Godzilla is a 2014 American monster film directed by Gareth Edwards and written by Max Borenstein, from a story by David Callaham. The film is a reboot[7] of Toho's Godzilla franchise and is the 30th film in the Godzilla franchise, the first film in Legendary's MonsterVerse, and the second Godzilla film to be completely produced by a Hollywood studio.[a] The film stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ken Watanabe, Elizabeth Olsen, Juliette Binoche, Sally Hawkins, David Strathairn, and Bryan Cranston. In the film, a soldier attempts to return to his family while caught in the crossfire of an ancient rivalry between Godzilla and two monsters known as MUTOs.
The project began as an IMAX short film in 2004 but was transferred to Legendary in 2009 to be redeveloped as a feature film. The film was officially announced in March 2010 and Edwards was announced as the director in January 2011. Principal photography began in March 2013 in the United States and Canada and ended in July 2013.
Godzilla was theatrically released on May 16, 2014 to positive reviews, with criticisms aimed at Godzilla's screen-time and underdeveloped characters, but praise towards the film's direction, visual effects, musical score, cinematography, respect to the source material, and Cranston's performance.[9] The film was a box office success, grossing $529.1 million worldwide. The film's success prompted Toho to produce a reboot of their own and Legendary to proceed with sequels, with Godzilla: King of the Monsters released on May 31, 2019 and Godzilla vs. Kong to be released in 2020.
Mechagodzilla (メカゴジラ, Mekagojira) is a fictional mecha character that first appeared in the 1974 film Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. In its debut appearance, Mechagodzilla is depicted as an extraterrestrial villain that confronts Godzilla. In subsequent iterations, Mechagodzilla is usually depicted as a man-made weapon designed to defend Japan from Godzilla. In all incarnations, the character is portrayed as a robotic doppelgänger with a vast array of weaponry, and along with King Ghidorah, is commonly considered to be an archenemy of Godzilla.
Development
Mechagodzilla was conceived in 1974 as a more serious villain than its immediate two predecessors, Gigan and Megalon, whose films were considered creative disasters.[5][6][7] According to Tomoyuki Tanaka, Mechagodzilla was inspired by both Mechani-Kong from the previous Toho film King Kong Escapes and the robot anime genre, which was popular at the time.[8] Effects director Teruyoshi Nakano also felt that a mechanical monster was cheaper to construct than the mutated animals Godzilla had previously faced.[9][10][11] As the resulting Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla proved to be a greater critical success than previous 1970s Godzilla films, the character was revived in 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla. The film's screenplay was based on the winning entry of a story-writing competition won by Yukiko Takayama, who continued the darker tone of the previous film by adding the subplot of Mechagodzilla being cybernetically connected to a young woman. Mechagodzilla's design remained largely unchanged from its previous appearance, though it was made to look thinner and more angular, with a darker sheen and an MG2 insignia emblazoned on its upper arms. The film's original draft was going to have Mechagodzilla destroy Tokyo utterly, though the destruction was cut down for budgetary reasons.
Mechagodzilla was brought back in 1993's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, as the success of Godzilla vs. Mothra and the popularity of its main antagonist Mothra spurred Toho into reintroducing familiar characters rather than inventing new ones.[13] Originally, the new Mechagodzilla was to be named "Berserk", and was envisioned as being a much more organic Godzilla-like creature which would later turn on its creators after becoming infected with a computer virus which makes it self-aware. Berserk would subsequently absorb more and more machinery, to the point of degenerating into a mass of metal and wires, though this concept was rejected early in pre-production.[14] As Mechagodzilla was intended to be a military defense weapon rather than an alien construct, the character was redesigned as looking sleeker and smoother.[13] It was portrayed by suit actor Wataru Fukuda, and consisted of multiple separate elements which were worn like plate armor. Special effects artist Koichi Kawakita originally envisioned Mechagodzilla being able to split into aerial and terrestrial units, though this idea was scrapped in favor of the character merging with the flying battleship Garuda. The film was promoted through the children's program Adventure Godzilla-land, which portrayed Godzilla and Mechagodzilla as rival news anchors reporting on the events of the upcoming movie.[15] Composer Akira Ifukube wrote a theme for Mechagodzilla incorporating a slow battle march with heavy percussion and pentatonic phrasing.[13]
The decision to incorporate Mechagodzilla into the Millennium series was taken by producer Shōgo Tomiyama, who gave the general outline of what would become the story of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla to Godzilla vs. Megaguirus director Masaaki Tezuka.[16] Tezuka instructed his staff to research both cybernetics and DNA engineering in order to make the character scientifically plausible. Tezuka had initially wanted Mechagodzilla to be a much speedier robot than the one on film, envisioning it as becoming progressively more agile during its fight against Godzilla as the latter tore off its opponent's armaments. This incarnation of Mechagodzilla was deliberately shown being airlifted by carriers rather than flying directly into battle as the previous two incarnations had done, as Tezuka felt that it made little sense for Mechagodzilla to drain its energy in such a manner. Upon being asked why the Mechagodzilla suit wasn't painted with military camouflage colors, Tezuka answered that "Mechagodzilla doesn't need to hide."[17] Tezuka had originally intended to have both Godzilla and Mechagodzilla die at the end of the film, but was forced to change this on the insistence of Toho managers, who felt that such an ending was too dark for a New Year movie release.[16]
In the 2003 sequel Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., creature designer Shinichi Wakasa used the same mold to create a redesigned Mechagodzilla, which was meant to look more weathered than its predecessor. According to production designer Shinki Nishikawa, several other changes were made to the Mechagodzilla design's head, chest and arms in order to make the character look less heroic and more machine-like. The robot's back unit was reduced in size and flipped upside down, and the head was made smaller. As the previous design's shoulder cannons were considered uneven and unsophisticated-looking because of their rectangular shape, special effects director Eiichi Asada made them more pentagonal. As the character was supposed to rely more on its forearm cannons than in the previous film, Nishikawa made them larger and more powerful looking.[18]
For Godzilla vs. Kong, Mechagodzilla's design was inspired by the Generation 1 Transformers due to their "simplicity." Director Adam Wingard attempted to avoid the "complex" designs from the Michael Bay Transformers films.[19] Writer Max Borenstein had originally written Mechagodzilla into Godzilla: King of the Monsters. However, director Michael Dougherty scrapped the character during development
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