Stranger in His Own Franchise: Godzilla vs Megalon

In 1972, Toho held a contest to invent a new hero for them. The winner was, as you might expect from an elementary school entrant, a clone of popular characters of the day, only slightly different. Jet Jaguar was born. This is Godzilla becoming a victim of his creators' success. As I said in my entry about Daigoro vs Goliath, the Ultraman formula had become extraordinarily popular, and Toho's contest might have been a publicity stunt to assure the Tsuburaya Productins that they weren't stealing their idea. 1973's Godzilla vs Megalon was originally intended to be a vehicle exclusively for Jet Jaguar, but Toho got cold feet and decided to make it a Godzilla film in the midst of production. And it shows.



Toho had also realized that Godzilla films were more profitable as sellers of merchandise (George Lucas would discover hos astonishingly lucrative merchandising could be four years later) than they were as films. Films were more intended to keep the franchise alive and in the public eye. But Godzilla vs Megalon brought in less than a million viewers, a low point in the Godzilla history. Further, Ultraman and his clones were taking a lot of the audience from the Godzilla franchise, since they appeared every week on television for free. Why go to the movies to see what you could watch on television? Knowing this, the budget of the film was low, using a fair amount of recycled footage from previous film entries, and is pretty light on Godzilla. It's also the first time in a decade that a single kaiju film was released.

The plot? The Seatopians angry underworlders/sea people who are irritated because the upper world because they keep dropping nukes near them. So they steal the most advanced robot on the planet to guide their angry but stupid god, Megalon.



Megalon is just as weird as Gigan. He's a gigantic bug with some sort of energy-emitting antenna on his head, grenades that come out of his mouth, and drills for hands. He can fly. He doesn't actually flap the wings that get deployed, we as the audience just understand that he's got wings, so he flies. His drill-hands also allow him to tunnel rapidly. Basically, he's a gigantic design mess.



Jet Jaguar is a robot with a bigass grill grin, who looks like he was colored with crayon. Despite being programed with punch-cards he turns out to be self-programing. He can fly. Halfway through the film he enlarges himself to combat Megelon on equal footing. Ultraman does this using the Beta Capsule. Jet Jaguar does it because it's a trope, and his creators shrug and say his determination must have made him grow that big. This is completely indicative of the lazy writing for this installment of the franchise.



And boy, is it the seventies. This is the only Godzilla film with a Simon and Garfunkle reference. The Anglo dictator of Seatopia proudly shows off his hairy chest. Seatopia features liturgical dance of women in clear raincoats, go-go boots, billowy see-through hats, and bikinis underneath.



Probably the height of the production is the destruction of the dam. It tends to be mentioned in most reviews of the film, and it's a good, if all too brief sequence.



Nowhere is the recycled footage more apparent than in the air assault on Megalon. Not only does the sequence use footage from previous films (including Gigan's metallic claw swatting fighters), it does so multiple times, stretching the sequence out by showing us the same explosions two or three times. The same is true of his city-based rampage, which is drawn mostly from Invasion of Astro-Monster.

Our first glimpse of Godzilla, aside from a momentary appearance in the opening sequence, is forty-eight minutes into the eighy-three minute film. That's half the film in which Godzilla, whose name is the first on the title, doesn't appear. After a reversed shot from of him leaping into the ocean, stolen from Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, he then spends twenty-one more minutes minutes swimming and then walking to the fight.



The Seatopians, it turns out, have contacts amont the Hunter Nebula-M people, and ask if they can borrow their giant monster, as if it were a cup of sugar. Jet Jaguar is able to hold his own against Megalon, but when Gigan appears, he's overmatched. Luckily, somewhat like the reinforcements arriving at Gettysburg, Godzilla appears just as Jet Jaguar's getting his ass kicked. And, alone, he trashes both Gigan and Megalon.



