The History of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002)

[Music] 2002's godzilla against mechagodzilla directed by masaki taizuka that's right mr tazuka was back in the director's chair after the less than well-received godzilla vs mechaguiras and in my own opinion he proceeds to create what almost amounts to a sequel if not a literal redo of his previous godzilla attempt kaniko would not return as toho had a more family-friendly film in mind than the slightly horror-oriented gmk that released a year before if you're gonna have godzilla movies released alongside hamtaro during the holiday season things couldn't be too bleak back when gmk was being made tezuka stayed on to help rather than go off and do something else in bitterness shogu tomiyama noticed heizuka's humble nature and that's a big reason why he had no problem giving the man another shot at godzilla originally i assumed maybe taizuka learned something from kanako but he would say this i didn't learn anything at all it was more like giving him the support because we are the same age and we assist and directed on the same movie together but personality wise we're totally opposite he's very serious i'm not so serious if a godzilla film summed up tezuka's personality it would be king kong vs godzilla tezuka's favorite godzilla film fun and not too serious that was his style the first godzilla definitely is a masterpiece but king kong vs godzilla is my favorite interestingly in 2002 daiyi the company that produced the gamer films was bought by katokawa and apparently a representative of kadukawa approached touhou about co-producing a godzilla vs gamera film but toho said no i couldn't find the reason for why they said no but possibly because they had their own plans according to touhou historian david khalid tomiyama planned to make three more godzilla movies a trilogy that would revolve around the japanese self-defense force using the bones of the original godzilla to build a mechagodzilla the third and final movie of this proposed trilogy would be an idea tomiyama passed on during the heisei era having godzilla fight godzilla i mean i guess you can't have too many godzillas they uh come from a culture that values honor and respect and godzilla [Music] that proposed third film would be to celebrate godzilla's 50th birthday but according to tezuka there was no initial plan to make a sequel to godzilla against mechagodzilla this seems to conflict with khalid's telling of tomiyama's plan but anyway tezuka would get to work on the next godzilla film titled godzilla against mechagodzilla using the basic premise of the godzilla bones in the mecca the initial script was written by an outside writer and was quickly rejected crap crap mega crab so they went with a more reliable source writer wateru mimira who wrote godzilla vs mechagodzilla 2 godzilla 2000 and mega gears some of the initial ideas would be dismissed by tomiyama as too violent and not sensitive enough for the family-oriented feel toho was going for when the final screenplay was finished we would see a movie that takes a lot from godzilla versus mechaguiras one thing was clear tezuka couldn't be happier when he was making a godzilla film this movie begins with a familiar theme [Music] michiro oshima returns to compose the music her score in godzilla vs mega gears was one of the things critics did praise oshima keeps godzilla's theme from that movie she says the drums in the beginning are supposed to be like godzilla's footsteps she said she was annoyed that in the previous movie whenever there were prominent sound effects her score wasn't loud enough to break through so this time she went all out going to russia and having the moscow international symphony orchestra record the music the city of tatayama is godzilla's target now and we see blue screen being used to have godzilla rise out of the water oh and we see our friend from godzilla 2000 takahiro morata make a brief cameo after one movie break godzilla suit actor tutomu kitagawa returns to play the kaiju star tv and he also has a little cameo inside the mazer tank alongside him in the mazer tank is fellow suit actor hirofumi ishigaki who we'll talk about a little later godzilla in this movie is the second generation godzilla of this movie's continuity and it's similar to the first two millennium era godzilla's in terms of behavior and design though the skin is back to the original charcoal color and its dorsal fins aren't as crazy as the 2000 design i'd say the most notable attribute of the eyes which i'm not really a fan of we do get some great scenery and composite shots with godzilla marching in the rain seriously there's just some beautiful looking moments in this opening segment though the extras in this scene weren't too convincing and seem to be having a blast at the prospect of dying this girl's having the time of her life they're actually hard scenes to shoot back when ishiro honda was shooting the original godzilla movies they were able to gather around 500 to 600 extras with payment but with the ever declining japanese movie budget we have to ask for the die hard godzilla fans to show up and we would give them the little lunch box and the t-shirt with godzilla on them we see what is called the anti-megalosaurus force or amf on the move to defend japan from godzilla's attack another equivalent to g-force and the countless other godzilla organizations in