Alternate Titles: Godzilla × Mechagodzilla
Year: 2002
Director: Masaaki Tezuka
Special Effects Director: Yuichi Kikuchi
In The Suit: Tsutomu Kitagawa (Godzilla), Hirofumi Ishigaki (Mechagodzilla)

It's thanks to this movie and it's sequel, Tokyo SOS, that we've had to pepper all our descriptions of the Millennium era with caveats. Every other Millennium movie takes place in its own standalone continuity, with the original 1954 Godzilla being the only other film that is canon. But Tokyo SOS does continue from the story established here.

Even beyond that, these two movies make some selective usage of previous films. Both Mothra and War of the Gargantuas are shown in flashback at the beginning of this film, and Tokyo SOS will show Kamoebas from Space Amoeba.

Mothra, specifically, is pretty much directly in continuity with this move and Tokyo SOS SOS will pretty much confirm that the entire Mothra movie "happened" in this continuity. Gargantuas and Space Amoeba may not be in continuity so much as some specific scenes or characters have been repurposed for these films, similar to how Toho reused footage during the Showa era.

It's also worth remembering that GMK started off saying that the world had seen many monster attacks since the 1954 Godzilla attack. In that movie the other attacks were unspecified (aside from a knock at the American Godzilla film). Reusing Showa footage in this movie may have been a way to be more specific about the monster attacks that have happened in this movie's past without having to create new scenes, and of course it's also just a nice nod to past films for fans.

The movie begins in 1999 (3 years before the film's release date), showing a Godzilla appearing during a typhoon, years after the original. He's definitely described as "another" Godzilla; it's important to this film that he's not simply the original one returned.

Godzilla is met by the Anti-Megalosaurus Force (AMF), who are armed with masers.

He's just out for a stroll, and next thing he knows, he's getting shot at.

The AMF was said to be established in Chiba in 1966 to defend the nation from monsters.

A big improvement over last film: Godzilla has eyeballs again.

Tank goff.

But his neck has gotten thicker again.

Despite what seems like a possibly effective strategy of targeting his eyes, the AMF's attack on Godzilla turns into a clusterfuck. When Godzilla lunges forward, a jeep backs into the master tank, and then careens out of control, driving off a cliff. Godzilla then stomps on it. He then smashes the maser tank with his tail. Akane Yashiro (played by Yumiko Shaku) is the only survivor.

There was no reason for the guy to back up. No order for retreat had been given yet. I mean, sure, Godzilla was standing there, but that's kinda what you signed up for. And you shot at him knowing he could see you. So, i dunno what that jeep guy's deal was. Plus, Akane didn't suddenly appear behind the jeep with her tank. She was there the whole time.

After the credits, we get a discussion between Prime Minister Machiko Tsuge (played by Kumi Mizuno, the singer in Matango, among several other Showa era roles)...

...and Minister of Science and Technology Hayato Igarashi (played by Akira Nakao, who has been in several Heisei films).

I love this guy. He always looks worried, like he'll go along with your plan, but he has zero belief that it will succeed.

It's these two that first call the Godzilla that attacked recently a "new" Godzilla. They describe the attack of the original Godzilla, in 1954, and we get a flashback and some new footage.

They then describe a subsequent attack from Mothra...

...and the "bigfoot Gaira" from War of the Gargantuas.

From the Mothra attack, they developed a heat ray, and from Gaira, the masers. Note that it sounds like Japan, not the Rolisicans, developed the heat ray, and that it was more effective in defeating Mothra than in the actual movie, where it really just served to speed up her incubation process. The implication is that to fight those two creatures, the AMF developed these weapons (in War of the Gargantuas, Gaira wasn't really killed by a maser, either), and it's contrasted to "that Godzilla" to whom these weapons will be meaningless. Only Oxygen Destroyer could defeat Godzilla, and they don't have that formula anymore.

Do you guys maybe want to find out where all these monsters are coming from?

