The fate of a solo Mothra movie helped shape the direction of the 1990s Godzilla films. This particular set of movies – commonly referred to as the Heisei series – took the King of the Monsters through a long and challenging journey, pitting him against reimagined threats from Godzilla’s classic movies and completely original villains. More so than the other Toho-produced Godzilla series that consisted mostly of standalone adventures, the Heisei franchise was an interconnected story, with consequences from one fight carrying over to the next movie.
Most of the iconic villains and monster allies in Godzilla’s world were created beforehand, but there’s no denying that the 1990s series left a last marking on Godzilla’s legacy and made some noteworthy contributions to the lore. It introduced Godzilla’s burning form, brought in Destoroyah and SpaceGodzilla, returned him to his more sinister roots in the 1950s, and more. However, many of the things it did for Godzilla may have happened had Toho gone ahead with a plan for a solo Mothra film in 1989. In retrospect, this decision marks a pivotal point in the Godzilla franchise.
Toho Wanted To Make A Mothra Solo Movie In 1989
Bagan vs. Godzilla Was Originally Going To To Be The Studio’s Follow-Up To Godzilla vs. Biollante
When the second installment in the series, Godzilla vs. Biollante, was in development, Toho devised a plan to make a spinoff Godzilla movie with Mothra as the main monster protagonist. Godzilla creator Tomoyuki Tanaka intended to serve as the producer of Mothra vs. Bagan, a movie that was to Mothra against an original kaiju named Bagan. The movie would have introduced Bagan as an all-powerful, ancient monster, rather than one that was created by human-induced nuclear activity.
It was to be understood that Bagan was defeated millennia ago and trapped in the Himmalaya Mountains, not unlike the backstory given to the Monsterverse’s take on King Ghidorah. The single draft for the movie called for Bagan to be awoken in the modern era, where he would engage Mothra in an epic clash. Over the course of the story, Bagan was to experience two transformations, forcing Mothra to contend with three different forms of the villain. But despite Bagan’s mᴀssive power level and diverse capabilities given to him by his multiple transformations, Mothra would have prevailed in the end.
Of course, Toho never moved forward with this plan. This was likely the result of a few factors, including the slow development process. By the time the first draft was finished, Godzilla vs. Biollante had already been released – and unfortunately, to a poor return at the box office.
Despite Toho’s reluctance to make a solo Mothra movie in the early 1990s, it ultimately made three of them in the years that followed. Installments in Toho’s Rebirth of Mothra trilogy were released between 1996 and 1998.
This may have caused Toho to reevaluate its strategy for the franchise, albeit at the expense of Mothra vs. Bagan. According to The Big Book of Giant Japanese Monsters by John LeMay, box office concerns were further addled by how the studio perceived Mothra’s popularity. Although Mothra had carried her own movie in the past (1961’s Mothra), Toho was hesitant to let a monster other than Godzilla headline one of its kaiju movies.
How Cancelling Mothra’s Movie Impacted Toho’s Immediate Plans For Godzilla
Ideas For Mothra vs. Bagan Were Integrated Into Godzilla vs. Mothra
Even though it was a spinoff more than anything elese, Toho’s decision to scrap Mothra vs. Bagan had a direct effect on Godzilla. That’s because the ideas in the draft were used to write Toho’s follow-up to Godzilla vs. Biollante. As pointed out by Le May’s book, various events that take place in the Mothra vs. Bagan draft are extremely similar to what happened in Godzilla vs. Biollante’s sequel, Godzilla vs. Mothra. From the looks of things, 1992’s Godzilla vs. Mothra was essentially a heavily reworked version of the plan for Mothra vs. Bagan, but with Godzilla standing in for Bagan as the monster that gets unleashed on humanity.
Bagan never made an appearance in a movie, but has appeared in Godzilla media via the 1993 SNES video game, Super Godzilla. As Godzilla, the player must defeat Bagan in the final level of the game.
Interestingly, the movie that Toho was going to make if not Godzilla vs. Mothra was also planned to be a product of the spinoff. Mothra vs. Bagan was supposed to include a post-credits scene that teased Godzilla’s revival. This would have provided the setup for his next movie, which was to center on a battle between Godzilla and Bagan. The film would have basically been a sequel to both Mothra vs. Bagan and Godzilla vs. Biollante, wherein Bagan’s alien origin story introduced in the previous movie would have been fully fleshed out.
How The 1990s Godzilla Franchise Might Have Been Different If He Had Fought Bagan
Would Godzilla Have Still Died Fighting Destoroyah And Saved His Son From SpaceGodzilla?
Had Toho moved forward with the plan for Bagan’s two movie appearances, the 1990s could have offered a very different lineup of Godzilla movies, one that perhaps didn’t include several of his villains. It most ᴀssuredly wouldn’t have featured Battra, since he was in the plan’s replacement movie, Godzilla vs. Mothra. It’s highly likely that Mecha-King Ghidorah wouldn’t have had a role in the Heisei series either, as Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah was what Toho opted to make in the place of its unтιтled Godzilla-Bagan movie.
The repurcussions of Bagan’s introduction into the franchise may not have ended there, and could have seeped into the final installments as well. LeMay’s book explains that Toho envisioned a four-part Godzilla saga, with Mothra vs. Bagan and the Godzilla-Bagan movie accounting for the first two entries. It’s not been made clear what exactly Toho had in mind for the last two installments, but the characterization of it being a “four-part” story implies that Bagan would have been the foundation of the arc.
With that story taking up four movies in the franchise, there’s a good chance that the last two movies in the series – Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah – never would have come to fruition. While a crossover encompᴀssing four movies and a seemingly fearsome antagonist in the form of Bagan, the plan had a ton of potential. The only problem is that it may have resulted in a series of films without so many moments that are considered among Godzilla’s best.
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