By Joe Gibson
Hi, and welcome back to
Plan9Crunch’s review of Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II. In the two previous parts
(linked below), we went over an introduction of the context for Godzilla vs
Mechagodzilla II and a plot runthrough. As we are now discussing and concluding
on thematic content, this will make a lot more sense if you have read the
previous parts.
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/11/godzilla-vs-mechagodzilla-ii-strengths.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/11/part-two-godzilla-vs-mechagodzilla-ii.html
Chapter
Three - Moral Befuddlement or The Trolley Problem of Young Baby Godzilla
Based on what we just
went over, I would summarize the themes of this film as intentionally confused
and confusing. Our desired allegiances are unclear, because Mechagodzilla is an
iconic villain now reimagined as an extension of human desires, while Godzilla
(hero or villain that he can be) is finally acting on the sympathetic moments
trickled within this Heisei chronology in order to step up as a slightly
redeemed version of this character. Throughout all this is sparse commentary on
life vs artificial life and responsibility vs self-interest.
Kazuma Aoki is an
annoying, irresponsible, flaky, obsessed and pushy idiot with a stupid flying
pteranodon robot, and half of the reviews I see of this movie focus on that,
but the other half detail how he is a singularly relatable and funny character.
Imagine for a moment growing up in the 70s, 80s and pre Jurassic Park 90s being
a fan of dinosaurs or Godzilla, when the collective conscious reaction is to
dismiss those things as dumb. Aoki’s passions lead him to court an attractive
successful woman and be the hero without having to directly kill a monster but
fighting both. Many viewers see themselves in him, and I think that is
intentional when you contrast him with the well-intentioned but misguided
officers and contractors of G Force, best exemplified through returning star
Miki Saegusa choosing this film to realize killing Godzilla is not a simple
noble thought anymore or the stern G Force commander softening up to Aoki.
One of the biggest
complaints against this film is that its Mechagodzilla lacks a personality
compared to the 70s one, and that is, I think, a benefit to the writing rather
than a drawback. Mechagodzilla, in this film, is not a character, but a very
glorified tank, with the thicker monochromatic design with sleek curves and
bleeding-edge technology supporting this interpretation. Godzilla is the
personality to focus on in this story; Mechagodzilla’s role in this story is to
oppose and contrast Godzilla.
In the hand-drawn poster
for this film, Mechagodzilla is this hulking ugly menace over Godzilla and
Rodan having inflicted gory injuries on them, and no such scene occurs, but it
is representative of the power and morality shift that happens in act 3. A very
popular format for stories involves the hero winning against the rival, losing
against the villain and then getting the rival’s help to beat the villain, but
this is also a very flexible format. Rocky III has Rocky beating Apollo as the
intro backstory to spend more time on why Rocky then loses to Clubber Lang and
how Apollo will help Rocky win, while Black Panther plays it more straight
structurally (T’Challa beats M’Baku, Killmonger beats T’Challa, M’Baku supports
T’Challa’s attack on Killmonger). This films holds off on Godzilla being the
hero or even losing until the third act, giving Rodan more agency as a
character than M’Baku and Apollo due to less screen time with Godzilla, and
also assigning this persistent growing sense of dread that we do not know where
to assign until Super Mechagodzilla starts acting like Showa Mechagodzilla.
Now this also raises a
question. Who should we blame for Super Mechagodzilla’s ferocity: the mech
itself, the pilots therein or the people giving the orders, and doesn’t that
sound awfully familiar for a series originally existing to comment on
destructive actions taken to end a war? Most other reviews I have seen for this
film would have me believing I am seeing subtext that is not there, but again I
return to what I said earlier. Where is the analysis that officially ruled this
out and decided it was just a dumb light show? I am by no means the final say
here, and, if I am wrong, please show me when and where and by how much. This
movie still holds up as a mostly consistent popcorn flick, and Mechagodzilla’s
design and purpose can be praised for subjective preference if not thematic
content, but I genuinely see an attempt at brilliance here.
Heisei Rodan is my
favorite incarnation of the character, despite the fact that he started the
annoying trend of Rodan being smaller and weaker than Godzilla, so there is
some degree of bias I hold in approaching this part of the analysis. I
appreciate the design erring closer to Pteranodon than a winged guy in suit design, and I really like the three horns (as opposed to the usual two) and face
equal parts ferocious and sympathetic depending on the scene. Because
Mechagodzilla is a more long range then melee opponent, Rodan’s fight with
Godzilla gives us the best tooth and claw action in the film, so I also
appreciate that. But I also find his use very interesting in a way that ties
into the tag team match of Godzilla x Kong: Godzilla and Kong vs a shadow
Godzilla and a shadow Kong, Godzilla and Rodan vs Mechagodzilla and
Mecha-Rodan??
