Weird Wednesdays: Godzilla v. Megalon

This screening was part of the Alamo Drafthouse’s Weird Wednesday series. For upcoming shows, click here.

To tackle an individual entry in a 70+ year long film series, I believe one must state their credentials for the record. I have not seen many Godzillas. I have seen the very first Godzilla, the “Bryan Cranston one”, and Godzilla Minus One. I understand, in very broad strokes, what a Godzilla is: a fitting metaphor for humanity’s atomic arsenal, nature’s equivalent reaction to an Earth-destroying species wreaking havoc on the planet, and a cosmically uncaring entity to the small-minded worries of a selfish populace. Godzilla is a fierce monster, with an iconic screech and a scenery of destruction that is left in their wake.

This perspective, broadly shared within the community of “I know of Godzilla”, is the basis for the popular knowledge of Godzilla in America. However, there is a very deep, global well of Godzilla films, kaiju mythos, and monster interpretations. As the beast grew more popular, folks were introducing their children to Godzilla, resulting in a whole new market to conquer.Toho Studios, the producers of the franchise, responded to this audience-monster relationship by making films deliberately for younger audiences and making Godzilla more adorable. How cute could Godzilla get? What if they had a kid?  

After the release of the family-focused Son of Godzilla, a broadening of the Godzilla label was complete. Formerly just a rampaging monstrosity, Godzilla could be a friend of the people, a neighbor to his community on Monster Island, or a symbol of fighting for what’s right, no matter how far the battle or far-fetched the opponent.

I did not know any of this going into Weird Wednesday’s screening of Godzilla vs Megalon, the 13th film in the franchise. How Godzilla had changed throughout the years and what that meant for the possibilities of form and themes in any individual film. I went in expecting a traditional, politically-charged monster destroying another big guy as a metaphor for how war ravages the planet. Instead, I got Jet Jaguar.

From the get-go, Godzilla vs Megalon misleads and surprises the audience. Outside of the final twenty minutes and the first two minutes, Godzilla is not in the movie. Rather, we follow a story of kaiju and sci-fi intrigue as two parents and their kid try to stop spies from the underground world of Seatopia from stealing Jet Jaguar, a humanoid robot. This storyline makes up the bulk of the film as Megalon, the beetle monster with drills for hands, heads to Tokyo to destroy Seatopia’s enemies. The obvious need for Godzilla’s assistance is implied throughout the movie, but this is a Jet Jaguar movie.

Jet Jaguar’s overwhelming presence as the film’s non-human protagonist is the first of many things that set this film apart from its roots, but the extent that this film differs from the original 1954 Godzilla is amazing. With a family-friendly direction, the action sequences are played over-the-top with some slapstick results. Characters are flown across the sky and land virtually-unscathed, a plastic airplane thrown by a child at a bad guy’s face results in a waterfall of blood emerging from his forehead, and the vehicle chase sequence is delivered in a hilariously straight-forward fashion, driving down too-steep hills and an incredibly long pedestrian stairway. 

The ultimate kaiju battle, a two-v-two affair between Godzilla, assisted by Jet Jaguar, versus Megalon and Gigan, a terrifying monster with blades for hands, conveys the growth and change the series has experienced since its single-monster origins. Godzilla, formerly a slow moving force of destruction, now behaves somewhere between Mike Tyson and Hulk Hogan. He shadow-boxes to warm up, utilizes pro-wrestling grapple moves and attacks along with his signature fire breath, and delivers the unforgettable flying dropkick attack a total of three times in a row. Megalon and Gigan also move with a human expressiveness, including choreographing chopping off Jet Jaguar’s head in order to mess with Godzilla psychologically, which is an absolutely strange thing to witness, let alone attempt to describe.  

Weird Wednesday projected the film on a gorgeous print that delivered the action clearly and incredibly loud. The variety of kaiju cries, over-lapped with explosions and action noises, completed the crescendo of sensory overload that had been ramping up the whole film. Leaving the film, I was left with an impression not unlike the “all-ages” films I watched as a child: the actual cohesive narrative of the thing was not important, but an “inner-child-like” excitement for these elements delighted my mind. The preposterous story drew me in, verbally rooting for Godzilla and Jet Jaguar with an audience of similar-aged adults. I was drawn into the scene-by-scene silliness and absurdity, with zero regard for the story. Who were the Seatopians? What was the political landscape of early-70s Japan? Who cares?

The film bookends itself with talk of nuclear testing and its side effects, but this line of thinking doesn’t exist in any other portion of the film, and it ends with a suggestion of de-escalation rather than punishment for the act. At this point in its franchise, Godzilla has come to occupy a global cultural position, made for entertainment and selling merchandise and dubbed films to the world. While it might be a wild culture shock for the uninitiated, Godzilla has, and still does, mean something to many different people, and to join the crowd in enjoying and appreciating this ever-changing kaiju is an experience I highly recommend.

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