But they villainous pair get a second wind, and it's on again. Godzilla hammers Megalon, as Jet Jaguar gets beaten on by Gigan. Godzilla and the robot gang up on the cyborg, and then this famous bit of silliness happens:



Twice. It's so silly that it was featured on MST3K's opening for a season and a half. But this isn't the climactic battle's worst attribute. It's that there is no progression to the fight. There are so many reversals that it has no meaning. Someone's winning, then they're losing, and then they're winning, then losing. It's all padding. In fact, the entire film feels like padding. The greatest failing of Godzilla vs Megalon is that the title character isn't actually involved in the plot. And it's easy to see that he got dropped into the film almost as an afterthought.



This is the first time Godzilla was not played by Nakajima. Shinji Takagi takes the role here, for the only time, although future Godzilla suit actor Kenpachiro Satsuma is agin the Gigan suit.

The real tragedy here is that for decades, Godzilla vs Megalon was what the American public throught a Godzilla film was. With poor access to home film until the middle eighties, Godzilla vs Megalon managed to fall into the public domain somehow, and therefore became a cheap TV staple.

Next up, we meet the first version of Godzilla's most dangerous foe.

Stupid? Or Advanced? Godzilla vs Gigan

Godzilla vs Hedorah was considered an artistic failure by Toho, even though it sold a quarter of a million more tickets. To re-establish the status quo, Toho brought Jun Fukuda in again. Fukuda's Gigan was much less expensive than Hedorah.

Godzilla vs Gigan acknowledges the rise of manga sequential art. If there's two things Americans know about Japan, it's Godzilla and manga. The main character is a struggling artist, the first scenes are of him trying to sell a concept to an editor. It's an interesting way to create metafiction; Gengo is creating monsters as symbols, something that the Godzilla films no longer do. The editor he's trying to sell to tells him that kids are too sophisticated for something as simple as a monster made of homework. Although metaphorical on one level, it's too superficial, too one-dimensional. The original Godzilla film works not just as a monster film, but as a film that allows the viewer to dig multiple interpretations out of it, should they try. Something as simple as a monster based on the fear of homework is unlayered, understood the first time around. That said, it sounds suspiciously like a Pokemon.



Of course, the aliens buy Gondo's one-dimensional monsters. They don't have the media savvy humans do. And of course the aliens are intent on taking over the Earth. They're from something called the M-Space Hunter Nebula, which seems like a long and ominous name for a celestial object. For all that this film is a rejection of Hedorah, it has a similar theme, and even pinches some footage from it. The M-Space Hunter Nebula Aliens (hereafter referred to as The Roaches because it's easier to type) have come from another planet that got polluted, and as a result, they're looking for another home. Like Earth. But the Roaches were not the species that polluted M-Space Hunter Nebula Planet. The humanoids all died, leaving the roach-like creatures to inherit the planet, and then go seeking a better one.



Another change in this film is the character of Tomoko Tomoe. She's pretty, and although in a subordinate role to Gondo, who hired her, a martial artist and an 'assistant' who keeps Gondo focussed. Despite being the muscle of the party, she's the one who screams and nearly faints when the Roachs' true form is revealed. And while she takes out bad guys in two scenes, she doesn't actually do much else. Like so many other women in Godzilla films, she fades into the background. But I'm grateful she at least got to beat up some bad guys.



Echoing a lot of the turmoil of the seventies, Gengo gets mixed up with a strange pair, Michiko and her weird hippy buddy Shosa. They're convinced that World Children's Land is something evil. They look like the desperately sincere college students cum fashion victims who latch onto causes. So the two of them team up with Gendo and Tomoko, forming a serviceable Scooby Gang.



Gigan is also famous for having Godzilla and Anguirus talk to each other. Monsters have talked with each other before. In Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, the shobijin translate a conversation between Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra. They're clearly using language. Here, each monster is provided with a cartoon-like speech bubble. In the American, version, each monster has a distorted voice. It's awful. But again, this ties in with the manga theme.



The use of stock footage in this film is much more competent than in the Gamera films or in previous Godzilla films. Instead of inserting entire sequences, Fukuda uses snippets, which allows him to draw from several films, and hide the fact that he's using it. Although there is a sequence taken from Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster that is carefully edited around Mothra, and Rodan.

