[HorrorScience] Terror of MechaGodzilla (1975)

Reading time: 6 minutes

Qualification

Mekagojira no Gyakushū

Year

1975

Duration

83 minutes

Director

Ishiro Honda

Distribution

Katsuhiko Sasaki, Tomoko Ai, Akihiko Hirata, Katsumasa Uchida, Goro Mutsumi, Toru Ibuki, Kenji Sahara, Tadao Nakamaru, Akinori Umezu, Toru Kawai, Ise Mori, Tatsumi Nikamoto

Script

Yukiko Takayama

And we finally arrive at the fifteenth film of the Showa stage, or in other words, the last of the classic series: Mekagojira no Gyakushū, known in the West as Terror of MechaGodzilla and that it will also be the 100th movie commented on this section.

The director of the latest films (Jun Fukuda) gives way to the director of the first ones, since for this film he returned Ishiro Honda, I guess to say goodbye to the monster.

Although it was the last of godzilla (something normal, after seeing the lack of success it had at that time) it does not seem that they considered making some type of special film where the most famous monsters would return, although the recent (and popular) MechaGodzilla was recovered.

The appearance of the robotic Godzilla places her immediately after Godzilla VS MechaGodzilla. Although it is true that the majority of the movie seems to focus on a new monster called Titanosaurus.

While the remains of MechaGodzilla are investigated an aquatic dinosaur makes an appearance and interrupts the mission. This enormous animal, known as Titanosaurus, was studied by Dr. Mafune years ago, but no one gave credibility to his work (apparently it is stupid to say that dinosaurs exist under the sea in Godzilla's world) and he ended up isolating himself from the scientific community.

[HorrorScience] Terror of MechaGodzilla (1975) — Titanosaurus, the debut monster

A researcher goes to Dr. Mafune's house to ask him about the dinosaur, but does not get much information, even though he strikes up a friendship with the daughter of the (supposedly) deceased doctor, who is helping aliens take over the world.

These aliens take control of the Titanosaurus and also the repaired MechaGodzilla, so all that remains is for the original Godzilla to appear and complete the trio of monsters that will close the film and the classic stage of the radioactive saurian.

The return of Honda and his team had to be noticed in Terror of Mechagodzilla, since the film has a darker tone than the previous ones directed by Jun Fukuda.

The story of Dr Mafune and his daughter's accident (as well as his actions at the end of the film) are quite dramatic for what we have been seeing in the saga recently, although They stay halfway when it comes to giving it a serious tone to the movie. This is because that story is mixed with little space men dressed in bright colors and with helmets worthy of astronaut toys from the 60s, but it doesn't stop there. The story of Mafune's daughter's accident is totally laughable (specifically the scene where they explain how he suffers) and Mafune himself behaves like a resentful child because no one paid attention to him and he keeps changing his mind, and when push comes to shove he does very little in the film. The protagonists are not wonderful either and the fact of introducing a very forced romance into the plot does not improve the final result.

If we jump to the monster scenes we find a somewhat more pleasant panorama. On the one hand, almost all the monster scenes are new (despite the reuse of some of them). Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla) and quite impressive (like the appearance of Titanosaurus in a low angle shot to give the impression that it is huge) although it is also true that most of the monster scenes are found in the final part of the film and that Godzilla and even Mechagodzilla seem to be secondary, since all attention is focused on Titanosaurus, which has a less outlandish design than Gigan or Megalon, but also seems much more harmless and weak (in fact, in the movie they claim that it is peaceful). Ifukube's soundtrack suits the final battle very well, it was missed.

In general terms, I found the film slower than the previous one. Puede que su historia intente ser más seria, pero también es más aburrida y sus personajes humanos no son suficientemente interesantes como para hacernos soportar tantos minutos sin monstruos en pantalla (de hecho la más interesante puede que sea la chica cyborg y tampoco creo que sea para tirar cohetes). Pese a estar por encima de Godzilla VS Mechagodzilla en algunas cosas, en general me parece que esta película es más aburrida que la dirigida por Jun Fukuda.

En cualquier caso, la película no solo no salvó a Godzilla de su destino sino que consiguió la cifra más baja de espectadores en el cine de toda la serie del monstruo. Tras años y años de hacer películas con prisas, de ahorrar dinero reutilizando escenas, de repetir mecánicas e ideas, de infantilizar la serie para atraer el público de Gamera y añadir cualquier cosa que estuviese de moda, la etapa Showa estaba finalmente muerta y Godzilla tuvo su merecido descanso hasta mediados de los años 80, donde empezó la etapa Hesei.

Curiosities about the film:

La película fue modificada varias veces en su llegada a occidente, en la primera se añadió una especie de “introducción” pero se mantuvo casi toda la película intacta. En la segunda modificación se eliminaron las escenas más violentas (incluyendo algunas importantes para la trama) para conseguir ser apta para público infantil.
Una de las escenas eliminadas en su versión occidental mostraba a la hija del doctor Mafune en top-less, la primera escena de este tipo en una Kaiju Eiga.