I'm not sure that full photos of this article have ever been posted online, so let's take a look at the July 1977 issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland. This is a "filmbook": a quick recap of the events of a film intended for people who haven't yet seen it. I've seen these done for older Godzilla movies in magazines like G-Fan since, for most of the franchise's history, a lot of it was wholly inaccessible to English-speaking fans. That isn't the case here, though: this issue is promoting CinemaShares' U.S. re-cut of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, retitled Godzilla vs. Bionic Monster.
This issue pre-dates the lawsuit Universal Pictures brought against CinemaShares, alleging that the title was too similar to their TV series The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman. This is obviously a little ridiculous, but they do pun off of it in the filmbook, so there may have been some merit to the suit. The film was retitled Godzilla vs. Cosmic Monster afterwards.
Some highlights:
- Whoever wrote this may not have seen the film directly as they describe King Ghidorah being the one to attack Fake Godzilla instead of Anguirus.
- The article has a generally positive outlook on the film, which is surprising considering that it's an American review of a '70s Godzilla movie. It does lean into the "check out those ZAAANY monsters!" angle, but to be fair, the movie is kind of just like that.
- "Hey guys, should we credit the original director or any of the cast or staff?" "Nah, don't worry about it."
- Repeated references to Godzilla as being 21 years old, disregarding the original film in favor of King of the Monsters. I don't like that, to say the least.
- Excuse you, that's space titanium, not just regular titanium. Professor Miyajima didn't become a leading expert in the distinguished field of space titanium studies for you to disrespect it like that.
- King Seesaw.
- "At this point he could no doubt rip it clean off with one huge yank. But Godzilla is not a Yank, he is a Japanese." 🤮
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