subsequent movies after the usual ineffective barrage of conventional weaponry they bring out their main weapon the good old mazer tanks that we know and love we're also introduced to our female protagonist akane yashiro played by yumiko shaku shaku was a model turned actress and though she plays a very serious character here she's apparently a bubbly person in real life this became apparent in the 2020 documentary about the women of godzilla films called godzilla's leading ladies directed by takashi yagi where shaku arrived on the set in her full kiru squad outfit and had a very lively personality according to a review we see the mazer tank is unable to stop godzilla and an all too familiar scene plays out our protagonist is involved in an accident that gets her comrades killed and it's a pretty bad way to go for these guys getting crushed by godzilla but of course it's hard not to notice this entire first scene plays out almost exactly like godzilla vs mega gears the movie then cuts to the aftermath of godzilla's attack and the japanese government as they try to figure out what to do about him a flashback scene begins and we learn that everything from the original godzilla happened however unlike the original the first generation godzilla's bones actually remain intact kitagawa would also be credited as playing the original godzilla in the flashback scene as well and at first i thought this was just some bad cg but nope there's a real suit being used here two godzilla veterans returned prime minister machiko tsuge who was originally supposed to be a male character is played by show era legend kumi mizuno who brought the sex appeal to some of those early touhou monster films then we have akira nakawa who made his name in the heisei era as commander aso here he plays the minister of science and technology hayato igarashi and later on becomes prime minister as i've mentioned this movie has a lot in common with godzilla vs mega gears but really this movie borrows from all the millennium films so far in some ways igarashi even mentions that godzilla put a curse on japan a little bit like the mysticism of gmk the prime minister laments japan's troubled history with giant monsters referencing the events of mothra and war of the gargantuas to the delight of i'm sure a lot of show era fans we'd later see the kiru saga would reference other showa era films as well the 2016 book godzilla against type 3 kiru mecha godzilla completion adds even more to this movie's continuity stating that the japanese self-defense force did battle with kumanga angerus gigan and king ghidorah the book also states that our old pal angelus aka angaris aka penguinosaurus was originally supposed to appear in this film but of course this was rejected because let's be honest nobody respects poor endurance the plan the japanese government comes up with to stop godzilla is a pretty wild one they bring in their leading scientists to build the mega godzilla except they want to build it around the bones of the original godzilla from 1954. this is a pretty ingenious way of bringing back the original godzilla without actually doing it the prime minister is met with criticism and questions from the reporters wondering if the world may view this as japan rearming itself since world war ii's end japan is seemingly always stuck in this situation and we've seen it time and time again come up in godzilla films just the hint of them building their military up or even posturing in an offensive manner gets their neighbor's attention partly because their constitution technically doesn't allow for them to possess the ability to wage war however the changing times in geopolitics allowed for japan to build defense forces with the us's blessings the united states absence from a lot of godzilla films is curious considering the large military presence there and their close ties with japan the key to getting this mechagodzilla working is scientist tokumitsu yahara played by shin takuma professor yuhar's first scene shows his work on a trilobite which also happens to be the creature found in godzilla's footprint in 1954's film tapima last appeared in a godzilla film back in 1984 as the return of godzilla playing hiroshi playing his daughter sarah is kana onodera and both her and takuma do a great job making their characters likeable and there's some pretty comedic moments between the two especially when the scientist continuously fails to hit on no kane originally there was supposed to be akane and another female hero in the film but instead that character became sarah sarah takes care of a dancing plant throughout the film i was wondering what this was supposed to mean and taizuka would say that the plant symbolizes the missing mother's presence in her life in a scene where sarah is walking with friends one of them has a pet hamster and i'm pretty sure this is a nice little nod to godzilla's new best double billing buddy hamtaro in fact the girl holding the hamster cage and this part is dressed exactly like the main character of hamtaro sarah and her dad moved to the military base to begin constructing the mechanical godzilla doppelganger a four-year time skip occurs and during those four years akane now stuck at a desk job as punishment for her role in her comrade death continues to train hard that's when you need to put yourself to the test and show us a passage of time we're gonna need a montage the scientists