Next, we see Yashiro participating in an inquest. They tell her that she's not going to get in trouble for deaths on the battlefield during a fight with Godzilla. But they seem to be implying that she's responsible for the deaths. As far as we saw, the driver of the jeep backed into her tank and then went off a cliff. Didn't look like her fault. But they accuse Yashiro of panicking in terror.

Yeah, sorry. It was my female hormones. My vagina must have gotten in the way of the steering wheel.

Yashiro is taken off active duty and exiled to the "data center", which turns out to be a library.

I fail to see how that is punishment. Nobody bothers her. She can get so much reading done.

We next see a scientist, Tokumitsu Yuhara (played by Shin Takuma, the survivor on the fishing boat in Return of Godzilla), who has taken a trilobite found after Godzilla's attack and revived it, partially using horseshoe crab nerves and partially integrating it into a robot body controlled by a "DNA computer". The theory behind a DNA computer is that while a normal computer has binary circuits, either off or on, a "DNA computer" has four states, based on the four nucleotides that it is comprised of (Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine). And that makes it... better, i guess.

Science!

Tokumitsu is rounded up along with some of Godzilla's other top scientists. They want to use the technique he used on the trilobite to revive the bones of the original Godzilla.

This of course does not sound like a good idea, and the agitation coming from Min is palpable. This is not unusual. Whenever scientists in movies are tampering with forces they do not understand without taking into account the risks, Min gets upset. Don't watch any of the Planet of the Apes prequels with her, is what i'm saying.

Why don't they ever think of the consequences? Bad science!

Anyway, Tokumitsu is initially not so sure that he wants to participate. He says it's because he wants to be around for his daughter, Sara (played by Kana Onodera), who he says to her face has "a lot of problems". She actually seems pretty well adjusted in her introductory scene, although she does carry around a pot of "sleeping grass" (a plant that reacts when you touch it, which is apparently a real thing) and she says that she wishes that her dad could bring her mom back instead of Godzilla. Don't tell your dad that, kid, or he'll turn your plant into a Biollante. Sara doesn't want to be holding her father back, so she suggests a "baseball dugout contract" solution, wherein Tokumitsu only agrees to work on the project if he can bring his daughter with him, like how baseball stars demand that their kids can be in the dugout (it may be unrelated, but there are a couple of cameos in this film by a Japanese baseball star named Hideki Matsui, whose nickname was "Godzilla").

While Tokumitsu is thinking about it, government agents show up and independently offer him the "baseball dugout contract".

I think the government was spying on him, NSA style. They showed up the minute he debuted his trilobite, and then they show up repeating the conversation that he just had with his daughter.

During the next three years, as we come to 2003, Prime Minister Machiko Tsuge resigns and passes the mantle to Hayato Igarashi. I guess also the AMF becomes the JXSDF (looking online, the X stands for Xenomorph, so it's the Japan Xenomorph Self Defense Force. I don't know if "Xenomorph" is really correct, but Mothra and Gaira didn't really qualify as Megalosauruses, either.). And their new weaponry is unveiled. A trio of White Heron planes...

...and MFS-3 Kiryu, aka Mechagodzilla.

Because once again, everything must have multiple names. Man, they'd better hope they never have to face a Xenomorph. The only defense against one of them is Sigourney Weaver and a Predator.

The head of the newly formed Squadron Kiyru approaches Yashiro and recruits her. This is over the objection of one of the other squadmates, who is the brother of one of the guys that died in the 1999 Godzilla attack (and by the way, it's never really said how they got rid of Godzilla in 1999; did he just wander away?).

Dude, your stupid brother drove himself off a cliff and got stepped on. You should really just keep that to yourself and stop embarassing his memory. Ofc Godzilla wandered off and they didn't track him. He prolly walked into the sea and took a nap for 3 years.

After the confrontation with the brother, Yashiro declines to wear the JXSDF baseball cap. We're then treated to a montage scene of Squadron Kiyru training by running obstacle courses. You would think we'd see them training with flight sims and the like instead of crawling around in the dirt.

