flash-hammer's Full Review: Godzilla Vs. Space Godzilla
Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
The 21st Godzilla movie, made as a celebration of the King of the Monsters' 40th birthday, Gojira VS Supesugojira, or to give it it's Western translation, Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla, was the first movie since 1989's Godzilla Vs. Biollante that did not see Godzilla pitted against a re-imagining of a classic foe. Why Toho made this decision I don't know, possibly because all of Godzilla's most popular foes, King Ghidorah, Mothra, Mechagodzilla and Rodan had already been done, but personally I'm quite glad they did decide to go down a unique route with his enemy for this picture. While we had seen Godzilla take on his robotic doppleganger before, an evil Godzilla was yet to take to the screens, and the plot device of aliens of some sort had also yet to be tackled by the Heisei era movies, both things that Spacegodzilla would remedy.
Spacegodzilla is much maligned amongst Godzilla fans, for numerous reasons, although the general consensus seems to be that it pales in comparison to it's predecessor, Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla. I, however, take a slightly different stance upon this. While it would be lying to try and claim Spacegodzilla is one of the best movies in the series, personally I feel it has a lot to offer, and actually regard it as being more entertaining than Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla.
As with Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, and the film's follow up, Godzilla Vs. Destoroyah, Spacegodzilla was not seen by Western audiences, legally, until 1998, when, in preparation for their American made disaster, Columbia Tristar put it out on video in America. They later issued the same, dubbed, print of the film on DVD, and it was also made available on a double bill disc with Destroyah. While the dubbing is actually decent, it doesn't quite live up to the standards set by the jobs done for Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah or Godzilla Vs. Mothra. One thing I don't understand, is that despite the fact they have put out all of the Heisei movies from Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah onwards on DVD, out of the 5, only Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla recieved the original Japanese language track with English subtitles, all the others were landed with dubbing. While I'm not a snob about such issues usually, I don't see why you would have it on one part of the series, and not any of the others.
One oddity that I noticed when looking at the sleeve for my DVD and the VHS, is that the DVD actually lists a shorter running time than it's VHS counterpart. While the DVD may be talking about the actual feature, and the VHS the running time of the total tape, I did find this slightly disturbing, although I couldn't recall any scenes being missing from the DVD print of the film.
Unlike all prior Heisei entries, the team responsible for this 1994 picture were mostly first timers to the series. While director Kensho Yamashita had worked on the second unit for Terror of Mechagodzilla, that was way back in the 70s, this was his first major involvement in the series. This entry was not penned by Kazuki Omori, who penned every other Heisei series entry barring Godzilla 1985, and to an extent Godzilla Vs. Biollante, and instead the duty befell Hiroshi Kashiwabara, who has subsequently penned 2 further Godzilla movies. For a while, at the start of the movie, it looked like Kashiwabara was going to pick up where Omori left off, with hideosly glaring nods to Western movies, with a scene lifted almost straight from Predator, but after this early incident he settles down, and this is the only real Omori-ism of the movie's plot.
The film opens as the United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center(UNGCC) have two plans underway to combat Godzilla and defend Japan from attacks. The first option which is complete, is Project M. Picking up where they left off with the Mechagodzilla, the G-Force team have created a fighting machine to fight the monster, or to be more specific, two battle machines that can combine into one humanoid robot to battle him. The Star Falcon is an aerial battle jet equipped with powerful laser cannons, and the Land Mogera is a Ground-based vehicle equipped with lasers, and the ability to burrow underground, thanks to a drill-bit front. The two machines can combine into the Mogera, or to give it it's correct title, the M.O.G.E.R.A(that's short for Mobile Operational Godzilla Expert Robot Aero-type), a bipedal battle machine with flying capabilities, eye-lasers, grenade launchers in it's arms and a Maser-Cannon in it's chest. The machine is designed with Godzilla's destruction in mind.
The other project, dubbed Project T, is designed to control Godzilla. This plan involves launched a recepticle into the creature's head, and using a special machine to amplify her powers, psychic girl Miki Sagusa(Megumi Odaka - Godzilla Vs. Biollante) to control Godzilla to stop him destroying cities.
