Godzilla 70th Anniversary: The First And Still The Best

The original Godzilla is a film unlike any other. It's a film that, through the visage of a classic monster movie, masterfully presented the existential terror of the Cold War, capturing the mood of a people that remain the only ones in history to have seen the reality of nuclear war first-hand. Despite being in black and white and having special effects that are very much a product of their time, it remains one of the most effective and frightening pieces of cinema you can watch, a haunting piece of art that presents it's themes and message confidently and with not a shred of remorse. November 3rd 2024 marks this wonderful film's seventieth anniversary, but unfortunately, my copy of the Criterion 4K release isn't coming until the 11th. Thankfully, I already have Criterion's previous Blu ray release so I can at least try to do this film the justice it deserves, all that being said, let's get started. 

Here's what you need to know; nine years after their surrender to the Americans at the end of World War II, a series of unexplained ship disappearances off the Japanese coast has the nation spooked, with the residents of Odo Island believing the culprit to be a massive sea creature called Godzilla. But when stories of the beast turn out to be true, Japan must decide a course of action to deal with the threat before it can come ashore and wreak unimaginable destruction on the struggling nation and its people.

Godzilla opens with a scene of a Japanese ship being destroyed by a blast of radiation from an unseen monster. Right out of the gate, the film makes no attempt to obfuscate it's themes and message, as this scene is a direct reference to a real world event that happened just a few months before, one I've talked about before when discussing Godzilla. On the 1st of March, 1954, the United States detonated it's first thermonuclear bomb on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The Castle Bravo test was one of the worst disasters in America's entire nuclear history, as thanks to an unforeseen boost in the efficiency of the bomb's fusion reaction, it went off with a far, far bigger boom than the scientists predicted. The resulting fallout from the test was much worse than they'd expected, and ended up contaminating several populated islands and over a hundred ships in the area. One such ship was the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, the Lucky Dragon No.5, a Japanese fishing boat that had unknowingly wondered too close to the test site. In the following months, all twenty-three of her crew would suffer the effects of their exposure to the fallout from Castle Bravo, one of them would die from the radiation poisoning. This event and the moral panic that it caused in Japan was one of this film's main inspirations, so it's only fitting that the film would open with a ship being destroyed by a radioactive monster. The film spends the next leg of its runtime building up it's characters and story, as the mystery of the disappearing ships slowly swells into a crisis on the mainland.

Elsewhere, on Odo Island, the fishermen start coming back with empty nets, and a village elder becomes convinced that a sea monster is eating all their fish. Godzilla's story is told through several characters and intersecting storylines, and like all good ensemble casts, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Essentially, the various characters of Godzilla exist to represent the different ideas and philosophies that underpin its story. Professor Yamane, for example, is one of the first people to see Godzilla for himself and as a palaeontologist, he sees him as a miracle of nature that must be studied; believing the potential breakthroughs in science and biology that can be gained from studying the monster outweigh the potential risks, as well as seeing the monster as nothing more than a confused animal that should be left alone. On the opposite end of this argument is Ogata, a sailor who understands Yamane's beliefs, but views Godzilla as a serious danger to the people of Japan. In the middle is Emiko, Yamane and Ogata's daughter and lover, respectively, who provides a more emotional outlook on the situation, understanding both sides of the argument, but also understanding the consequences of Godzilla's existence for the people that get in his way. Towards the end of the film, Emiko and her fiancé; Dr Serizawa, completely steal the show as the film drives home its themes to brutal effect, though we'll get to Serizawa later, believe that. Hagiwara is a journalist that helps to stitch the various details and story threads together, while Shinkichi rounds out the main cast as a kid whose family is killed by Godzilla on Odo Island. 

None of these characters are especially remarkable on their own, but at a point, it'll all come together and you'll understand the purposes these characters serve, as all of them have crucial roles in the film's story. But while these characters make up the bulk of the film's human element, there is so much more to Godzilla and its story. The film is full of what we'll call little people; characters who make incredibly brief appearances, but who appear to deliver as much of an emotional impact on the viewer as possible. These are the people of Japan and it's through them that the real impact of the film's events is felt, delivering many of not only this film's hardest hitting moments, but some of the hardest hitting moments in any film you will ever see. I've talked about a few of these moments in the past, one example is in the aftermath of Godzilla's rampage through Tokyo, there is a moment where a woman dies in front of her daughter and all the daughter can do is scream. There's a moment during the rampage where a mother consoles her frightened children as Godzilla approaches, promising that they'll be with their dad soon. When Godzilla destroys a train earlier in the film, we get a glimpse of the terrified, bloodied survivors as he crushes it underfoot. At one point, Godzilla attacks a tower full of reporters, who have accepted their imminent deaths and continue to broadcast while Godzilla destroys the tower. These moments never come across as emotionally manipulative, rather, they feel earned. These are the moments that the film draws attention to the real cost of Godzilla's attack; the human cost, they're all the lives that his attack has destroyed. 

I like to think that when it comes to film, I'm quite thick-skinned, but I'll never be ashamed to admit there are multiple moments in this film that break me, there truly is nothing like this film. Then there is Dr Daisuke Serizawa. The film gives precious little about who Serizawa is or where he comes from, though given his reclusive nature, profession and the nature of his invention, it's easy enough to fill in the blanks. Serizawa is a scientist who has invented a superweapon; an Oxygen Destroyer that does exactly what it says on the tin, asphyxiating and disintegrating it's victims by destroying the oxygen atoms in their bodies. This is where the film starts to deal with the ethics of superweapons and as should be expected, it nails it. Unsurprisingly, the Oxygen Destroyer is a direct parallel to the atomic bomb, an unimaginably dangerous weapon with implications far beyond its destructive capabilities. Serizawa fears these implications and keeps his invention a closely guarded secret, sure that if the governments of the world knew what he had created, they would want it for their own ends. This comes to a head towards the end of the film, when the question of using it against Godzilla is raised. Serizawa understands the short term benefit of using it against Godzilla, but equally understands the Pandora's box he would be opening by revealing such a thing to the world, believing that, like the atomic bomb, its use would send humanity down a very dark path. Serizawa is ultimately put in the same position that the Americans were in in 1945; use this weapon now to end a war and save lives, but risk starting a chain of events that could end the world. 

