic Oscillator, which emits a powerful sonar beam that Titanosaurus cannot stand. Despite constant sabotages, Interpol soldier on trying to make it, although their plans are rushed as Mechagodzilla 2 and Titanosaurus start to storm Tokyo, destroying the city. Thankfully they are bought some time by the intervention of Godzilla, who emerges to try and defend the Earth, but naturally cannot stand up to two monsters.
Ichinose, who was captured by the aliens while looking for Katsura, is now in their underground base, where he pleads with Katsura to find her humanity and stop the carnage.
However, the guys are doing not bad without him, and it isn't long before the Oscillator is fitted to a chopper, and Morakoshi is sent to find Ichinose.
With Titanosaurus immobilised by the sonic waves, it's now Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla 2, with the Earth at stake...
Now, while on the surface the movie appears to have the same ruddy old alien invasion plot that 4/5 Godzilla movies in the 70s had, Terror handles it in a much slicker and more imaginitive way. I mean the aliens still wear gawdy silver jumpsuits, and have even added Casshan-esque helmets to their appearance, but at least this time we actually see their spaceships, and it's the same aliens as the last movie, although we are thankfully spared the lame Planet of the Apes masks every two minutes.
For a start, the movie, via the story, but it's a theme frequent in Honda's movies in the genre, takes a far more dark and serious tone, and for the first time in a long while we actually not only see cities being trashed, but people running and screaming. I don't want to spoil the ending of the movie, but it also takes a great sacrifice to save the day, and it's not too hard to spot recurring elements from the first movie here. Hirata playing a tortured scientist, albeit this time his character isn't as likeable and worth interest as Dr. Serizawa, and is more your standard mad scientist, the self-sacrifice required to save the day, as well as the generally more serious nature of the way things are handled. Only a few times does it verge on the absolutely OTT banality that plagued the 70s movies, one instance being in Godzilla's battle with Titanosaurus where the new monster bites his lip and lifts him into the air, but in general, this is far more in line with the 60s movies, only it features the interpretation of Godzilla as the mythical protector.
It's not without it's flaws, one of the main ones being that Godzilla himself isn't actually in the movie much, and when he does appear nobody is surprised, hell they even bank on him showing up for the climatic battle.
While this means more time is spent on the human side, I don't have a problem with this, because it's easily one of the best human-elements in a Godzilla sequel, but even then it isn't without it's flaws.
For a start, Katsura has Titanosaurus sink a submarine early doors, and she was made into a cyborg long before the events of the movie, yet we see Mafune making the deal with the Aliens to essentially sell his soul for revenge. While this may be a dubbing issue, it does kind of smell like laziness, or plot changes to me.
My only other complaints, I wouldn't actually have had if the movie didn't set me up for something it wasn't. It actually opens up with a recap of Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, showing some scenes from the oil refinery battle, and the scenes of Godzilla destroying the monster. Then straight away, we go to a submarine, which has a crew including a nameless character played by Masaaki Daimon, hero of Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, searching for the remains of Mechagodzilla in the sea. My initial thought was "wow...continuity between sequels!" the fact it was the same aliens also improved this theory. But then, if this was intended as a direct and proper sequel to that film, that makes the complete lack of references to King Seesar, as well as the fact Hirata is playing a totally different character. While on it's own that isn't really a fault(Hirata has played that many characters in Godzilla movies it almost makes Don 'The Dragon' Wilson look like the king of continuity), when you set up as looking like a proper sequel, of course it's going to disappoint when it doesn't happen.
The thing I most like about the movie, is that it proves that when handled in a more serious light, even the mythical hero incarnation of Godzilla can make for a good movie. I think it's quite ironic that Honda, the man that created Godzilla as a terrible menace, would see his last contribution to the series before his passing away as a vehicle, and the strongest defendable point of the 'heroic Godzilla' whom the world turned to in it's hour of need.
What is a bit shocking really is, as I alluded to earlier, the current Region 1 DVD doing the rounds. It uses the archaic American print of the movie, which not only lacks scenes making the Alien's look more brutal as they whip soldiers for failing to complete tasks, but also still lacks Katsura's breast shot. To be honest, this isn't anything to get excited about. It's a shot on the operating table, and they are quite blatantly plastic fakes. The most offensive cut made to the movie is in the form of the ending, which not only makes little sense as to who shot who, but it also completely removes the sacrifice that makes the movie a less than completely jolly standard 70s affair.
