Hey kaiju fans, I'm Koopa.
More than two years after the movie came out,
we finally came to our senses and decided to
profile the Mechagodzilla from "Ready Player One"!
Since Mechagodzilla doesn't show up until the end of
Ernest Cline's book and Steven Spielberg's movie,
a bit of context is necessary.
It's the mid-2040's, and Earth
has become a pretty miserable place.
Most of humanity can only find solace in the OASIS,
a virtual reality massively multiplayer online game.
Five years ago, OASIS creator James Halliday 
passed away, but revealed in a prerecorded message
that he hid an Easter egg in his game
for the world to hunt for.
The first person to find it will inherit his entire
fortune and absolute control of the OASIS.
Innovative Online Industries (IOI),
the world's leading Internet service provider,
has an entire department dedicated to finding
the egg so they can relentlessly monetize the game.
Opposing IOI, but also competing amongst themselves,
are a motley crew called gunters,
who study the pop culture of Halliday's
Eighties adolescence for clues.
Of course, IOI doesn't play fair,
trying to assassinate the most prominent
gunters in both the OASIS and the real world.
Mechagodzilla is one of the
company's in-game trump cards -
an incredibly powerful artifact possessed by
Nolan Sorrento, the company's head of operations.
In the "Ready Player One" book,
Mechagodzilla simply looks like Kiryu,
although it's unclear whether it's the original
model from "Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla"
or the modified version in "Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S."
For consistency's sake, this video
will represent it with the latter.
Jared Krichevsky designed a new
Mechagodzilla for the film adaptation.
Toho Kingdom President Joshua Sudomerski spoke
with him shortly after its theatrical run began—
I'll let him explain what he learned.
Regarding why Kiryu or another
pre-existing design wasn't used,
he could only assume it was due to legal reasons.
He actually submitted his own
original MG designs early on,
but was requested to make some that were closer
to the "classic" (Showa) incarnations.
As expected, Toho had to approve of everything
sent in, so he had to find the happy medium
between something Steven Spielberg wanted and 
something Toho would permit. He also mentioned how
Digital Domain did a lot of work when it came to
making the final design "pretty different looking."
Brought up to him how people have noticed
the similarities between his design
to Noriyoshi Ohrai's 1993 poster Mechagodzilla,
and it turns out it wasn't entirely unfounded -
surprisingly, it was per Toho's request!
They forwarded Ohrai's work to him
and said, "make it like this."
In any case, he was especially happy to hear people
talking about the design and its inspirations.
This Mechagodzilla was a completely
computer-generated character.
Like everything else in the OASIS,
it was animated by Industrial Light and Magic.
Oh, and while it may or
may not have been intentional,
the magnificent machine also ended up
resembling the MonsterVerse Godzilla,
right the way down to its breath weapon.
A glimpse into the future? Maybe...
Sorrento saved Mechagodzilla for the endgame.
IOI had reached the final stage of Halliday's
challenge, located in his abandoned castle.
They were stumped, but to make sure
no one else could figure it out first,
they set up an impenetrable force field
around the stronghold.
Out of options, the top gunters—Parzival, Art3mis, 
Aech, & Shoto (+ Daito in the movie)—joined forces.
Contacting the entire OASIS, Parzival raised an army.
In the book, he also managed to bring down the shield
by infiltrating IOI in the real world,
while Art3mis pulled it off in the film.
The stage was set for a robot battle for the ages.
[Audiobook narration:]
"They all recognized this giant metal behemoth.
"And they all knew it was nearly indestructible."
[Art3mis:] "Mechagodzilla!"
Unencumbered by budget or licensing costs,
Cline let all his heroes pilot vintage mechs,
obtained from an earlier phase of Halliday's
challenge: Parzival in Leopardon,
Art3mis in Minerva X, Aech in an RX-78 Gundam,
and Shoto in Raideen.
Other IOI agents backed up Mechagodzilla in
fighter mecha from "Robotech," Evangelion units,
and the Lions of Voltron,
but fell quickly to enemy fire.
Nothing short of Minerva X's Breast Fire and
Raideen’s God Breaker could dent Mechagodzilla,
who retaliated with lightning from its mouth.
The ray killed Shoto's avatar in Raideen
and destroyed Leopardon too,
though Parzival managed to eject in time.
Mechagodzilla pursued him,
but rather than fly into the safety of the castle,
he decided Sorento needed to be humbled.
Using a rare artifact called the Beta Capsule,
he transformed into Ultraman.
The damaged mech was no match for the giant hero,
who cleaved it in two with an Ultra-Slice.
Sorrento ejected in Mechagodzilla’s head, but Ultraman
took him out with his signature Specium Ray.
Spielberg wanted Ultraman for the movie as well,
but Tsuburaya and UM Corporation were still embroiled
in a legal battle over who owned
the international rights to his show.
Here's what Cline and Zak Penn came up with instead:
Aech activated his custom Iron Giant for the
final battle, while Daito used an artifact to turn into
an RX-78 Gundam for two minutes, a nod
to Ultraman's three-minute Color Timer.
The Iron Giant was no match for Mechagodzilla, who
knocked him aside before unleashing its flamethrower.
Before Parzival and Art3mis could slip
past it, a tail whip totaled his DeLorean.
Daito entered the battle as
they tried fleeing on foot.
Art3mis headed towards the Iron Giant while
Parzival and Shoto continued towards the castle.
Though the Gundam was an even match for Mecha G—
landing some solid hits with his Beam Saber—
the time limit proved to be Daito's downfall.
As he stood defiant, Mechagodzilla vaporized him,
then trained its finger missiles on Parzival and Shoto.
Just then the Iron Giant leapt onto its back,
causing its shots to go wild.
With Art3mis in the palm of his hand,
he held the mech's head in place
long enough for the gunter to shoot out
one of its eyes with her pulse rifle.
Before Sorrento could react, she tossed
a Madball grenade through the hole,
killing his avatar and destroying Mechagodzilla.
Despite looking like Kiryu, the Mechagodzilla
in the book handled quite differently.
Sorrento relied exclusively on its blue lightning weapon.
Though lethal against everything it touched,
it also had a cooldown period.
That reflected the machine itself;
Parzival observed that...
"The Mechagodzilla's slow movement and attacks
counterbalanced its seeming invulnerability."
The more agile Ultraman obliterated it
without taking a hit.
The movie Mechagodzilla was also a flawed juggernaut.
It easily bested the Iron Giant and
held its own against a giant Gundam,
despite Daito's mech having a shield that could
reflect its flamethrower and a deadly melee weapon.
Its finger missiles even had a targeting system,
which is more than could be said
of the Showa Mechagodzilla.
However, its eyes and innards proved
to be extreme vulnerabilities.
There's actually a third version of
the "Ready Player One" Mechagodzilla.
GUNSHIP's "Art3mis & Parzival" music video,
released a few weeks before the movie,
uses sprite art to tell the story in five minutes.
Evidently free of Toho's oversight, Jason Tammemagi
recreated the Showa Mechagodzilla for the finale.
It wiped out Leopardon and Minerva X
before Parzival went Plus Ultra.
Mecha-G managed to fire its finger missiles,
but didn't last long after that.
With "Ready Player Two" due in November,
the story of the OASIS isn't over,
but that's all we have for now
on its virtual Mechagodzilla.
Hopefully this clears up a thing or two.
(Smiley face.)
Thanks for watching!