This is not a good film for Ghodorah. I like Ghidorah. At his best, he's a wild dragon hammering away at everything in sight, chaos and destruction incarnate. In this, he is surprisingly immobile. The Ghidorah suit has some sort of beard or whiskers, and this serves mainly to show the attentive audience member when stock footage is being used.



Gigan is the first really weird monster to show up from Toho. Godzilla, Anguirus, even Ghidorah are all of a whole; gigantic creatures. Gigan seems to be a melding of technology and creature. It has large metal hooks instead of hands, and a buzzsaw in its belly. We are shown it using its belly-saw to cut into a building, but it's a giant monster. Why not just knowck the damn building down? Like many monsters, Gigan doesn't have an origin. Perhaps it was constructed or modified by the Roaches? Whatever, it's the first monster that really looks designed.



Godzilla spends a lot, and I mean a lot of time swimming. He is coming from Monster Island, and the film occasionally vuts from the destruction of Tokyo to Godzilla and Anguirus swimming. It's a bit of a waste, but i remember it being worse in Godzilla vs Megalon. The fight scenes are shot in such a way that they include more explosions than actual monster action. How the fight is actually going is a bit of a mystery, since the cinematography is so murky. This is a common way to shoot around actors who don't look good in fights.

The Godzilla tower is the center of the action, but only in the last half an hour is it revealed that it has lasers in its mouth. This feels like the beginning of the idea, or perhaps a branch off the idea, that leads to Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, in which Godzilla is confronted with a duplicate of itself.



The fight is primarily between Gigan, Godzilla, the Godzilla tower, and Aguirus. Ghidorah stands in the background, playibng goalie, perhaps. But the Godzilla Tower does a great job of keeping Godzilla down until the Scooby Gang, with the help of the military, blow the tower up. Even after that, he's pretty passive. Gigan picks him up and begins smashing him in the head with those hook arms of his. Godzilla doesn't get a second wind until his double, the Godzilla Tower, is destroyed.



In order to save money, the Godzilla suit is the same one that was used in Destroy All Monsters, All Monsters Attack, and Godzilla vs Hedorah. At the end of this film, bits are literally flying off the suit as the actor moves around in it.



Anguirus cements his reputation of Showa Godzilla's best buddy. They stand against Gigan, Ghidorah, and the Godzilla tower, much as he did in Destroy All Monsters. His new trick (never repeated outside of this film) is to fling himself backwards, smashing his opponent with his spiky back. It's not a convincing attack, but at least it gives the monster something more than just claws and bite to attack with.



The two evil monsters fly off, the Roaches are dead. All in all, it's a happy ending for the film. There's some interesting ideas underlying Godzilla vs Gigan, but the execution just doesn't keep my attention. The majority of the human action is dull, and the monster fight murky. It's not the best film, but the budget being what it was, this is understandable. But not all that re-watchable.

Next up, Tsuburaya celebrates ten years. And it's kind of weird.

In Gamera's Footsteps: Son of Godzilla

In Kaiju-fancying circles, 1966 and 1967 are referred to as the year of monther explosion. And with good reason. Six monster films were released in 1967, four from Japan, including two from companies that had never released a monster film previously, and two from Korea. While the quality of the results was mixed, to say the least, the Japanese movie-goer was spoiled for choice.

With Godzilla films on the wane, (sales plumetted nearly a million tickets between Ghidorah the Three-Dead Monster and Ebirah, Horror of the Deep) Toho decided to court the very same audience that the Gamera franchise was aimed toward: children. And what better way to target kids than to give Godzilla a son of his own? Ultimately, the strategy didn't work. If Toho thought the previous drop, a million ticket decline in two films was bad, Son of Godzilla sold a million less tickets than Ebirah.

