The History of Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

foreign 1975's Terror of Mecca Godzilla directed by ishiro Honda yes we're finally at the end of the show era it has been a long and I think a rather fun journey to get here the financial success of 1973's submersion of Japan and 1974's Prophecies of Nostradamus prove that Toho could make successful special effects movies without Godzilla the monster had been put on notice before production of Terror of Mechagodzilla began there was talk within Touhou that we should take a break and suspend the Godzilla series after that we were carefully thinking about the future course of the Godzilla series coming off of Godzilla's 20th anniversary in 1974 and the relative popularity of the Mechagodzilla character tomiyuki Tanaka would look to capitalize and wanted a direct sequel made so Toho held a story writing contest to get some fresh ideas which Tanaka was stipulating had to include Mechagodzilla Jun fukida possibly under the impression that he would be directing the next movie would promote the contest I think the second Mechagodzilla will be born of your ideas everyone please send us an interesting idea I've also read that fukuda was offered the job to direct but refuse because as we know he basically had enough of Godzilla at this point there's also been stories of Tanaka approaching yoshimitsu Bano again being impressed with his work on 1974's Prophecies of Nostradamus you know Quasimodo predicted all this so I know denied this but there are sources that say this is around the time Godzilla vs hedora 2 was being discussed for more on this watch my history of Godzilla vs hedora video in the spring of 1974 Touhou assistant producer Kenji tokoro would visit an independent writing School in Tokyo called the scenario Center to talk about the Touhou contest to the class he would tell the students that if their story got picked it could possibly be used to create the full screenplay to the next Godzilla movie sitting in the class was aspiring writer Yukiko takayama at the age of 30 takayama would enter the contest and win with tokoro being the one who decided the winner tokoro would bring takayama's story to Tanaka where he would approve as well instead of taking the story and having shinichi sekazawa write the full screenplay Tanaka was so impressed with takayama's work that he would pay her to write the full script making her the second woman to write a gods Zilla movie and the first woman to write one by herself we know from Son of Godzilla that the first ever woman that we know of to write for a Godzilla movie was Kazooie Kiba and she collaborated with shinichi sekizawa when takayama was growing up her father tatsuo takayama a famous painter by the way would often take his daughter to the movie theaters the young girl would become fascinated with movies especially movies made by ishiro Honda as I already mentioned in a previous video Honda spent much of the first half of the 1970s in semi-retirement helping out on TV shows and doing favors for friends he was enjoying himself but I would imagine he was itching to get another chance to direct a movie his first love takayama being a Honda fan would of course request that they bring him back to direct and Tanaka would approach his old friend with the offer which Honda accepted to the shock of Honda's son Yuji I believe that by now part of him really didn't want to make any more Monster films so for him to have gone back to make another one is a question mark he was thankful to have worked for Toho all that time maybe he wanted to pay them back or maybe he simply desired to make a film once again or maybe it had something to do with the young screenwriter Kimmy Honda would even say as much about takayama's influence she wanted Honda no matter what Honda's wife also pointed out that takayama's birthplace Yamagata the same as Hondas was possibly the reason he decided to accept the offer that being said Honda must have known what he was getting himself into with the economic Times being what they were and Japan's movie industry in the gutter it was almost guaranteed the budget for this next outing wasn't going to give them much flexibility Japan's economy was going through quite a shock at the time in 1973 the arab-israeli war or Yom Kippur War broke out OPEC imposed an oil embargo on the United States for the US's support of Israel Japan being a close Ally of the U.S was also hit with the Embargo however this hit Japan harder than most countries because they imported 90 percent of their oil from the Middle East the Embargo ended in March of 1974 however oil prices remained high for quite some time which meant less money to buy movie tickets I've always tried to discuss what was going on in Japan at the time these movies were made but here we get a rare insight to what was going on in the director's personal life as well a few months before the production of Terror of Mechagodzilla Honda would lose one of his oldest mentors kajiro Yamamoto who passed away in September of 1974. if you remember from my first video on Godzilla which seems like forever ago I talked about Honda's school days and his group of friends nicknamed the three crows which included Akira Kurosawa and senkichi taniguchi losing their Mentor these men all probably started to feel the crushing pressure of passing time Honda's movies were consistent in their earnestness but this outing as a Melancholy to it that I can't help but feel was influenced by everything going on in his own life I highly recommend Steve rifle's book on ishiro Honda if you want to get more insight to everything that was going on at this time takayama would recount what it was like drafting the story with Touhou I had a few meetings at Toho just for small suggestions from them and it was very unusual for a woman to write a Godzilla movie so the Toho staff was making fun of me they only gave me very small suggestions which would have made almost no difference takayama's fourth and final draft was completed on Christmas Day 1974 and production would begin in early 1975. it would be filmed and completed in about a month's time during filming takayama would visit the set and she recounts that when she did she happened to walk in when Honda was doing something rather humorous after the production started I visited the studio where Mr Honda was working he was explaining something to his staff it looked like he was explaining the movement of Godzilla and he was acting the part of Godzilla he was turning his head and roaring I still clearly remember that face let's be honest we've all done it well for one final time in the show era let's get into it the movie begins with a bag literally and we get the title of the movie Mecca Gojira no yakushu or mechagodzilla's counter-attack Terror of Mechagodzilla would be the international title before years later Toho made it the official title of the movie we then see clips from the last film recapping some of the events [Music] foreign this original score was the first buy if akube for a Godzilla movie since 1968's Destroy All Monsters a year after the events of the last film we see a woman staring out into the ocean as a submarine attempts to find the remains of Mechagodzilla off the coast of Okinawa as we'll soon find out that woman is the linchpin of this story some books and a few online sources as well mention a plot hole or mistake here that