Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Post by Legion1979 »

Personally I think a lot of the faults in these movies come from something that's obvious when you watch these films with a critical eye towards the writing and storytelling. In these movies, the filmmakers are positive we are only here for the monsters, so character development isn't important, logical science isn't important ("this happens because screw you, it's a Godzilla movie"), and entire climactic battles will go on for over a half hour of the most contrived drama imaginable. It really didn't matter matter if these movies were good or not, as long as the Bandai toys sold well every December. That mentality bit them in the rear with the Mothra films, where the merchandise DIDN'T sell well.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Legion1979 wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:53 pm logical science isn't important ("this happens because screw you, it's a Godzilla movie")
Speaking as a big Showa fan, are you really going to say the Showa series was any better in this regard?
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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JAGzilla wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 8:14 pm
Legion1979 wrote: Mon Aug 23, 2021 1:53 pm logical science isn't important ("this happens because screw you, it's a Godzilla movie")
Speaking as a big Showa fan, are you really going to say the Showa series was any better in this regard?
It's really apples and oranges considering when one series was made vs when the other was made, especially something like Destroyah where everything is trying be all serious and dramatic but the science is so braindead.

A college kid knows why Godzilla is going to meltdown, knows when it's going to happen and at what temperature? Come on.

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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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That college kid who also happened to be the grandson of the world's leading Godzilla expert and was an academic genius? Yes I could buy it. It's more context and reason than just say "I'm scientist, so I know space Titanium"

I swear the other Godzilla eras get so much crap the Showa series just gets to side step when it was just as guilty. And being "older" doesn't count as a shield.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Being older absolutely counts as a shield, especially considering a lot of the silliest films were made exclusively for small children.

Movies made in the 90s like King Ghidorah, Space Godzilla and Destroyah were made for general audiences and were trying to be more serious, more dramatic and have greater stakes. So yeah, I'm going to judge them differently. They're trying to be better films than what came before and because of that they absolutely should be held to closer scrutiny than they are.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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godjacob wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:19 amIt's more context and reason than just say "I'm scientist, so I know space Titanium"
I don't disagree with you re: Kenkichi Yamane, but this is a poor counter. Literally all we need to know about either character is that they're significantly learned enough for us to suspend our disbelief when they introduce sci-fi concepts. In the case of Professor Miyajima, we're told that he was a Nobel Prize winner and we're shown that he's expert enough in metallurgical engineering (crafting a pipe with electromagnetic properties out of "astanopkaron" in his spare time) to help us mitigate the foolishness of "space titanium".

Kenkichi Yamane actually arguably has less going for him. In his favor is his connection to Dr. Yamane and his data but also that G-Force accepts his thesis. But, at the same time, he tells Prof. Kunitomo that he failed his exams and that his college professor refused his thesis. It's not the most watertight rationale for his genius.

I also agree that a film's age isn't necessarily a shield against illogical writing, but we do need to consider that Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla was a children's film and thus that its writing was tailored for young audiences. But even then, I don't think it gives us a whole hell of a lot less than Godzilla vs Destoroyah did.

But I do think the complaints against the Heisei Series here are overblown. IMO, the Godzilla fandom as a whole tends to overrate these films because they're (very subjectively) "cooler" than the "cheesy" Showa films, but they're really not outrageously better or worse than the films of the '60s and '70s. With few exceptions, all of the Godzilla movies are generally very average-below average films, all things considered.

And finally, no, the Showa Series traditionally hasn't been exempt from nitpicky criticisms.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Legion1979 wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:14 am Being older absolutely counts as a shield, especially considering a lot of the silliest films were made exclusively for small children.
All of the 60's films aside from AMA were aimed at general audiences, and even the more serious Showa entries (like G54) had nonsense psuedo-science, so I'm not seeing your point here.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Rando Yaguchi wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:55 pm
Legion1979 wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:14 am Being older absolutely counts as a shield, especially considering a lot of the silliest films were made exclusively for small children.
All of the 60's films aside from AMA were aimed at general audiences, and even the more serious Showa entries (like G54) had nonsense psuedo-science, so I'm not seeing your point here.
The silliest ones are the 70s films, which I'm specifically mentioning because MG74 was the film that was brought up as the comparison. You know full well when most people bring up the Showa films during a defense of the Heisei series they're usually referring to stuff like Gigan or Megalon.

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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Legion1979 wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 2:53 am
Rando Yaguchi wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 7:55 pm
Legion1979 wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:14 am Being older absolutely counts as a shield, especially considering a lot of the silliest films were made exclusively for small children.
All of the 60's films aside from AMA were aimed at general audiences, and even the more serious Showa entries (like G54) had nonsense psuedo-science, so I'm not seeing your point here.
The silliest ones are the 70s films, which I'm specifically mentioning because MG74 was the film that was brought up as the comparison. You know full well when most people bring up the Showa films during a defense of the Heisei series they're usually referring to stuff like Gigan or Megalon.
Sure, but the 60's films have almost as much psuedo-science than the 70's stuff, and can get pretty darn goofy. I just don't see psuedo-science as a problem in this genre generally, and it's the least of the Heisei era's problems IMO
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Post by eabaker »

Are there any specific bits of pseudo-science in GvsMGII that really stand out as especially problematic for any of you?
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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eabaker wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:56 am Are there any specific bits of pseudo-science in GvsMGII that really stand out as especially problematic for any of you?
Psuedo-Science is the bread and butter of Godzilla for all eras, so I never have an issue with anything.

I suppose the most questionable bit is how the Garuda is made compatible with Mechagodzilla, a machine made after the Garuda but the Garuda is the most interesting aspect of Heisei Mechagodzilla so again don't lose sleep over it.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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godjacob wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:25 am
eabaker wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:56 am Are there any specific bits of pseudo-science in GvsMGII that really stand out as especially problematic for any of you?
Psuedo-Science is the bread and butter of Godzilla for all eras, so I never have an issue with anything.

