Godzilla
is a monster, or kaiju, that debuted in the eponymous 1954 film, directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. The character has since become an international pop culture icon, appearing in various media: 33 Japanese films produced by Toho Co., Ltd., five American films, and numerous video games, novels, comic books, and television shows. Godzilla has been dubbed the King of the Monsters, an epithet first used in Godzilla, King of the Monsters!, the American localization of the 1954 film.
Originally and in most iterations of the creature, Godzilla is a colossal prehistoric reptilian or dinosaurian monster that is amphibious or resides partially in the ocean, awakened and empowered after many years by exposure to nuclear radiation and nuclear testing. With the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for nuclear weapons. Others have suggested that Godzilla is a metaphor for the United States, a "giant beast" woken from its "slumber" that then takes terrible vengeance on Japan. As the film series expanded, some storylines took on less serious undertones, portraying Godzilla as an antihero or lesser threat who defends humanity. Later films address disparate themes and commentary, including Japan's apathy, neglect, and ignorance of its imperial past, natural disasters, and the human condition.
Godzilla has been featured alongside many supporting characters and, over the decades, has faced off against various human opponents, such as the Japan Self-Defense Forces, in addition to other gargantuan monsters, including Gigan, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla. Godzilla has fought alongside allies such as Anguirus, Mothra, and Rodan and has had offsprings, including Godzilla Junior and Minilla. Godzilla has also battled characters and creatures from other franchises in crossover media—such as King Kong or even basketball players—as well as various Marvel Comics characters, like S.H.I.E.L.D., the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers; as well as DC Comics characters such as the Justice League, the Legion of Doom, and the Green Lantern Corps.
Appearances
First appearing in the 1954 film of the same name, Godzilla has starred in a total of 38 films: 33 Japanese films produced and distributed by Toho Co., Ltd. and five American films, one produced by TriStar Pictures and four produced by Legendary Pictures. The monster has also appeared in countless other entertainment mediums, which include comic book lines, novelizations, and video games; each appearance expands upon the universe created by the films.Development
Naming
Although the process of creating Godzilla's first film is comprehensively recorded, exactly how its name came to be remains unclear. The most widely accepted report of its origin is that producer Tomoyuki Tanaka named the monster after Toho employee Shirō Amikura, who was nicknamed "Gujira" then "Gojira", a portmanteau of the Japanese words and, because of his sturdy build and his fondness for whale meat. The account has been acknowledged by Toho themselves, director Ishirō Honda, producer Tanaka, special effects director Eiji Tsuburaya, producer, and production head, with Satō and Mori recalling that the employee was Amikura. However, Honda's widow Kimi dismissed the story in a 1998 BBC documentary on Godzilla, believing that Honda, Tanaka, and Tsuburaya gave "considerable thought" to the name of the monster, stating, "the backstage boys at Toho loved to joke around with tall stories, but I don't believe that one". Honda's longtime assistant director added: "Those of us who were closest to them don't even know how and why they came up with Gojira."Toho later translated the monster's Japanese name as "Godzilla" for overseas distribution. The first recorded foreign usage of "Godzilla" was printed in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald on November 20, 1955.
During the development of the American version of Godzilla Raids Again, Godzilla's name was changed to "Gigantis" by producer Paul Schreibman, who wanted to create a character distinct from Godzilla.
Characterization
Within the context of the Japanese films, Godzilla's exact origins vary, but it is generally depicted as an enormous, violent, prehistoric sea monster awakened and empowered by nuclear radiation. Although the specific details of Godzilla's appearance have varied slightly over the years, the overall impression has remained consistent. Inspired by the fictional Rhedosaurus created by animator Ray Harryhausen for the film The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Godzilla's character design was conceived as that of an amphibious reptilian monster based around the loose concept of a dinosaur with an erect standing posture, scaly skin, an anthropomorphic torso with muscular arms, lobed bony plates along its back and tail, and a furrowed brow.Art director Akira Watanabe combined attributes of a Tyrannosaurus, an Iguanodon, a Stegosaurus and an alligator to form a sort of blended chimera, inspired by illustrations from an issue of Life magazine. To emphasize the monster's relationship with the atomic bomb, its skin texture was inspired by the keloid scars seen on the survivors of Hiroshima. The basic design has a reptilian visage, a robust build, an upright posture, a long tail and three rows of serrated plates along the back. In the original film, the plates were added for purely aesthetic purposes, in order to further differentiate Godzilla from any other living or extinct creature. Godzilla is sometimes depicted as green in comics, cartoons, and movie posters, but the costumes used in the movies were usually painted charcoal gray with bone-white dorsal plates up until the film Godzilla 2000: Millennium.
