Insect Monster Megalon vs. Godzilla: The Undersea Kingdom's Annihilation Strategy

Directed by

```
Kaoru Mabuchi

```

 Music by
 Budget

Godzilla vs. Megalo (also known as Godzilla vs. Megalon) is a 1973 toho kaiju film,Directed by Jun fukuda.

## Plot

in the year 197X, the Aleutian Islands of Asuka island  International was held in the nuclear tests the Pacific Ocean affect the majority of, monster island and Shitopia undersea kingdom also suffer. The revenge-burning commander of Seatpia, Antonio, caused a large-scale crustal movement to retaliate against the terrestrials, and sent Megalo, the guardian deity of the kingdom, to the ground to initiate a ground attack. Megalo destroys the attacking defense team, destroying the city area and the complex one after another. In addition, Seatpia snatches a life-sized robot, the Jet Jaguar, created by a young scientist, Goro Ibuki, to guide the pilot.

However, Goro and his friends take back the Jet Jaguar because the pendant-shaped master controller was not noticed by the Seatpia people. Jet Jaguar goes to Kaiju Island to call Godzilla, and immediately returns to make him huge, and confronts Megalo.

However, the Seatpians antagonized this and called on Geigan from the M Universe Hunter Nebula, and the Jet Jaguar, which became 2 to 1, became inferior. Godzilla appears in the pinch of Jet Jaguar. Before the powerful tag between Jaguar and Godzilla, Geigan runs out, and Seatpia also withdraws Megalo and stops the ground attack.

Jet Jaguar lost his will when he returned to life, after finishing the battle. Goro and his friends went home hoping for a peaceful world in which Jet Jaguar did not have to be willing again.

## Cast

* Ibuki Goro: Katsuhiko Sasaki
* Jinkawa Hiroshi: Yutaka Hayashi
* Ibuki Rokuro: Hiroyuki Kawase
* Defense Force Front Director: Mita Mita
* Man in Black: Kotaro Tomita
* Man in gray clothes: Wolf Otsuki
* Dump truck assistant: Sakyo Mikami
* Ground One Man: Fumio Ikeda
* Dump truck driver: Gen Nakajima
* Seatpia Commander Antonio: Robert Dunham
* Undersea Kingdom Electrician: Rolf Jessup
* Car Stunt: Team Zamba
* Godzilla: Shinji Takagi
* Megalo: Hideto Date
* Jet Jaguar: Komada Tsugiri , Masachika Mori
* Gigan: Kengo Nakayama
* Sword: Takamitsu Watanabe

\*The following non-credit performers

* Defender: Eisaburo Komatsu
* Asuka nuclear tester : Eisuke Nakanishi

## Staff

* Production: Tomoyuki Tanaka
* Original: Shinichi Sekizawa
* Writer: Jun Fukuda
* Music: Riichiro Manabe
* Photo by: Aizawa
* Art: Yoshifumi Honda
* Recording: Shiro Hayashi
* Lighting: Masakuni Morimoto
* Edit: Michiko Ikeda
* Director: Josaburo Nishikawa
* Producer: Keisuke Shinoda
* Articulation: Toho Recording Center
* Effect: Toho effect group
* Development: Tokyo Lab
* Cooperation: Honda Motor Co., Ltd.
* Special technology: Akinori Nakano
	+ Photography: Tomioka Mototaka
	+ Art: Toshiro Aoki
	+ Special effect: Tadaaki Watanabe
	+ Optical photography: Takeshi Miyanishi
* Director: Jun Fukuda
* Production: Toho Video Co., Ltd.

## Titles

* Godzilla vs. The Megalon Brothers: The Undersea Kingdom's Annihilation Strategy (ゴジラ対メガロ兄弟 海底王国全滅作戦 Gojira tai Megaro Kyōdai Kaitei Ōkoku Zenmetsu Sakusen, Early Japanese Title)
* Godzilla vs. Megalon: The Undersea Kingdom's Annihilation Strategy (ゴジラ対メガロ 海底王国全滅作戦 Gojira tai Megaro Kaitei Ōkoku Zenmetsu Sakusen, Early Japanese Title)
* Insect Monster Megalon vs. Godzilla: The Undersea Kingdom's Annihilation Strategy (昆虫怪獣メガロ対ゴジラ 海底王国全滅作戦 Konchū Kaijū Megaro tai Gojira Kaitei Ōkoku Zenmetsu Sakusen, Early Japanese Title)
* Gorgo and Superman Meet in Tokyo (Gorgo y Superman se citan en Tokio; Spain)
* Planetary Titans (Titanes planetarios; Mexico)
* Godzilla 1980 (Godzilla 1980; France; French Belgium)
* King Kong: Demons from Outer Space (King Kong — Dämonen aus dem Weltall; Germany)
* At the Borders of Reality (Ai confini della realtà; Italy)
* Godzilla Against Megalon (Godzila protiv Megalona; Yugoslavia)