This makes the film's ending remarkably melancholic as Serizawa, having agreed to use the Oxygen Destroyer against Godzilla, chooses to die with the monster on the ocean floor, taking the secrets of his invention to the grave with him. The mood is no brighter on the surface as the heroes, victorious over Godzilla, are left to ponder the reality that humanity created this monster, and that others like Godzilla could still be out there. Compared to the celebratory endings of American monster movies of the time like The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, this ending is dark and contemplative, a sombre reminder of the new world that humanity has created and the horrors that dwell within it. Fuck me, this film rocks. Do you think this film is done being heavy, guess again, because then we have the Big Guy himself, portrayed here as a cruel god, lashing out against humanity for its sins against nature. There are so many layers to this film's depiction of Godzilla, and about as many possible interpretations; is he a purely evil monster that relishes the destruction he causes, a misunderstood animal responding to a perceived threat, a victim of human cruelty taking his revenge after his atomic baptism, or is he somewhere in the middle of all of those things. In many ways, Godzilla is just as much a victim as the people of Japan, a ghost of the hell that the nation went through during the War that, like the people of Japan, still hasn't let go of it's pain. Godzilla was a very contemporary film when it released in 1954, it had only been nine years since the War ended, during which time, the superpowers of the world were all playing god with the unimaginable power of the atom, something only the Japanese had truly felt the full power of after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

Godzilla is an expression of this Cold War anxiety, an unstoppable engine of chaos that spreads death and suffering everywhere it goes, presented from the perspective of a people who had seen that death and suffering in a way no one else had. The film conveys this effortlessly, presenting it's atomic allegory without ever needing to be explicit or heavy handed, it's subdued and melancholic when it needs to be to deliver its message, which is one hell of an achievement for a film about a big dinosaur. The remarkable level of complexity in its titular monster is one of the strongest aspects of the film, and it's only further built upon when he actually shows up. Originally, Godzilla was going to be created using stop motion, just as the Rhedosaurus was in one of this film's biggest inspirations; 1953's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, but when stop motion proved to be too timely and expensive, they thought up a new method, inadvertently creating an entire genre in the process. Their way of getting around their limitations was to put Haruo Nakajima in a suit and have him stomp around a miniature city, a technique that would not only be used for every Godzilla film for the next fifty years, but countless other monster films in-between, from the many other classic sci fi and kaiju films produced by Toho like Rodan, Mothra and The War of the Gargantuas, to Gamera, Ultraman, Gorgo, King Kong and many others. The simple method of mini cities and rubber suits turned out to be pretty tough in reality, especially for Nakajima, who could barely move in the one-hundred kilogram suit and could only wear the thing for a few minutes at a time.

One huge benefit of the suit was that since it was a man in a suit, it could still have anthropomorphic qualities, it could still look human, despite being a terrifying dinosaur. Thanks to the hard work of Nakajima and the film's special effects director, Eiji Tsuburaya, Godzilla came to life in a way that even the best stop motion monsters never could, and the film manages to sell the size and power of the monster almost flawlessly, through a combination of lighting, cinematography, and the use of high speed cameras. The film also made vey good use of composite shots and matte paintings to create a sense of scale, and while the suit and miniatures might look dated in some scenes, there were dozens of shots in this film that I never knew were composite shots, even after watching this film half a dozen times, they are seriously that good. On the subject of seriously that good, Akira Ifukube, he's someone I've mentioned in my previous writings, but while I can talk ad nauseam about all the moving parts of film, I wish I had half that level of knowledge and confidence when it came to music, just so I could at least try to do Ifukube's music justice. Ifukube composed for dozens of films over his career, including many of Toho's classic monster movies, yet his soundtrack for this film still might be his best work, it's music that has endured just as long as Godzilla himself and is still being used in Godzilla films today. The same can be said of the film's director, Ishiro Honda, who brought his experiences from the War into the directing job, giving the film a gritty, grounded feeling to emphasise the reality it was trying to portray. 

When watching Godzilla, even after seventy years, it's easy to see just how much work went into it. Everyone who worked on this film was firing on all cylinders, determined to make something really special and the results speak for themselves, Godzilla is more than just really special, sincerely, it is one of the best films ever made. The film was a huge hit with cinema goers in Japan, though the original cut probably wouldn't have gelled well with the sensibilities of the contemporary American audience, so when it was released in America in 1956, it had a new name and new lead star, among other changes. I've never actually watched the American cut of Godzilla, but since it's the seventieth anniversary and it's on the Criterion Blu ray, I might as well. Releasing in 1956 under the title; Godzilla, King of the Monsters, it retells the events of the original film while adding in several new scenes with Canadian actor; Raymond Burr in the role of Steve Martin, a American news correspondent who documents Godzilla's attack on Tokyo. Godzilla, King of the Monsters was a massive hit in the United States when it released, and was the only version of the original Godzilla that was sold in the States for decades, though the general consensus on the film's quality is a bit all over the place from what I've seen. Some say it's an admirable, albeit occasionally schlocky adaptation of the original film while others take a more harsh approach, saying that it strips the original of everything that made it special in an attempt to sell it to the American market. On a first viewing, I find myself leaning more in the direction of the former.

The film follows the events of the original cut very closely, with a handful of scenes trimmed down or removed entirely to shorten the runtime, as well as to make room for some entirely new scenes with Steve Martin. Steve Martin is actually not a bad addition to the story, especially when Godzilla goes on his rampage and he covers the entire attack from his news room window, risking his life by staying at his post even as Godzilla bears down on him. These are undoubtedly the highlights of this cut, thanks entirely to the performance of Raymond Burr. Burr also narrates large chunks of the film, in place of dubbing or subtitles for the Japanese footage, though the scenes where Steve Martin isn't present are dubbed. Some scenes are done well, but some aren't. while for the most part, the editing is clean, it's uncanny to watch some of these edited scenes and to think that Steve Martin was just standing in the background the whole time, smoking his pipe and watching intently. Scenes where he interacts with characters from the original cut like Yamane and Emiko are especially rough, with these characters always conveniently facing away from the camera to hide that they're body doubles. It might be preferable to having Steve Martin just stand in the background for the entire film, but it looks really cheesy if you're at all familiar with the original cut. Not that I'd envy the editor's job, mind you; crowbarring an entirely new character into a film while keeping the story as in-tact as possible can't be easy, but it's certainly not as bad as something like Gammera The Invincible, so I think they did the best they could. 

More annoying is that because of how chopped up the original film is here, a lot of key points of its story and message had to be cut down or given to Steve Martin to narrate, which dulls some of the original film's edge, while I wouldn't call the film sanitised, for the most part, there is a rawness to the original film that this American cut just doesn't have to the same degree, and what's worse is that I'm sure that was intentional. The worst offender in this regard is the film's ending, which removes the original film's implication that humanity created Godzilla and will one day create another, instead ending on a more positive note with Steve Martin saying the world can live again. This ending is a lot less depressing than the Japanese ending, but it defangs that incredible original ending to make the film more friendly to the masses, missing that ending's point in the process. But I suppose the biggest issue that Godzilla, King of the Monsters has is that in the current day, it's redundant. It was made in a time when American audiences weren't interested in foreign films and for a long time, it was the only version of Godzilla available in the United States. But these days, the original Japanese Godzilla is widely available and in the Criterion Collection that I own, both versions are on the same disc, which just leaves the question of why I would watch a janky recut of one of the best films ever made when I could just watch the original. Ironically, in an attempt to adapt Godzilla for the west, they made a film that's even more dated than the original; smoothing out many of it's edges to make it more palatable for the audiences of the time, but shaving off pieces of it's timelessness in the process. But to be fair, a janky recut of one of the best films ever made is still a pretty high bar, even if watching it can often be a downright weird experience. 

If only I'd never invented it

You'd expect that after seventy years, a black and white monster movie would have lost a lot of its effectiveness, but even after all those years and all the change that the film landscape has seen in that time, Godzilla has lost none. It is and always will be one of the most powerful films ever made, and it doesn't matter what or how much I could say, I will never do the film the justice it deserves. Godzilla is dark, existential, frightening, and packs themes and ideas far above its station as a monster movie, it is a piece of art that everyone owes it to themselves to watch. Godzilla is still a masterpiece after seven decades, it will still be a masterpiece for all the decades to come, and I could never recommend this film strongly enough, it is, beyond any shadow of doubt, an absolute must watch. 

