Godzilla vs Hedorah (1971)
Better known as "Godzilla vs the Smog Monster", this movie was helmed by newcomer Yoshimitsu Banno. Producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was hospitalized for most of the production and, when he returned and saw the assembly cut of the film, he banned Banno from ever directing another Godzilla movie. Tanaka was true to his word.
This is a message movie. Supposedly, pollution is a bad thing. Hedorah is a giant walking mudsquid spawned from all of the garbage and toxins dumped into the sea. He feeds on carbon emissions, shoots acidic sludge balls and farts a deadly gas which dissolves human flesh. First discovered by a scientist and his kid (the scientist gets horrifically burned when he encounters the creature), the monster sucks up pollution, racks up a massive body count of Japanese citizens, and evolves through four stages of development until Godzilla arrives to show him who's boss (Godzilla first appears in a very dramatic shot, backed by a glorious sunrise). The scientist suggests that Hedorah was an alien life form brought to Earth by a fallen meteorite, but why he comes up with this theory, we'll never know (there's no evidence to suggest such a thing). The scientist figures out that the only way to kill Hedorah is to dry him out, so the military builds a massive super electric drying machine. With Godzilla's help, Hedorah is toast and the Earth is safe - but only if we change our dirty, wasteful ways. The End?
Even as a kid, I felt that this was a very schizophrenic movie. On one hand, we have the Godzilla-loving kid character (he's the one who names the smog monster "Hedorah") and all sorts of funny Godzilla action (this is the first movie where Godzilla performs one of his signature gestures, the "Godzilla nose wipe"). Then, on the other hand, we have scary Hedorah, who graphically dissolves people into sludgy skeletons, along with all sorts of in-your-face anti-pollution images meant to drive the point home, like a mewling cat covered in slime or a crying baby half-submerged in guck.
And then, all the weirdness. Lots of '70s-era "wockachicka" guitar music, the occasional crude animated sequence featuring Hedorah doing his dirty work, trippy opening credits, lava lamps, and a sequence set in a disco club where a character trips out and hallucinates that all the other club patrons have fish heads. My favorite weird sequence in the movie takes place on Mt. Fuji, where a group of hippies hold an anti-Hedorah dance party/protest, with a group of old people watching them from behind the bushes, looking like spooky ghosts. Hedorah soon arrives, and the hippies begin throwing torches at the monster until he gets fed up and dissolves them all. The director must really hate hippies.
Then the tone shifts back to silly. Case in point:
Godzilla flies. During this time period, Godzilla's main monster movie competitor was Gamera, the flying turtle. When fans would argue the merits of each monster, one of Gamera's biggest advantages was his ability to go airborne. I suspect that this was director Banno's way of snuffing out that advantage. But it's still dumb. There are also a couple of in-joke references to "Ultraman", a popular television series at the time which was also produced by Toho Studios. It featured a giant robot superhero who would fight a new monster each week. Many of these monsters were made from slightly modified monster suits from Godzilla films. The Godzilla suit itself even appeared in the series, with giant ears attached to the side of its head to distinguish it as a different monster.
Trivia note - Suit actor Kenpachiro Satsuma, who played Hedorah, got appendicitis one day while working on set. He had to have his appendix removed with the Hedorah suit still on, since it would have taken too long to remove. Then the appendix received a massive dose of radiation and went on a rampage through downtown Tokyo. I'm kidding about that last bit.
If you like weird cinema (I do), then this is the Godzilla movie for you. Hedorah is a unique foe, and there are some good monster scenes here, but, due to its schizoid nature, '70s pop-strangeness and kiddie film silliness, many hate it. In order to exacerbate the weirdness, I managed to find the German version of the "Godzilla vs Hedorah" trailer. Notice the word "Frankenstein" in the title. In Germany, most Godzilla movies were retitled as Frankenstein movies after the success of "Frankenstein Conquers the World". Enjoy!
Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)
Jun Fukuda, director of "Godzilla vs the Sea Monster" and "Son of Godzilla", returns to the fold, along with the legendary composer Akira Ifukube (here providing one of my favorite Godzilla scores) and FX man Teruyoshi Nakano. This is one of my most watched Godzilla movies when I was a youngling and I still find it to be loads of fun. It's also known as "Godzilla on Monster Island".
The story revolves around a manga artist (creator of such monsters as Shukra, the monster of homework, and Momagon, monster of strict mothers) who gets a job at Children's Land, a giant amusement park. At the center of the park stands Godzilla Tower, a full scale building which looks like Godzilla and houses a museum inside of it which is dedicated to spotlighting the monsters of the world. After stumbling onto a mysterious tape, the artist (along with his karate-expert sister) gets entangled with a girl (who's looking for her missing scientist brother) and her fat, funny hippy friend. They soon discover that the owners of Children's Land are aliens from Nebula M Space-Hunter who are here to kick humans off of Planet Earth. See, they come from a world where the original population of the planet was killed off by over-pollution (that old theme again). A new life form (cockroaches) took over Nebula M and evolved into the dominant life form, but the planet was still dying so they had to come here and try to take ours. So these Children's Land aliens are actually man-sized, intelligent cockroaches in stolen human bodies. Yuck.
They summon their pet beastie named Gigan (a giant flying insectoid critter with hook arms and a buzz saw in its chest) along with King Ghidorah. Godzilla and Anguirus, disturbed by the alien's control signal, leave Monster Island to engage in a massive four-way battle. The human characters rescue the girl's brother and blow up Godzilla Tower (not only is it the alien control center, but it can also shoot a powerful energy beam out of its "mouth"). Gigan and King G are beaten and driven into space, and Godzilla and Anguirus head back home.