In what could not possibly happen in an American film, we have a group of scientists conducting a secret experiment in order to better the world. Their aim is to make dry lands habitable, and at the same time realize that the technology could be abused by irresponsible or evil people. This is very different from the American view of scientists, whoch begins on a platform of mistrust. Even films or TV series that ostensibly favor brilliant scientists, such as Euraka, often show sceince as an inconsistent ally at best, and a barely-understood menace at worst. The Godzilla franchise, and Japan in general, has a more ambivalent view towards science and scientists. Even though the initial experiment goes rather awry, the island scientists continue their work.



The monster work is fairly unique. Eiji Tsubaraya only 'oversaw' the effects in Son of Godzilla, with Sadamasa Arikawa doing the daily work of putting the monsters on screen. And the results, overall, are good. The island mantises, Kamacuras, are large, menacing marionettes, an interesting change from the usual guy in a suit monsters. Kumonga, a giant spider, is also a marionette, and looks excellent.





The same cannot be said for Godzilla Junior, Minilla.



The creation of a junior Godzilla is problematic at best. Although this film brought in much less than the previous film, and the more adult-oriented extravaganza Destroy All Monsters at least didn't lose ground, Toho continued their disastrous course of making Godzilla films that were more and more aimed toward children. The same continued to be true into the Milenneum series. The adult-oriented Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack grossed close to twenty million dollars, doubling the take from Godzilla vs Megaguirus, and bringing in four million more than the the next film, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla. But Toho refuses to see the film as anything more the kids fare, to the detriment of the films, and to their own financial loss.

Minilla is an amalgamation of everything cute that the writer and director could think of. It coos like a baby, wags its tail like a dog, chases its parent's tail like a cat, has tantrums when it doesn't get its way. Minilla is everything that adults think kids want, and the result is overpoweringly saccarine in a film franchise that began as a metaphor for nuclear testing.



Godzilla doesn't look quite right, either. To make him look less threatening, he's got large eyes and a narrow head. The head of Haruo Nakajima looks like a goiter in Godzilla's throat.



Several of Jun Fukuda's favorite tropes return here. As with Ebirah, this island has a competent, wild jungle woman as a love interest. She has some control over Minilla, as the Red Bamboo had over Ebirah. Monster-control would be more fully developed in Ishiro Honda's Destroy all Monsters. Once again, a gigantic monster is buried on an island, although this time, it's Kumonga, rather than Godzilla.



And the monster action, when there is action, is pretty good. Godzilla lays the atomic smackdown on the Kamacuras and the Kumonga. However, there are long period in which he interacts with Minilla, acting as a father figure. How did the gigantic avatar of destruction come to be a father standing over his son?



Son of Godzilla is close to the worst of the Godzilla franchise. The human action is inane, the monster action, although there is a lot of it, is generally ruined by Minilla mugging, cowering, and making "adorable" noises. Next week, Gamera hits just about the same note.

Godzilla and the Giant Lobster: Ebirah, Horror of the Deep

Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, made in 1966, starts off borrowing a note from the original Godzilla, with the disappearance of a fishing boat. The laid-back attitude here is in stark contrast to the original, with people trying to push through to get news of their lost loved ones. Here, is serves as the impetus to try a crazy scheme to join a dance marathon to win a sailboat. This is typical of Godzilla's new direction, and certainly of his new director Jun Fukuda. Fukuda, who had been Honda's assistant director on Rodan, would direct some of the franchise's worst films, Godzilla vs Megalon and Godzilla vs Gigan. He would also write and direct the film that began Godzilla's recovery, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla.



Remember when I talked about the dances in Frankenstein vs Baragon? Early in the film, we have a character who is in a dance marathon, looking to win a sail boat. The script disposes with the usual scientists and reporters as main characters, replacing them with a failed dance marathoner of no determines occupation, a thief, and an Infant Islander.



The Red Bamboo, our antagonists, are an unlikely organization. They've got their own uniforms, a shitload of guys to throw around, jet planes, a nuclear reactor, and this isn't even their main base. The fat guy who sits on the not-throne comments about getting orders from headquarters. These guys have to be as wealthy as Bond's SPECTRE. And they're dumb. Kidnapping the people of Infant Island which is known to have a vengeful giant monster god? Incredibly dumb. Building a base on the island where Godzilla is sleeping? Colossally dumb.