Are they training for all the running away they'll have to do when Godzilla kicks their stupid asses?

We also see Tokumitsu hitting on Yashiro, which is odd because he's like 20 years older than her. She doesn't seem to express any interest, and kind of ignores him when he tries to trap her into a date (if you win your first fight against Godzilla, i'll take you out to celebrate. And if you lose, then as the designer of Mechagodzilla, i owe you dinner.).

It's more that Yashiro just doesn't talk at all.

We're shown some test footage of Mechagodzilla deploying its Absolute Zero freeze ray. It's able to freeze an entire skyscraper and then destroy it by smashing its tail on the floor, with the impact shattering the building. It's said that Mechagodzilla has enough power to operate for two hours, but using the freeze ray depletes its power by 40%. The White Herons, however, can beam more power too it.

Ooh! Ooh! Is it like in Zone Fighter? Do they swap out a red gem?

While the test footage is being shown, Godzilla is detected.

He knows what you've done. And he's really upset about it. He hates it when you use his DNA.

Mechagodzilla is brought to the battle by the Herons.

It performed so well against that vicious skyscraper. Why not have it go against Godzilla next?

Godzilla is less than impressed when Mechagodzilla shows up.

Look at his face! "You want to fight me with a robot that needed to be carried here by three planes? Really?"

Meh. Ok, let's see what ya got.

And he just stands there, even after Mechagodzilla starts blasting him with missiles. He only reacts when Mechagodzilla shoots masers out of his mouth.

Did a Transformer fall on Mechagodzilla's back?

There is then a quick black and white flashback to scenes from 1954, and then Godzilla just kind of backs away and into the water. But Mechagodzilla starts going out of control.

Mechagodzilla then goes on a big rampage, with Yashiro no longer able to control it. It wasn't entirely clear at the time, but Mechagodzilla was being controlled via one of the White Herons; Yashiro was not actually inside Mechagodzilla.

He looks like Yosemite Sam.

This is all observed back at JSXDF headquarters...

...where it's said that he's rampaging "as if it were Godzilla". Well, a Godzilla that can shoot missiles, anyway. But it's true that just like Godzilla, Mechagodzilla would rather walk through stuff than around it.

The have no way of stopping Mechagodzilla (the White Herons try to distract it, but fail), and they basically have to wait until it runs out of power.

That is so sad for you. All your PR people just quit, btw.

The fact that it might be animated by the spirit of the original Godzilla, who of course was no good guy, isn't brought up directly. It's only said that "something made it mad" and then that Godzilla's roar disturbed Mechagodzilla's system. They do say that they're going to rebuild it with different DNA so that it won't be "bothered" by Godzilla. I'm not sure if they actually do that, since they don't tell us what DNA they use and in the end (and the next movie) the creature still being Kiryu is important.

During Mechagodzilla's rampage, Yashiro rescued the guy whose brother died in the previous Godzilla attack. He's still mad. But everyone else in the Kiryu Squadron is congratulatory, and they give her back her hat.

Sara, meanwhile, has some seemingly important insights to dispense. She asks why Kiryu and Godzilla fight when they should be friends. And that Kiryu agrees, and that humans are to blame. Adults say life is important but they don't believe it. No one pities Kiryu but it has a life too.

Is she psychic? Did her magic grass tell her that? Is she just excessively empathetic? Why isn't she in school?

In a different sort of movie, this might have led to the government finding a way to communicate with Godzilla through Kiryu, maybe find out why he keeps attacking and come to some agreement. Instead, the point of this scene only seems to serve as a way for Yashiro to come out of her funk; she's still not sure if life is worth living after the 1999 accident, and Sara's words move her.

Godzilla returns again, seemingly extra breath-weapon happy this time around.

Mebbe he's got a tickle in his throat. Or mebbe he's really pissed off that you built a robot around some old Godzilla bones. Mebbe that's it.

