With Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire squashing the box office and Godzilla Minus One earning that coveted first Academy Award for the series, talk of Godzilla is obviously high. As such, Godzilla: Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura recently revealed that the film was close to getting a Mechagodzilla redesign by none other than Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding artist Yoji Shinkawa.
In an interview with Kaiju United on the 20th anniversary of Godzilla: Final Wars, Kitamura–who was enlisted by Metal Gear Solid creator Hideo Kojima to direct the cut scenes in the Gamecube-exclusive Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes–revealed how he had gotten Shinkawa for Godzilla: Final Wars.
“When I worked on Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, I asked nicely to Kojima-san, can I borrow your genius designer? He asked, what are you going to do? And I said I’m going to do final Godzilla! He was like, wow, go ahead. Mr. Shinkawa designed all the cool earth defense force and mutant squad costumes, and the battleship Gotengo. So yes, there’s a lot of connection between Metal Gear Solid and Final Wars, because I did it back-to-back.”
When asked by the interviewer if there were any kaiju for Final Wars that didn’t make the cut, Shinkawa mentioned Mechagodzilla. “If they didn’t do the Mechagodzilla movies right before me, I would have brought him back, because it’s so cool. Imagine the Metal Gear Solid designer Yoji Shinkawa redesigned Mechagodzilla!”
As for why Shinkawa didn’t do a redesign, Kitamura said it came down to respecting the character. “I wanted to do it, but I didn’t want to disrespect.”
Given Shinkawa’s designs of the Metal Gear mecha over the years (not to mention his designs of mecha in Zone of the Enders), it definitely would have been interesting to see how he would have tackled Mechagodzilla.
Thanks to Time Extension for spotting this!