The climactic battle is awesome. It was my favorite monster fight when I was a kid, and it remains one of my favorites today. It's brutal. Godzilla and Anguirus are pulverized to no end. For some reason, the director decided to use lots of spurting blood in the monster fight. This may be a reaction to the Gamera movies, which were for kids but also featured lots of bloody monster action. But it works. When the good monsters finally turn the tide and start to gain the upper hand on the baddies, it's a well-deserved "hell yeah" moment. It's a very well constructed fight.
There's an awful lot of stock footage, though. In an attempt to keep costs down (the Japanese film industry was collapsing at this point), Toho constructed these final few Godzilla movies in such a way so as to maximize footage and minimize money spent. For instance, putting Anguirus, King Ghidorah, and Godzilla in the movie allowed them to reuse footage of them from previous films. The only new footage shot for the film was the stuff featuring Gigan (like the last battle).
Then there's this scene:
Godzilla talks. This only happens in the American version, however. In the Japanese version, there aren't any words, just weird slurry audio tape noises and use of body language.
Despite all of the stock footage and the lackluster human storyline (although it's the best one of the three movies reviewed here) and the many cheesy touches, "Godzilla vs Gigan" benefits from a cool monster design (Gigan was always one of my favorites - he's cool looking and has a snidely "bad guy" attitude) and a kickass end fight. The music by Ifukube is awesome, as well. And this movie also marks the return of the Masers (Mobile Lasers) from "War of the Gargantuas"! Joy!
It's far from perfect, but I love it.
Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)
I've never seen the Japanese version of this movie. It was supposed to be released on DVD (for the first time ever!) early January 2012 (and on Blu-Ray as well), but it never happened. Apparently Toho was not pleased with the special features included on the disc, so the release was halted in order for Toho to examine and approve them. It's scheduled to drop sometime later this year, so instead I have to write this review using my old, battered VHS copy of the American version as a reference. Alas.
Then, for the first time in many years, I took a good look at the cover art for my copy of the movie:
!!!
Yup. That's Godzilla and Megalon battling on top of the World Trade Center towers with aircraft exploding all around them. Hey, the tape was released in the '80s! They had no idea. . .
In fact, the World Trade Center portion of this artwork was originally created for the poster of the 1976 remake of "King Kong", where the big ape does, indeed, climb the Twin Towers. The video company just reused that portion of the painting and substituted the Toho monsters for Kong, who originally stood with one foot on each tower. Still, these days, it's understandably off-putting.
So, the movie. We meet a nice couple of Japanese bachelors. One of them is a cool, dashing man of action dressed in '70s action hero garb. The other is a nerdy inventor who has created a humanoid robot named Jet Jaguar. They have a kid with an annoying voice (in the dubbed American version), and I think they live together. Hmmm. One day, some assailants break in and steal Jet Jaguar. No, they aren't aliens. They're agents from Seatopia, a kingdom located far beneath the ocean. It's suggested that they are the descendants of people from the sunken kingdoms of either Mu or Lemuria. We met the Mu descendants in "Atragon", and it was suggested that Mothra and the people of Infant Island are related as well, so these guys must be cousins or something. Anyway, they're tired of all the damage caused to their kingdom by nuclear tests, so they want to punish all surface dwellers by sending their own homegrown monster, Megalon. For some reason, they need Jet Jaguar to guide Megalon to its targets, where it can wreak havoc.
The good guys manage to get JJ back under control. They send him to Monster Island to get Godzilla. The Seatopians revert to Plan B. They call up their buddies from Nebula M Space-Hunter and ask them if they could please send Gigan to help out. They do. Such nice neighbors. JJ then "reprograms himself" to grow to Godzilla-size (sure) and helps the Big G fight Gigan and Megalon. The good guys win. Gigan flies back into space, Megalon goes back to Seatopia (where they "close all exit points"), and Godzilla and JJ go their separate ways after shaking hands. No, they really do shake hands. Really. JJ then shrinks back to human size and walks off into obscurity, his cheesy theme song playing in the background.
Many Godzilla fans call "Godzilla vs Megalon" the worst movie in the series. I think "All Monsters Attack" is still my least favorite. Most people only know this from a very popular episode of "Mystery Science Theater 3000". In particular, they remember this moment:
Physics be damned.
There is a lot of stock footage in this movie, much of it coming from the previous entry, "Godzilla vs Gigan". Megalon, a giant beetle who can drill through the ground at a rapid pace, spit explosive pellets, and fly, can also shoot yellow electricity from the horn on his head. This electricity resembles the beams used by King Ghidorah, so Toho was able to use Ghidorah stock footage when Megalon fired his beams. Clever guys, those Japanese.
Jet Jaguar is lame. He can fly. He has a theme song. That's it. Actually, he was the result of a contest. Toho held a contest for kids to design a giant robot for their next movie. Jet Jaguar was the winning design. He was originally intended to get a movie of his own, but the producers decided to insert Godzilla into the story to increase box office. That's why Godzilla doesn't get very much screen time in this entry. And JJ never did make a return appearance.
Neither does Megalon. Hedorah and Gigan would only return one more time, in "Godzilla: Final Wars" (2004). I wish there was more from Gigan in the series. :^(
I recommend that, if you're going to watch "Godzilla vs Megalon", you get the MST3K version. It's much more entertaining. "Megalon" is easily the dopiest of all Godzilla movies. There's too much stock footage, too much silliness, too little Godzilla. Still, the monster fights are energetic and it's amusing in a "so bad it's good" sort of way. Jun Fukuda was the director, returning from "Gigan", and Riichiro Manabe provided another lame score (he scored "Hedorah"). Thankfully, the next two Godzilla movies are better quality.
Next time, it's Godzilla's last stand! The final two movies of the Showa series (a.k.a. Series 1).
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