It's also interesting to note that Godzilla's head is more articulate than we've seen before. It may seem like a minor thing for Godzilla to be able to cock his head sideways, but it's actually a pretty big deal.

Godzilla makes his way to a hospital. As the hospital is being evacuated, a lot of screen time is given to one of the nurses. That's because it's Misato Tanaka, who played the main character in Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.

It's just a minor cameo role in this film.

After haphazardly Swiss cheesing Japan with miniature black holes in her quest for revenge, she realized the only way to pay society back was to dedicate her life to helping others. Leaving the military, she enrolled in a candy-striper training course during the day and spends her weekends herding groups of screaming children through theme parks.

As Godzilla is on his rampage, Prime Minister Igarashi hesitates to send out Mechagodzilla again, but he relents and Mechagodzilla is deployed.

I'm sorry. How can i take you seriously, Mechagodzilla? You have to be carried to the fight.

Mechagodzilla slams into Godzilla just as he was about to blast the hospital and the nurse. Then they fight.

When the combat gets up close and personal, Mechagodzilla reveals a hidden weapon: a blade hidden in his wrist. He stabs Godzilla and electrocutes him.

But Godzilla somehow manages to get one of his stubby feet up in the air to kick Mechagodzilla away (it's Wong Fei Hung's Shadowless Kick!), and then he pulls out the blade and casually drops it. One of the White Herons flies in to distract Godzilla while Mechagodzilla is recovering. Mechagodzilla then bends down and fires its jetpack at Godzilla. Godzilla catches it but is pushed back. Pretty awesome.

Godzilla then blasts at Mechagodzilla, but Mechagodzilla makes a quick duck and then does some kind of super-jump.

I've complained about the use of CGI in earlier Millennium movies but in this one, while there obviously is CGI, it's integrated much better.

The fight continues...

...with Mechagodzilla eventually doing the old tail lift and spin.

This whole time, Min has been shouting at the television for Mechagodzilla to use the freeze ray already, and eventually Godzilla falls over and Mechagodzilla begins that attack.

But Godzilla was faking, and blasts Mechagodzilla from the ground at the last minute, causing the freeze ray to go wild.

Tsk. Too slow, Mechagodzilla.

Mechagodzilla was only at 45% power before trying the freeze ray, so now he's just about out of power. So soon Mechagodzilla is down and out. So Yashiro decides to land her Heron and go to one of Mechagodzilla's maintenance booths to pilot it manually. She has to make her way through a lot of rubble and climb up Mechagodzilla to the hatch, so i guess now we know what all that training was for. She's also told there's a risk of radioactivity, since Mechagodzilla obviously took a lot of Godzilla's blasts. There is a decontamination system inside Mechagodzilla, though.

Meanwhile, the JXSDF keeps Godzilla busy with masers.

Of course, even when Yashiro is inside Mechagodzilla, it needs power. But the White Herons are able to beam power into Mechagodzilla's dorsal fins via microwaves.

The funny thing is that Godzilla blasts Mechagodzilla the second it stands up again.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Yashiro makes some direct appeals to Kiryu during the fight, telling him that she knows it's alive. But it's not clear to me exactly why Kiryu is willing to fight Godzilla this time.

Eventually the guy whose brother died flies his Heron into Godzilla's mouth. The idea is to prevent Godzilla from breathing so that Mechagodzilla can use its freeze ray.

All this hi-tech stuff and the best you could come up with was to fly your plane into the monster's mouth?

But instead, Yashiro bursts forward, knocks the plane away, and has Mechagodzilla clamp Godzilla's mouth closed with its fist.

Then Mechagodzilla pushes itself and Godzilla into the ocean as the freeze ray is activated.

There's a big icy blast. Godzilla emerges first, but his chest is a mess of wounds.

Godzilla then heads out to sea as Mechagodzilla also emerges from underneath the water. Mechagodzilla was basically out of power again, so i kept my fingers crossed that Godzilla wouldn't say, "Nah, just kidding!" and then turn around to demolish the big robot. And that doesn't happen.