led by yuhara slowly make progress on building mechagodzilla and igarashi becomes prime minister despite a similar backstory to tsujimori from megaguiris akane's character has to face a lot more consequences for her actions and deal with the negativity directed at her from her comrades the brother of one of the guys she accidentally got killed constantly rags on her and this sets up some good moments for our county to shine as to why taizuka chose female protagonists for both films i like women simple enough akane is asked to join the kira squad and she's put through rigorous training supposedly shaku needed to do intravenous between takes to make sure she didn't pass out from all the exercise lieutenant togashi the kiru squad commander is played by ko takasugi who seems like he's ripped straight out of an anime with his commanding voice togashi consistently has akane's back throughout the film not only do you get to pilot mechagodzilla when you're in the kiru squad but you get to wear this awesome hat seriously i'd probably buy this hat while everyone is doing their thing and trying to stop godzilla dr yuhara is trying his damnedest to get a piece of akane and he puts the moves on [Music] uh he tried it after akane completely ignores him it's sarah that bonds with the silent and serious akane according to tezuka he preferred masato's tanakas tsujimori character in godzilla vs megagiris over shaku's okane because he felt akane was too dark kira's name comes from the kanji characters ki and rue which translates to machine dragon kiru is a cyborg mecca built by the amf and was created with quote-unquote dna computers these were designed to have the mecca operate like a living thing as we will see this has some unintended consequences in this movie kira's abilities include twin major cannons rockets and its most powerful weapon and possibly one of the most powerful weapons we've seen in godzilla right up there with the oxygen destroyer and the black hole gun it's the absolute zero cannon though this beam takes almost half of kiro's energy it instantaneously freezes the target to absolute zero thus making it crumble afterwards yeah this guy gets it kiru has other abilities as well that it uses in the final battle the biorobot is piloted from the outside by the shira sagi which is also used to transport it multiple artists submitted designs for this new mechagodzilla ultimately it was nishikawa's design that would be used and he would compare it to the monster c bozu from ultraman nishikawa had also helped with the designs for biolante and space godzilla a scale model was built first and actually we see it in the film briefly here the suit itself would be built under the supervision of shinichi wakaza plain kiru was hirofumi ishigaki who was also known for his role in the super sentai series a lot of super sentai connections with godzilla conveniently just as kiru is completed and being showed off godzilla appears setting up our first confrontation between the two before the big fight gets started we see japanese and eventual american baseball star hideki matsui making a cameo with a bunch of kids playing baseball it's a nice touch as matsui would sign with the new york yankees a few days after this movie's release in december of 2002. it was also fitting for matsui to appear in a godzilla movie in his junior year his classmates started calling him godzilla as he weighed close to 200 pounds and was six feet tall though i did read some articles that pointed out that his nickname was also in reference to the acne he suffered from and the remaining scars and as we know godzilla has scarred skin as well the nickname would stick on his way to america and whenever he would hit a home run for the yankees the legendary radio broadcaster john sterling would say a thriller by godzilla matsui would also use blue oyster cult's godzilla song for his walk-up music at one point toho's lawyers would threaten to sue the yankees as vendors at yankee stadium were selling inflatable godzilla replicas in honor of matsui while on the topic of baseball and please skip ahead to the below timestamp if you don't care about baseball whenever the hell japan decides to open its borders again i recommend making time to see a napon professional baseball game not only is there an amusement park outside the tokyo dome and boy does that beat the scenery of the chop shop surrounding city field but there's also a lot of noticeable differences simply from a fan experience for one thing the fans don't boo but they make a lot more noise in support of the team even when nothing interesting is even happening on the field they also have a fans only section where only fans of the home team can sit which is an amazing idea when you really want that home field advantage feel to a game something that's been lost in the era of stubhub but perhaps the most notable difference is that instead of men walking around selling beer and peanuts they have beer girls walking around pouring your drinks no complaints from me anyway enough ranting about sports back to godzilla the music and the wide shot of the two monsters getting ready to battle is perfect kenji suzuki did not return a special effects director according to tezuka he expressed interest but tezuka said no the reason being that weird jump godzilla did in godzilla vs mega gears didn't sit well with tezuka so yuichi kikuchi who started his career in