Just the Ticket #224: Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II

Article by Sean Wilkinson,

a.k.a. The Ticketmaster II.

Just kidding, Ticketholders; I'm still the original me (Minus whatever forty-plus years of life experience has ground from my soul because I don't have indestructible skin or immunity from...).

Anyway, this week's Goj-Year-ra entry "ends" June on a return to the School Of Confusing International Movie Titles with Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, which is an unconnected reboot of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla (which is also this film's Japanese title, following the Heisei convention of using the English "vs" in its kanji presentation) and not to be confused with Terror Of Mechagodzilla (wherein the rebuilt antagonist is Mechagodzilla 2) or Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (I went over the confusion and title stylization of these movies in a previous post).

Again, the financial success of recycling and rebooting Shōwa Era foes kept Toho on that track, first considering a Heisei take on King Kong vs Godzilla and pitting Godzilla against Mechani-Kong (both were scrapped for rights complications with Universal), then having Godzilla fight two Rodans in a similar vein to Godzilla vs Mothra.

Ultimately, the producers decided on what would become 1993's Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II, and just like with Godzilla vs Mothra, the female demographic contributed to their decision to reboot another "beloved" "character"...Minilla. I'm so excited.

But I was kind of surprised to discover that Baby Godzilla (suit-acted by Hurricane Ryu) was not why I found this film underwhelming, boring, and sometimes irritating.

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II saw Takao Okawara return as director, Akira Ifukube return as composer, Megumi Odaka return with a slightly improved presence in the plot for Miki Saegusa, Kenpachiro Satsuma as Godzilla, and Cosmos actresses Keiko Imamura and Sayaka Ozawa with a bit part as teachers at the psychic child soldier school. Wataru Fukuda, who suit-acted the Godzillasaurus in Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, wears the Mechagodzilla suit in this entry (which was meant to be the Heisei finale at the time despite future films having been teased, especially in Godzilla vs Mothra, because Godzilla 1998 was in development at the time and yet to be delayed).

Speaking of King Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla, the movie opens by showing and telling us that the U.S. and Japan have joined forces (it's the United Nations, but only those two countries are represented here) to establish an American-led anti-Godzilla task force (because accepting help from Americans worked out so well in the past, but not as well as my sarcasm), referred to throughout the film as G-Center (which is impossible to find without female guidance, just like Godzilla's second brain), G-Force,

and G-Unit,

who, even though the inciting incidents of the previous three films were caused by humans and solved by Godzilla while they stood around watching and spouting blatant social and literal commentary, are obsessed with killing the big guy, and they use the salvaged Mecha chassis from King Ghidorah as a basis for their Mechagodzilla (a plot point that the MonsterVerse would handle far better in Godzilla vs Kong, as almost nothing of consequence is done with it here). The frustration begins with a case of "did time travel erase Return Of Godzilla and Godzilla vs Biollante, or are the humans just that stupid," because the G-Force roboticists seem incredibly sure that coating Mechagodzilla in artificial diamond (whether HPHT or CVD diamond is never explained for cool pseudoscience reasons, but artificial diamond has been a real thing since the early 1950s and went commercial in the 1980s, so it's believable enough) will make it unstoppable even though a pre-King Ghidorah Godzilla (before he was mutated twice) could melt the Super-X II's mirror and tank his own reflected breath. Granted, the private military alliance with its own psychic child army, air force, ground force, space-age flying fortress, and kaiju-sized robot (not a terrifying thought at all) had two full years and a piece of future tech to improve their resources to a point that maybe an extinction-proof, twice-mutated kinda-saurus can't just melt it, short-circuit it, and push it over with basic sumo slaps (spoilers, but Godzilla totally does that later). But the obsession and arrogance are hard to take.

This is especially true considering how Godzilla and Rodan are characterized in the context of Baby Godzilla's role (and 'zilla's similar characterization in the oft-maligned 1998 film). I'll get to more human stuff in a bit, but two eggs are discovered on an uncharted island in the Bering Sea: one that hatched into a fully grown Rodan offscreen so there can be a Rodan in this movie, and another (laced over with a strange plant substance that emits a frequency reminiscent of the Biollante theme) that later hatches into Baby Godzilla. The plant's song has some effect on the hatching, behavior, and strength of Baby Godzilla (and revives and powers up Rodan) throughout the film, but the plant itself is otherwise deemed unimportant. However, the egg and the Baby Godzilla inside it are what draw Godzilla (who escapes Mothra's seal through sheer willpower because Heisei Godzilla is an absolute beast) and Rodan on their destructive paths through Japan, so they're less villains than they are instinctive creatures behaving in accordance with Toretto Law

(and possibly the will of a carnivorous kaiju rose goddess in space), and the plucky but overwhelming...forces of G-Force kind of read like Starship Troopers extras: enthusiastic heroes who aren't entirely aware that they've been indoctrinated onto the road to hell by the retributive preservation instincts of those in power.

Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to the two human characters that matter most to the plot besides Miki and the three other Mechagodzilla pilots (Takuya Sasaki—Daijirô Harada, the Omote to Ura trilogy—Catherine Berger—Shelley Sweeney, Godzilla vs Destoroyah—and Atsushi/Jun Sonezaki—searches and sources differ on the character's first name, and he's credited by wikizilla as being played by Ichirôta Miyakawa, but Google and IMDB do not list this movie in his credits). First, we are introduced to roboticist and enthusiastic dinosaur nerd Aoki Kazuma (franchise legacy Masahiro Takashima, Godzilla vs Destoroyah), a brilliant but absent-minded G-Force washout who ends up designing Mechagodzilla's Super form, co-bonding with Baby Godzilla, piloting the Garuda air fortress in the final battle, and getting the girl because this was a date movie. Said girl, and the other important character, is Azusa Gojo (Ryoko Sano, who can call me "Baby" with that voice anytime), Baby Godzilla's imprinted caretaker and Kazuma's love interest. This trio's dynamic (supplemented a bit by their interactions with a disillusioned Miki near the film's end, and given some sci-fi fanciful romanticism by the flying pteranodon bike scene that could have been used as foreshadowing for an exploitable defect in the Super-Mechagodzilla form's flight system in a better script, but exists for its own sake here because unfired Chekov's Guns are all over this movie) is sweet and touching, and far more of a highlight than any of the beam-heavy, overlong kaiju "action" on display.

Ultimately, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II is about genetic family winning out over surrogacy, and more generally (as the original Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla and Terror Of Mechagodzilla communicated with actual subtlety and artistry instead of having a character blatantly spell it out like the majority of Heisei Era films have done so far) about biology versus the artificial, and there's enough spectacle here that you can appreciate the show before the tell ruins it. But when the action is so repetitive, weightless, and boring otherwise that you have to watch it three times between naps to understand the parts that mean anything, that's a sign that there needed to be less kaiju in this kaiju movie and more thought put into narratively paying off the little things it set up.

D+

Tomorrow, it's already time to reveal the calendar for July even though I still have two more posts to come this month, so Stay Tuned for my thoughts on Frieren and HeroMachine: Phoenix Edition. Thank you again for getting me to a second month over ten thousand views, and please continue to support me and what I do by Becoming A Ticketholder if you haven't already, leave a comment at the bottom of this post and any others you have opinions about, help out my ad revenue as you read because maybe I want my own mechanical dinosaur some day, and follow me on BlueSky, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and LinkedIn to like what you see and receive the latest news on my content.

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Ticketmaster,

Out.