the submarine is searching for the remains of Mechagodzilla off of Tokyo bay or manazuru or some other place which would be an issue because obviously that's not where mechagodzilla's remains should be but if you watch this scene you'll see they show a map where they're searching and I could be mistaken but this looks to be Okinawa so I'm not sure why some people think they're searching somewhere else maybe one of the dubs mentions another location I'm not sure but this doesn't seem to be an issue tarioshinakano would film the miniature submarine from a regular Sound Stage and use colored filters and smoke to give it this underwater look for the parts where we see bubbles on screen the crew would film through a water tank in one of the first drafts takayama had written that we would see these submarine crew preparing for the mission beforehand but Honda cut this he felt there was a need to get to the action right away outside of some budgetary decisions the only changes to takayama's story were suggestions Honda made he suggested that I change a few sequences he also suggested that I cut the sequence at the very beginning it was also Honda's idea to start the movie with a reprise of the last inside the submarine we see a familiar face masaki Daimon but he's not playing his character from the last movie casuke I wonder if that confused people in the theaters seeing this for the first time though as we know this wasn't unusual as in the 1960s we saw a lot of the same actors playing different roles in Godzilla movies that are all canonical to each other except for one here Daimon plays Chief Inspector kusakari and unfortunately for him and his men they are unable to find mechagodzilla's remains but something does find them [Music] foreign [Music] for the whirlpool scene the submarine prop was put inside of a tank where they used a propeller to create the whirlpool this mysterious sea dinosaur destroys the submarine leading to an investigation from Interpol I have to say I enjoyed how procedural this story was for the first half it almost felt like a crime drama at times Interpol Chief tagawa is played by tadao nakamaru who is surprisingly believable in the role I found his character to be very no-nonsense and he had an air of danger surrounding him nakamaru was an experienced actor so maybe I shouldn't be too surprised and this isn't his first time working with Godzilla he actually played one of the policemen in Godzilla Raids Again Interpol brings in biologists to Kiri chinose to help identify what could have attacked the submarine ichinose is played by katsuhiko sazaki who we last covered in my Godzilla vs megalon video maybe they could have brought back the Goro character in his Jet Jaguar to help find Mechagodzilla but something tells me Honda and takayama wouldn't have cared much for Jet Jaguar turns out ichinose is old college buddies with Interpol agent murakoshi played by katsumasa uchida uchida was mostly known for appearing in Period pieces and much like nakamaru he is quite convincing in this role the men listened to a recording recovered from the wreckage of the submarine [Music] I'm sure most of you can see the similarities to the 1954 Godzilla a seafaring vessel being destroyed by an undersea dinosaur or Monster tagawa also notes that flying saucers were spotted near the incident ichinose and murakoshi head to the oceanographic Institute to investigate this undersea dinosaur here we meet Professor OTA played by kataro Tomita remember him he played the cetopian agent back in Godzilla vs megalon well Professor OTA tells us the story of Dr mafune a marine biologist who was ostracized from the scientific Community 15 years ago for his claimed discovery of a giant dinosaur living underwater and his Proclamation that he would be able to control it with the technology he was developing one thing a lot of people have pointed out about this that is a little odd and I don't know if this qualifies as a plot hole or not but if we assume this movie takes place in 1975 or ruffle around that time that would mean that mafune was essentially run out of town around 1960. well by that point Humanity in this Cinematic Universe had seen numerous giant monsters already so the obvious criticism here is why would scientists not believe mafune's claim of an underwater dinosaur when you had Godzilla a couple of rodans and baron roaming around is it perhaps a lazy writing mistake maybe or maybe you could defend this by saying they weren't scoffing at his dinosaur talk but more so the idea that he can control the dinosaur personally I don't see it as a big deal if they would have said 25 years ago mafune's career was ruined instead of 15 years ago then there'd be no issue here but again maybe it was just a small mistake or maybe takayama and Honda didn't really care that much about the continuity then there's the issue of why the hell these scientists are attacking him for saying something like this why why would this lead to him being assaulted physically I mean if you want I can absolutely do some mental gymnastics here to make it make sense you want to see yeah told them beer okay just off the top of my head I didn't write this down they're angry at him because he's trying to control a monster that hasn't bothered Humanity yet and if he tries to control it they might have another Godzilla on their hands where he's attacking cities with the monster or something like that see it's pretty plausible right but again yeah this part seems a little ridiculous I don't blame anybody for laughing at why why they're attacking him another thing I noticed about this part when mentioning how he was studying to control animals and eventually the underwater dinosaur it was also mentioned that he was researching underwater farming both these ideas were something Honda put in 1968's Destroy All Monsters I mean you could argue in Universe maybe mafune's research is what led to the creation of Monsterland in the future events of Destroy All Monsters where we see Humanity has tamed the giant monsters and there's talk of undersea farming in order to feed them perhaps the director added this bit to takayama's story I did not see that written anywhere that's just my own speculation playing Dr mafune is someone the ball doesn't really need much of an introduction at this point but let's do it anyway it's akihiko harata but I'd say this is the most important character he's played in this series since the original whereas Dr sarazawa was more subdued and played earnestly by Hirata here we get a more flamboyant performance at times he also played the scientist miyajima in the previous movie whose circumstances are similar to mafunes in a way but we'll get into that later I do like that they reunited Hondo with Hirata for this and little did anyone know at the time but this would be hirata's last role in a Godzilla movie in hirata's final Godzilla role I think his character is a lot more interesting than many critics have given it credit for his role here is often mocked and derided as silly and over the top it's not that I totally disagree but as we go along I'll get into why I see it a little differently there are a lot of familiar faces here which means of course Kenji Sahara has to be in this movie I'm almost certain he has appeared in the most Godzilla movies out of everyone here he plays the military commander as for the dinosaur that mafune discovered