Godzilla 70th Anniversary: When Godzilla Conquered The World

Godzilla Minus One, like the original and 1998 films, there's little that can be said about it that hasn't already been said a thousand times. It's a testament to the timelessness of this incredible franchise, still able to leave audiences in awe after seven decades, a modern masterpiece, the likes of which hasn't been seen for years. Godzilla Minus One showed the world that Godzilla is not only still relevant, but still capable of being art, and while some have gotten the wrong idea from this film, I think it's safe to say that it was a major win for Toho, the fans and the franchise. If you still haven't watched it for whatever reason, the film has been streaming on Netflix for several months, both in colour and in black in white, so there's no reason not to find out just why this film took over the world last December. It should go without saying that I love this film, and as it's Godzilla's seventieth anniversary, I think that's as good an excuse as any to talk about my favourite film of the past few years again.

Here's what you need to know; after coming home to find his entire life was wiped out in the Tokyo air raids, disgraced Kamikaze pilot, Koichi Shikishima is trying to rebuild his life and leave the nightmares of the War in his past, now raising his adoptive daughter with his partner, Noriko. But while Shikishima and his newfound family struggle to survive in post-war Japan, a demon from his past, baptised in the fire of the atomic bomb has returned to destroy his life just as it did during the War. But is this the apocalypse it seems, or is this Shikishima's only chance to redeem himself and be free from the ghosts of his past. 

Godzilla Minus One really knows how to start strong, opening with a brief but efficient introduction to Shikishima and Tachibana before Godzilla explodes onto the scene and starts causing trouble. In just ten minutes, the film flawlessly establishes Shikishima's character and sets him on his personal journey, while also providing one of the most intense moments in any Godzilla film. Shikishima, a Kamikaze pilot, lands at a repair base on Odo Island, claiming to be having mechanical problems with his plane. After Tachibana, Odo Island's lead mechanic, subtly accuses Shikishima of fleeing his duty as a Kamikaze, we cut to that night as the sirens start to blare and something big starts making its way up the beach. When a nearby guard tower lights up the beach, it reveals a massive dinosaur that immediately charges the tower, smashing it to pieces. The mechanics run for cover and Shikishima is asked to used the guns on his plane to kill the creature, but he freezes up, too terrified to pull the trigger. As the monster gets closer, one of the mechanics loses his nerve and shoots at it, sending it into a frenzy. Shikishima and Tachibana watch in horror as the monster massacres the mechanics, and when morning comes, they are the only two left alive. plenty of Godzilla films use ensemble casts to tell their stories, but Minus One does the exact opposite, instead opting to tell an intensely personal story of one man's trauma and redemption, and it's clear that the film's writer and director, Takashi Yamazaki, spent a lot of time tinkering with his script to make it as tight and efficient as possible. 

Minus One doesn't have a large, spread out cast of characters, it's Shikishima's story and is told entirely from his perspective, as he tries to rebuild his life after the war, and were this written by a lesser writer, it probably wouldn't work, instead, Minus One is one of the most emotionally investing films I've ever seen. Like with all the best Godzilla films, there is more to the story with Minus One. The film has a strong, clear and flawlessly executed message which it conveys through the character of Shikishima and his conflict with Godzilla. After Godzilla kills the Odo Island mechanics, Tachibana blames Shikishima for their deaths, giving him a wallet full of family photographs taken from their bodies as a reminder of his cowardice. Shikishima carries the wallet with him for the entire film, as while the story is outwardly about his redemption, on a deeper level, it explores themes of guilt, trauma and the value of human life. Shikishima's personal journey is not only gripping and incredibly satisfying, it has deep thematic undercurrents that help to push the film's excellent story to it's epic conclusion. All of this hinges on Shikishima as a character though, so he needs to work for the film to work, fortunately, he works. Minus One does a fantastic job of getting us on the guy's side, we understand what he's going through right from the start, and can see how it's negatively effecting his life. 

At the same time, he's building relationships with the new friends and family he has found after the war, and it's here as well, that Minus One really knocks it out of the park. No one in this film is unimportant or forgettable, everyone Shikishima meets plays a role in his redemption ark, like his Minesweeper friends; Doc, Captain and the Kid, who start out as comedic side characters, but quickly get swept up in the adventure and accompany Shikishima all the way to the end, being with him for every step. There's Shikishima's neighbour, Sumiko, who starts out antagonistic, but eventually comes round to becoming part of his adoptive family and helping him get through his darkest hour. In the film's second half, we meet Hotta, an ex-Imperial Navy captain who takes command of the mission to kill Godzilla, and who manages to galvanise the broken men of Japan to once again fight for their nation. A character we meet early on is Tachibana, the mechanic who blames Shikishima for the deaths of his men, and who becomes a vital component of his redemption in the end. But the three that really drive this film is Shikishima himself, his partner, Noriko, and their adoptive daughter, Akiko. Shikishima is a survivor of the War who's found that the War followed him home, his story is one of trauma and guilt, and his journey sees him going into battle with his own personal demons, literally in this particular case. 

Minus One portrays his mental struggle perfectly, a disgraced Kamikaze who honestly believes that he doesn't deserve to live, having survived all the death and destruction of the War when so many others, including people he could have saved, weren't so lucky. What makes this portrayal of post-war trauma so perfect is how Godzilla is tied into it, as by having Godzilla be the one responsible for Shikishima's trauma and guilt, it not only uses Godzilla as a metaphor for the War, which we'll look at more later, but it also makes the conflict personal. Shikishima's quest for redemption will bring him into conflict with Godzilla, intrinsically linking their fates, or put more simply, the only way Shikishima can find peace is by killing Godzilla. Shikishima is essentially having his soul pulled in two directions; his guilt and self-hatred from not stopping Godzilla on Odo Island is pulling him into darkness, while Noriko tries to pull him into the light, and it's in the scenes where these opposing forces clash that Minus One really hits it's mark. There are moments in the film where Shikishima completely breaks down, collapsing into despair and wondering if he even did survive the war, and isn't simply living out a delusion in his head while he lies dead on Odo Island, and not only are these scenes unbelievably dark, but they are devastating to watch for the audience, who are already more than invested in seeing Shikishima live. Now is the time for me to start gushing about how much I love Noriko, so apologies in advance. 