Garuda is very
interesting in this movie, designed mostly to mirror Rodan, as, in the climax,
Garuda must join with Mechagodzilla to win, and Rodan must join with Godzilla
to win. Aoki is no longer piloting Garuda at that point, just as Rodan
sacrifices his mind and body to fuse with Godzilla. Aoki’s agency is often
overlooked in this story, but he decided to name his anti-Godzilla weapon after
a bird god that is the enemy to all snakes in folklore, and Garuda as a modern
cryptid is speculated to be surviving pteranodon same as Mothman, Thunderbird,
Batsquatch, etc, so Rodan = Garuda is by no means an absurd talking point.
(Also, while Aoki only interacts with Rodan adversarially, he really does not
get the option to study Rodan, and arguably does a lot of what he does because
of that, as I have already detailed.) I am not claiming it the richest
subtextual layer in any film, but if we are giving this film the fairest shake
possible, it deserves mention especially in view of what the film builds to
with these ideas. If you doubt that Garuda joining with Mechagodzilla is an
intentional thematic element to these characters, then you should recall that
Garuda is the mount to Vishnu, inherently tied to a more powerful character.
Before I summarize my
thoughts on Godzilla in this movie, I think it is wise to briefly compare this
film to 1967’s Son of Godzilla, since many of the same building blocks exist in
both. Godzilla’s redemption arc started sooner than Son of Godzilla in the
Showa series, but there was a sort of unease in the mid Showa entries toward
Godzilla (the humans willingly dump him and Rodan on Planet X in Godzilla vs
Monster Zero, and he is merely the better of two bad options in Ebirah: Horror
of the Deep) leading to a film where Godzilla is just on an island fighting
villainous mutation monsters to protect a child, and the next time we see him
after this, everybody knows he’s a hero. But, in terms of aforementioned
similarities, Goro Maki (the Akira Kubo version in SoG, not the Ken Tanaka
version from Godzilla 1984) is a campy and comedic journalist who pushes
himself into dangerous situations out of genuine interest that annoys the
people around him and wins over the girl, while Aoki is all of those things
except a journalist. Rodan also slots into the Kamacuras role as a lesser kaiju
killed by Godzilla at the beginning that also gets to the fight the villain
monster at the end, be it spider Kumonga or Mechagodzilla (let it be said that
Kamacuras’ puppetry is far more impressive). And then, of course, the female
lead that serves as partial caretaker to the Baby Godzilla is present in both
scripts. I have a lot of respect for Son of Godzilla, and it is interesting
that Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II seems to share that sentiment.
Godzilla, in this film,
resembles the Baby, but it is not as exaggerated as in Son of Godzilla (which
redesigned Godzilla to look closer to Minya). It is in subtle things, like the
positioning of a couple teeth when they both tip their head up to roar the same
way, and the more hunched-over stature of Godzilla that organically follows
from his previous film to film Heisei redesigns but also matches this new
version of Baby Godzilla. Aside from that, I just like the design, and I cannot
point to a specific reason that I like this design so much for him except that
he gets just shy of 27 minutes of screentime, much of it in daylight, to show
off this look.
The most major
difference from previous Heisei Godzilla incarnations is that Godzilla’s beam
is a lot more precise. Rather than aiming it down to bring it up to an
opponent, he will often just land it the first time (except for a few blasts in
the climax). I think, based on all of this other befuddlement, that this was
done to challenge the audience as much as possible. Godzilla is more dangerous
than he has ever been, but we understand him now for the first time. He has the
capacity to instantaneously target anything he wants, so when he chooses not
to, it also makes you wonder why he did not, and if he ever were to stop, could
we leave well enough alone? The viewer ends up stuck between two options rather
than being able to fully align with either side.
So, what is the answer
then: do we dirty our hands to defeat a sympathetic but rampaging creature with
G-Force, merely evacuate and hope to rebuild if Godzilla actually does stop
attacking this time or throw our hands up and chase down our own special
interests in the face of nuclear destruction as Kazuma Aoki does? That drama is
where Godzilla, the nuclear allegory, and Heisei Godzilla, the antihero,
operate best. Godzilla 1984 also had some version of this where, in the climax,
two of our leads are carrying out the plan to dump him in a volcano, the other
two are just trying to survive Godzilla’s nuclear destruction, and a homeless
man enters the story to decadently feast in the chaos as a third option for
what the natural human response to this crisis would be. (The homeless man is
actually a decently complex character; I just don’t have time to get into it
here.)