The latter project hits a stumbling block when Miki refuses to take part, on the grounds that Godzilla is a living creature, and they have no right to control him. However, the two Government officials sent to talk her into it, Dr.Gondo(Towako Yoshikawa - Jotei: Kasuga no tsubone) and Dr.Okubo(Yosuke Saito - Gunhead) threaten to take one of her ESP students to do the job. Miki knows that trying to take that much psychic force out of them could prove hazardous, and her mind is further thrown by the appearance of the Cosmos, Mothra's liasons, who inform her that a space monster is on it's way to the Earth, and Godzilla may be our only hope. Mothra is, of course, en route to stopping a meteorite headed towards Earth, so Miki theorises that controlling Godzilla to help the Earth is our only option and reluctantly agrees to join.
So, the three of them are off to Birth Island, where Godzilla has been sighted recently. Preceding them to set up the equipment are G-Force agents Lt. Shinjo(Jun Hashizume - Godzilla Final Wars) and Lt. Sato(Zenkichi Yoneyama - The Yadamura Waltz), who have already had a rendezvous with Major Yuki(Akira Emoto - Zatoichi), a man who is bitter about the fact his best friend, and Dr. Gondo's brother, Goro, was killed by Godzilla in 1989, and wants revenge.
Despite this, he still doesn't hold any grudge against Little Godzilla, who inhabits Birth Island with him. Looking a lot different, and being a lot bigger, than he was the last time human eyes were laid upon him, Baby Godzilla is still fairly harmless, and can't even muster up an atomic beam like his dad yet.
However, something unusual has been going on at Birth Island, and recently meteors have been landing and spawning odd crystaline structures. NASA have also asked Japan for help, as one of their Space Shuttles appears to have been destroyed by some form of giant monster. This beast appears to be heading straight for Earth, and the UN begs Japan to launch the Mogera to fight it in space.
However, the space-creature, which bears an uncanny resemblance to Godzilla, is far too powerful for the Mogera, which it sends spinning back to the Earth, before it lands on Birth Island, where it imprisons Baby Godzilla in a crystaline cage and proceeds to beat up Godzilla, who arrives to try and save his son, before flying away.
Despite the fact it showed promising signs, Dr. Okubo declared Project T a failure, and he, Dr.Gondo and Yuki head back to Japan. Miki wants to stay on the Island a little longer, and the two G-Force men opt to stay and protect her. Little good they do, when mafia agents appear and kidnap her in the middle of the night, as it turns out that Dr.Okubo was really a rat who intended to control Godzilla for evil means. It isn't long before Miki is back in safe hands though, although exactly what is safe is called into question when Spacegodzilla lands in Fukuoka and starts shooting up it's Crystal pillars all over the city, and drawing lightning for energy through the Fukuoka tower.
Still spoiling for a rematch, it isn't long before Godzilla arrives to try and take on his intergalactic nemesis, whom Dr.Gondo believes is the result of one of Godzilla's G-Cells being carried into space, either by Mothra or Biollante, and somehow mutating, via exposure to stars exploding, into a creature in Godzilla's image, only with odd crystal-like fragments jutting from it's body. It isn't long before the two monsters, made of the same cells, are duelling to the death, and in a last gasp attempt to save Japan, the revamped Mogera, pilotted by Yuki, Shinjo and Sato, is launched to try and stop the monsters.
The plot of the movie seems to be where it takes the most flak, and while it's far from being perfect, I wouldn't say it's any worse than it's predecessor. While the entire mafia plot is introduced and dropped in as many minutes, at least the movie doesn't suffer from a problem of it being unclear who we are meant to be rooting for, and the human characters aren't completely moronic.
While the new Little Godzilla is a far cry from what it was a year ago, both in terms of size and look, the movie doesn't ever explain this, and to be honest, most of the film's biggest flaws revolve around this stupid cute little thing, which now looks more like Barney than Godzilla. You see, in the original version of the film, Godzilla tries to free Little Godzilla from the crystaline cage in which he is trapped, only to realise he must first destroy Spacegodzilla to remove the crystals. For some reason, the scene has been removed, so now Godzilla just goes to Fukuoka to fight Spacegodzilla, not to free his offspring.