its name is tanosaurus Titanosaurus is a sea-dwelling dinosaur that can swim at a speed of 200 kilometers per hour and when on land can jump extremely high into the air its tail fan can produce winds up to 320 meters per second and when underwater has the power to create whirlpools I've gotten a few of you guys asking me where the hell am I getting these random numbers for when I'm talking about monster abilities and that's a fair question some of you have taken the liberty of assuming I'm just pulling these numbers out of my ass because they don't even make sense half the time well sorry to disappoint you but the numbers I just talked about come from the Toho special effects all monster encyclopedia whether these numbers make any logical sense I have no idea take it up with Toho they wrote the book Titanosaurus was designed by akihiko iguchi and modeled by kezo maraze the monster suit is phenomenal nakano chose to make the dinosaur as colorful as possible because some of the books he read on dinosaurs claim that they were mostly colorful I have no idea if that's the case but seeing how debates go surrounding whether the Tyrannosaurus Rex had feathers or not I'll stay out of this one a puppet was created of the head and neck for some shots and they made a model of the tail that could open and close its fan the puppet used for the swimming scene was not my favorite it looks very stiff and it just looks like a toy the Titanosaurus design in general is more in line with the monsters of the 1960s which are more animalistic rather than The Oddities of the 1970s like Hedorah and Gigan [Music] titanosaurus's Roar might be the most fitting Roar for a creature in this entire Touhou Universe whoever created it deserved a pat on the back they made it by modifying the Roars of brocken a monster from Ultraman Ace and that monster's roar originally came from modified elephant trumpeting playing Titanosaurus was Tatsumi nikamoto a stunt man and suit actor that was involved in different tokusatsu TV shows and movies mostly known for playing the human-sized Zone fighter as well as doing the voice and he would play Ultraman leo as he got older nikamoto would eventually become a stunt coordinator being an expert on the topic apparently while playing Titanosaurus he could feel an intense vibration that would make his job quite difficult the vibration was caused by the neck of the monster being so long and it wobbling back and forth I could imagine that gave him quite a migraine and takayama's original draft Titanosaurus was supposed to start out as two separate monsters called Titans one male and one female they were supposed to be plesiosaur like monsters in one draft their necks get tangled which causes some sort of magnetic Vortex to form which they use a against Godzilla when they're next tangle they get angry and merged together to form what eventually would be Titanosaurus according to nakano no sketches exist of the Titans takayama was inspired by Greek mythology for the name the writer sees Titanosaurus as a female whereas Touhou has declared the dinosaur male titanosaurus's theme is probably the catchiest of the movie foreign [Music] is able to capture the essence of the dangerous yet at the same time gentle dinosaur ichinose and murakoshi traveled to the infamous Dr mafune's residence which is built up almost like a haunted house the house is located in manazuru which perhaps is the reason some people think the submarine at the start of the movie is searching close to there rather than Okinawa answering the door is that woman we saw at the start of the film and I know I usually go through most of the scenes of the movie when doing these videos but it's almost impossible for me to talk about her without giving away the rest of the movie so here's the rest of the movie katsurama fune is the daughter of Dr mafune and she was played by the beautiful tomoko eye throughout the movie we learn about this mysterious woman and her relationship to the events going on after Dr mafune was basically run out of science town she remained loyal to him and helped him with his experiments mainly trying to control Titanosaurus as mafune was planning to one day take revenge on Humanity unfortunately katsura would almost be killed by one of these experiments she would be saved by a bunch of mysterious men that sort of just barged into mafune's basement and took her away now there were two catches to this one being that Katara may have been saved but she was now a cyborg given mechanical enhancements and what appear to be superhuman abilities and the other catch the men that did this to her were none other than the black hole Planet 3 aliens from the previous movie and we also find out that they were the ones funding mafune's work so this is the second movie in a row a scientist character played by Hirata is helping the black hole aliens and the second time in a row that the character's daughter is involved somehow this also creates what some consider a plot hole in the first movie Why would the aliens need miyajima if they had mafune in their pocket this whole time again I doubt takayama was that concerned with continuity same would go for Honda and maybe you can say that while the first movie was going on mafune was too busy with his experiments or something I don't know either way this didn't bother me that much during the course of this movie katsura would get seriously injured again and just like last time the aliens would save her but secretly they would add mechanisms to the woman that gave them more control over her and essentially making her more machine than woman to add more complexities to this katsura and ichinose fall in love throughout the movie so there's a little Romeo and Cyborg Juliet scenario that plays out takayama initially wanted katsuro's backstory to be expanded on more for example she wanted them to go into the rough childhood she had due to her family living in poverty and her mother's untimely death during drafting Honda would find takayama's story poetic but not so cinematic so he helped her rewrite certain parts takayama of course didn't mind as long as the part of katsura wasn't touched my original screenplay focused on katsura mafune the girl who had been turned into a cyborg by aliens even after she had been altered she still had emotions as long as this idea was not removed from the script I didn't care all that much about what was done with it a lot of people have pointed out that katsura is sort of a more fleshed out version of namikawa from invasion of Astro monster for actress tomokolai this would be her first feature film before acting she did modeling but the president of her agency basically told her she's too short for modeling and that she should try acting instead so she ended up getting the role of haruko matsuki in the Ultraman leo TV series her character was part of Mac the monster attacking crew as I tells the story she ran straight from subaraya Productions to Touhou Studios for her audition for Terror of Mechagodzilla and she never changed out of her Mac outfit they were surprised at how weird I looked on top of the fact that I was late for my audition when I got there the auditions were already finished there was only director Honda and Kenji tokoro and some others I didn't even read lines or anything they just asked me a lot of questions the staff told me later on that Honda Sensei liked how I looked