If Godzilla is Shikishima's demon, dragging him into the darkness, Noriko is his angel, trying desperately to pull him back into the light. Like Shikishima, Noriko lost everything during the War, now having no one to look after her and Akiko, so when Noriko finds Shikishima, she immediately latches onto him and from there, she becomes one of the most likable characters in any Godzilla film. Her outlook on life and the War is almost the exact opposite of Shikishima's, an outlook she relentlessly tries to drill into him, more for his sake than hers. It's Noriko's belief that everyone who survived the War deserved to live, and that continuing to live is the most important thing any of them can do. She believes above anything else that her life has value, and that continuing to live is how she can honour her parents and build a better future for Akiko. This is, of course, in stark contrast to Shikishima, who hates himself and believes his life has no value, in spite of all that he has achieved since the War, therefor, Noriko is left to try to maintain the balance in his life. While the romantic aspect of their relationship is downplayed, it is still used effectively in many moments, ranging from the incredibly cute moment where Noriko says Shikishima will never find a wife with her around, to the incredibly dark moment where Shikishima admits that he wanted to marry her, but never did because "[his] war isn't over yet." All of this comes to a head in one of the most effective sequences in any Godzilla film, that, of course, being the Ginza attack. 

After finally opening up to Noriko about his past, Shikishima finally feels that he's ready to move on with his life, at last allowing himself to embrace what he has and to forgive himself for what he did, and then Godzilla rocks back up and completely destroys his entire life. The scene where Noriko apparently dies is insane; a moment of shock that slowly and quietly builds into a dreadful realisation as Shikishima begins to understand what has happened, and as Godzilla leaves and a black rain begins to fall around him, all Shikishima can do is scream. With Noriko gone, there is nothing left to pull Shikishima back from the darkness and he is overtaken with an obsessive desire to kill Godzilla. As the plan to defeat Godzilla is drawn up, it slowly becomes apparent that Shikishima doesn't intend to survive the battle. Noriko's death shatters Shikishima's desire to carry on living, finally giving him a chance to kill himself and to embrace his duty as a Kamikaze, not for honour, but for love. What it also does is bring her importance to the film's themes and story into laser focus for the audience, it makes us realise what she had come to mean to us as well. At the core of this story is a personal journey for redemption, but as is to be expected, that's not the whole picture as in a grander sense, Godzilla Minus One uses it's story as a vehicle to explore post-war trauma. Just like the original Godzilla, Minus One uses it's story to delve into themes of war and humanity from a distinctly Japanese perspective. 

Where Minus One differs, however, is in it's angle of attack; while the original used it's ensemble cast to tackle it's themes in a more general sense, Minus One zeroes in on the personal aspect, depicting Japan as a nation of broken men who are desperate for the chance to make a difference. Their defeat at the end of the War was a major cultural shock to Japan, seeing their great empire torn apart and their nation brought to it's knees. Millions were dead and plenty more, disgraced in failure, were coming home to find that they had nothing left. But as with any conflict, when the men come home, the war tends to come home with them, leaving them to struggle with readjusting to normal life, while also dealing with the memories of their nightmarish experiences. When looked at from this perspective, Godzilla becomes a lot more than a radioactive monster, just as in 1954, he is the ghost of the Pacific War, a walking manifestation of all the cruelty and pain of the conflict, coming ashore to inflict suffering on a struggling people. But instead of being a cautionary tale about the cruelty of nuclear war, Minus one is ultimately a far more optimistic tale of finding peace, moving on from the horrors of the past and working toward a brighter future. In the film's finale, it's not the government or the army that goes into battle against Godzilla, it's people, ordinary men who come together again to fight for their country, and as Noda spells out in his fantastic speech, this war won't be like the last one, it's not a fight to the death, but a fight for the future, promising them that not a single life will be lost this time.

Back on the more personal side, Shikishima seeks out Tachibana, the lead mechanic from Odo Island, to ready a fighter plane for him, he intends to kill himself and needs Tachibana because he knows he won't stop him. Tachibana was the one that gave him the wallet full of photos, he's the only man in Japan that hates him as much as he hates himself, but it's through Tachibana that Shikishima finally finds his peace. When he sees that Shikishima still has the wallet, as well as Akiko's drawing of him, her and Noriko, he understands that Shikishima is ready, and chooses to forgive him, ordering him to live. During the battle, Shikishima's successfully Kamikaze's into Godzilla to all of his friends' horror, only for it to be revealed that his plane had an ejector seat, finally, after two years of wanting to die, Shikishima is finally able to live, having vanquished his demon and earned Tachibana's forgiveness. The film isn't done either, as after finally killing Godzilla and deciding to live, Shikishima learns that Noriko is still alive, rushing to her hospital room with Akiko and breaking down in tears at her bedside as she asks him if his war is finally over. Godzilla Minus One is full of moments like this, incredibly powerful moments that hit you right in the feels, but while such moments in the original Godzilla were heart-breaking, and there are definitely some of them here too, some of Minus One's strongest moments are absolutely wonderful. 

The film is an emotional rollercoaster to watch, delving deep into the blackest pits of sadness and hatred, before confidently soaring back out into the light, paying off it's central conflict in a beautifully warm and uplifting way that feels almost uncharacteristic for a Godzilla film, even with some of the ending's more ominous implications taken into account, like the possibility that Noriko will still die of radiation poisoning or worse, or that Godzilla will one day return. There is always so much to talk about in Minus One before we even get to the Big Guy, but even out of all the other Godzilla film's I've watched, this Godzilla remains one of my favourite incarnations. We've already looked at what Godzilla represents in this film, but we haven't talked about the monster himself, and as usual, there's a lot to say. This Godzilla shares his origins with the original Godzilla; an ocean-dwelling dinosaur turned into a monster by atomic testing, but taking a page from Godzilla vs King Ghidorah's book, Minus One introduces us to a pre-baptism Godzilla, one that's smaller and faster but still has all the attitude. Based on the opening scene with Godzilla, you might think that this Godzilla is also going to have a sympathetic edge buried somewhere underneath the malice and monstrousness, but you would be wrong because this Godzilla is evil. By presenting the monster from Shikishima's perspective, there is nothing in the way of curiosity, pity or admiration like you would get from Dr Yamane from the original film, instead, Godzilla is the problem, a massive, radioactive arsehole that keeps showing up and ruining Shikishima's life. 

By thematically weaving Godzilla and Shikishima's stories together and making the conflict personal, you come to hate Godzilla. When he appears, it's not exciting or epic in the way other Godzilla films are, it's terrifying because our heroes are in constant danger whenever he's around. Like the original film, this film draws sharp attention to the human cost of his attacks, and like that film, Godzilla doesn't just walk around causing collateral damage, he's on the attack, tearing apart buildings, throwing around train cars and squashing people underfoot. But the moment that really sells this Godzilla as irredeemably evil is, of course, the Ginza sequence, where his atomic breath is shown in all it's glory, and where Noriko seemingly dies. Just minutes before, the streets of Ginza were full of panicked civilians, running for their lives from Godzilla, then only moments later, black rain is falling on the desolate, flattened remains of the city, seemingly no one is left alive, save for Shikishima, who crumbles into despair as he realises his failure has now taken the woman he loved. In that moment, you hate Godzilla, you want him to die for what he's done, you want to see Shikishima get his revenge, even knowing that getting his revenge will most likely kill him too. Godzilla Minus One manages to make Godzilla fit so perfectly into a drama about survivor's guilt that it doesn't feel like a Godzilla film at times, but as you can probably work out, that doesn't mean that he doesn't deliver. The sequences where Godzilla attacks are all fantastic, after giving us a terrifying and vicious appetiser in the film's opening, our first course is a tense chase as Godzilla pursues Shikishima and his friends at sea, slowly catching up as they desperately try to repel him with mines. 