effects with gamera 3 would helm special effects for this film kiru's opening salvo does absolutely nothing to godzilla he doesn't even flinch it's the mazer cannon and kira's mouth that finally seems to do something but this is all of course just them [ __ ] around before unleashing the absolute zero cannon not sure why they don't just use this right away but i guess that wouldn't be dramatic just as they're about to turn godzilla into a popsicle he lets out a roar that affects kiru and probably one of the coolest moments in godzilla history happens the roar itself awakens the soul spirit or i guess dna of the original godzilla and akane is now no longer in control of the mecca but the monster that once flattened tokyo almost 50 years ago holds the reins kikuchi would come up with the idea to have kiru's eyes turn from yellow to red when under the control of the original godzilla with a small line under the eyes to resemble a tear of blood kira begins destroying the city continuing where it left off 50 years ago we would all see a similar idea play out almost 20 years later in godzilla vs kong now obviously this isn't the first fictional scenario where a mecca goes berserk and i can't say for sure this is what exactly influenced the decision but we do know that evangelion was and is an influential anime that has a similar concept of biomechanical beings known as avas and they can go berserk as well and no i don't care if i just pronounce the anime's name wrong again i don't know if that influenced the creators of this movie at all it's just what i thought of as a likely possibility considering ava came out in 1995. recently they even released a kiru ava model kit that has kiru in the ava unit 1's colors which looks pretty badass while kiru begins to go rogue godzilla retreats to the ocean either out of fear or recognizing that inside kiru is his fellow godzilla brethren then we get the line that sounds very unfortunate from an english-speaking perspective i'm sure you can figure out what dirty phrase that sounds like for those wondering what the actual japanese lines are written out gojira satay iku obviously it's the natural speed of fluent japanese that makes it sound funny from the english perspective moving on this entire scene showcases the destructive power of kiru and adds a fun twist to this movie is now the humans are desperately trying to stop the creation that was supposed to prevent this very thing it's even more startling to see that they can't even shut the monstrosity down they have to simply wait for it to run out of power by the time kiru runs out of power it leaves the area devastated and the scene ends on a beautiful sunset juxtaposed to this entity of destruction in between this first battle and the final conflict that we all know is coming we get some more backstory for sarah and her dad we learned that sarah's mom died while giving birth to what was supposed to be her sibling who also died this makes her sympathetic to all living things and so she reminds the adults in the room that the godzilla inside kiru is a living thing as well though technically it was dead before this so it's sort of like a zombie but you know what who the hell knows this is the message the movie wants to use eventually godzilla reappears and arrives in shinigawa and the military attempts in vain to stop him with conventional weaponry godzilla showcases his atomic breath and it looks as awesome as ever knocking the aircraft out of the sky with kiru seemingly fixed as not to go berserk again lieutenant togashi convinces the prime minister that despite the risk kiru is their only hope as godzilla begins another rampage we see the star of godzilla versus mechagiris misato tanaka playing a nurse and she even keeps the same name this time it's nurse tsujimori saving the day rescuing a child right before godzilla blasts the [ __ ] out of oh never mind yeah that part didn't look good at all but who cares i laughed [Music] problem is there's more moments like this in this fight that are reminiscent of the bizarre movements from mega gears final battle it's kind of hard not to think of anime style action when watching this fight though the cg fly over scene with kiru isn't bad for the time and is downright good for a godzilla film kikuchi deserves credit for that also he must have been really dead set on having a sun and moon backdrop considering this movie had a tighter budget than gmk i think the special effects director did a great job i mean touhou was insanely strict with this budget too apparently they were told they could only destroy three miniature buildings i think they went over that limit by quite a bit though apparently godzilla 2000 millennium received complaints that too much of it was filmed at night time and it was hard to see some stuff this is a complaint heard in recent times as well so he purposely filmed most of godzilla vs mega gears during the day the issue is in order to have the indoor set have a daytime appearance you need a lot of lights so the electricity bill is a lot higher than toho life at the end of that production this time he does sort of a balancing act there's a good mix of both daytime and nighttime monster scenes there's both close range and long range attacks in this battle as well and a nice amount of silliness with godzilla getting thrown around by the tail just like in tezuka's favorite film outside of the wonky cuts and edits