I've been on a Godzilla kick recently
This week, Guy takes us through the many faces of Godzilla
A brief foreword: This piece was initially published on 16th December 2023, on a platform I opted to stop maintaining. Since then, Legacy of Monsters finished its first season, with a second on the way, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire (2024) released to truly middling reception (54% on Rotten Tomatoes), and Minus One released a monochrome variant (Minus One/C and the original are both currently available on UK Netflix) and became an Academy Award winning film (Best Visual Effects). None of that changes what I had to say, but it bares saying so we don’t get comments of “why didn’t you mention X, Y or Z?”. Anyway, enjoy.
When I first saw the trailer for Godzilla Minus One (2023) I was very excited. I liked the idea of Godzilla without being a devotee to the franchise – this is similarly my stance to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (maybe it’s a lizard thing?). I then, upon some reflection realised I had in fact seen a LOT of Godzilla over the past 10 years, without ever having intentionally taken notice of him and his work prior – I have mercifully been spared the supposed horror of Godzilla (1998) save for clips and an episode of Mr Sunday Movies’ Caravan Of Garbage. With this in mind, and a release date of 15th December 2023 (in the UK, the US got it earlier and Japan earlier still, so spoiler dodging has been vigilant) I decided to revisit the last 10 years or so of the big scaly dickhead’s adventures and write down my findings. Because hey, what’s more Christmassy than an allegory for nuclear devastation?
[A note from Hari: This facet of Godzilla’s character is an important aspect of his portrayal. While in the West we may see him as a big funny lizard-thing, it’s crucial to note that Godzilla has been an expression of the collective trauma that came from the nuclear devastation that Japan as a nation has suffered through. The original film obviously responded to the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but more recently the 2016 Shin-Godzilla responded to the Fukushima nuclear incident of 2011. Guy will return to this later. It’s good to note that the nature of Godzilla films changes based on anxieties that Japan as a nation are experiencing, as well as the ways that the nation processes (or fails to process) the harm that the Atomic age has done to the country. I’m sure that Japan doesn’t mind making money from the Americanisation of Godzilla, but the West’s creative response to Godzilla overall is - to my mind at least - slightly tasteless, given the context.]
Let’s begin with the “Monsterverse” iteration of the character, that has appeared in 3 movies – Godzilla (2014), Godzilla: King Of The Monsters (2019) and Godzilla Vs Kong (2021), as well as brief cameo appearances in Kong: Skull Island (2017) and Monarch: Legacy Of Monsters (2023). I remember this cinematic universe launching hot on the heels of the end of Breaking Bad (2008-2013) and heavily utilising the film’s casting of Brian Cranton to leverage interest in the franchise revival, only to promptly kill his character off at the end of act 1. Gareth Edward’s style is clear and present in the initial film, with a wonderful sense of scale present throughout, that he then later used to similar effect on Star Wars: Rogue One (2016) and The Creator (2023). The creatures on screen truly feel like behemoths, their movements slow but with evidently immense power behind them. The spectacle comes from simply watching the MUTOs and Godzilla engage, not necessarily by virtue of how they do it, or cool moves they pull off, but simply the sheer awesomeness of one unstoppable deity clashing into another with an amount of force we can’t comprehend.
There is also a brilliant sense of the effect on a scale we as the audience are more familiar with – school buses filling with evacuating children, the nurse played by Elizabeth Olsen waving her son to safety while staying to help patients, only to then be stuck in a shoulder-to-shoulder bunker, which one of the creatures then crashes into in their fight. We as humans feel insignificant and powerless, which then parallels Godzilla’s initial purpose as a metaphor for the nuclear devastation visited upon Japan in the latter days of World War II. This idea of a more human-centric and grounded reality in this world is checked back in on by Legacy Of Monsters. At time of writing, the Apple TV series is still ongoing, with a 6th episode having come out just today, but so far it has had only brief monster appearances with more focus being put on corporate machinations, community devastation and the idea of living after such trauma. I don’t know that it fully delivers on such a promise as yet, simply for the fact that so much is put on the shoulders of lead actors that don’t always deliver (for me at least), but the idea of the consequences of the events of this universe simply being acknowledged is important, considering the other films in the franchise, and considering the show is the first time it was addressed in said franchise since the first film, 9 years prior.
King Of The Monsters and VS Kong somewhat went off the rails. Not in a sense of enjoyment per se – KOTM was a bit ropey but VS Kong was fun enough – but simply for the fact that they seemed to lose interest in making them feel the same in terms of devastation or meaning, and to focus more on making it more “epic” in order to market through this and sell more tickets. KOTM tries to achieve this by cramming as many of Toho’s classic kaiju monsters into the runtime as possible, with Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah all playing pivotal roles. With this increase in the number of kaijus however, comes a shift in how they are portrayed – whereas the 2014 film had creatures that moved as if they weighed more than we could imagine, these later entries’ monsters move as if unencumbered at all.