The finale of this sequence is show-stopping as an Imperial Navy warship, the Takao, arrives just in time and engages Godzilla, only to get mauled when their first barrage only pisses him off. When their second barrage sends him tumbling back into the sea, he obliterates them from below with his atomic breath, emerging from the smoke and debris to roar triumphantly before making his getaway, his face and chest covered in severe burns from the blast. Godzilla set piece number two is Ginza which is expectedly awesome, though is a surprisingly brief sequence compared to his Tokyo rampage in the original. That being said, it never feels too short, and ends on a moment that is simultaneously one of the most awesome atomic breath scenes in the entire franchise, as well as one of the hardest gut punches in the entire franchise. Godzilla disappears for a little while as our heroes draw up their plan to kill him, which, if I'm honest, does feel like it drags a bit, before it's all ahead full for the finale, which is one of the most satisfying finales in the entire franchise, Minus One really does like going for those high bars, doesn't it. Having concocted their insane plan to crush Godzilla to death by sinking him to the bottom of an ocean trench, our heroes charge into battle against the monster with four decommissioned destroyers and a single fighter plane. What follows is an exhilarating battle as our heroes try to get Godzilla to the bottom of the trench before he can annihilate them with his atomic breath, all while Shikishima keeps going in for incredibly cathartic attack runs in his plane to keep Godzilla's attention off the destroyers. 

This finale marks the completion of not only Shikishima's journey, but also of many of the film's themes, on top of being a simply phenomenal action sequence, full of urgency and tension, and featuring one of the most effective uses of silence in any film I've ever seen. So effective, in fact, that in four of the five screening I attended when it was in cinemas, of which two were packed, during that moment of silence, you could hear a pin drop, which goes to show how invested everyone was in this finale, it was fantastic. Above anything else, this finale is a testament to Yamazaki's writing, because few films' scripts are even half as efficient and feature complete as Minus One's, there is no fat, nothing that gets left out or forgotten, it all comes together perfectly to make the film feel complete in a way that few Godzilla films have since the original. And what's a good Godzilla film without amazing special effects and a killer soundtrack. Naoki Sato provides the film with it's soundtrack, which flawlessly sets the mood in the film's quieter moments, as well as ramping up the awesome in it's louder ones. Like Bear McCreary's soundtrack for King of the Monsters, Sato's soundtrack also uses classic Akira Ifukube tracks, creating epic Godzilla suites that the film only uses in it's maximum impact moments, emphasising the size and power of the monster. And I'm not going to lie, hearing a modern recording of Ifukube's Godzilla March in a cinema was one of the most surreal and awesome moments of my life, I loved it. 

As well as writing and directing the film, Yamazaki also serves as the film's visual effects director, and as we all know, this film won an Oscar for it's effects. What makes Minus One's effects so astounding isn't how good they are, but that they look as amazing as they do on such a low budget, something that was made into a very big deal when the film released last year. While the Hollywood films it was competing with were financially underperforming on budgets exceeding one-hundred million dollars, Minus One skipped along on a budget of less than fifteen million dollars. Much was said about how Minus One humiliated Hollywood, and there is undeniably some truth to this. Just compare this film to an infamous box office flop it was competing with; The Marvels, which didn't even make back it's production budget, a skull splitting two-hundred and seventy million dollars, eighteen times the production budget of Minus One, which made back it's budget ten times over, while still having far superior visual effects. There's a lot more that can be said about the failure of The Marvels, but not here, this is Godzilla's day, after all. Having Yamazaki serve as the film's effects director goes a long way to ensuring that the film is visually consistent; no effect shots come off looking weird or rough around the edges, and like in the original film, there are dozens of effects shots in this film that you probably wouldn't even notice are effects shots, it all flawlessly blends together to create the look of post-war Japan, and while the level of the effects doesn't compare to something like Avatar: The Way of Water, it is, nonetheless, a remarkable achievement in visual effects that the film industry should probably take notes from. 

Circling back around to the Big Guy, like his American counterpart, Minus One's Godzilla is entirely a CGI creation, not that you'd be able to tell as like Shin Godzilla before him, his movements are very limited and slow, reminiscent of how classic Godzilla suits moved. Unlike Shin Godzilla, however, this Godzilla doesn't just move forward, he is frighteningly aggressive and destructive, his eyes almost burning with hatred as he goes on his rampage. Through the way he looks and moves, this Godzilla conveys power and intent, he really feels like Godzilla, which is the best thing you can say about him. Before we wrap things up, there is one aspect of Minus One that I feel needs to be addressed, a sort of elephant in the room, that being how certain people reacted to it. When Godzilla Minus One first hit US cinemas, many online personalities who'd never cared about the Godzilla franchise before suddenly loved it, which sounds fine until you realise that these people were very often not being entirely honest. Countless video essayists started making videos about Godzilla that only demonstrated their ignorance of the series, or worse, made them look like grifters trying to ride the wave of enthusiasm the film generated. There's nothing inherently wrong with a piece of media being rejected outright based on the perception of the person doing the rejecting, this is simply an expression of preferences, for example, not wanting to watch a certain film because it's of a genre you don't like.

There is a problem, however, when this hypothetical strawman does an about-face and starts claiming knowledge and expertise in an area they'd previously been wilfully ignorant of. For a long time, I have believed in a trend I call the anti-Godzilla bias; a tendency of general audiences to reject Godzilla because it is Godzilla, and Godzilla is lame and not real art. Minus One smashed through that bias for a lot of people, and it made plenty of new Godzilla fans in the process. But among them are plenty of midwits that came out thinking they knew everything about Godzilla, and that their interpretation of Godzilla is the correct one, that way, acknowledging that Minus One is art, while still being able to dismiss the rest of the franchise. It'd be easy to get mad at these people, but it'd ultimately be pointless; to paraphrase Bill Murray, you can't win an argument with an idiot. Regardless of how wrong these tourists get this franchise, they will never change anything, they'll spread their ignorant nonsense until they get bored and move on to the next big thing, all the while the real fans of this franchise will continue to love it and share it with others, carrying it's legacy in meaningful and positive ways for generations to come. Godzilla is just too big, his cultural and artistic legacy too strong, and no amount of dim-witted hot takes or shameless grifting will ever be able to change that. 

Is your war finally over?

Godzilla Minus One is an absolute beast of a film. Many other Godzilla films have had strong themes and messages, but not since the original has one of them hammered home its themes and message so brilliantly. That it does so while also telling a captivating and emotionally turbocharged story, full of lovable characters and sky-high stakes, is one hell of a bonus. There aren't many films I can think of that feel as rich and complete as Minus One, it really is the whole package, delivering all the drama, horror, excitement, sadness and joy you could ever need in a monster movie. Godzilla Minus One was so good, it got the attention of people who never cared about Godzilla, and while some of those people ended up attracting the ire of the Godzilla fandom, the film has managed to create millions of new Godzilla fans. It deserves all the love and respect it gets, and then some, and while I still don't think it's better than the original, it's the only film in the Godzilla series that even gets close. Godzilla Minus One is a masterpiece, and an absolute must watch.