back and bowed to him when we passed by in the hallway after the audition perhaps it was the Bowing that got the 21 year old depart or maybe it was the Mac outfit she was wearing that she joked made her look like she was ready to go I had a bubbly personality so playing the cold katsura and not being allowed to smile was truly a challenge his way of directing his manner of speaking was so precise I recall especially that he told me to speak without changing my facial expression katsura isn't supposed to smile that's so unlike me so pretty much my acting was to talk without any emotion but sometimes you have to put some kind of feeling in how to switch between those modes was pretty hard during dinner Hirata would relate to her Riley making light of his fake mustache and wig I don't get to smile either during one of the parts where the aliens operate on her there are prosthetic breasts shown which is funny to think about from an American perspective considering these movies were still technically aimed at kids just like the last entries this was also released during the Toho Champion Festival I would fall asleep during this part I got nice and cozy so I just fell asleep I would eventually show her boobs for real in the 1980s when she would star in two nikatsu Studios Roman pornos or pink films as they're called sorry I just felt like we couldn't truly end the show era without mentioning the pink films again anyway Honda was careful with I making sure to shoot most of her scenes indoors where the crew can control the environment the Young woman would inadvertently cause some trouble as her co-star sazaki purportedly was mom around her he claims he did this to stay out of trouble with his wife that he just married but he would comment that it wasn't hard at all to act like ichinose it was in awe of katsura's beauty it had nothing to do with acting I really felt that way about her the return of the black hole aliens is sort of underwhelming they don't appear to be quite the same for a few reasons well except for the actor once again playing their leader Goro mutsumi but let's be clear kuranuma from the previous movie was indeed killed some fans have theorized that the in-universe explanation for why they look the same is because the black hole aliens commanders always use the same human disguise Mughal is shown to be a much more sadistic leader than kuranuma perhaps the worst bit is when we find out that they have captured multiple humans and ripped their vocal cords out in the first movie we see their ape form a few times here we mostly just see them wearing strange helmets with antennas takayama described them as space Samurai in 1974 they were using some technology to hide their ape-like form here they're just using skin type masks the first scene we see Mughal and his henchman suda they do mention that once Earth is conquered specifically Tokyo then they can restore their true physical form so I'm assuming in universe that's why we never see them turn into Apes again in reality it was probably the lack of money there is a funny comment here the aliens mock Earth's transportation system well they must have never taken a ride on a bullet train because it's pretty damn great now if they were talking about New York City Transportation where people use the Subways as bathrooms then maybe they'd have a point the alien's base is obviously no longer in Okinawa but now they reside in Mount amagi where they're building a new and improved Mechagodzilla going under the title Mechagodzilla 2. they also use flying saucers something we didn't see in the last movie both Dr mafune and Mughal had creepy right-hand men mafune's unnamed servant is played by ikio sawamura and for Mughal it was Deputy Commander suda played by Toro Ibuki who we've already seen in four Godzilla movies before this one before getting involved in this movie he would serve as a bodyguard for legendary actor and singer Frank Sinatra he got the job as his bodyguard when he met Sinatra in Japan auditioning for a role according to Ibuki one of Sinatra's bodyguards put him in a wrestling hold which Ibuki karate his way out of this was to test his tough guy image as Ibuki had been in some action movies before this ikio sawamora plays mafune's right-hand man his creepy almost feeble look was no accident sadly sawamora was quite ill during filming and would die later that year for our purposes saramora played small roles and a lot of tokusatsu movies for Godzilla he appeared as the farmer who finds one of the Alien Devices and Destroy All Monsters and in all monsters attack he's working the bar that the detectives visit the mafune alien Alliance is a entertaining one to say the least [Laughter] [Applause] the aliens promised mafune and his daughter a cushy life with a mansion if they helped them win the war against humanity early on mafune works with them but is also defiant towards the aliens even stating at one point that his Titanosaurus is way stronger than the aliens Mechagodzilla the aliens view mafune as someone they just need to work with for now to help improve mechagodzilla's control system with his research and to use Titanosaurus to help rid the world of their biggest obstacle Godzilla a few scenes earlier the humans discovered that Titanosaurus is negatively affected by the sub-sonar an Interpol summarizes that Titanosaurus can't deal with supersonic waves katsura uses her relationship with ichinose to get info that Interpol has built a sonic wave oscillator to deal with the dinosaur and relays that back to her father this enrages mafune and he decides to unleash Titanosaurus on Tokyo to show how strong it is is he does this without coordinating with the aliens showing the cracks in their uneasy Alliance katsura is torn she wants to support her father but also doesn't want Titanosaurus to become like other destructive Kaiju she worries that Titanosaurus will go down in history with the likes of King Ghidorah Manda and Rodan apparently in one of the earlier drafts katsura is supposed to mention King Kong I'm going to assume for legal reasons they had to Omit Kong with Titanosaurus on the way interpol's weapon is secretly disabled by Katara and mafuni's servant leaving Tokyo defenseless as Conventional Weapons are useless against the dinosaur I'm purposely calling Titanosaurus a dinosaur and not a monster because takayama wrote it so characters referred to Titanosaurus as a dinosaur this was to emphasize that it was an innocent gentle creature being controlled by mafune I wasn't sure if katsura popping out of existence like this was sloppy editing or something else I've seen some say this is her either using an invisibility power or some sort of teleportation I'm still not sure because there are some strange editing moments in this movie so it wouldn't be totally out of place monitoring titanosaurus's attack are the aliens and despite their displeasure at mafune acting on his own Mughal sees this as an opportunity he correctly predicts that Godzilla will arrive to fight Titanosaurus which will weaken Godzilla so Mechagodzilla can swoop in and easily kill the monster almost 50 minutes into the movie and we finally get Godzilla's first appearance and it's perhaps his best intro scene in the entire showa era foreign I mean that's as good as it gets we even got if akube's Godzilla theme thrown in tarioshinakano deserves credit for this I always try to think extra