In the original Japanese films, Godzilla and all the other monsters are referred to with gender-neutral pronouns equivalent to "it", while in the English dubbed versions, Godzilla is explicitly described as a male. In his book, Godzilla co-creator Tomoyuki Tanaka suggested that the monster was probably male; but also suggested that the original 1954 version could have been female. In the 1998 film Godzilla, the monster is referred to as a male and is depicted laying eggs through parthenogenesis. In the Legendary Pictures Godzilla films, Godzilla is specified as a male.
For the English translations for the Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again novellas, writer Jeffrey Angles settled on male pronouns for Godzilla, stating that "Kayama thought about Godzilla as a stand-in for the nuclear bomb, and it was men in America who were developing the hydrogen bombs that frightened Japan so much in 1954. So maybe it's perhaps not inappropriate to call Godzilla 'he'." Angles also noted that Toho prefers to keep Godzilla and their other kaiju characters as gender-neutral as they see them more as objects akin to natural disasters.
Godzilla's allegiance and motivations, as well as its level of intelligence, have changed from film to film to suit the needs of the story. Although Godzilla does not like humans, it will fight alongside humanity against common threats. However, it makes no special effort to protect human life or property and will turn against its human allies on a whim. It is generally not motivated to attack by predatory instinct; it does not usually eat people and instead sustains itself on nuclear radiation and an omnivorous or piscivorian diet consisting especially of cetaceans and large fish. When inquired if Godzilla was "good or bad", producer Shōgo Tomiyama likened it to a Shinto "God of Destruction" which lacks moral agency and cannot be held to human standards of good and evil. "He totally destroys everything and then there is a rebirth. Something new and fresh can begin." Tomoyuki Tanaka noted in his book that Godzilla and humanity can become temporary allies against greater threats, but they are essentially enemies due to the difficulty to co-exist. Later Showa film's heroic and child-friendly representations of the character distancing from fears and destructions were controversial among their own filmmakers, such as by Ishiro Honda and Yukiko Takayama; the latter described the period a "sad era" for Godzilla for its heroic deeds, lacks of city destructions, and insufficient budgets.
Abilities
Godzilla's signature weapon is its "atomic heat beam", nuclear energy that it generates inside of its body, uses electromagnetic force to concentrate it into a laser-like high velocity projectile and unleashes it from its jaws in the form of a blue or red radioactive beam. Toho's special effects department has used various techniques to render the beam, from physical gas-powered flames to hand-drawn or computer-generated fire. Godzilla is shown to possess immense physical strength and muscularity. Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in the original films, was a black belt in judo and used his expertise to choreograph the battle sequences.Godzilla is amphibious: it has a preference for traversing Earth's hydrosphere when in hibernation or migration, can breathe underwater due to pore-shaped gills and is described in the original film by the character Dr. Yamane as a transitional form between a marine and a terrestrial reptile. Godzilla is shown to have great vitality: it is immune to conventional weaponry thanks to its rugged hide and ability to regenerate, and as a result of surviving a nuclear explosion, it cannot be destroyed by anything less powerful. One incarnation possesses an electromagnetic pulse-producing organ in its body which generates an asymmetrical permeable shield, making it impervious to all damage except for a short period when the organ recycles.
Various films, non-canonical television shows, comics, and games have depicted Godzilla with additional powers, such as an atomic pulse, magnetism, precognition, fireballs, convert electromagnetic energy into intensive body heat, converting shed blood into temporary tentacle limbs, an electric bite, superhuman speed, laser beams emitted from its eyes and even flight.