Godzilla 70th Anniversary: A Decade Of Godzilla

Godzilla is the longest running franchise in film history; it's been seventy years since the Big Guy first came ashore in Tokyo Bay, and not only has he made it this far, but he's currently at the absolute height of his international popularity. Godzilla is now Oscar winning cinema, as well as being a dominant force in the international box office. Godzilla wasn't always on this hot streak though, in fact, there was once a time where this amazing franchise looked down for the count, so to see the miraculous resurgence it has been enjoying for a decade now is absolutely wonderful. It really has been a great decade for Godzilla, so let's take a look at these last ten years and how they brought Godzilla back from the brink and cemented him as the one true King of the Monsters.

While Godzilla has seen periods of financial success over its history, it has also seen periods of financial failure. At the turn of the millennium, Tristar's failed attempt to adapt Godzilla had forced Toho to unretire their own Godzilla series after dramatically killing the King of the Monsters off in 1995's Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. The revived series didn't last long, however, chugging along until 2004, when Godzilla: Final Wars bombed at the Japanese box office, forcing Toho to admit defeat and retire Godzilla again, for good this time. The decade between 2004 and 2014 was a dark age, unfortunately for me, it was also when I first found Godzilla and fell in love with him. No films were being made so international demand for Godzilla was at an all-time low, making being a fan of the franchise a lonely, frustrating slog, one I pushed through just long enough for Legendary's 2014 reboot to swoop in and save the day. The build up to the release of the 2014 film was when my fading love for the franchise was reenergised, and after the film finally released, there was no going back for me. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that seeing the 2014 film in IMAX changed my life, and while the film wasn't exactly what I expected, I have always adored and respected it for what it was. While the film's reception from audiences was mixed, it did prove to be a huge financial success and Warner Bros., the distributers and co-producers of the film, were more than happy to greenlight sequels.

In the meantime, however, Legendary pictures were working with Universal on a reboot of King Kong, that film would end up switching distributers to Warner Bros., when it was then announced that the film was being reworked to tie into the 2014 Godzilla, laying the groundwork for a new cinematic universe and setting up a long overdue rematch between Godzilla and King Kong. That film ended up being Kong: Skull Island, a film I wasn't so keen on when it first released in 2017, but that I've come to like a lot more in recent years. Kong: Skull Island was a lot less concerned about the more thoughtful side that the retroactive first instalment of this new Monsterverse was built around, instead, it was a spectacular monster romp across Skull Island, a lost kingdom crawling with bizarre and terrifying monsters. The film broke away from the formula that past remakes of the original 1933 King Kong always followed; Kong was no longer a doomed figure that fell in love, only to be taken away from his home in chains. This Kong had a very different destiny, and so was reworked into a god of the island that fought to protect his home from threats both internal and external. Having no pretences about being high minded, Kong: Skull Island was content to just be a fun action movie with plenty of monster fights, which is probably why I wasn't originally as in love with it as I was Godzilla 2014 or its sequel, King of the Monsters. 

After the film 2014 film turned out to be a success, Warner and Legendary moved ahead with a sequel, announcing early on that the sequel would also star three of Godzilla's classic Toho foes; Mothra, Rodan and Ghidorah. The sequel, lovingly titled Godzilla: King of the Monsters released in 2019, but whereas its predecessor was a huge hit, King of the Monsters was not. After the initially divisive reception to the first film, a five year gap and stiff competition, King of the Monsters underperformed at the box office, and was even more divisively received than its predecessor. Many of the complaints made about King of the Monsters were also made about the first film, it's certainly not as tight or well paced, but does little to detract from what is otherwise a fantastic Godzilla film. Building on the foundation laid by the 2014 film, King of the Monsters injects some welcome fantasy into its kaiju world, depicting its monsters not as simply heroes and villains, but as gods and demons in a vast, ancient conflict between the forces of order and chaos. The film reframes the relationship between Godzilla and the humans in a wonderful way, as well as establishing a host of new monsters and expanding the world of the Monsterverse. The film's depictions of Rodan, Mothra and Ghidorah are all flawless too, keeping them recognisable and true to their classic characters, while reimagining them as the gods of this world just as the 2014 film did to Godzilla, as a result, these interpretations of these classic monsters are among the best in the entire Godzilla franchise. 

Adding to the flawlessness of King of the Monsters' depiction of the monsters is Bear McCreary's score, which reworks Akira Ifukube and Yuji Koseki's themes from classic Toho movies and blends them with modern Hollywood's more bombastic musical sensibilities, creating something truly magical. Seriously, hearing Bear McCreary's rendition of Mothra's song as Mothra emerged from under the waterfall in her adult form had me in tears. While we're on the subject of moments that had me in tears, what about Godzilla's arrival in Antarctica, exploding through the ice and standing to face his foe, accompanied by McCreary's thundering, blasting rendition of Ifukube's classic Godzilla theme. Or what about the Rodan sequence, where Rodan chases down Monarch's flying fortress while dismantling it's fighter escort to an electrifying beat of pounding bongos and roaring horns. Or what about the Godzilla rebirth sequence, where Ifukube's Godzilla theme is again used to accentuate the sheer epicness of the moment as Godzilla rises from the dead, stronger and angrier than ever. King of the Monsters is defined by these moments, what can most honestly be called "fuck yeah" moments, where the music and action come together to make the most epic thing imaginable. 

It is these sequences throughout King of the Monsters that make the film so fantastic, in spite of its flaws which we'll get to later. While the following two Monsterverse films are both less messy than King of the Monsters, for me, they never quite reached it's heights, even if they did both prove more popular with general audiences. After King of the Monsters underperformed, there was no guarantee that its follow-up, Godzilla vs Kong, would have turned things around, the odds were even further stacked against it when it released in a massively diminished market thanks to the Covid lockdowns and a day and date release on HBO Max. So it came as a pleasant surprise when the film turned out to be relatively successful at the box office, though after seeing the first two Godzilla films in IMAX, as well as seeing Kong: Skull Island and King of the Monsters multiple times each in cinemas, I missed GVK in cinemas thanks to the aforementioned lockdowns. Following the lead of Kong: Skull Island, GVK abandoned the more thoughtful and spiritual aspects of the Godzilla films in favour of being a big, fun monster movie, albeit one with a very clear understanding of it's assignment. 

It was Godzilla vs Kong, the rematch of the century, America and Japan's favourite classic movie monsters going at it one more time and determining, once and for all, who is the true King of the Monsters. GVK made good on its promise in the end, more than living up to it's potential as a once in a generation clash of Titans, and delivering the fastest, most violent and most entertaining action of the Monsterverse up until that point. With the expected amount of thought and respect, the film gives each of its titular monsters their moment to shine, taking advantage of their respective strengths and weaknesses in dynamic and imaginative battles that are the undisputed highlights of the film. GVK also further expands the Monsterverse with the formal introduction of the Hollow Earth, a realm inside the Earth that the monsters, or Titans, originate from. The film also brings in another classic Toho monster in the form of Mechagodzilla, a robot doppelganger of Godzilla that Godzilla and Kong are eventually forced to team up against in the film's finale. GVK is a lot leaner than the two prior Godzilla films, delivering uncomplicated entertainment that delivers the goods and is a lot of fun, but I always felt that GVK missed something that the two prior Godzilla films had, a spark that makes those films two of my favourite films of all time, whereas GVK and its sequel are just very good. 