This becomes more evident in VS Kong, where this universe’s iteration of King Kong, first seen in his youth on Skull Island in 1973, now aged some 50-ish years is a match in size for Godzilla. Now, having seen both creatures in previous films, one might be able to glean certain advantages and disadvantages to each fighter – while Godzilla is clearly the more powerful, experienced fighter of the two, with the ability to fight on land AND in water and to shoot his atomic breath, Kong’s speed, agility, use of tools and higher brain function ought to come in handy. Instead, the main difference comes down to “Godzilla has claws”, which is somewhat disappointing, particularly when this film was pitched on this central fight, only for Mechagodzilla to roll-up uninvited and turn the whole affair into a Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice (2016) “They Punch For A Bit And Then They’re Mates” situation.
While one can nitpick the Monsterverse, and prefer certain iterations within it, it is undeniably a more cohesive shared universe for Warner Bros than their DC franchise. It has built these characters up over multiple movies (even if it’s just 3) before their big team up, allowing us to know all involved, the premises introduced in one movie are followed-up on in the next, and the action, whether you prefer the initial “slow and powerful” or “fast and flashy” approaches, is solid. I personally though, feel something is missing, something core to Godzilla as a character – meaning. Similarly to DC in fact, I could not, through any entry in this franchise, or the beast as a whole, find any message, or meaning to their stories. Is there a grander vision? Something Adam Wingard or Gareth Edwards were trying to say? It doesn’t feel like it. It could be the human cost, but that feels like an afterthought the TV show picked up and ran with. It could be “we’re so insignificant” but that feels like it fell down the back of the sofa in favour of a glowy axe for Kong to swing. No, for meaning in our kaiju films, we have to return to the source.
I type this lying in bed having just returned from seeing Minus One, the latest entry in the franchise. It currently holds the title of Highest-Grossing Japanese Film In U.S. History, with a current estimated box-office around $58.5 million on a budget of under $15 million. It sits at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and is widely being hailed as the best Godzilla movie ever. And I can see why, it is spectacular. I particularly recommend seeing it in IMAX if possible, not for the screen size or aspect ratio, but for the sound mix. There were moments where the nuclear explosions from Godzilla’s atomic breath felt more powerful than those in Oppenheimer (2023), and the roar of the thing on screen shook me in my seat. The films visuals are spectacular, and whilst being largely CGI, feel more baked in and practical than the CGI of the Monsterverse – in a recent episode of their VFX Artists React series, the Corridor Crew went into some detail on the film’s visuals, as well as others in the franchise. The destruction feels so much more personal, and the devastation of the loss of life on personal level is felt so emphatically it’s harrowing. I will also say that this latest iteration, for my money, handles the involvment of the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests far more interestingly than the Monsterverse, in which they also play a far less pivotal role – in Legendary’s films, Godzilla existed as a large, titanic creature long before the tests which were in fact intended to kill the creature, as seen in Legacy of Monsters, whereas in Minus One he exists, but nowhere near the scale and destructive power that he later achieves as a result of being caught in the nuclear blasts. Having it be an ancient power is interesting, but detracts from the importance of nuclear weaponry in his origin.
Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, while Godzilla has traditionally played the role of allegory to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the final days of the Second World War, in this film the nuclear aspects are far less central, and instead, the beast plays a far more personal role as a metaphor for the main character’s PTSD. His actions in the war, and his history of encounters with Godzilla become a weight upon him, and this trauma follows him, affects his life, and stops him from truly moving on. He builds a life, but never fully commits to it because he does not believe he has a right to live. This thing pursues him, over and over, hurting those closest to him, stopping him from acting, and stopping him from being happy. It is handled wonderfully, without being too explicit in the film, allowing it to work with other set pieces and the monster's trademark devastation, as well as an entertaining cast of characters who are all played to perfection, and all have their own crucial role to play. This film fully deserves the hype it is getting, and I encourage you to see it.
But before you do, let’s talk about my favourite Godzilla film. The one that, for me, is the apotheosis of the character, and the most powerful iteration to date.
Shin Godzilla (2016)
[Note from Hari: I personally feel Godzilla Minus One is the most powerful film in the franchise. It shows the very human impact of war and is perhaps the most overt acknowledgement of nuclear war on the country’s psyche. As a dramaturg, I would have liked a different ending - it was very sweet but I felt it was somewhat unrealistic (as unrealistic as anything can be given the presence of a big laser-dinosaur). While I enjoyed it, it’s important to find meaning in sorrow, and a bitter-sweet ending commenting on the tenacity of the human spirit would perhaps have been more appropriate.]