i think the fight choreography is some of the best we've seen to this point just when godzilla looks toast or ice all right yeah i should probably borrow some ice puns from arnold schwarzenegger from batman and robin what killed the dinosaurs godzilla manages to save his ass again from the absolute zero cannon by knocking kiro into the air rest in peace to the shinagawa prince hotel buildings speaking of batman akane uses her grapple gun as she tries to get inside kiru to pilot it from within a dangerous prospect while akane and the amf use all of the area's electricity to get kiru back online a mazer tank squadron buy some time and ousted special effects director kenji suzuki was given a fun little cameo as a mazer tank driver taking a cue from sarah kane actually starts to speak to kiru recognizing the cyborg as a living thing and it's a touching moment just for godzilla to ruin it by blasting kiru in the back what's funny is that during shooting shaku despite her character piloting kiru and trying to kill godzilla was actually rooting for godzilla in this movie akane's final showdown with the monster ends with a pretty badass move she not only saves the guy who's been a dick to her the whole movie but she closes godzilla's mouth so he can't use the atomic breath and takes him out to sea this part was done on wheels and with half a godzilla suit [Music] [Applause] [Music] connie finally hits godzilla with the absolute zero cannon as they crash into the ocean in an awesome conclusion to the fight but we see that not even that is enough to kill godzilla and i know this is like the millionth time i've brought up godzilla versus mechaguiris but i'm sorry this is just so similar to how the black hole gun worked in that movie with godzilla sort of getting hit by it but not dying they may not have killed godzilla but they at least stopped his rampage for now in a great shot to end the film akane and kiru stare at godzilla as he swims away and the credits roll in the original draft tezuka wanted akane to die and godzilla to be gushing blood turning the water around him red i want to make a film so intense it makes people cry tomiyama would have none of it no main character dying and no gory godzilla swimming away though godzilla does suffer a massive injury to his chest but it isn't emphasized much it's just sort of there probably because tomiyama wouldn't let them focus on it to this day tezuka still thinks the original idea would have been great with akane dying but still passing on the hope of a better future to the young sarah as we know tezuka liked post-credit scenes just like last time he appears in it himself right below his own name in the scene akane thanks sarah but more importantly our guy dr yuhara finally gets what he was after he did not care about anything that went down in this movie that man had one mission and good for him for getting it done we salute you sir and akane salutes kiru and that's how the movie actually ends sadly i couldn't find any good pictures of this but toho would apparently have godzilla and kiru show up to a professional baseball game in an effort to promote the movie godzilla against mechagodzilla would release in japan on december 14 2002 and just like godzilla vs mega gears this movie wouldn't sell many tickets selling 700 000 less tickets on gmk and 300 000 less than godzilla 2000 not even hamtaro could save godzilla as tomiyama was flummoxed as to why this movie didn't do the same numbers as gmk did i should note though that because the movie had a smaller budget it actually grossed the second highest amount in the millennium era in the u.s the movie would go straight to dvd and be released in 2004. despite a less than stellar box office taizuka had no major regrets well except maybe one day equally hey man i get it so i was actually surprised by this film the godzilla design isn't my favorite but i enjoyed this movie a lot they went for a king kong versus godzilla vibe and i think they almost got there but it's definitely not as funny as that movie that being said its fight scenes are some of the best a godzilla film has to offer gmk had more to say in terms of a meaningful story but godzilla against mechagodzilla is unabashed in its fan service to godzilla history whereas gmk has you ponder the serious actions of japan's past in the form of the supernatural vengeful gmk godzilla this movie pushes a rather cliche message that life is important though cliche as it is tesuka wanted all his movies to carry that message as it was important to him foreign all right time for the next movie in the millennium era and the direct sequel to this movie and the end of the kiru saga next up is 2003's godzilla tokyo sos

Channel: Big Action Bill

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Keywords: Godzilla History, History of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Kong, Eiji Tsyburaya, Pulgasari, Gojira, rodan, king ghidorah, godzilla king of the monsters, Gigan, godzilla 1984, the return of godzilla, Godzillathon, King Ghidorah, Big Action Bill, Kaiju, heisei era, Godzilla Anime, Godzilla 2000, Godzilla 2000: Millennium, Godzilla Netflix, GMK, Godzilla GMK, Godzilla vs Kong Trailer, Kiryu, Evangelion Kiryu, Mechagodzilla berserk, eva 01, Mecha History, Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Id: kAk1-M0QWBw

Length: 28min 12sec (1692 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021