After GVK defied expectations at the box office, Warner Bros. and Legendary kept that film's director, Adam Wingard, on for the sequel; 2024's Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, which ended up being the highest grossing film in the Monsterverse. Picking up where GVK left off, GXK sees Godzilla and Kong teaming up once again when a new threat emerges from the Hollow Earth with plans of conquering the surface. After Kong: Skull Island and GVK established Kong as the last of his kind, GXK sees him venture into the Hollow Earth in search of more Apes, discovering a tribe of Apes under the rule of the cruel and tyrannical Scar King. After GVK stripped back many of the deeper elements of the Monsterverse, GXK follows its trajectory to the next level, making Godzilla's spines bright pink, giving Kong a power glove and having the pair do battle with the Scar King and his army in zero gravity, it wears it's absurdity with pride. In that, it's hard to deny that the film is fun, with plenty of bright colours, fast action and a light, whimsical tone, channelling the most absurd energy of the Showa era, only with a nine digit production budget. Like GVK, GXK is really fun, but like GVK, it lacks the spark that made the first two Godzilla films in the Monsterverse so special, with the added issue of Godzilla very much taking a backseat in the film's story. 

There is a lot that GXK gets right, such as Kong and Scar King's conflict, the introduction of Shimo and the reintroduction of Mothra, but it's just not a film that gets me as crazily excited as 2014 or King of the Monsters. All that being said, I'm still very far from giving up on the Monsterverse, the next instalment of which is coming in March 2027, which can't come soon enough, because even when a Godzilla film can't give me the fizz, I'm still just happy to see the Big Guy on the big screen. There are also TV series set in the Monsterverse; Skull Island and Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, though I haven't watched either of them yet. While I either enjoy or outright adore every film in the Monsterverse, all of these films have their critics, and I'd be lying if I said the critics never made good points. A consistent problem with the Monsterverse is the human sides of their stories. While all the love and imagination is poured into the monsters, the human stories never get the same attention, instead being little more than connective tissue to fill in the gaps between the big moments. While I'd never say any of them are outright bad, there are cracks that leave you feeling these stories could be better. King of the Monsters and GXK are both heavy on exposition, telling the audience relevant information instead of showing it, which leaves you with the feeling that they had this really cool idea for the monsters but didn't know how to get there naturally. With the exception of the 2014 film, the Monsterverse is littered with contrivances and leaps in logic that disrupt the flow of the stories. 

The supposed problem that the critics bang on about the most though is that none of the human characters are good. I mostly disagree with that; none of them are bad, and I feel that many of them could have been great if they just had more time in the oven, so to speak. 2014 and King of the Monsters both have a strong family drama at the core of their stories, Kong: Skull Island has Hank Marlow and Colonel Packard, who both fall just short of being great, Dr Serizawa was a great addition to the first two Godzilla films, while various characters like Burnie, Trapper and Conrad all do their respective jobs well enough. None of them suck, but none of them truly shine either; Ford Brody struggles to carry the 2014 film after Joe Brody's premature death, Hank Marlow gets a satisfying payoff to his story, but said story is not only more interesting than the story of the film itself, but also barely explored, and the broken family dynamic of the Russells does it's best to parallel the underlying conflict of the film, but lacks the weight that it needs to really drive it home. The simple reason that this doesn't bother me is that the Monsterverse is about the monsters; I am invested in the monsters' stories, which are consistently excellent, this is where I think many of the critics of the Monsterverse really miss the mark, because Godzilla and Kong aren't just monsters that are there for the spectacle, they are the main characters that the stories are centred around. 

I'm not even overly annoyed by the tonal shifts of the Monsterverse, instead opting to see each film as a new experience that might not be the same as the previous one, but might still be good, a mindset that I haven't gone wrong with thus far. One issue I do have though is the inconsistency of the Monsterverse's soundtracks. After Alexandre Desplat and Bear McCreary delivered god-tier soundtracks for 2014 and King of the Monsters, respectively, Henry Jackson's soundtrack for Kong: Skull Island and Junkie XL's soundtracks for GVK and GXK leave something to be desired, they're not as memorable, unique or intense, which I've always found disappointing. Overall though, while I concede that missteps have been made with the Monsterverse in places, I am immensely happy that it exists. There was every chance for the 2014 film to fail and if it had, Godzilla would still be dead, it was that film that gave Toho the confidence to go ahead with Shin Godzilla, as well as the confidence to release Godzilla Minus one internationally. The Monsterverse was the jumpstart that Godzilla needed to come back, and now the franchise is bigger than ever, so to put it in no uncertain terms for the tourists, we wouldn't have Godzilla Minus One without the Monsterverse, and so long as the Monsterverse is successful, the international demand for Godzilla will remain alive and well.

Jumping back in time and to the other side of the Pacific, the 2014 Godzilla making a killing at the box office gave Toho the confidence boost they needed to revive Godzilla on their end. They had already approached Hideaki Anno to direct a Godzilla film as early as 2013, but nothing was officially announced until after the release of the 2014 film. Toho and Hideaki Anno's Godzilla revival was Shin Godzilla, a modern reinterpretation of the monster that, like his original 1954 counterpart, came from a very dark place, and for that, we'll need some history. On the eleventh of March, 2011, a magnitude nine earthquake off of Japan's east coast and a resulting tsunami caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage and killed nearly twenty-thousand people. The event has, understandably, left a shadow over japan, not just because of the lives lost, but because of the meltdowns. After being damaged by the earthquake and tsunami and losing power to their cooling systems, three reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant melted down, resulting in explosions that released radioactive fission products into the surrounding area. In the months after the earthquake and meltdowns, the Japanese Government came under intense scrutiny for it's response to the crisis, and the Prime Minister of Japan resigned before the year was out. Shin Godzilla took heavy inspiration from 3.11, depicting an extraordinary crisis to which the Japanese Government completely bungles it's response. In the film, an abomination created by the dumping of nuclear waste comes ashore in Japan, causing widespread panic and destruction, but also spreading deadly radiation everywhere it goes. 

I've written about Shin Godzilla a few times over the years, most recently last year as part of my What is Godzilla series, but while I've never outright hated Shin Godzilla, I've never really loved it either. Yet when I decided to give it another watch recently, I was a bit shocked by just how engrossed in the film I became. The film shamelessly takes aim at the Japanese Government, depicting them as hapless idiots, all lost in a jungle of red tape and completely incapable of taking responsibility or decisive action, either through incompetence or fear of damaging their political reputations. Shin Godzilla doesn't stop there, however, also taking swings at Japan's place in the world, asserting that the country needs to take control of its own destiny, rather than caving to the whims of the US and UN. As a critique of big government, Shin Godzilla works incredibly well; it is a vicious satire of the bloated, inefficient and overly bureaucratic systems of government, asserting that new ideas and ways of doing things are the only path to meaningful change. Yet while I agree with the film's message, politically, I still can't bring myself to say I love it for a handful of reasons. Chief among them is that the film focuses so much on being a political satire that there's little room for anything else. For a film about the response to a giant monster attack, the film has little desire to explore the human cost of such a crisis, telling about the costs of mass evacuation and the ensuing refugee crisis, but making next to no effort to show it. 