## U.S. release

In 1976, Cinema Shares released a dubbed version of *Godzilla vs. Megalon* theatrically. Riding the coattails of Dino De Laurentiis' big-budget *King Kong* remake, poster art showed Godzilla and Megalon battling on top of the World Trade Center, despite the fact that no scenes were set in New York.

To obtain a G-rating from the MPAA, Cinema Shares cut three minutes of footage, including:

* The opening credits.
* Rokuro being abducted by Seatopian agents, who pull him into their car.
* Scenes in the container truck that showed pornographic material on the back wall (There was more dialogue in the scenes that added to the story, thus making these cut scenes somewhat confusing).
* A fight scene between Hiroshi and the lead Seatopian agent.
* A scene of the bearded Caucasian Seatopian agent being thrown down a cliff by the truck drivers.
* Some scenes of bloody violence, when the toy jet (which Rokuro borrowed from the hobby shop) flies into the lead Seatopian agent's face, there was a brief shot of blood dripping from his face and when Hiroshi says "Get him!!!", Rokuro swings on the chained picture boxes in Goro's lab, and strikes the agent above the chest.
* The Seatopian agent being crushed by a boulder hurled by Megalon.
* Dialogue: "What the hell's that?" and "Go to hell!"

With this being the second of the three Cinema Shares Godzilla releases, the publicity factor was high. Along with the poster, buttons with one of the four kaiju's faces on them were released. A couple of weeks before the release of Godzilla vs. Megalon, CinemaShares had a comic book released to promote the film, but in the comic there are numerous errors present in the monster's names and locations and events. The theatrical trailer for the film also contain these errors, such as Jet Jaguar being called "Robotman."

## Production

The title of the script for the examination was "Godzilla vs. Megalo Undersea Kingdom Eradication Operation", and the title of the preparation manuscript was "Insect Monster Megalo vs. Godzilla Undersea Kingdom Eradication Operation"  .

Initially, the script for this work was requested to be written by Shinichi Sekizawa , but at that time Sekizawa was too busy writing lyrics and had no time to write. I provided only the original. Since there was no time at all from the launch of the project to the shooting , the planning work proceeded with the system in which director Jun Fukuda wakes up in the script  .

Since it became a program of "Toho Champion Festival", the new Godzilla movie has been forced to have a low budget, and various restrictions have been imposed from the script writing stage. Akiyoshi Nakano, a special technology company , said, "There was a great deal of work to tackle such a problem as low cost and how far you can do it in the least time." In response to this low budget, the cast side will be a small number of people, mainly newcomers, only in the Godzilla series, the main cast has no women  . In the main part, most of the filming is done on location, except for Dr. Ibuki's laboratory and the set of the Sheetpia Kingdom. In terms of special effects, Nakano says he has no budget, so he could only prepare wilderness in the decisive battle scene. It was said that the actual shooting period was less than one-quarter of its peak, about two weeks.

Due to this lack of budget, in the scene of urban destruction by Megalo, there are many film diversions from past works as in the previous work  . Meanwhile, the dam destruction scene by Megalo is a powerful showcase with a full-scale miniature with an open set. Akiyoshi Nakano, the special skill director, said , " One-point luxury in a scarce budget"  .

The depiction of the battle between monsters is based on the concept of "monster tag match, " and Godzilla makes a V-sign, and Megalo provokes by tapping his buttocks to provoke humanity  . Since a full-fledged anthropomorphic turn was adopted, action actor Takamitsu Watanabe was used to teach the sword fight in the gym before shooting .

