- Jet Jaguar
nihongo|Jet Jaguar|ジェットジャガー|Jetto Jagā is a fictional robot that appears in the Godzilla film "
Godzilla vs. Megalon " (1973 ). [ [http://www.tohokingdom.com/kaiju/jet_jaguar.htm Jet Jaguar ] ]History
In "
Godzilla vs. Megalon ", Jet Jaguar is a robot created by the protagonist, Goro Ibuki. He is initially depicted as a mindless robot, and is controlled by the evil Seatopians for most of the film. He later gains sentience and helpsGodzilla battle the evilMegalon andGigan . He is depicted as a heroic character with the abilities to communicate withkaiju , fly, alter his own size, and use floodlights in his eyes.Origins
Jet Jaguar was the result of a contest
Toho had in mid-to-late1972 for fans to come up with a new hero for them to use (to capitalize on the manytokusatsu andanime superhero andsuper robot shows that were all the rage at the time). The winner of the contest submitted the drawing of a robot called Red Arone. The robot resembled bothUltraman andMazinger Z (both of which were very popular at the time). The robot was renamed Jet Jaguar and was set to star in a film vehicle for him, titled "Jet Jaguar vs. Megalon", which pitted him against Megalon (a previously unusedGodzilla villain). However, Toho figured Jet Jaguar would not be able to carry the film on his own, in screen appearance or marketing value (which was a big thing with Toho), so during pre-production, even after doing some tests and storyboards, the project was shut down for several weeks, until screenwriterShinichi Sekizawa was called in to rewrite the script to add Godzilla andGigan to have more marquee value. The resulting film, "Godzilla vs. Megalon ", paired Godzilla with Jet Jaguar against both Megalon and Gigan. [ [http://www.americancinematheque.com/archive1999/2005/japanese_giant_monsters_festival.htm The Japanese Giant Monsters Festival ] ]Footnotes
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