I suppose the most questionable bit is how the Garuda is made compatible with Mechagodzilla, a machine made after the Garuda but the Garuda is the most interesting aspect of Heisei Mechagodzilla so again don't lose sleep over it.
It does seem like that would require a huge amount of engineering and re-construction. It would be an extended effort requiring the work of hundreds of G-Force staff members!
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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I thought the song was super dumb, but that's more of a fantasy element.

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godjacob wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:25 amI suppose the most questionable bit is how the Garuda is made compatible with Mechagodzilla, a machine made after the Garuda but the Garuda is the most interesting aspect of Heisei Mechagodzilla so again don't lose sleep over it.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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What's dumb about the song? I thought that was a creative idea reminiscent of Sekizawa's melding of fantasy and science fiction in the genre's golden age.

The pseudo-science in this film that annoys me is Godzilla's second brain. It's not the first time a Godzilla movie has used an outdated or flawed understanding of paleontology, but it feels more egregious an error in a movie made in 1993 than in the '50s.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Terasawa wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:49 am What's dumb about the song? I thought that was a creative idea reminiscent of Sekizawa's melding of fantasy and science fiction in the genre's golden age.
It's not inherently dumb, it was just poorly executed. How did the little girls happen to know the song? ​Unless I'm missing something.
The pseudo-science in this film that annoys me is Godzilla's second brain. It's not the first time a Godzilla movie has used an outdated or flawed understanding of paleontology, but it feels more egregious an error in a movie made in 1993 than in the '50s.
When has paleontological accuracy ever been an element in kaiju eiga? A second brain isn't out of place with Godzilla's many wacky traits.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Rando Yaguchi wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:02 pm
Terasawa wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:49 am What's dumb about the song? I thought that was a creative idea reminiscent of Sekizawa's melding of fantasy and science fiction in the genre's golden age.
It's not inherently dumb, it was just poorly executed. How did the little girls happen to know the song? ​Unless I'm missing something.
The girls psychically sense the song within the plant.

Like ya do.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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eabaker wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:05 pmThe girls psychically sense the song within the plant.

Like ya do.
I've been doing this whole music thing wrong, then. Thousands of hours of practice when I could have just gotten the right plant..
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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eabaker wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:56 am Are there any specific bits of pseudo-science in GvsMGII that really stand out as especially problematic for any of you?
Already kind of mentioned in the thread already.

Garuda, it was built and pretty much discarded as useless, when they send out MG and it gets disabled by Godzilla, they send out maser cannon and jets, but not the Garuda. We see it doing pretty well on it's own later in the film, and yes the two were not built to be compatible, but are easily modified. That's up their with JJ just program itself to grow big. Sidenote why wasn't it classified as the SuperX III Garuda? it pretty much follows in the Super X tradition.

Next up Rodan, he dies, comes back to life with a uranium heat beam upgrade, then is able to turn into energy to give Godzilla a powerboost. All do to a plant song.

And that brings me to my favorite pseudo-science part of the film, the psychic chorus learned by taking a plant sample and somehow turning it into a song that helps hatch Baby G, and bring Rodan back from the dead 1000's of miles away giving him a beam spamming upgrade.

I won't bring up the subplot of life versus artificial life featuring a female android, because luckily they dropped most of it.

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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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Rando Yaguchi wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:02 pm
Terasawa wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 11:49 am The pseudo-science in this film that annoys me is Godzilla's second brain. It's not the first time a Godzilla movie has used an outdated or flawed understanding of paleontology, but it feels more egregious an error in a movie made in 1993 than in the '50s.
When has paleontological accuracy ever been an element in kaiju eiga? A second brain isn't out of place with Godzilla's many wacky traits.
It hasn't been, but at the same time, not very many Toho kaiju films have used any sort of paleontological explanation for the monsters, and certainly very few since the '50s, anyway. Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II is one of the last to attempt that, and thus my point -- it's easier for me to shrug off Yamane's "2 million years ago in the Cretaceous" or other such laughable errors in early kaiju movies because of the the poor public understanding of paleontology and the (in)ability of science fiction film writers to accurately research the science themselves at that time.

I just did a little Googling and couldn't come up with anything concrete, but my mind's telling me that the second brain idea (if it was ever widely accepted by the scientific community) was disproved sometime during the dinosaur renaissance. To be fair to Wataru Mimura, perhaps it wasn't, or perhaps it was still recently-accepted. But all I'm saying is that it's just more difficult for me to mentally excuse flawed science like that in the '90s than the '50s.

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szmigiel wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:23 pm I won't bring up the subplot of life versus artificial life featuring a female android, because luckily they dropped most of it.
According to Wikizilla (the good one), the fandom understanding that she was an android was a mistake.
In a deleted scene, Takuya Sasaki joked to Kazuma Aoki that Berger was a "replicant" due to her stern nature, a term used in the 1982 film Blade Runner to refer to artificial humans. Because of this, a somewhat popular misconception in the Western Godzilla fanbase has arisen purporting that Berger was originally supposed to be an android before the scene was cut, with the character's actress Shelley Sweeney even being asked about it in a 2018 interview.
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Re: Talkback Thread #20: Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

Post by Rando Yaguchi »

Terasawa wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 12:40 pm But all I'm saying is that it's just more difficult for me to mentally excuse flawed science like that in the '90s than the '50s.
That's the thing: I just don't see flawed science in fiction as a negative, regardless of historical context...unless the movie really *is* going for accuracy, if that's part of its criteria, then yeah, it can be judged against real world research. But kaiju films have never strived for that, and at the end of the day it's the execution and internal logic that are going to matter.
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