The Prime Minister says that they couldn't kill Godzilla but they did expel him. And that it's a "great victory" to have a "weapon more powerful than Godzilla". Sounds like a politician's spin to me. Godzilla always emerges, rampages for a while, and then goes away. That's exactly what he did in his 1999 attack, as far as i can tell. So the fact that Mechagodzilla also fought him for a while doesn't seem to have amounted to anything except perhaps the fact that it created even more destruction. But if the puny humans want to call it a victory, let them for now. Godzilla will be back in Tokyo SOS.

A post credits sequence shows Yashiro thanking Sara, telling her that she gave her strength and agreeing that no life is worthless. Sara, meanwhile, has gotten rid of her sleeping grass plant, symbolizing her letting go of her mother's death. Then Sara's father Tokumitsu starts hitting on Yashiro again, and while my immediate reaction was "Give it up, old man!", Yashiro seems willing to give him a try. Since she neither won nor lost the fight with Godzilla, she decides that she'll treat him to dinner.

Some Godzilla movies have strong political themes, but this one is more of a straight adventure story. There are some subthemes for the humans getting over their depressions, but it doesn't translate as directly to the main Godzilla/Kiryu plot as you'd think it would. And that's fine. The movie has some fun Godzilla/Mechagodzilla fights and great special effects, and the Kiryu implications will be explored more next movie. In the meantime i am certainly down for a big dumb, nearly plotless, battle movie.

I still prefer my Godzilla as the good guy or as a confused chaotic neutral entity. I keep rooting for Godzilla in these movies even though he's kinda douchey. I totally cheered when Godzilla shot Mechagodzilla from the ground.

A couple of housekeeping notes on the Monsters Appearing tags. First, Mothra and Gaira only appear in flashback, so we haven't listed them. Second, i've listed both Kiryu and Mechagodzilla as Monsters Appearing. I think this movie should show up in a listing of Mechagodzilla appearances, but i also wanted to have a separate category just for Kiryu. If you like, you can think of Kiryu as the bones themselves, and Mechagodzilla as the robot that is built around it.

Godzilla Drinking Game
	Someone thinks it's a good idea to drag a giant monster across the ocean on a raft (giant eggs count).
	Attacking planes fly directly at a monster, with no possibility of avoiding a crash even if the monster didn't swat them down.	That guy flew his plane into Godzilla's mouth, but he did that on purpose, so no head smack.
	People refuse to believe in the existence of a giant monster even though they've already acknowledged that Godzilla exists.
	A submarine explodes.
	Teens have a dance party on a boat. Two drinks/head smacks if they get attacked by a monster during the party.
	The government is completely ineffective when faced with a corporation doing something illegal.
	A humongous lumbering monster manages to sneak up on someone. Two drinks/head smacks if it's the army and they're supposedly using radar.	When Godzilla is first detected in 2003, orders are given to evacuate the city. And we see a soldier near a Sea World type amusement park, and then Godzilla shows up, shocking him and causing him to announce into his radio that "Godzilla is here!". Like, you just detected him, and then you lost him immediately? Yes. Yes, they did.
	A scientist suddenly figures everything out with little-to-no information and explains it all to everyone.
	A monster suddenly grows in size just because.
	People expose themselves to major amounts of radiation with no concern.	Radiation is appropriately addressed in this one.
	Everyone suddenly knows a monster's name. Two drinks/head smacks if everyone else nods appreciatively and repeats it.
	Army missiles can't seem to hit a 150+ foot monster and instead explode harmlessly around it.
	A woman falls down for no reason.	What about "Jeep driver falls off cliff for no reason"?
	Bad dinosaur science. You have to give a little leeway for the time period, but pretending a children's picture book is a scientific journal is always worth two drinks/smacks.

Monsters Appearing: Godzilla, Kiryu, Mechagodzilla