Monday, February 29, 2016

THE SAGA OF THE KING OF THE MONSTERS ~ PART 13: GODZILLA VS MEGALON (1973)


Of all the Godzilla films in the franchise none of them incite controversy among fans quite like Godzilla's Revenge and GODZILLA VS MEGALON, that controversy being which film is the worst in the series. By the 13th film in any series you'd expect certain aspects to suffer like budgetary limitations or core concept fatigue. Godzilla Vs Megalon suffers from a variety problems and some film scholars credit the low quality of this film with painting many western impressions of the Godzilla franchise in general.

Godzilla Vs Megalon somehow ended up in public domain for many years. Because of this countless VHS editions were released and Megalon was one of the most widely shown Godzilla films on television. Due to such a widespread distribution many viewers' only encounter with the Godzilla franchise is Godzilla Vs Megalon. It's like being introduced to the world of candy with black licorice or your first bite of meat being liver and unions. There are people out there who like black licorice and liver and unions but they are few and far between.

Imagine if your only exposure to the Star Wars series was The Phantom Menace? What if the only Indiana Jones film you'd seen was The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Superman IV? Moonraker? Friday the 13th Part V? Batman & Robin? While these aren't necessarily bad films and they have their share of fans, they don't exactly embody the aspects of what made these franchises the legends they are today. This is the kind of disservice to the Godzilla series many experienced through Godzilla Vs Megalon.

THE PLOT

An underwater nuclear bomb test ravages much of the hidden subterranean kingdom of Seatopia, an ancient and advanced civilization existing beneath the ocean depths. The devastation is so vast that Seatopia is forced to go to war with the surface world lest another such bomb test wipe them out completely. The Seatopians unleash their cyborg insectoid deity Megalon on mainland Japan. It's up to Japanese robotics engineer Goro and his creation, robot super hero Jet Jaguar, to get word to Godzilla and bring him to Japan to save the day!

THE GOOD

Megalon's design. Despite this film's bad reputation there is still a lot of good to be found in it. The monster design for Megalon is interesting and unique not just to Toho's stable but even to all the other Japanese studios too (and that's saying something for a kaiju created so late in the game). His design is indicative of the wild 70's aesthetics brought to many of the new kaiju from that decade. He seems to have a robotic mechanism too in his drill-like hands, another power tool similarity like the kaiju Gigan's buzz saw chest. It's only appropriate that Gigan join Megalon in this film.

The Seatopians. As opposed to the tired concept of outer space alien invaders that were populating the Gamera series, the kaiju tv shows, and even many Godzilla entries, the source of the threat to Earth this time around comes from deep below the earth's crust. The ancient civilization of Seatopia, a country that existed at the same time as Mu and Lemuria, rises up to attack the surface world. This is similar to the plot of the Toho tokusatsu film ATRAGON but was the first time such a concept was introduced to the Godzilla series.

Mu and Lemuria are mentioned at the beginning of the film and it is revealed in the film that the ancient Moai of Easter Island were the remnants of Seatopian culture. And there is even a connection between Seatopia and Space Hunter Nebula M. All of these ideas and concepts are great food for thought and very interesting. There is also great potential left untapped if Toho should ever decide to return to these ideas. Similar concepts were even used for Gamera's origins during the Heisei series.

THE BAD

Stock Footage Galore. This film and Godzilla's Revenge are the two most notorious films in the series utilizing stock footage. The movie opens with a few seconds of a shot of a map and then launches into stock footage from Destroy All Monsters. There's a few seconds of new footage featuring Godzilla and Anguirus which is great albeit fleeting, but the stock footage comes back in full force later as Megalon begins wreaking havoc. Much of Ghidorah's old exploits are reused. Then in the final fight, many of the scenes with Gigan are borrowed from the previous film, Godzilla Vs Gigan. It's a shame but sadly a result of the low budgets these films had at the time.

Jet Jaguar's film. Not Godzilla's. Godzilla doesn't appear in the same shot as Megalon until an hour and five minutes into the film, only fifteen minutes remaining in the movie. Before that we get a brief shot of him on monster island and then a lot of shots of his head moving through the water. That's it. Jet Jaguar has more screen time than the king of the monsters and he even gets his own theme song at the end of the film. I like Ultra-Man and similar Japanese characters. What I don't like are other characters stealing Godzilla's thunder. Jet Jaguar comes across as a shameless attempt to mimic the Ultra-Man television craze and hopefully generate a spin-off. Jet Jaguar is cool in his own right but not when he hogs Godzilla's spotlight. Might as well be an episode of Zone Fighter with Godzilla as the guest star.

THE VERDICT

Maybe it isn't the worst film in the series or maybe it is, but it does represent an unfortunate result of the decline in the Japanese movie industry of the 1970's. It's not all bad though. Megalon is a cool design and it's great to see Gigan make another appearance. The terrifying monster approach from the earlier films in the series is replaced with a super-hero wrestling tag-team style much like what was being seen on television at the time. Even with the interesting concepts of Seatopia and the remnants of Easter Island, stock footage ultimately brings this film down. As a child I loved this movie but sadly as I grew older this film lost much of its appeal. This is a Godzilla movie that doesn't function very well unless you're a kid of five or six years old.

Overall Ranking: 4 out of 10
Category: Adolescents


Missed a chapter in the saga? Get caught up as we continue the countdown to number one!

 Part 14: Godzilla Vs Mechagodzilla (1974)
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