hard how we should make Godzilla appear like Honda nakano is trying to do more with less he had been given touhou's Studio stage 9 to work this film this was a smaller Studio that he typically worked on for Godzilla this made it tough for a long time cinematographer Moto Yoshi tomioka to get shots at low angles so a way to work around this was to shoot low angles of the monsters outside in the actual sunlight and honestly you almost wish they did this sooner in the other movies it's a small thing but it adds so much it really makes you believe these monsters are out there in the real world emerging from the depths of the ocean tomayoka has a lengthy resume going back to 1954's Godzilla and even before that working with A.G subaraya here he was given a lot of say over both the live action and special effect shots which I'm sure nakano didn't mind as some of this stuff was easily some of the most creative camera work we'd seen my only gripe would be that some of the composite work is abysmal at times tomioka's style went with Hondas who preferred the darker tone and look of this movie compared to the last one also working closely with Honda was kensho Yamashita as assistant director he mostly used this as a learning experience and it would come in handy because years later he would direct Godzilla vs Space Godzilla I knew that Mr Honda was a Craftsman so I tried to learn his craft according to Yamashita Honda did a lot of the shooting himself possibly because he was just happy to be directing again one of Tanaka's only requests from takayama's first drafts was to make sure Godzilla's first appearance happened in shinagawa where the first Godzilla came ashore in Japan in 1954. the movie doesn't specify where this first fight takes place but you do hear the PA system saying the third and fourth Wards should be evacuated which is Minato and Shinjuku Awards in Tokyo if I had to guess it's likely Titanosaurus lands in odaiba and makes its way towards shinigawa where its fight with Godzilla Begins the megaro Goji suit's face was once again altered if you looked at the face from Godzilla vs megalon and how it is now it just looks like he progressively got more pissed off playing Godzilla was toru kawaii kawaii was involved with the Ultra Series and so he had worked a lot with nikamoto the Titanosaurus suit actor in fact it's on the basis of this relationship that nikamoto got the job to play Titanosaurus after this kawhi's most notable role would be playing the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the subarai Productions and Rankin Bass co-production the last dinosaur nikamoto would play the front end of the Triceratops and battle his co-worker again in that one another little factoid About Last Dinosaur the T-Rex's Roar is a combination of King Kong and Godzilla's Honda wasn't a fan of monsters doing human-like gestures so for the most part that stuff is dialed down that being said Kawhi does throw in a few subtle mannerisms Godzilla and titanosaurus's fight gets cut short when Katara is seemingly killed this whole part is A Series of Unfortunate Events katara's fall with the silly scream is cartoonish and then the Titanosaurus silly jump into Oblivion tops it all off we see multiple times in ichinose's office and mafune's lab drawings of different monsters in the background they are all if not mostly all from the Ultra Series tomoe Marie plays ichinose's Kali at the ocean lab her part in the movie seems kind of pointless but there are Parts where you think she's going to play some sort of role but then just doesn't initially when I looked up Marie there wasn't much out there well the reason being Marie was her stage name she would eventually drop that name and use the name yasuko agawa and she changed her career as well she went on to become a successful jazz singer and earned the nickname sugar voice possibly one of the smartest things a group of bad guys whether alien or not has ever done in the show era happens here the aliens decide that when repairing katsura again they will put mechagodzilla's controls inside of her that way when Interpol inevitably invades their base again there will be nothing of importance there and while Interpol is inside boom blow the bass up it really is brilliant not only that but the aliens themselves now have further troll over Katura due to their latest work on her there's a dark Twist of the knife here though is almost mocking Dr mafune when he tells him this because earlier mafune claimed Mechagodzilla needed brain tissue to be truly perfect and now mugal says they have just that with katsura and Mechagodzilla now being tied at the hip Checkmate to Dr mafune the guilt finally hits the doctor mafune realizes his obsession with Revenge has led to repetitive pain trauma and mutilation of the only person who loves him will this spur a change of character we'll see mughal's brilliant plan works Interpol comes charging into the base and here is where I feel either takayama or Honda got a little too sentimental or soft murakoshi rescues everyone and they all get out of the base before it blows up but imagine if this went a little differently imagine if the detective gets to the empty base finds the prisoners who remember their vocal cords were cut out and then he learns either through writing or miming that they're all about to die and that it's a trap and then boom everybody dies yeah I know this is still a kid series and that's a little too dark but come on that would have packed such a punch and made the aliens seem way more competent before the bass explodes Mechagodzilla 2 takes flight the final confrontation is set with the aliens now in mafune's lab along with katsura together they unleash Titanosaurus and Mechagodzilla on Tokyo meanwhile ichinose goes to the mafune house and is captured and brought to the lab slash basement to his shock he sees Dr mafune Who by the way this entire movie the good guys are under the impression that he's dead because that's what katzura told them when they first came to the house considering the emotional scene from before you'd think mafune would respond to ichinose please he obviously can't be satisfied with how his revenge has turned out nor can he be happy with the arrangement with the aliens tragically the doctor wants full of Pride and ambition can only respond to ichinose that it's too late this line hits hard and this is why I found this character to be more than a mere silly evil doctor Trope because most viewers probably expected mafune here to complete some sort of character Arc and help the good guys but it just doesn't materialize at least not in an obvious way and I actually think this made things more impactful because in real life sometimes it is too late to turn back decisions you made years ago can sometimes lock you into a predetermined outcome and that's a tragic but real theme of mafuni's character the second he let the aliens put their hands on katsura his fate was sealed and so is hers Honda had his own thoughts about the mafune character in Terror of Mechagodzilla Dr mafune exclaims I have invented a device that will control any and all animals can we not see the conceited nature of man in this character recently people have begun contemplating threats such as pollution but I feel that perhaps we have become overconfident in our own ability to control our own destiny and it is now time for us to rethink and reevaluate