This touches on Ebirah, Horror of the Deep's theme of monster control. Ebirah is kept away from the Red Bamboo ships by use of a yellow chemical, derived from bananas, called X-13. All boats that do not pump the X-13 overboard are attacked by the world's largest lobster. This is a contrast to Mothra, who voluntarily guards the inhabitants of Infant Island. Since Red Bamboo are entirely human, and have no mystical connection to Ebirah, they don't have the technology to fully control it. Which leads to their downfall.



The Peanuts do not return as the Shobijin this time around. The are replaced by "Pair Bambi" another set of musical Japanese twins. It seems that Mothra is asleep, and won't be wakened by the prayers of her subjects at the beginning of the film. Or perhaps she is no longer amused by the old man in the astonishing feather hat, who is absent from this film.



Masaru Soto replaces Akira Ifukube as the composer, and I find his musical invention jarring. There's a jaunty, modern aspect to every piece, whether it's attempting to be stealthy tension, or waiting for lightning to strike Godzilla. I find it undermines the feel of the film, even though Fukuda's direction trends towards a lighter, action-adventure film. The combat music often sounds like 50's beach music. Modern, I suppose, but it dates itself rather quickly, unlike the classical work of Ifukube.

Godzilla is at his most human and emotive, and it doesn't serve him well here. It comes across as goofy. And damn if he doesn't look like Cookie Monster from the side.



The Giant Condor that shows up is very strange, and about as well put together as the Giant Claw. It flies in to disturb Godzilla's nap for no apparent reason other than to give Godzilla something to fight. It could be an homage to King Kong, similar to the pterodactyl that tries to snatch Fay Wray. But it's not done nearly as well. It's two saving graces are that the sequence is short, and that it never shows up again.



The first encounter between Godzilla and Ebirah features some more of that rock throwing. This time, the rock is volleyed back and forth between the two giant monsters through the use of some creative animation. David Kalat sees this as an indicator of the original intent to use King Kong in the Godzilla part. I have to disagree. Rock kicking and throwing has been with the franchise since King Kong vs Godzilla, and showed up in Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster.





Kalat sees the lightning strike as stengthening Godzilla, as it did with Kong in King Kong vs Godzilla, but I can't say I see evidence of that. The lightning strikes waken the sleeping Godzilla, but I don't see anything, even in dialog, to indicate that it makes him stronger. In fact, when he encounters the hundred thousand volt electrical wires that surround the Red Bamboo base, he staggers back for a moment. He finds a rock to destroy the tower with, and with that, he's free to rampage across the base.



The Ebirah suit looks pretty good, a gigantic shrimp, with nobby armored plates and a pair of vicious claws. Unfortunately, the brightly-colored unsubtle direction does it no service, and good design and suit acting drown in a rising tide of uninteresting direction.



Kalat is very positive about the role of Dayo, the native girl who escapes the Red Bamboo. I am not to happy. She shows toughness when she is introduced, but then quickly becomes a silent partner in the business, following the men. She has to be rescued from Godzilla, she often stumbles as she runs.

In the end, Godzilla tears Ebirah's claws off. Returning to the island, he tries to pick a fight with Mothra, but she will have none of it. As Mothra bears the escaped slave labor off the island, our heroes consider that Godzilla has done them no harm, so they shout at him to get off the island before the nuclear powerplant goes critical. And he does, leaping into the sea just before detonation.







Overall, Ebirah, Horror of the Deep is on the downward slide of the Showa Godzilla franchise. Jun Fukuda lacks Ishiro Honda's deftness. The script is uninteresting, more about the wacky adventures of the humans than their interactions with the monsters. The suitimation combats are pretty good, aside from the Giant Condor. This is not one of the classic Godzilla films, and really doesn't add much to the franchise.

Next up, Gamera and the amazing technolcolor rainbow!