What's really odd about that is that the film also has moments that come across as manipulative, like a scene where Yaguchi and Patterson discuss the possibility of a nuclear bomb being dropped on Tokyo, which abruptly ends with a smash cut to photographs of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Where I really struggle with Shin Godzilla though is in two key areas; it's humans and it's monster. Shin Godzilla's characters aren't so much characters as they are vehicles for the film's political message, they're talking heads and straw men that sit in offices and never get anything done, which I understand is the point, but that doesn't make for a very enjoyable film, even for someone like me that agrees with it's politics. There are dozens of characters in Shin Godzilla, all of which introduced with their full names and positions, yet I can't remember any of their names past Yaguchi and Patterson. As I've talked about before, this makes the film especially hard to watch for non-Japanese speaking audiences who, on top of the sub-titles, also have to keep up with all the characters' names and positions that are presented on the screen in Japanese, along side English translations of that. Shin Godzilla is a constant information overload that can be a nightmare to keep up with, which makes it one of the few exceptions to my rule on foreign-language films, you're better off watching the dub. The other big issue with Shin Godzilla is Godzilla himself. 

In theory, this Godzilla should be terrifying, an abomination capable of forcing it's own evolution, borderline indestructible and extremely genetically unstable, a walking, radioactive cancer that, if not completely destroyed, will metastasise across the entire planet. There is a widely held belief that the lyrics of the song used during Godzilla's incineration of Tokyo, "Who Will Know" is also Godzilla's perspective, the implications of which are terrifying as it suggests that Godzilla is self aware and in a state of constant physical and mental agony. But the film never states that this is Godzilla's perspective and outside of this song, there is nothing to establish or develop a personality for Godzilla, as well as the film doing a poor job of showing that he is intelligent, in spite of the characters' insistence. All Godzilla does in this film is move forward and discharge radiation, barely reacting to his surroundings or showing anything in the way of intent which, compared to the Monsterverse's Titan-breaking brawler and Minus One's wrathful monster, is incredibly underwhelming. Shin Godzilla's interpretation of the Big Guy is one that I really, really want to love, it has so much potential to be a genuinely terrifying monster, but instead, he's just boring, which is the harsh truth of Shin Godzilla for me, the film's a bit boring. But compared to the trilogy that followed it, Shin Godzilla was the best film ever. 

I'll keep this one brief because I could go for days about how bad the Godzilla anime trilogy is. After Shin Godzilla dominated the box office in Japan, Toho naturally wanted to make more Godzilla, but whether because of their deal with Legendary or some other reason, they followed up Shin Godzilla with a trilogy of animated movies that they co-produced with Polygon Pictures. The Godzilla anime trilogy all had limited theatrical releases in Japan before being internationally released on Netflix in 2017 and 2018, and I'm not going to beat around the bush, they suck. Despite the limitless potential of a Godzilla anime, the trilogy takes it's amazing premise and does nothing interesting with it, instead devolving into a painfully dull, joyless, obnoxiously pseudo-philosophical exploration of nihilism. The trilogy does have good ideas that I'd have liked to see in better films, but the anime trilogy was clearly made by half-wits who thought they were geniuses, presenting an infuriatingly self-important, five hour long cure for happiness as high-minded intellectualism. There are plenty of Godzilla films that I have problems with, even ones that I Love, but the anime trilogy remain the only Godzilla films I never want to watch again. Maybe if I did, my tune would change, I'd actually love to come around to liking these films because hating Godzilla hurts my soul, but they're just so boring and dull and pompous, I won't put myself through the chore of watching them again. They are terrific wastes of potential, golden examples on how to misuse and misunderstand Godzilla, and that's where I'll leave that. As we know, Toho turned things around with Godzilla Minus One, though I won't be going into too much detail about that film here. 

In the meantime and to finish up this decade's retrospective, let's talk about the other Godzilla anime. After the anime trilogy set the bar so low, Toho and Studio Bones followed it up with Godzilla: Singular Point in 2021. Wisely abandoning the miserable tone of the anime trilogy, Singular Point was a bright, colourful and visually appealing anime that delivered on the kaiju action, featuring plenty of classic Toho monsters and visual homages. At least at the start, Singular Point also managed to tell a somewhat compelling story as Japan is besieged by increasingly dangerous kaiju, inevitably culminating in the arrival of Godzilla, though the show unfortunately did descend into nonsense towards the end, losing what made it so interesting to begin with in a soup of pseudo-scientific jargon of time travel, physics-defying archetypes, reality manipulation and the impending end of the universe, before reaching a conclusion that makes no sense whatsoever and will possibly never be followed up on.  Singular Point does right many of the anime trilogy's wrongs, but it also repeats many of it's and Shin Godzilla's mistakes, failing to live up to it's potential as a result, but it is, at least, an entertaining anime series, plus it was nice to finally see Anguirus again. This is another case where if I gave it another chance, my tune could change completely, but unlike the anime trilogy, there is enough to like about Singular Point that I most likely will return to it in the future. 

Then, finally, there is the big one. Godzilla Minus One changed the game when it released just last year. Clearly very confident with the film, Toho didn't stop with a Japanese theatrical release, taking the film international in December 2023, to universal acclaim. Minus One's release was the culmination of a decade of Godzilla movies. After the Monsterverse had put Godzilla back into the public consciousness and steadily regrown the brand along with Shin Godzilla, the time had come for Toho's Godzilla to fully assert itself as the dominant movie monster. The brain-child of acclaimed writer and director, Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One immediately made waves when it released in North America, with near universally positive word of mouth and a stellar critical response. The success didn't stop with critical praise either, as Minus One climbed its way to the top spot in the US box office, finally finishing it's international run with a total of over one-hundred million dollars, ten times it's production budget. Minus One's success was more than financial and critical, however, it was the first Godzilla film to finally break through to general audiences, a film that flawlessly demonstrated the potential of the Godzilla franchise, put its competition to shame, won an Oscar, and (mostly) changed the way general audiences look at the Godzilla franchise for the better, though I will be going into much greater detail than this another time. For me, personally, Minus One is not just a masterpiece, it was the first Japanese Godzilla film I got to see in cinemas. It completes a chapter in my life just as the 2014 film did, and like that film, it will always have a special place in my heart.

The Arrogance of Man

Over the past decade, the Godzilla franchise completely turned it's fate around. From the failure of Final Wars, Godzilla looked doomed to fade into obscurity as the film industry moved on without him, but just twenty years on, this amazing franchise has never been more popular. For me, personally, after nearly a decade of loving this franchise in spite of its obscurity, seeing it slowly grow into a worldwide phenomenon again is one of the most exciting things I've ever had the pleasure of watching. While I don't feel that every step has been in the right direction, it doesn't change the fact that the Big Guy is finally getting the love and attention that he deserves. With the Monsterverse still going strong and Minus One winning an Oscar, the King of the Monsters looks to still have plenty of steam left in him, and while I have no idea what's coming next, I cannot wait to see it. What a decade it's been.