Japanese Name: Gojira tai Megaro
Director: Jun Fukuda
Studio: Toho
Year: 1973
Length: 1h21
Godzilla's Story:
Are they supposed to be fighting atop
the World Trade Center buildings
in this poster??
Godzilla busy twiddling thumbs when ground shakes, freaking Monster Island roommates out. Anguiras big baby runs and hides. Dusty smoke everywhere. Godzilla feel radioactive tremors.
A few suns later, Godzilla meet tiny metal human. It speaks with hands in way Godzilla understand. It want Godzilla follow him to big beetle thing from Lemuria.
It take Godzilla a while cuz Godzilla can't fly. When Godzilla arrive, metal human somehow Godzilla size but getting tossed around like volleyball between bug thing with spiky hands and that space cyborg f@%$#r Gigan.
Godzilla in tag zone and take on both fingerless @$%#s with nary a scratch. Until Gigan play dead, and then make same buzzsaw belly move as last time Godzilla fight it. #$%@!!! Oh, giiant metal clown human not much better fighter than Anguiras. Godzilla need go help this chump.
Ach. Beetle thing spit grenades. Everything on fire. Burning ring of fire surround Godzilla and giant metal human. #$@% it! Time to just atomic breath the @#$% out of them. Make stupid bug thing choke on own grenade while shiny giant human bust Gigan's arm and Godzilla do flying dropkicks.
Gigan fly off like chump. Beetle thing burrow deep into ground, not return...like chump.
Godzilla like new shiny metal human friend but go back home and tell Anguiras about stupid Gigan being back, have good laugh..
The Human Story:
A nuclear bomb test off the Aleutian Islands in the 1970s have a devastating ripple effect, the reverberations felt on Monster Island, and setting off earthquakes causing fissures to form on the mainland. One such fissure interrupts inventor Goro's riverside picnic with his "friend" Hiroshi and kid brother Rokuro . When they return to Goro's place, they are accosted by mysterious men, and Goro finds his lab trashed. Hiroshi, in his sponsored roadster ("Levis") makes chase but loses them behind a literal firewall. Red sand and a button are left behind at the lab.
Science montage!
And the sands from a seabed 2000 meters deep off the coast of easter island. And Goro's robot, Jet Jaguar, is finished. But the burglars are listening in, and then kidnap Rokuro, get him to open the lab and gas gun everyone. They're Seatopians. Part of their home was destroyed by nuclear testing, so the only way to ensure their continued protection, instead of, say, diplomacy, is to destroy everyone on the surface by raising Megalon from the deep to attack.
Goro and Rokuro awaken to find themselves tied up in the back of a storage crate on the move. They get free, as has Hiroshi, who is off to save his friends.
Car chase!
Megalon is heading towards Tokyo. TIme for the JSDF to take action.
Stock footage montage.
Meanwhile two truckers are hired by a Seatopian to dispense of the container, but they managed to dispose of the seatopian, and Hiroshi gets to them just before they dump Goro and Rokuro into the river... all just as Megalon attacks the dam. The container's just about to fall into the river when Megalon bats it out of the air. It should have killed Goro and his brother, but they survive.
They see the Seatopians are using Jet Jaguar to lure Megalon to Tokyo, but Goro has a remote control override for Jet Jaguar. He sents Jet Jaguar off for Godzilla's help, while, implausibly, the Seatopians contact the M Space Hunter Nebula for them to send Gigan.
Jet Jaguar speaks kaiju sign language, so Godzilla understands the request, and he follows Jet Jaguar to Megalon. Hiroshi and Rokuro retake Goro's lab only to immediately flee because of Megalon's attack and then only to turn right back and go to the lab. Weird edit. Jet Jaguar returns, only to disobey Goro's orders as he's developed sentience and free will...somehow. Also somehow, Jet Jaguar is able to grow from human size to kaiju size. Was Ultraman already a thing? He takes on Megalon, holding the line until Godzilla can arrive.
And when he arrives, the fight is on. He emerges triumphant and Seatopia closes off the fissures to their land. Jet Jaguar returns to human size and becomes an inert, command-following robot again, thought Goro speculates should trouble erupt, Jet Jaguar will once again regain the free will to help.
Godzilla, Friend or Foe:
Total friend.
The Sounds:
Swingin' 60's, lots of strings (cello prominently) in the theme, and in music when Jet Jaguar is . Seatopians are very Prog. And then Jet Jaguar gets his own corny theme song.
The Message:
Stop it with the nukes already. You have no idea who they're harming.
Rating (out of 5 Zs):
ZZZ - just stupid thinly plotted fun. If I were 10 years old seeing this for the first time, I'm sure this would be my favourite Godzilla movie. It's very comic-book superhero-y. For some reason the more grounded, artistic sensibility of Godzilla vs Gigan wasn't retained for this outing despite Fukuda at the helm. It's very much back to big open sets, captured in wide shot fighting of the Honda movies. Although, Fukuda does push the men in suits into bigger action moments. The direction seems to be "it's professional wrestling, but with kaiju costumes".
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