CREATURE FEATURE : Bagan

Bagan (バガン, Bagan) is a super kaiju created by Toho Studios that first appeared in the 1993 Godzilla video game, Super Godzilla, but was intended to appear in many films, all of which were scrapped.

History
Version #1
The Return of Godzilla
The first version of Bagan, from the first draft of The Return of Godzilla, was a shape-shifter. It started out as an ape-like creature but after being wounded it became a dragon-like creature. Each time it changed it healed itself. It dives into the sea and becomes fish-like. Bagan runs into Godzilla, but finding that it can't defeat him in any single form, it makes a towering, combined form. But after this, it can no longer change shape, meaning it can no longer heal itself, allowing Godzilla to defeat it.

Version #2
Mothra vs. Bagan
In Mothra vs. Bagan, Bagan is an ancient creature that protects the land of China. He was frozen in the Himalayas long ago but now, due to global warming, the beast breaks free. He sees the damage humans have done to the land and begins to attack them, but Mothra intervenes. As the fight between the two monsters takes them to Singapore, Mothra's egg hatches and the larva arrives to help its parent. Despite their combined attempts to stop the creature, Bagan kills the adult Mothra and moves on. The larva cocoons itself and becomes an adult Mothra, attacking and defeating Bagan in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, after Godzilla vs. Biollante did not perform as well at the box office as Toho had hoped, they decided not to risk making another movie with another new monster, and so Mothra vs. Bagan was canceled.

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Godzilla vs. Bagan
In Godzilla vs. Bagan, Bagan was intended to fight the King of the Monsters himself, Godzilla. Not much else is known, other than the Gotengo was also supposed to fit into the story somehow. Unfortunately, Godzilla vs. Bagan never got past the development stage.

Abilities
The only known powers for the first, Return of Godzilla version of Bagan are shape-shifting and ability to heal himself.

In the storyboards for Mothra vs. Bagan, Bagan is shown to be blowing a hole in one of Mothra's wings with an energy beam from his mouth. He is also shown to be firing some sort of lightning bolt from his main, nasal horn, and growing what seems to be some type of energy-wings out of his back.

The version of Bagan that appeared in Super Godzilla possessed insanely high physical strength and durability. He could slash with his powerful claws ("Slasher Claw"), perform a Diamond Storm (in which he would shoot white, star-like objects from his horns), fire a white Plasma Beam from his mouth and generate a Force Field to block incoming attacks. Bagan's attacks were, bar none, the strongest used by any enemy in the game. In addition, he had the most health out of any enemy in the game and Godzilla's attacks would inflict barely any damage, making it necessary to transform into Super Godzilla to defeat Bagan and complete the game.

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Filmography
The Return of Godzilla (1st Draft) (Scrapped)
Mothra vs. Bagan (Scrapped)
Godzilla vs. Bagan (Scrapped)

Video Game Appearances
Super Godzilla
Godzilla Movie Studio Tour
Bagan received a starring role as the final boss in the video game Super Godzilla. Supercharged by cells from Godzilla and King Ghidorah that his alien commanders had spliced into him, Bagan is easily the most powerful foe in the game, generally seen as impossible to defeat as normal Godzilla, and still seen as a difficult fight as Super Godzilla.

Trivia
Bagan is the only known monster to be more physically massive and greater in weight than the final form of Biollante, who weighs in at a lesser 220,000 tons.
Bagan was mentioned by Simon Strange in an interview for Godzilla: Unleashed. He was one of several monsters considered for the game, but was dropped in favor of more obscure monsters (Varan being explicitly stated).
In M.U.G.E.N, Bagan is playable. He is one of the customizable characters in the game. There are two versions.
A video, supposedly consisting of cut footage of Bagan from Godzilla: Final Wars, was uploaded to YouTube on June 19th, 2012. The footage turned out to be a hoax, showing off the monster called Reizaus from the show Super Fleet Sazer-X.
"Bagan" is Indonesian for blueprint or draft. This is interesting considering that Bagan was planned for several movies but scrapped.

Mothra vs. Bagan (Film Concept)
Mothra vs. Bagan was a film proposed in 1990 by Tomoyuki Tanaka. It would have been Mothra's first film since Destroy All Monsters and would have introduced the monster Bagan, who had previously appeared (in a vastly different form) in the scrapped first draft of The Return of Godzilla. The film would have, on an interesting note, included the character of Miki Saegusa (who had appeared only in Godzilla vs. Biollante at that point). However, due not only to the poor box office performance of Godzilla vs. Biollante, but also to the unlikely success of the film over seas, the film (which would have also been very expensive to make) was cancelled. However, much of the plot was recycled for Rebirth of Mothra. Some thing to note is that Desghidorah grows wings near the end, similar to Bagan.

Plot
Thousands of years ago, a giant monster terrorized ancient China. The kaiju, known as Bagan, rose to destroy threats to the Earth. Although the ancient people of China were able to defeat the creature, legend passed down through the ages claimed that the "primordial dragon" would rise again to defend the planet again. In the present day of 1990, the glacier containing Bagan melts from rising global temperatures, and the monster sets its sights of eliminating humanity, now Earth's greatest threat. However, standing in Bagan's way is Mothra, a giant insect monster left behind by an ancient civilization to defend humanity. Mothra confronts Bagan in Singapore, but is soon overwhelmed. Some distance away, in Borneo, a gigantic egg begins to stir, and it soon hatches an infant Mothra, which crawls to help its mother. The three monsters then engage in a series of battles that span the globe. Unfortunately, as the monsters fight in Bangkok, the adult Mothra is killed by Bagan. The larva quickly retreats and spins a cocoon, transforming into an adult Mothra. The two monsters then meet again, this time in Bangladesh, and begin the final battle. Bagan, though, has become even more powerful, and has now grown wings that allow the beast to fly. Fortunately, after a long battle, Bagan is defeated by the younger Mothra and humanity is saved.

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