#15: Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla

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by Terickel

by Terickel

I didn't have a strong dislike for this movie back in the day but it was one of the ones I was kind of less excited to catch on TV than most Godzilla movies and I'm not completely sure why. Could be because I was what might be called 'unimpressed' by King Caesar / Shisa / whatever as a monster – mostly because I found the laser redirecting eyes thing a little too weird even for Godzilla at the time. Or maybe I was upset about Anguirus, after all I did dislike King Kong for decades because of the dinosaur death toll. Still I was fond enough of monster team ups that I forgave those more or less, but the movie just wasn't ever a favorite. Godzilla making himself into a magnet was also weird but didn't bother my younger self as much as laser redirecting eyes.

Having seen it again I think it has the opposite issue as Godzilla vs Gigan in my memory – I recall the impression of a long, drawn-out battle in this movie but it's actually fairly short, probably because MechaGodzilla is just too nasty a thing for a battle to be all that drawn out. If nothing else MechaGodzilla's brutality made a mark on my young psyche, kept referring to it as a 'psychopath' or whatever misused phrase was currently indicating violent and unhinged at the time for much of my life.

Now having watched it again as an adult my main take away is that there are an awful lot of convenient appearances of 'some new guy with a gun' for a movie this length. It's the first movie where I really couldn't keep up with the characters, it sure feels like there were a lot of them.

Is it me or is really weird that these aliens just happen to know that this one particular local legend of a monster is true? Well, it's the Godzilla setting, I suppose it's safer to assume that all monster stories are real just in case, but they're pretty invested in trying to not fight the movie's new monster. I guess they could know enough to predict the sun's mirror image was going to happen when it did and stuff, but it's proving a bit hard to reconcile for me.

Still, not like I'd call it a bad movie though it's a little grim in regards to kaiju damage, it's limited by the fact they weren't out to permanently disfigure any suits I guess.

I still don't like watching the bit with Anguirus but I guess if Destroy All Monsters has yet to happen then he does heal. Hmm, for such an important movie I didn't come up with much to say. Oh, when the Godzilla disguise comes off MechaGodzilla and Godzilla gives that little confused head tilt is pretty amusing.