Godzilla
- Japanese:
- Gojira
What was Godzilla originally a metaphor for?
How did Godzilla’s design evolve over time?
What are the different eras of Godzilla films?
How did the American edit of the original Godzilla film differ from the Japanese version?
What was the significance of Godzilla Minus One (2023)?
News •
Godzilla, fictional monster that first appeared in the 1954 Japanese science-fiction film of the same name. Originally a frightening and cathartic metaphor for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the creature evolved over time into a global pop culture icon, starring in not only dozens of movies but also television shows, commercials, comic books, and other media.
Physical characteristics and origin of Godzilla
Godzilla is a kaijū (literally, “strange beast”), a Japanese word that has come to mean a monster of enormous size. Its design is a mix of dinosaur-like and dragonlike attributes: its body is similar to that of a Tyrannosaurus rex as that species was imagined in the mid-20th century—standing straight, its long tail dragging on the ground—while its back is adorned with armored plates, similar to those of a Stegosaurus. To this mix is added the dragon-style power of emitting a beam of radioactive energy from its mouth. In its first movie, Godzilla stood 164 feet (50 meters) tall, but over the following decades it has been depicted as much larger, so that it can continue to menace modern cities.
In most films, Godzilla is the result of nuclear tests conducted in the Pacific—sometimes specifically the tests conducted at Bikini atoll by the United States in 1946. In the Toho Studios movies Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) and Godzilla Minus One (2023) Godzilla is explained to be an undiscovered and perhaps unique species of dinosaur that existed prior to the tests but which grew and gained its “atomic breath” as a result of them. The recent U.S.-produced Monsterverse films and shows of the 2020s have dropped this origin in favor of making Godzilla a guardian of nature that has lived for millions of years.
Godzilla’s name in Japanese is Gojira, a portmanteau of the Japanese words for “gorilla” and “whale.” At the time of its creation, Toho—the production studio responsible for the Godzilla franchise—employed a stagehand whom other staff members nicknamed Gojira for his size. The moviemakers adopted the moniker for their monster.
History
The Japanese Godzilla films have not been a single unbroken continuity, but the series has periodically ended and then been rebooted or restarted after years with no new films. Fans of Godzilla have named the various eras of the series in loose correspondence to era names based on the Japanese emperors. The eras are Showa (1954–75), Heisei (1984–95), Millennium (1999–2004), and Reiwa (2016– ).
Showa (1954–75)
The original 1954 movie was a stirring film that used Godzilla as a metaphor for the horrors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings; reportedly, many Japanese moviegoers left the theaters in tears. The American version of the film, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (1956), was heavily edited, removing the politically charged scenes and adding American actor Raymond Burr as a new protagonist. The overall effect was to turn Godzilla into an enjoyable and even humorous experience devoid of greater meaning.
To be fair, the American conception of Godzilla was not too different from the direction that the Japanese sequels to Godzilla ultimately took. Toho’s follow-up films became more aimed at children and lacked the emotional punch of the original, attracting audiences instead with spectacle in the form of battles between Godzilla and other kaijū. Starting with Toho’s fifth movie, Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), Godzilla became a hero, saving Japan from other monsters. By the eighth movie, Son of Godzilla (1967), Godzilla was family-friendly enough to gain a cute son, Minilla. The series ended after 15 films in 1975 with Terror of Mechagodzilla, in which Godzilla battled a giant robot version of itself. Many of the Showa movies were directed by Honda Ishirō.
Heisei (1984–95)
Toho rebooted the franchise in 1984 with The Return of Godzilla, a movie that assumed the events of the original Godzilla occurred but ignored every film thereafter, an approach often taken in subsequent eras. The Return of Godzilla was a more serious film than the comic-book spectacles of the later Showa era. Godzilla was once again a dangerous antagonist of humanity, and Japan’s leadership had to carefully calibrate its response to Godzilla to avoid inflaming Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The follow-up Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989) performed poorly at the box office, and so the series soon reverted to its classic style, even reincorporating Godzilla’s son. The series lasted for seven installments, concluding in 1995 with Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.
Godzilla goes to America; Millennium (1999–2004)
In 1992 Toho licensed the rights to Godzilla to U.S.-based TriStar Pictures so that the latter studio could make U.S.-produced Godzilla films. However, as the first film in TriStar’s planned trilogy, Godzilla (1998), was considered a critical and financial disappointment, plans for additional installments were shelved.
With TriStar’s plans no longer a consideration, Toho relaunched its movie franchise for a second time with the 1999 film Godzilla 2000: Millennium. In this era, Toho treated its Godzilla films as an anthology series, wherein each installment (except for Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla [2002] and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. [2003]) served as a standalone story; only the events of the 1954 film were assumed to have occurred in every movie. The Millennium era lasted for six films, ending with Godzilla: Final Wars (2004).
Monsterverse (2014– ) and Reiwa (2016– )
The U.S.-made Monsterverse series by Legendary Pictures started with Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla (2014). The Monsterverse films not only share the same continuity with one another but also tie into two television series: Netflix’s animated Skull Island (2023) and Apple TV+’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023– ).
The Japanese-produced Reiwa series by Toho began with Anno Hideaki’s Shin Godzilla (2016), a dark political satire in which the Japanese government’s fumbling response to Godzilla’s emergence stands as an allegory for the Fukushima accident and its aftermath.
The Reiwa era continued with a trilogy of animated films. But its next live-action film, Godzilla Minus One (2023), proved to be a success with critics and audiences around the world and was instantly acclaimed as one of the best Godzilla films. Set in the immediate aftermath of World War II, a defeated and destroyed Japan must nevertheless muster the resources to fight Godzilla. The film even became the first Godzilla film to win an Academy Award when it won the Oscar for best visual effects.