Chapter
Four - Conclusion or How I learned to stop worrying and rate this film an 8 out
of 10
I began this review
touching upon the history of Godzilla’s reinterpretations and what they mean if
you keep one eye trained on the original film. Godzilla is an icon because of
nuance and meaning where it was unexpected. Why would anyone expect Godzilla,
the villain of the piece, to be a sympathetic character that is as unfairly
destroyed as its victims? Why should anyone predict that Dr. Serizawa, the one
man with the knowledge to defeat Godzilla, is so deeply disturbed about his
miracle weapon he would rather kill himself than see it used again?
I am of the opinion, open to hearing contrary ones, that Mechagodzilla should not be some cheap sadistic alien knockoff no matter how cool the 1974 Mechagodzilla was but instead a deeper thematic foil to Godzilla. Ghidorah can have that role, but the more important facet of their rivalry is that they are always on opposing sides no matter what those sides are (Ghidorah as a good guy worked well in Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah Giant Monsters All Out Attack 2001, as did the aforementioned heroic Mecha King Ghidorah). But Mechagodzilla is literally a human or at least humanoid-created Godzilla, and that carries so much subtextual complexity based on what Godzilla is and how humans created him, just less intentionally so. When Godzilla crosses between anti villain and anti hero, it is so much more interesting to have this shadow version do the same.
In Godzilla Against
Mechagodzilla, Mechagodzilla is reimagined to be the original Godzilla
unnaturally preserved into a new heroic being, and the normally destructive new
Godzilla gets a somewhat sympathetic streak due to the implicit familiarity of
his opponent, but, whereas, Kiryu (Mechagodzilla) resists his dark impulses,
Godzilla proper falls into them, needing to be stopped.
In Godzilla: City On The
Edge of Battle (though I despise that film and trilogy), Godzilla and
Mechagodzilla both took over their sections of Earth through mirrored means,
and choosing either one over the other turns out to be just as self destructive
in different ways for lead Haruo Sakaki.
And finally in Godzilla
vs Kong, Godzilla seemed to be slipping into a villainous role due to decreased
proximity to the goals of humans, while Mechagodzilla emerges as a villain due
to increased proximity to humans but really takes off for a rampage when it
divorces itself from human input and the remaining humans default to Godzilla’s
side, vindicating him.
But none of this
matters. We are talking about Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II and how it executes
the complicated morality of rooting against the monster we built to defeat the
monster we accidentally started rooting for. I have argued for its merits, and I
spent less time arguing the flaws because I see less evidence of them.
It is important that you
understand this: when it comes to ranking and reviewing media, there are three
distinct areas you are sure to eventually disagree with me. 1. The flaws and
merits we notice. 2. Our evaluation of the severity of those flaws and merits.
3. How we compare these flaws and merits to those found in other relevant
media.
Perhaps you are the kind
of person that cannot fathom wasting money on one giant mech when you could
make a Super X armada and will not listen to any symbolic justifications
(Mechagodzilla as shadow Godzilla) or vague implicit ones (the head and shock
anchors of Mecha Ghidorah are the stimulus tech, how in the hell would they put
those into Super Xs?). In that case, the poorly fleshed out but ever more
reasonable single gauntlet of Project Powerhouse in Godzilla x Kong will make
more sense to you.
As I see it, Godzilla vs
Mechagodzilla II is a darn fine entry encompassing some of the best ideas of the
Heisei series. Execution is where it falls a little short. While I primarily
argue in favor of Aoki as the lead, more relevance given to his pteranodon
enthusiasm could only have improved the script. If Godzilla Minus One is a 10
out of 10 for instance, how much lower would it be if Shikishima’s kamikaze
background did not play into the final confrontation? Omae, as a very
unscientific and quickly irrelevant Professor, also is a bit of a dud in this
series of great scientist characters (Doctors Yamane, Serizawa, Mafune, and
Shirigami to name a few).
We here at Plan9Crunch
have a blog, podcast, YouTube channel, and TikTok page. If you enjoyed this
analysis, feel free to check out any of our other content, and Happy (now
belated) Godzilla Day.
Links to Godzilla
focused Plan9Crunch articles and videos below:
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2023/06/review-godzilla-versus-kong-2021-remake.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2014/03/godzilla-is-on-this-authors-mind.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2021/12/godzilla-2000-review.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2010/02/godzilla-versus-monster-zero.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-nuanced-deconstruction-of-godzilla-x.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/06/part-two-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html
https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/07/part-three-nuanced-deconstruction-of.html
https://youtu.be/yV6i2xX0pf4?si=Nu9RWsP5k6CbT68H
https://youtu.be/1HMV1hMPgzs?si=1Iip-2qfPxDe6G_B
https://youtu.be/pSosxtg51oM?si=CoDIwTko6C5N5DCY
https://youtu.be/AI_FMxtTlIk?si=EA51lODIQp2LUVr1
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