With the intention of Fukuda that "I want something to show in the main story," the flashy car chase scene was shot, such as cars going down stairs or steep cliffs or breaking through prefabs. The car stunt was performed by "Team Zamba" who was also in charge of stunts in " Arteries " (1975), and the special effects team is also supporting the camera for this shooting  .

Honda Motor Co. has tie-up has been to cooperate with, the scene to analyze the button and sand that had fallen to the Institute have been taken by Honda Motor Industrial Technology Research Institute.

According to Katsuhiko Sasaki's recollection in the audio commentary on the DVD, the scene of the dolphin vehicle deployed at the beginning of the lake was filmed in Lake Motosu in December 1972, but Sasaki and Yutaka Hayashi appearing in this scene are: It is said that Fukuda had swallowed his pocket whiskey because his exhaled breath appeared white.

## DVD

Before Media Blasters acquired the rights to *Godzilla vs. Megalon*, numerous American companies distributed fullscreen versions of the film on unlicensed VHS and DVD releases, operating under the impression that it was in the public domain.

**Power Multimedia** DVD (1999)

* Region: N/A
* Discs: 1
* Audio: English (Mono), Mandarin (Mono)
* Subtitles: Chinese (traditional and simplified)
* Special Features: None
* Notes: Presents an unaltered 16mm transfer of the film's international version, albeit cropped to 1.33:1. Out of print.

**Media Target** DVD (2002)

* Region: 2
* Discs: 1
* Audio: German (2.0 Mono)
* Subtitles: None
* Special Features: Trailers, photo gallery, production notes, information on the cast and crew

**Toho** DVD (2004)

* Region: 2
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (1.0 Mono and 5.1 Surround)
* Subtitles: Japanese
* Special Features: Audio commentary by Katsuhiko Sasaki, *Godzilla vs. Megalon* trailer, scans of the theater program, interview with Teruyoshi Nakano (one hour), two sings-alongs for "Godzilla and Jet Jaguar: Punch! Punch! Punch!"

**Aventi** DVD (2006)

* Region: 2
* Discs: 2
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono)
* Subtitles: French (forced)
* Special Features: None
* Notes: Packaged with *Godzilla vs. Mothra*. Cropped to 1.33:1.

**Madman** DVD (2006)

* Region: 4
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono, 5.1 Surround), English (2.0 Mono)
* Special Features: Trailers for *All Monsters Attack*, *Godzilla vs. Hedorah*, *Godzilla vs. Gigan*, and *Godzilla vs. Megalon*
* Notes: Both versions of the film use the same Japanese video track.

**Media Blasters** DVD/Blu-ray (2012/2014)

* Region: 1 (DVD) or A/1 (Blu-ray)
* Discs: 1
* Audio: Japanese (2.0 Mono, 5.1 Surround), English (2.0 Mono)
* Special Features: None (standard version) OR audio commentary by Steve Ryfle and Stuart Galbraith IV, image gallery (13 minutes), interview with Ted Thomas (30 minutes), Toho trailer reel (37 minutes), *Godzilla vs. Megalon* TV spots and trailers, opening credits from the U.S. theatrical print (accidental release only)
* Notes: Both versions of the film use the same Japanese video track. Difficulties in securing Toho's approval for the special features led to Media Blasters releasing *Godzilla vs. Megalon* without any. However, the duplicating facility the company used accidentally pressed over 500 DVDs using the original digital files. Because this version of the release was an accident, the only way to tell if a given disc has the special features is to play it.

**Toho** Blu-ray (2014)

* Region: A/1
* Discs: 1

**The Criterion Collection** Blu-ray (2019) [*Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975*]

* Region: A/1 or B/2
* Discs: 8
* Audio: Japanese, English
* Subtitles: English
* Special Features: All bonus features on Criterion's *Godzilla* Blu-ray, 1990 Ishiro Honda interview by Yoshimitsu Banno, interview with director Alex Cox, interviews with actors Bin Furuya and Tsugutoshi Komada, 2011 interview with critic Tadao Sato, unused effects sequences from Toho releases including *Destroy All Monsters*, trailers, illustrated hardcover book with an essay by Steve Ryfle and liner notes on each film by Ed Godziszewski
* Notes: Uses a new English subtitle translation. Sony distributed a Region B/2 version of the set in the United Kingdom.