Katsuhiko Sasaki | Through the Shattered Lens

“Godzilla has been erased from time …. but now, King Ghidorah is here!”

Whoops! I guess you all shouldn’t have traveled back in time and kept that dinosaur from mutating into Godzilla then!

1991’s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah was the 18th film in the Godzilla franchise and, because the Back To The Future franchise was very popular in Japan at the time that the film was made, it has a plot that revolves around time travel. A group called The Futurians appear in 1990s Japan. They explain that, by the year 2204, Godzilla will have destroyed all life in Japan. However, they have a plan. They’ve built a time machine and they will be going back to 1944 so that they can remove Godzilla from his island home before the nuclear testing begins. For some reason, the Futurians take a few people from the 90s back with them.

After witnessing a dinosaur stepping on a World War II American army platoon, the Futurians arrange for the dinosaur to be transported to the Bering Strait, where it won’t get doused with radiation. Meanwhile, they secretly leave behind three adorable baby dragons that, once nuclear testing begins, will end up being transformed into King Ghidorah.

It turns out that Futurians are liars! I’m shocked too. In 22o4, Japan is actually the most powerful country in the world and it is so economically strong that America, Russian, and Europe are dependent upon it for their survival. The Futurians were just jealous of what a great country Japan was destined to become so they decided to get rid of Godzilla and instead allow King Ghidorah to destroy the country.

Now, if the Futurians were smart, they would have actually destroyed the dinosaur. Instead, they just sent it to the Bering Strait. And if the Futurians were really smart, they wouldn’t have allowed people in 1991 to know what they were doing. To be honest, all of the mistakes made by the Futurians were self-inflicted. By taking people from the 90s back to the past and letting them see where the dinosaur was sent, they basically ensured that those people would immediately go to the Bering Strait in 1991 and give the dinosaur a dose of radiation so that it would become Godzilla and then battle Ghidorah….

WHAT!?

Yeah, I know. It makes no sense. This is one of the least logical Godzilla films that I’ve ever seen and that’s saying something. Godzilla vs Biollante was loved by critics but it was considered to be a disappointment at the box office. For the follow-up, the producers not only brought back a classic Godzilla opponent (and I did smile when the three-headed Ghidorah showed up because he really was the most awesome member of Godzilla’s supporting cast) but they also came up with a plot that was considerably more juvenile than the previous film. The end result is a film that makes no sense from a narrative point of view but it does at least feature a few good fights between Godzilla, Ghidorah, and a robot version of Ghidorah. And it was also a film that did well enough at the Japanese box office to guarantee that Godzilla would return.

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Megchagodzilla has returned!

The robot version of Godzilla, Mechagodzilla made his debut in 1974’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. In that film, it was revealed that Mechagodzilla was built and controlled by a bunch of aliens who wanted to use him to subjugate humanity so that the aliens could take over the Earth. The real Godzilla put an end to those plans, not only saving the world from an alien invasion but also tossing Mechagodzilla into the ocean.

Unfortunately, it would appear that Godzilla didn’t do a good enough job taking care of his robotic counterpart because, in 1975’s Terror of Mechagodzilla, the aliens are able to resurrect Mechagodzilla and they once again sent it out to destroy humanity, starting with Japan. Working with the aliens is a mad scientist named Dr. Mafune (Akihko Hirata). Mafune’s daugther, Katsura (Tomoka Ai0), is a cyborg who has a mechanical and mental connection to Mechagodzilla. Whenever her eyes glow, Mechagodizlla does something destructive. The aliens team Mechagodzilla up with a new monster, the fearsome Titanosaurus.

Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus work together to once again destroy Japan and it must be said that they appear to be quite capable of doing just that. Say what you will about the special effects in these films, the scene where Mechagodzilla blows up an entire city block does pack a punch. If Mechagodzilla is laser-focused on blowing stuff up, Titanosaurus just seems to be looking for a fight with someone. Titanosaurus is a very enthusiastic monster, like a previously bullied kid who has just hit a growth spurt and now can’t wait to beat up everyone on the playground. Eventually, Godzilla shows up to give Titanosaurus the fight that he’s looking for.

This film is one of the ones where Godzilla is firmly established as being humanity’s champion. The atomic beast who once represented the trauma of the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki is now a friend to all humans. That said, it’s hard not to notice that it takes Godzilla a while to actually show up. He allows Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus to blow up a lot of buildings and probably kill a lot of people before he finally puts in an appearance and orders them to stop. It’s nice that Godzilla showed up in time to save a group of children from Mechagodzilla but you have to wonder how many of those children are now orphans because Godzilla wasn’t willing to do anything while Mechagodzilla was blowing up apartment buildings.

The majority of this film centers not on Godzilla but instead on some Interpol agents who are trying to figure out what the professor and the aliens are planning on doing. (To me, it seemed pretty obvious that the aliens were planning on using a bunch of giant monsters to destroy humanity but maybe Interpol had some information that I didn’t.) The agents do eventually manage to track down the aliens and the professor. There’s some sub-James Bond style action as the agents attack the evil lair. Despite everything that Interpol does in this film, it’s obvious that Godzilla is man’s only hope.

This was the last of the original Godzilla films. After this film came out, it would be nearly ten years before the monster was revived and returned to once again being a threat to humanity as opposed to being a friend. Sadly, Terror of Mechagodzilla doesn’t feature enough giant monster action. When the monsters are onscreen and fighting, this movie is a lot of fun. Godzilla’s visible frustration with having to deal with Mechagodzilla again is very endearing. Unfortunately, the majority of the film gets bogged down with the humans searching for the bad guys and trying to figure out their extremely simple plot. In the end, the movie leaves the viewer thankful for Godzilla but also frustrated that he didn’t get more to do.

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