Monster Discussion #45: Mecha-King Ghidorah

[JVM]

Howdy assholes - time for another MD topic. Finishing up Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah '91, another classic shitfest, with Mecha-King Ghidorah!

Anyway, you can predict my thoughts immediately - I hate MKG. His origin is shit, he's uncreative in idea and design, the design itself honestly sucks and he's just really an uneeded addition to an already overstuffed film. He's in my bottom five Toho monsters, and I'm glad he's down for the count now.

[Godzillatheultimate]

He holds his legs together like a doddler that needs to pee.

[Tyler]

By this point in the movie just about anything could happen.

[Living Corpse]

I love this design, and I wish it would come back, as a space monster turned into a cyborg weapon like in the Godzilla vs The Robot Monsters book instead of some mutant Dorats, and I love how his Tri-Laser beam is sort of like a "tie dye" beam because it changes colors without ever becoming a rainbow like MG's Megabuster. The Capture Cables and Machine Hand are a nice addition.

My only complaint besides him not being a space monster and other issues I had with Heisei King Ghidorah is that he didn't seem to be much of a threat to Godzilla, yeah he shot him enough to make him backpaddle and his CC and MH hurt him some but it just seemed liked no matter what he did Godzilla was going to live to fight another day and MKG would not (which is exactly what happened).

Still, seeing MKG the first time back when I was eight was pretty epic and cool for me, I mean here's one of, if not the most iconic nemesis of Godzilla who had never had to transfrom before brought back to life as a cyborg weapon with new powers. Seeing that movie for the first time it was a nice surprise to see them change upgrade KG instead of just merely bringing him back to life.

[HayesAJones]

He's cool and all, but I'm not a fan. I never felt like Ghidorah, the King of Terror, had to be made into a mecha.

[Infinity]

While I like MKG more then the standard line of King ghidorahs, I felt that he just did'nt utilize his potential to the max, and his final fight with goji could have been better. It needed some brutality. MKG did attack with decent melee though. Perhaps Goji should have ended the match flooring with MKG and crushing and bludgeoning it with his tail until the center head would have exploded with a nice burst of blood and confetti.

This would make a great "what if" thread, with subject being, "what would happen if goji used the nuclear pulse on those cables,"

[TokyoVigilante]

He's undeniably cool, but he has as much depth as a deluxe action figure set.

I wouldn't mind seeing Mecha King Ghidorah make a return, but there a ton of monsters who deserve to come back over this one.

[Showa Gyaos]

His arrival was epic, but his execution was disappointing. Still, I am quite fond of the cybernetic "King of Terror."

[edgaguirus]

Great Entrance and interesting design, but MKG is the least of the Ghidorahs in my opinion. It looks nice, but doesn't have the power or menace neccesary that the other Ghidorah's possess. I did like the machine hand, though.

[Tohosaurus]

Awesome looking and a depressingly under-utilized monster IMO. They could've done a lot more with him. Heck, they managed to make a lightly modified Mechagodzilla into a character for the following film (Showa MG, that is). Then again with the Millennium series they saw fit to make a sequel to the first MG film. A 1991 Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and 1991 Godzilla vs Mecha-King Ghidorah doesn't seem so outlandish, or at least with him included in a later film somehow. Anyhow, I'm getting OT.

Great monster. Not perfect, but he his look at least is cool.

[King Caesar]

I like this guy, but I felt like Godzilla ends the fight sooner than he beat King Ghidorah when he wasn't a mech (he didn't win, but he was the one alive at the end). The battle is about half the time and it's basically MKG getting obliterated towards the end.

I personally think that most Kaiju should get Mecha forms, but it should definitely be a gradual thing.

[Arbok]

I still recall hearing about this back in 1992 from a friend and thinking there was no way Toho would "cut up" King Ghidorah and turn him into a cyborg... oh how wrong my childhood mind was. My first reaction was almost a slight betrayal, that King Ghidorah was a character who deserved better than this treatment. However, that was under my old, false early 1990's mentality that the Heisei series was actually connected with the Showa.

Today, I think it's a bold decision. It makes the film stand out, not feel like a rehash as many of the Millennium ideas did. It also gives the Heisei King Ghidorah an identity over his other counter parts.

I do find it interesting how weak Mecha-King Ghidorah is, though. One would assume that it would have given Godzilla more of a challenge than his normal version, but Godzilla seems to have no difficulty dealing with it and certainly less so than his first encounter with King Ghidorah in the film. I do love the way that this sets the stage for Mechagodzilla later, though.

[Hellspawn28]

I like MKG and I would not mind seeing Toho making a mecha version of another monster. I first knew about MKG due to the Trendmasters toys back in the mid 90's and I was told that he was created by the Black Hole Aliens in the movie as a kid. Well at least MKG was later link up to MechaGodzilla, two years later.

I do find it interesting how weak Mecha-King Ghidorah is, though.

