Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

G?  This movie is rated G?  I'm actually writing this parental advisory section before actually finishing the movie because I needed to remind myself, when I write this later, that there was straight up nudity for longer than a little bit.  I wondered if this, potentially, was the first R-rated Godzilla movie.  I mean, they straight up murdered a guy by shooting him a whole bunch of times.  WITH GUNS!  Like, it seems strange that this is the one Godzilla where I'm writing "G" for "General audiences."

NOTE:  The American cut apparently removed the nudity and the blood.  I now understand the "G" rating.

DIRECTORS:  Ishiro Honda and Jun Fukuda

And I'm done with the box set?  I mean, I keep looking at the box set and marvelling at the fact that I finally finished it.  There's a fleeting feeling of success when I think that I've finished this box set.  Besides having watched something that I own and the fact that it costs a lot of money to own, I have to remember that there are a lot more Godzilla movies out there.  I set out with the purpose of becoming Godzilla literate.  In my head, Godzilla is part of the cultural zeitgeist.  There are people who adore these movies and I didn't want to dismiss them.  The crazy part is that I don't necessarily hate kaiju movies.  I have a handful that I think are amazing amazing films.  But when I watch a superhero movie, it has to be pretty bad for me to completely dislike it.  I think that, at the format's base, I don't really like kaiju movies.  In fact, they have to be pretty darned special for me to actually care about them.

Terror of Mechagodzilla is an improvement on its predecessor.  I really hated Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.  It was a low point for me.  Like, if I see Jun Fukuda's name attached to a movie, I'm in for some real schlock.  These are the things that Mystery Science Theater would riff during the height of the show.  These were rough movies and Terror of Mechagodzilla can definitely be lumped into that era.  Again, I want to point out that this movie is way better than Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla.  The biggest problem is that it doesn't try retconning anything in any way.  This movie is a direct sequel to the previous film.  When the foundation for a movie is that bad, it might take a lot to fix it.  

I don't know why I don't like the heavy shift to space aliens as a regular conceit for each of these films.  It seems like the movies try to avoid confrontation as much as they can.  At one point, these aliens complained about pollution and, as thinly constructed as a talking point as those moments were, they at least were something.  There was something to invest in.  But we're at a point in the franchise where these movies are exclusively spectacle and even the spectacle isn't that good.  I'm getting kind of tired of writing this point over and over, but these human stories are just excuses to stretch out a movie that is about people in rubber suits punching each other.  I want these stories to matter more.  I think that Godzilla movies live and die based on the human storyline and Jun Fukuda keeps making these stories that are so trope heavy that we stop caring about humans.

That being said, if I'm being a little forgiving, there are seeds of a story to care about in Terror of Mechagodzilla.  (Before I forget, it's really weird that this movie is called Terror of Mechagodzilla because, despite being a sequel, Mechagodzilla himself is barely a character in this movie.  This movie's villain is primarily the Titanosaurus or whatever he's named.)  Let's strip away all of the Interpol and scientist drama that come part and parcel with Godzilla movies.  (It's really weird how much these movies embrace Interpol as an organization.  The newer movies aren't much better because they embrace the secret organization "Monarch.")  But there is a root of a story with a scientist who is trying to keep his daughter alive.  I mean, the fact that Dr. Mafune (a great name!) is arch about getting revenge on the human population is absurd.  It's very comic book villain and I'm a fan of comic books.  But the fact that this is a girl who is (and I love how this is an example of something human that we can relate to) being held together as a cyborg and losing pieces of herself.  That's a story that at least is interesting.  I don't know.  This all seems very subjective.  But I'm going to pat myself on the back and say that I'm trying to find redeeming things in these movies.  The fact that she's struggling to hold onto her own humanity (and if I'm stretching here, not wholly unlike Obsession) gives me something to root for.  It doesn't involve stumbling upon an answer through luck.

And Terror of Mechagodzilla does what a lot of the kaiju movies I've been watching do.  These movies are based on the heroes rallying to solve a problem.  Like, Godzilla loses until he doesn't.  He's just there.  He gets buried at one point and then he's not buried.  It's not like someone figured out how to rescue Godzilla or that Titanosaurus had some kind of hidden flaw that was exposed.  Nope.  The movie's runtime was getting short and then the bad guys just started to suck.  I want to get behind these movies because I'm sure that superhero movies tend to do the same thing.  But maybe the bigger problem that I have with kaiju movies versus superhero movies is the notion of intended sacrifice.  I'm going to use a panned superhero movie (despite the fact that I really enjoyed it) as a comparison.  I really liked Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania.  I know.  Crazy.   A lot of people said that Kang had to be nerfed for someone like Ant-Man to even stay in the ring with him.  But that's what I really like about the movie.  Ant-Man is outmatched from moment one in that movie.  What the story becomes, then, is a story of self-sacrifice.  Scott knows that he's going to lose.  So to fight against someone like Kang, the story becomes one of "how do we both lose", not "how do I rally and win?"   When Scott survives that, it's a reward for the fact that he was expecting to lose and was willing to give it all up for the common good.  I never get that with Godzilla.  While there is no reason for Godzilla to fight these battles outside of an assumed love of humanity (despite what the earlier entries talk about), he's always there as the reigning champion.  So when he comes out as the reigning champion, it's not a turn.  It's expected.

I don't want to write about this anymore.  To a certain extent, it is just another Showa-era Godzilla film.  There are moments that are shot better than other entries in the franchise.  It's weird to see humans get shot to death. But it's just another nonsensical Godzilla movie where Godzilla wins for no reason.  Just because it's better than the previous entry doesn't mean it's any good.