Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress

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Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress
Fan concept art for Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress
Alternate titles Godzilla vs. The Asuka Fortress,
Godzilla vs. Asuka,
Godzilla: Legend of the Asuka Fortress
Planned 1977-1979
Concept history U.S.-Japan Collaboration: GodzillaA Space GodzillaGod's GodzillaGodzilla Legend: The Asuka FortressKing of Monsters: Resurrection of GodzillaResurrection of Godzilla (1980)Resurrection of Godzilla (1983)The Return of Godzilla

Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress (ゴジラ伝説 アスカの要塞,   Gojira Densetsu Asuka no Yōsai) is an unproduced story proposal for the 16th Godzilla film. Proposed by series veteran screenwriter Shinichi Sekizawa in the late 1970s, the story was conceived as a potential revival to the Godzilla series following its then-ongoing hiatus after the release of Terror of Mechagodzilla in 1975. The story was never adopted by Toho, and fell to the wayside in favor of various other proposals which ultimately gave way to the series' eventual revival with The Return of Godzilla in 1984.

History

Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress was proposed by series veteran Shinichi Sekizawa to revive the Godzilla franchise after its several year-long hiatus following the release of Terror of Mechagodzilla in 1975. The film was proposed in the late 1970s and went through numerous story drafts and revisions before ultimately being scrapped, with the Godzilla series finally being revived in 1984's The Return of Godzilla. Some elements and concepts from Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress may have been recycled for the 1989 film Gunhed.[1][2]

Plot

In the year 2000, Godzilla has been successfully sedated deep within the Japan Trench by means of a special frequency. Meanwhile, the scientist Dr. Yasuto Ito has invented and constructed a new superweapon dubbed the Asuka Fortress (or Big Boy in later drafts); a mountainous robotic supercomputer built to defend Japan against all threats. The Prime Minister of Japan intends to use the giant robot to enforce 'world peace' under the banner of the World Peace Unicom League, but instead both he and his cabinet end up becoming the Asuka Fortress' first victims when it gains independence with the goal of exterminating all other life on Earth. Realizing how desperate the situation has become, a group of computer technicians and scientists who helped build the Fortress, led by a man named Son of Heaven, free Godzilla from his underwater prison to battle the rogue superweapon. The Asuka Fortress recognizes Godzilla as the only being capable of destroying it and constructs and sends forth several robotic minions to assassinate the King of the Monsters. Godzilla eventually makes his way to the Asuka Fortress itself but the machine proves too powerful for him to defeat until Son of Heaven and his friends infiltrate the Fortress and shut it down from the inside. With the Asuka Fortress deactivated and the human heroes out of harm's way, Godzilla obliterates the motionless mechanical behemoth.[1][2]

Trivia

  • The project might have been an expansion of an older unused film treatment written by Tatsuo Kobayashi titled Godzilla vs. the Robot Corps, of which little is known.[2]
  • Sources such as Toho Tokusatsu Unpublished Works and John LeMay's The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films note that Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress may have been still in development well into the early 1990s as the third entry in the Heisei series and a follow-up to Godzilla vs. Biollante.[2][1]
  • Some similar concepts to this story appeared in Godzilla vs. Cyber City, one of several unused story proposals for the final Heisei Godzilla film.[3]

References

This is a list of references for Godzilla Legend: The Asuka Fortress. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 [1]
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 John LeMay (June 15, 2017). The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: The Lost Films. CreateSpace. pp. 73–77. ISBN 9781548145255.
  3. Sudomerski, Joshua (27 March 2022). "Godzilla vs. Cyber City". Toho Kingdom. Retrieved 28 March 2022.

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