I recall MKG made a draw between Godzilla since I remember the battle between the two ending the fight under water and there was no clear winner?

[Arbok]

I recall MKG made a draw between Godzilla since I remember the battle between the two ending the fight under water and there was no clear winner?

Godzilla delivers the final blow to Mecha-King Ghidorah while he is being carried out to sea. Emmy manages to escapes after they both fall in the water, but there is little doubt that Godzilla won that fight.

It's different from the more or less same ending in Godzilla vs. Mothra, where in Mothra was a-okay when she drops Godzilla into the water far below and defeats him... where as Battra was already gone by the time he struck the water, like Mecha-King Ghidorah.

[JVM]

I still recall hearing about this back in 1992 from a friend and thinking there was no way Toho would "cut up" King Ghidorah and turn him into a cyborg... oh how wrong my childhood mind was.

It's a pretty stupid idea on paper.

However, that was under my old, false early 1990's mentality that the Heisei series was actually connected with the Showa.

It's kind of funny how adamant people are about timeline but how often this kind of misconception cropped up back in older sources I see. Before GeoCities went down I remember a site with Monster Bios through G2K that connected all three series.

I do love the way that this sets the stage for Mechagodzilla later, though.

Best moment of continuity in the entire Heisei series.

[HeiseiGodzilla117]

He's okay. I kind of think he's just a victim of the poor writing (and filming in general) of the majority of the Heisei era. It's a cool design, but I just think it's like most of the heisei films, the only good thing is the monsters, but their origins are just so poorly written.

[The One and Only]

Cool monster. As I remember back in the March/April '98 issue of G-FAN the bloke actually made second place in a ranking of Godzilla's top ten foes. With the Showa Mechagodzilla placing at Numero Uno. I always assumed some of the cyborg's vulnerbilities came from the fact that the Futrians were on a tight schedule with what they could outfit Ghidorah with, because time was passing on both ends of the timeline before Godzilla's rampage in the present really screwed up things in the future. Also maybe the fault lies with Emi, Mecha-King Ghidorah's human operator, in that she was trying to keep the Big-G to a confined space, to limit the damage the battle would inevitably cause. Thus making herself and the cyborg vulnerable to Godzilla, who has no restraint when fighting. The cyborg really got to show its destructive side in the last of the Random House, Marc Cerasini novels published, GODZILLA Vs. THE ROBOT MONSTERS. In which a mad dictator, Kulgan Khan, finds the remains of the King of Terror, and has scientists in his service, resurrect him in a cyborg that lives up to term, Weapon of Mass Destruction. And top it off takes on Godzilla, Mechagodzilla(Heisei), and M.O.G.E.R.A. simultainiously. Not to mention the the cyborg's operator is a teenage girl, Yisui, who through a virtual helmet, and wired in via neural links, controls the monster. But everytime she connects to Ghidorah's mind, she looses a bit of her humanity in the process. Twisted in a cool way.

I was of the thought, when I read that Toho had briefly considered the follow up to GVsKG was going to be The Return of King Ghidorah. Featuring the another King of Terror more faithful to the original coming from space. The idea started brewing that in the interim between the two films the Japanese had recovered the remains of Mech-King Ghiorah, and got the sucker in working order. When the new/original deal shows up the J.S.D.F. sends the cyborg to take it down. Which would've been on for the books. Although a nightmare for the wire works crew,trying not to get the wires tangled up. If they decided to replace the center, mecha head with a new one while taking apart, and reverse engineering the old one. I'd love for them to replace it with this one.
http://www.tohokingdom.com/concept_art/gvskg/mkg_head2.htm

[Huan_of_Valinor]

Someone posted something on youtube that i'm going to quote here, more or less.

the time travelers said that a person couldn't go back to a time in which he already existed, because one of them would disappear. If true does that mean that when MKG appeared, the body of KG disappeared because MKG didn't disappear. So KG's body disappeared, which means it wasn't there to be made into a cyborg in the future...

which means he can't exist... >.<

heck with logic. Not a bad design, but not a neccisary addition to the film imo

[NSZ]

Someone posted something on youtube that i'm going to quote here, more or less.

the time travelers said that a person couldn't go back to a time in which he already existed, because one of them would disappear. If true does that mean that when MKG appeared, the body of KG disappeared because MKG didn't disappear. So KG's body disappeared, which means it wasn't there to be made into a cyborg in the future...

which means he can't exist... >.<

heck with logic. Not a bad design, but not a neccisary addition to the film imo

Dammit man, we finally made heads and tails of this accursed confusing movie and now you bring this up?! What is wrong with you!?

[Huan_of_Valinor]

At least the godzilla thing is explanable.

here i'll make something up

the body that you saw in 2204 was mecha king ghidorah after the metal had been salvaged to make mechagodzilla, apparently the JSDF left the organic body on the bottom?

well i tried