While I haven't had the experience of wathcing the film subtitled, with the exception of the expected flumps in monster names(gidziller etc), and the fact Ichinose is an Ocean Exploiter(shouldn't that really be explorer?), the dubbing job is ok, well now I think about it, the alien who sounds bizarrely like a Nazi was pretty silly, but in a funny way.
I've always maintained an uneasiness about criticising dubbed/subbed actors, especially when they are dubbs done in the 70s/80s, but to be honest, I don't think there are all that many complaints can be had, other than maybe that Hirata was wasted under a bad wig and fake 'tache.
Easily the show-stealer is Tomoko Ai, who is gorgeous, and fits the Katsura role of the cold yet sexy cyborg wonderfully. It's a shame the Godzilla series took a hiatus after this film, I would have loved to have seen more of her.
The most instantly noticeable thing about Terror is the soundtrack. While I feel Masaru Sato done a good job, he was only ever really a stand in for Ifukube, whose work was re-used for Godzilla Vs. Gigan, but he returns for his first original score in a Godzilla picture since the 60s.
And what a score it is, Mechagodzilla is given a wonderfully sinister and terrible theme, and Ifukube's sweeping scores were always more suited to the movies featuring the destruction of cities, and he really pulls out all the stops to bring us one of his best scores since the first Godzilla.
Given that the film was given a bit more budget than before, it naturally looks a lot better than any other 1970s Godzilla movie. While it does utilise some stock footage, most of it is in the recap, or when Katsura talks about monster who have attacked Japan so it doesn't really count, with only one scene, of Mechagodzilla firing all his lazers, being re-used.
While it didn't really count as a budget improvement, the movie also benefitted in that it was given miniatures left over from two of Toho's disaster movies, including The Last Days of Planet Earth to work with. This meant that more could be spent on the suits for the monsters, and it shows.
While Godzilla is still basically the same pug-faced monster as in the prior two movies, and his spines are still too puffy and wave about too much, his face has been made a little more snarling, meaning that while he isn't quite the dinosaurian faced monster he once started as, he looks more like the King of the Monsters again.
The Mechagodzilla 2 costume looks much the same as the first suit in the last movie, only it has a slimmer body, and rotating wrists and it now looks like it is made of darker, dirtier metal.
Titanosaurus is very popular with Kaiju fans, but to be honest, I don't really see the appeal. While the suit isn't bad, in fact it looks pretty well realised, the monster himself is basically Gabara's body, with one of Ghidrah's heads painted red and with a fish-tail.
With the exception of 3 effects, one being the aforementioned lip-biting, one where Godzilla gorilla-presses Titanosaurus, and Katsura's fake breasts, the effects work here is actually pretty sound. I've never been a huge lover of the city destruction scenes, but after all the universe's giant monsters spending most of the 70s taking countryside invasion attempts, it is kind of nice to have them back, and Nakano and his effects team have proven themself to be more than competant in making stuff look good.
Actually I was lying when I said only 3 effects, and the worst thing is that the last one is the most brutal, given that it not only closes the movie, but also the Showa era. As Godzilla swims out to sea, victorious, accompanied by a really nice, sad theme from Ifukube(mainly to accompany the human element's less than happy turn, but possibly because it was a reality that this could be Godzilla's last ever movie), he turns around...and it's that god awful promotional suit with the immobile head that looks like an action figure. Why the hell didn't they just use the suit used in the film?
At the end of the day, despite the fact it was the worst peformance Godzilla ever put in at the box office, I personally think that out of all of the Showa era movies, this is easily the best sequel, as it manages to take the alien invasion story of previous movies, yet manages to make a serious, sometimes sad, move out of it, and even includes a great monster battle at the end.
Terror of Mechagodzilla is a very good entry into the series, easily one of the best, and it's just a shame that the most recent print of it is so damned horrible and chopped(it even messes up the stylish credit sequence) watching the SMV Classic Media DVD of it, it just made me hope that in years to come, Tokyo Shock/Media Blasters, who handled some of Toho's non-Godzilla efforts brilliantly on DVD, and afforded them good subtitles, as well as dubbing, not to mention showing them in their uncut format, can wrestle the license for Godzilla movies American, or even better for me, European, Distribution rights, and puts out a decent quality disc of this movie. It's one of the best of the series, and my enjoyment was severely hampered by the fact the DVD, which should have surely been the most complete version available, was still from a print stuck in the 1980s.
Come to think of it, what the hell is up with the picture shown here for the movie? that artwork is blatantly for Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, Anguirus and King Seesar aren't even mentioned here.
Year: 1975
Titles: Mekagojira no gyakushu
Terror of Mechagodzilla
Terror of Godzilla
Monsters from an Unknown Planet
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