ourselves once again Titanosaurus and mechagodzilla's March of death and destruction through Tokyo is visually awesome a lot of the Miniatures are reused building models from Prophecies of Nostradamus and submersion of Japan originally takayama wanted Tokyo to be completely destroyed during this part she of course got pushback from Tanaka who tried to convince her to change the story so that Godzilla was trying to stop the monsters from even reaching Tokyo I think we could all guess why he was doing that Touhou Studio said they could not destroy Tokyo they wanted Godzilla to stop Mechagodzilla and Titanosaurus from invading Tokyo they wanted the city of Tokyo to remain peaceful I told them if Tokyo were not destroyed by Kaiju in a Godzilla movie the audience would not be happy only Toho people would be happy as they could minimize the budget they would compromise with only parts of Tokyo being destroyed during the final battle in order to get most out of the limited funds nakano set up multiple cameras on a Mini City Block to capture it exploding with pyrotechnics then he just reused each camera shot throughout the destruction scene to get the most out of each angle takayama would joke the Godzilla movies in the 70s had a limitation on budget so Kaiju were always well behaved they appeared in underdeveloped land without buildings nakano tries to one-up the last Godzilla appearance with the Kaiju now saving kids in the nick of time just like a superhero but due to bad editing it's rather clunky and doesn't pack the punch of the first entrance this shot here is removed from the American theatrical release as I guess it appeared like even though Godzilla shows up the kids are most likely still getting stepped on and killed so instead we get this [Applause] foreign so at least you're given the impression that hey maybe Godzilla actually saved them either way it's not great the fight goes as we'd expect with the combined forces of the dinosaur and Mecca being too much for Godzilla to fight alone where's King Caesar and Jet Jaguar when you need them there is a nice moment here where the Air Force swoops in to try and help Godzilla and it happens when Godzilla's theme is playing which is extremely fitting because originally the theme was meant for the Japanese Air Force in 1954's movie before it got Associated solely with Godzilla so this was a nice little touch I don't know if they did that intentionally or not but I liked it at times when Godzilla is tossed around it's obvious the suit is empty another funny part is when Mechagodzilla hits Godzilla's gut with a missile that causes smoke to come out of his mouth and he comedically falls down Godzilla even gets buried alive at one point this was a buried alive match he would have lost I also don't think I've ever seen so many shots of the suits Catching Fire I mean this must have been a very scary film to shoot for the suit actors kazunari Mori returns to portray the mecca but in a slightly altered suit tomoki Kobayashi and nobuyuki yasamara would model and design the new Mechagodzilla to be Slimmer some say this was done so it wouldn't look too stocky next to the Slender Titanosaurus some notable differences from the last movie the hands are now capable of rotating while firing the finger missiles boy did they make sure you notice that the head from the previous suit was reused but they repainted it and the body was painted as well a darker gray than the first movie a fun touches they added a mg2 Insignia on the arm just like last time Mori would see out of the neck vent I recently came across a little factoid that made me laugh when looking to explain why Godzilla has small holes located on the front of his neck Tanaka gives the explanation that they are gills which allow him to breathe underwater this is written in the book Definitive Edition Godzilla introduction written by tenafi himself now obviously we know the holes are there so the actor can see but I thought it was a clever move by Tanaka to give it a in Universe explanation as well in one of takayama's first drafts Mechagodzilla was going to show up as the fake Godzilla again they'd have the fake Godzilla start destroying the city and then have a small child cry out in confusion as to why Godzilla was evil all of a sudden then the real Godzilla would burst out of the ground heroically to fight the mecca this was obviously changed Mechagodzilla doesn't really do anything until the latter half of the movie with Godzilla needing some help in this handicap match Humanity comes to his Aid Interpol is able to repair their sonic wave oscillator from earlier and start firing it at Titanosaurus causing the dinosaur fits well that's going on Godzilla pulls an Undertaker and rises from the grave nailing Mechagodzilla with his Atomic breath something funny a writer for the website sci-fi pointed out in a nice article about the movie that I'll include in my description they noticed that mechagodzilla's fall here almost mimics catsaras from earlier in the movie Mechagodzilla is supposed to be stronger than it was before but I don't know the mecca seems less impressive this time it even takes a while before we see it unleash the weapons we saw last time and when it does some of the shots are from the previous movie which is disappointing to see one of its newer weapons has to do with the rotating hands I mentioned earlier in story The rotating is supposed to give the finger missiles five times the destructive power as the last Mecca Godzilla doesn't come up with some inventive way to stop Mechagodzilla like he did last time with the electromagnetic Powers more so in a throwback to the original Godzilla's style he simply marches forward through every weapon Mechagodzilla has until he's in range to kick its ass hand to hand in this barrage of Firepower we can recognize the giant boulder prop that King Caesar hid behind in the last movie Godzilla goes on to rip mechagodzilla's head off again but there's a little surprise in store for our hero a mechanical brain which I assume is what mafune had helped build for the aliens earlier a powerful laser is fired from it and it becomes apparent that Mechagodzilla will not be stopped until its controllers destroyed that means katsura the idea of having Mechagodzilla still being able to fight after its head was ripped off was nakanos if you notice Mechagodzilla seems a little stockier once its head comes off that's because the upper body from the previous Mechagodzilla suit was substituted in back at mafune's lab ichinose breaks free from his strengths these aliens really suck at keeping people prisoner and he's able to kill suda Ibuki might have been having flashbacks to his Sinatra bodyguard test here Honda has the human fight cut back and forth with the monster fight echoing something he also did in all monsters attack when Ichiro is fighting the kidnappers for some reason suda rips off his human face to reveal a gross looking human face in the ensuing struggle detective morakoshi shoots Katura in the arm because she's under the control of the aliens and it looked like she was about to shoot ichinose mugal uses Dr mafune as a human shield which results in the doctor dying but not before shouting now it does appear that mafune yelling her name possibly snaps her out of the alien's control whether or not the doctor knew that was going to happen well it sure would be nice to think so because then