The human element of this movie toys between being strong and weak at an alarming rate, I do have to admit, with this supposedly being Miki's time to shine, but she once again comes accross as under-utilised, and her chemistry-free romance with Shinjo could have been developed so much better. On the contrary, Dr. Gondo and Yuki not only provide a little seen link to a previous movie human character wise, but Yuki, the revenge driven lunatic, who ends up fighting Spacegodzilla, basically on the grounds that he doesn't want anyone but himself to kill Godzilla, is quite possibly the series most interesting human since...Goro Gondo, the man he is out to avenge. Actually having the main characters pilot the Mogera, putting them at risk, is something handled better than Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, and while the human enemies are offed too quickly, hey, at least they are defined.
The human cast, tough as it is to tell through the dubbing, all seem decent. Emoto is probably the biggest stand out quality wise, with Odaka failing to take her chance to prove why Miki should have been leading lady. The rest of the cast are ok, but for some reason Toho could only draw Kenji Sahara back for another cameo, sadly not dragging any other former series stalwarts back in for fan appeal.
What a lot of people seem to overlook about Spacegodzilla, is that while it may not be anywhere near the best movie in the series, it's fun. You've got 3 main monsters, each of which is involved in some great action sequences, and while Mogera is even more Power Rangers-esque than Mechagodzilla, on the whole, his design is cooler and his battle sequences more entertaining.
The monsters, apart from Little Godzilla, which is a bit too cute now, Spacegodzilla's monster cast is awesome.
This Godzilla suit, while appearing to have longer arms and a slightly chubbier head, was the first to be equipped with a mechanism to allow it to move it's head sideways as well as up and down, and for the most part during the course of the movie, the suit looks pretty good. Take note of the one excellent scene of Godzilla about to come ashore on Birth Island, which is a wonderful shot.
Spacegodzilla is on of Koichi Kawakita's coolest designs. A more evil looking Godzilla, with dark blue skin, a reddish belly, two large crystal spikes protruding out of his shoulders, crystal back-spikes and a yellow horn-like thing on his head, Spacegodzilla is about as evil and cool looking a foe as Godzilla could come accross. Lke Godzilla, he can shoot a beam from his mouth, but Spacegodzilla can also telekinetically lift objects, as well as protect himself with a crystal shield and fly.
While the stationary model used for the outer space flying scenes is pretty horrible, the monster's suit is awesome.
Mogera, loosely based on the robots from Toho's wonderful 1960's Sci-Fi effort The Mysterians, is also an excellent achievement. The grenade launcher arms are cool, and in general, the machine looks a lot more metallic and sleek than the action-figure like Mechagodzilla. This is another suit Kawakita can be proud of, and while it must have been hard to act inside of, it looks realistically robotic.
While the monsters look good, apart from Little G, sadly not all of the effects do. While I love the city in flames sets used for the film's climax, the outer space battle between Space Godzilla and Mogera is utterly cringe-inducing, shot entirely with stationary miniatures, this is the kind of scene people looked forward to being done right when Toho sold the rights to Godzilla to Tristar. As bad as this scene is, you have to at least commend the crew for attempting it.
The music in the film is, for the first time since Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah not performed by series maestro Akira Ifukube, with duties being handed over to Takayuki Hattori, whose themes are decent enough, but as with Godzilla Vs. Biollante, series producer Tomoyuki Tanaka inserted some of Ifukube's stock music to overall bolster the feel of the film. The music all fits, and while Hattori's themes for the monsters aren't as good as you would imagine Ifukube's to be, they do the job.
At the end of the day, I really don't see why Spacegodzilla gets such a bad rep from fans. Sure it isn't great, and both Godzilla Vs. Mothra and Godzilla Vs. Biollante leave it in the dust, but compared to the utterly stupid Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah, this is a masterpiece, and as I say, as a rather silly action adventure, I actually prefer it to Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla, mainly on the grounds it has cooler monsters, equally good action scenes and the fact that the shots of Fukuoka, decimated by hundreds of crystal spikes jutting from the ground, is effectively creepy.
While this certainly isn't a movie I would try to convert people to the series with, for Godzilla fans, I would ask them to give Spacegodzilla a fair shot. It's a decent movie with some cool monsters and good action sequences.
Year: 1994
Titles: Gojira VS Supesugojira
Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla
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