Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)

Rated G, but it's now mind-boggling that it is technically a G-rated movie.  I'm going to give this movie a bit of pass.  The only reason that this movie could get an R-rating is because it was made way before the concept of Blu-ray and high definition video existed.  The bad guys, at one point, decorated the interior of their cab with pornographic imagery.  I'm sure that in its original rough looking film print that the nudity was probably blurry at best.  But in blu-ray?  Man, it's weird how much nudity is in this kids' movie.  Also, Gigan is in the movie and he likes making Godzilla bleed.  Still, G.

DIRECTORS:  Jun Fukua, Yoshimitsu Banno, and Ishiro Honda

Oh, I'm genuinely concerned about writing this.  Straight up anxiety.  What do I say about a movie that has had a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode spoofing it.  My goodness, what have I done with my life.  I have to write about this movie because the plan is to see Disclosure Day tonight, finish Jeanne Dielman tomorrow, and catch Supergirl this weekend.  Even worse, I watched this a few days ago and I just haven't had time to log it.  There is so little outside of vague griping to write about.  Like this film, there isn't much quality to be found here.

Episodic film really has become a problem.  It's honestly slightly a bummer that Criterion releases the entire runs of these episodic films.  When I say "episodic", I mean that the same team of filmmakers are making annual (or, sometimes, multiple films a year) films in hopes to capture on audience goodwill.  I know.  We're looking at 1973.  It's not like there's incredible big-budget sci-fi on television that people are tuning into right now.  (That could easily be disputed, but I'm making a point about stories being an hour-and-a-half on a big screen.)  I'm sure that audiences were probably jazzed every time that there was an announcement at all related to Godzilla.  But we're in some real dregs here.  I'm going to have a very similar complaint that I had with Godzilla vs. Gigan when it comes to Godzilla vs. Megalon because its the same people making two sequels within a year of each other.

I am always going to be in the camp that Godzilla films leave or die based on the human element.  After all, Godzilla vs. Megalon proves that the kaiju fights are absolutely arbitrary because they showed the same footage of Japan being destroyed that they used in Godzilla vs. Gigan.  Like, don't make your sets so specific if you are planning to reusing them.  I think we all noticed that MobilOil gas station blowing up over and over again.  Also, the melting tanks?  You can't say that people are showing up for the spectacle if the same spectacle is being used over and over again.  So if you are going to release another Godzilla film so close to the first one, there has to be something new to offer.

And this movie's human element is a straight up disaster.  First of all, all dudes.  Like, this movie strayed so far from a then-non-existent Bechdel test that it's laughable.  But let's put that aside because this movie hasn't deserved that level of scrutiny.  This movie is just nonsense.  Like, the entire point of this movie was to get some Tokusatsu (I had to look this up) action on screen.  I'm going to try to explain this movie, but it really involves some mental gymnastics to find even basic foundational support to tell a story.  A guy and his little brother work / live in a lab.  A lab...for making ROBOTS!  And there's a spy guy action hero or something that is either just the guy's friend or --if you have any understanding of queer theory --is the guy's friend.  The underwater sea kingdom of Seatopia --not Atlantis -- is mad that the surface world is still playing it fast and loose with nuclear weapons, decides to steal the robot from the lab.  That robot is named Jet Jaguar.  

I'm going to stop the summary here because I hate summarizing and I've already run into the biggest problem in the movie.  Why does the underworld kingdom of Seatopia need Jet Jaguar?  How do they even know about Jet Jaguar?  It seems like the inventors creating Jet Jaguar weren't even really done with him until the exact moment that the story started.  He hadn't gone through any test runs?  They sent Megalon to destroy Tokyo and Jet Jaguar was supposed to lead him there?  But, it really seems like that's a lot of heavy lifting and risky choices just to get this kaiju to attack the right spot.  And it didn't even work.  All it did was bring Godzilla to fight Megalon.  This really seemed like a backwards idea that was thrown in the movie.

But, that's the whole movie.  Honestly.  It seems like there would be a few more curveballs. Maybe Jet Jaguar gets big through the power of determination, but there is nothing that makes this movie a movie.  Even basic structure is missing from their movie.  (I'd also like to point out that I started watching the Mystery Science Theater episode devoted to this film and there was so little story that the bots kind of lacked jokes.  That also was a byproduct of the Joel era.  Sorry, Mr. Hodgson.)  I am almost mad at this movie because it's just capitalism without art.

I don't hate the idea of a Jet Jaguar.  I'm 50/50 on whether he shows up again in the final two discs of the box set.  Bu tthere needs to be purpose behind some of these decisions.  This movie feels aggressively soulless.  The characters don't really have any characterization behind them besides rudimentary archetypes.  I don't really know any personal stakes for any of these characters besides the fact that Japan will once again get destroyed and they might not be able to get their robot back.  One thing that always bothered me about The Lost World: Jurassic Park is that it was a toyetic film. It was made to sell toys.  (Sorry, Mr. Spielberg.  I'm still excited to see Disclosure Day.)    But at least The Lost World attempted to make a great movie that was also toyetic. I don't think anyone cared about this movie.  It's recycled footage from the previous films coupled with a cool toy character that is a brightly colored robot.  Golly, if there was a throughline of story between these films, this movie would have added nothing to the thin tapestry that is Godzilla.

I'm going to call it here.  I have nothing else to say.  This movie is bad.  I thought I was going to give it one-and-a-half stars so I wasn't going to be bitter about it.  But, honestly, it might be a rare one star.  It's so bad.  Like, writing about it made me a little more mad about the whole thing.