that would mean the character did have a change of heart katsura now fully understanding what the aliens made her do asked to be destroyed ichinose of course refuses but then katsura takes matters into her own hands katsura's tragic suicide mirrors Sarah's Alice from 21 years before the Godzilla showa era series started with a brave sacrifice and ends with one the suicide is taken out of the theatrical version released in the U.S changing the entire meaning of the movie suicide is of course a violent act and that cut blocked a lot of human violence but also suicide is seen differently culturally in the U.S than in Japan of course this is fitting for Honda as the 1954 Godzilla those meaning got completely overhauled when released in the U.S as Godzilla king of the monsters it really is quite a coincidence because for the most part the last few Godzilla outings the American Distributors weren't really changing that much but Honda comes back and boom it gets all mangled he just had bad luck with the US it seems takayama would say it was this sad ending for katsura that she came up with first and built the rest of the story off of that katsura's brave sacrifice is just what Godzilla and Humanity needed Mechagodzilla short circuits and gives Godzilla the chance to finally destroy Mechagodzilla once and for all mugal and the rest of the aliens try to escape planet Earth and the flying saucers but Godzilla casually puts an end to them as well that leaves Titanosaurus who is probably so confused at this point the poor dinosaur gets blasted by Godzilla one last time before falling into the ocean defeated God Dilla begins his Trek back to presumably Monster Island they made the decision to use the promotional Godzilla suit for this part remember that's the same one they used to portray fake Godzilla in the last movie you can even see the little silver part on the arm as Godzilla victoriously leads out to see our characters mourn the loss of katsura and honor her sacrifice as if to be one last reminder to us that no matter how far the Godzilla series Strays from its roots Godzilla will always be tied to tragedy and that is how the showa era of Godzilla movies ends Terror of Mechagodzilla would release during touhou's Champion Festival on March 15 1975 and would go on to sell roughly 970 000 tickets the lowest number of tickets sold for a Godzilla movie in the show era even less than Godzilla vs megalon I believe as of 2023 this is still the lowest number of tickets sold for a Godzilla movie that being said Japanese critics praised the movie but with these things money is usually all that matters most explain the poor showing due to the Touhou Champion Festival being targeted for kids while this movie has some heavy adult themes and a darker tone than the last also Godzilla doesn't show up until 50 minutes in and the popular Mechagodzilla doesn't activate until over an hour into the movie also the champion Festival itself was on its last legs eventually replacing Godzilla movies with American movies that easily outperform the monster star the Touhou Champion Festival would end in 1978. another reason for the Dismal ticket sales could be the economy and the Japanese movie industry specifically tokosatsu movies no longer being big draws even toksatsu TV series were struggling Ultraman leo would end a few weeks after this Godzilla movie came out and subarai Productions would put all live-action Ultraman projects on hold for four years the 1970s would also see foreign movies continuously outperforming domestic ones in Japan with movies like The Godfather and Jaws coming from America this was no surprise nobody really seemed to care much for Tara of Mechagodzilla in the United States either the movie was distributed in theaters by Bob Khan Enterprises in 1978. they would release it under the title The Terror of Godzilla not only did they change the name but to add to the confusion they had King Caesar appear on the poster wanting a g rating they would cut out most of the human violence and remove the fake nudity as I said before in this version katsura is only shot in the arm and her suicide is left out along with other edits that leave the final portion of the movie a mess Bob Khan would have a radio ad created to promote the film in the United States Godzilla champion and defender of Earth in the terror of Godzilla Titanosaurus monstrous creatures more awesome than any that have come before them rise to destroy our world and Italian protector Godzilla attack from every song Godzilla's indomitable strength and courage are put to the test battling your serpent Colossus Titanosaurus and the robot monster Mechagodzilla as they ignite the Earth to a glazing Inferno don't miss the terror of Godzilla rated G Henry saperstein balked on the theatrical release that's how Bob Khan Enterprises got the rights saperstein saw the writing on the wall and the decline of Japanese monster movies and instead put his effort into the television version so saperstein and UPA would switch the title back to its international title Terra of Mechagodzilla and this version doesn't cut nearly as much footage as Bob Khan's version and is mostly kept intact in fact it adds to the movie A narrated recap of Godzilla's history and previous movies is how the movie starts it should be noted a lot of the narration is inaccurate however for example they make it appear as as if the zillions are responsible for Mechagodzilla other Sinister Minds from outer space decided that the only way to take over the Earth and destroy Godzilla would be with another godzilla-like creature a huge robot monster impervious to anything Mecca Godzilla [Music] in 1976 under the title monsters from an unknown Planet like I mentioned earlier this was akihiko harata's last Godzilla movie tragically he would die in 1984 at the age of 56 after battling lung cancer his commitment to this franchise was admirable as even while sick he would still help promote 1984's the Return of Godzilla by appearing in his Dr sarazawa costume it's hard to think about Godzilla without Dr sarazawa Godzilla fans will surely always remember Hirata for playing the heartbroken scientist who sacrificed his life to save the world as for takayama she was relatively happy about the movie I generally was pleased with the way it turned out however I was a little disappointed because the scenes showing Tokyo being destroyed were so limited in scope and comparison to what I'd originally envisioned for takayama this was obviously a big break for her and was probably surreal as she got to work with Honda who in turn enjoyed working with takayama and wished he could have worked with her on more projects a woman's perspective was especially fresh this is not a surprising quote from him we know earlier in his career he would often leave screenplays out on the table so his wife Kimmy would read them and give her thoughts takayama considers the movie to be very special after Terror of Mechagodzilla I changed my direction I have written screenplays and directed movies that are very different from Tara of Mechagodzilla it is the most important and Precious movie for me today I work for many different movie productions and young staff members always tell me that they saw Tara Mechagodzilla when they were small I am very happy to hear that after this takayama would have a successful career writing screenplays that were used in multiple