I don’t remember where I first heard about this film. I don’t even remember when I first saw it. I just know that I finished it and had NO idea what exactly had happened, but that I loved it. Then upon a rewatch, and some digging, I finally put all the pieces together. The film was written and in-large-part directed by Hideaki Anno, creator of Neon Genesis Evangelion, one of the most popular animé franchises of all time, and echoes of which can be heard throughout Shin Godzilla (sometimes literally – the show and film share a composer who reused a battle preparation theme). The term ‘shin’ in the title, has many meanings – “新 (new),” “真 (true),” or “神 (god)” – essentially boiling down to the fact that Anno intended this to be a definitive take on the character. The New Godzilla. The True Godzilla. The God, Godzilla. At every turn, this film delivers on that promise, connecting the old to the new, remaining true to the meaning of the character, while adding new meaning on top.
Rather than being a direct result of the Bikini Atoll nuclear tests as in the Monsterverse or Minus One, Shin‘s creature came as the result of dumping nuclear waste into the sea. A creature in the depths of the ocean was affected by the radiation, consumed the waste, grew and grew, evolved and evolved, and now has made landfall in Tokyo. The devastation is immediate, and constantly evolving, much like the creature, and the situations caused as a result. The government are hamstrung by their own bureaucracy, unable to act for long stretches, by which time the sitation has changed, and so they rinse and repeat, as the monster evolves from it’s first form of a tentacle in the bay, to a large, bug-eyed, armless thing, dragging itself along the Tokyo streets and waterways, gushing bloody mess from its gills, as it suffers constant pain in evolution. Right before this happens the government have assured the people that it can’t possibly come on land. Just as they finally get a grip on what to do, it evolves again, raising onto its hind legs and sprouting arms, before overheating and returning to the sea.
As mentioned earlier, the original Godzilla (1954) was made to represent the dropping of Fat Man and Little Boy on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, with both presenting a completely wild, devastating force unleashed upon the Japanese. While the 2016 iteration still carries on these nuclear themes, it does so more to address the Fukushima nuclear disaster of 2011, where an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in the Tōhoku region of Japan caused a power failure to the plant, which resulted in a lack of cooling for reactors and thus their explosions. While the explosions caused no direct casualties, resultant devastation to those in the surrounding area cannot be understated. There were an estimated 164,000 displaced from their homes, with the government’s response, evacuation and lack of care for those affected causing more damage than the radiation itself – radiophobia and other psychological impacts were rampant. This governmental cack-handedness is reflected in the government of this film, with bucks being passed, permission being waited on, forms being filled and hesitations to save face all playing a role in their incompetence and inaction, which ultimately allows Godzilla to not only run rampant, but to then leave unscathed, only to return stronger. Citizens are told too late to evacuate, and as such are right in the path of destruction. This government-critical stance is something it shares with Minus One, in which the government cannot act against Godzilla in the wake of WWII, and so it is left to private citizens to organise and do so.
The 4th form, pictured above, (1st being tentacle, 2nd being slug, 3rd being upright, 4th armoured upright) returns to Tokyo and once again causes mass devastation. This time, the government are more decisive – they send their own military but can’t make a dent in the thing, so call in US military support, which is finally able to damage the creature. This then results in Godzilla retaliating, spewing atomic breath into the city streets, undoubtedly killing many, and firing lasers from its dorsel plates along its spine, wiping out the air combatants above. Tokyo is in flames, the Japanese Prime Minister is dead, and Godzilla becomes dormant. With a co-ordinated effort, the newly formed government hatch a plan to kill the creature once and for all, and succeed in essentially freezing Godzilla to death.
The final shot of the film then pans up to reveal now-frozen humanoid creatures spawning from the end of the monster’s tail. This hints to plans Anno had to have this either be a form of reproduction for the beast, or the next stage in its evolution, or spawning a whole new species that would replace humanity and instead worship Godzilla, with concept art (below) showing a 5th and final form for Godzilla that appears more human, more feminine, and deeply mirrors the form that Lillith took during The End Of Evangelion (1997).
So, what is there to take from all this? Not much really, I’m a madman who watched many many hours of a big stompy lizard. If you ask me, the Monsterverse is fine, Minus One is incredible, Shin is definitive. But whatever your lizard kaiju preferences, there’s no denying that after his 69 (nice) year tenure as King Of The Monsters, the last 10 of those years proves that Godzilla has still got what it takes to rule the big screen.
[Note from Hari: I happen to firmly believe, as some of you may know from my Nature Substack, in the power of metaphor. Shin-Godzilla is a powerful commentary on the human ability to pontificate, even in the face of existential threat. Another overt acknowledgement of the dangers of atomic power, Godzilla himself mutates because of nuclear waste in the waters surrounding Japan - he in this way represents the failure of those in power to either anticipate or navigate the issues facing the masses who pay their wages. It is telling that the film received critical acclaim in Japan, but had a more mixed reception from Western critics. If you are going to watch two Godzilla films, make them Minus One and Shin-Godzilla. If you are going to watch just one, I would watch Minus One for a more personal account, and Shin-Godzilla if you’re into big-picture dramas.]