feature films she would also write a novel in 2010 called Prince of Sorrow which was also made into a movie when asked in 2010 what kind of new Godzilla movie she'd make initially she said it was best to leave Godzilla to the new generation but then she would go on if I had a chance I would like to go back to the ancient time truly the ancient time people always look at the future but why don't we go back imagine the armored Warriors fight with Godzilla perhaps takayama was ahead of her time in 2023 we have two Godzilla movies on the horizon an Untitled Toho made Godzilla movie expected to release in November of 2023 which rumors say could bring us back to a time before Godzilla was irradiated and then we have legendary's monster verse which is planning a sequel to Godzilla vs Kong which is supposed to be released in 2024 and I've heard rumors that the director would like to explore the origins of the Titans takayama would add to the Titanosaurus and katsuralor in 2016. she would write the short story 2075 meister titanos counter-attack and the story Titanosaurus merges with the the remains of Mecca Godzilla becoming a cyborg just like katsura who yes is in the short story as well you can find the short story online at Touhou Kingdom I'll put a link in the description below Nostalgia for Godzilla would grow as the years went by without him appearing on the big screen after Tara of Mechagodzilla Touhou sold 4.5 million dollars worth of Godzilla toys from 1975 to 1979. Honda and akihiko harata would be invited and appear at the first annual special effects convention a fan organized event in Tokyo Honda would even be a judge for an amateur film contest besides these fun events Seashore Honda would mostly just go back to living a quieter life but not for long an old friend would be living nearby Akira Kurosawa the two men would catch up and bond again over rounds of golf and hang out with that old prankster yoshio tsuchiya Curacao would ask Honda to essentially be his right hand man and for his upcoming projects the two men would ambitiously agree to make five movies together Honda's Renaissance with Kurosawa would start in the late 1970s if you want a great detailed description of Honda's later years with Kurosawa I would highly recommend again purchasing Steve rifle's book on this he goes into great detail and it's a tremendous read during this period some would say Honda acted as kurosawa's eyes as the famous director's Vision slowly faded in later years bakurasawa told the staff that there would be two directors on set and to treat hanza like they would treat him between 1980 and 1993 Honda and Kurosawa would make five films together just as they set out to do 1980s kagemusha 1985's ran 1990s dreams 1991's Rhapsody in August and 1993's madadayo Honda would also make random appearances in movies directed by friends and colleagues he would even appear posthumously in one movie basically Honda spent the last years of his life hanging out with his best friend doing what he loved making movies in the 1980s when Tanaka approached Honda about directing a new Godzilla movie Honda declined Godzilla is no longer mine it has grown up into its own entity one memorable scene rifle describes in his book is Martin Scorsese on the set of dreams as Scorsese was playing the role of Vincent Van Gogh but once filming wrapped up Scorsese ran up to Honda and requested a picture with him telling Honda actually I came to Japan just to take this photo with you in February of 1993 Honda came down with cold-like symptoms sadly it would escalate to his family learning that he had late stage lung cancer that had metastasized ishirohando would pass away on February 28 1993 at the age of 81. Kimmy would hold a vigil at their house with over 350 people from the film industry coming to visit another service was held on March 6th that saw a huge turnout with a few thousand estimated to have come to pay respects many people that Honda had worked with and shared the joys of filmmaking with attendant as well Akira takarada Kenji Sahara Kumi Mizuno Yumi shirakawa and dozens of others who had been in the man's movies made sure to come to pay respects the morning of Honda would bring together two legendary partners toshihiro mifune and Kurosawa whose last collaboration was 1965's Red Beard almost three decades of estrangement I've seen different tellings of this but according to one telling the two men had not spoken since Redbeard but other tellings say they had seen each other at different events regardless it would be Honda's funeral where the two giants of Japanese movies would tearfully Embrace this would be their last meeting with mifune dying in 1997 and Kurosawa dying in 1998 I'll finish this section on Honda with tomiyuki Tanaka's reaction to the passing of the director ever since the very first Godzilla in 1954 it was all hondasan and his meritorious Deeds that made subariasan's works and techniques come to life he had such a warm and sincere personality a splendid filmmaker may his soul rest forever in peace as we near the end I just want to say thank you to everyone who has taken the time to watch this series and to those of you who have subscribed these videos are a fun hobby that have accompanied me throughout the last few crazy years of my life it was back in the summer of 2019 that I switched to a history oriented format for these videos and made the decision to redo my entire showa era series and I'm grateful I did though far from perfect with mistakes here and there and my by now Infamous mispronunciations and New York accent I could truly look back at these videos and know I worked as hard as I could on them so again thank you and I hope you enjoyed this journey as much as I did it's also been kind of emotional at times because in real time we've lost some folks from the Godzilla Universe while I've been making these like Kazuki Omari Akira takarada and teriyoshi nakano to name a few I truly hope you stick around to see more of my content I know I don't always put on the most excited voice this is just my preferred speaking voice and I don't want to you guys ever so this is what you get as a side note I've decided I will be doing a separate video on my personal Godzilla showa era movie rankings simply because it would just take up too much time to go through all of them right now anyway back in 1975 Tanaka wouldn't officially put Godzilla on Hiatus but he knew the monster star needed a break in the following years he would keep a watchful eye for the perfect time to bring Godzilla back that time wouldn't come until almost 10 years later in what would kick off the heisei era of Godzilla movies next up is 1984's the Return of Godzilla [Music]

Channel: Big Action Bill

Views: 41,679

Keywords: Godzilla History, History of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Kong, Toho, Japan, Eiji Tsyburaya, godzilla flying, Gojira, rodan, godzilla king of the monsters, Ishirō Honda, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Anime, Godzillathon, Big Action Bill, Kaiju, ultraman, Minya, Ichiro, dinosaurs, sh monsterarts, godzilla vs gigan, gigan, jun fukuda, gigan rex, godzilla vs gigan 2, robert dunham, asmr, mechagodzilla, S.H.MonsterArts, bandai, terror of mechagodzilla, katsura, cyborg girl, Titanosaurus, showa era, Yukiko Takayama

Id: xFsZOf3M5ow

Length: 63min 29sec (3809 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2023