Almost everything that mankind and monsterkind have thrown at Godzilla, he has vanquished. He easily topples fighter jets and stomps on tanks. He has even defeated Mechagodzilla and King Kong. But inertia seems to be the one enemy that Godzilla can never manage to defeat. Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is the most recent film, and it is really dumb, but not painfully so. It also coincides with the release of Godzilla Minus One, the most current Japanese Godzilla movie, which was highly praised by critics and dramatized the themes of pain, responsibility, and conflict as the kaiju ravaged postwar Tokyo.How is it possible that four months can separate such a frivolous Godzilla from such a serious one in theaters? There is no paradox since there has always been space in the series for both kinds of films. The main distinction is that GxK is the fifth entry in the MonsterVerse, whereas Minus One was a stand-alone movie. Godzilla’s three-quarters of a century of existence has taught us that foolish things always happen in Godzilla sequels.
The now playing in cinemas Godzilla x Kong is not trying to be a serious film. The movie is a direct sequel to 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong, which marks the return of director Adam Wingard. In it, the eponymous monsters battle an evil Kong and an ice-breathing lizard, hurling their CGI bodies against one another in a manner that defies taste and physics. They battle in zero gravity within the hollow Earth at one point. They are hilarious to see, but they also have no real or symbolic weight.In contrast, Godzilla Minus One, which was the first Godzilla film to win an Oscar for special effects, has a computer-generated monster that goes well beyond just eye candy. Godzilla from Minus One is a terrifying figure that stands in for the ghost of the nuclear bomb and the ongoing psychological battles from the terrible war fought by Imperial Japan.
Although GxK is unquestionably a superior movie to Minus One, that doesn’t mean the later is portraying Godzilla “wrong” and the former is doing the King of the Monsters justice. The series has a long history of both moods, with a significant proportion of humor and seriousness.
“Godzilla Minus One and my movie Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire are two examples of films that have quite distinct tones from one another. As part of a clever bit of reciprocal advertising, Wingard recently stated, “I think that’s what’s so cool about Godzilla,” in an interview with Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki. Similar acclaim was given to GxK by Yamazaki, whose film closely resembles the original 1954 Godzilla, for channeling “the psychedelic Godzilla from the Showa era,” which was “also an important element of Godzilla.”
Yamazaki refers to the first fifteen Godzilla films, which were released between 1954 and 1975, as the Showa period. Less than ten years after Japan was struck by two atomic bombs (as well as several catastrophic firebombings), the original Godzilla is a true horror film. Godzilla is death incarnate, channeling an all too recent past, not a monster fighting another stretchy monster to defend humanity. However, beginning with the first follow-up, Godzilla Raids (1955), Again, the emphasis changed from symbolic to action, and things grew less serious from there, only to grow sillier very quickly.
Raids Again was the first time Godzilla faced off against another monster (Anguirus, who bears some resemblance to the dinosaur Ankylosaurus). Although Godzilla remained a villain, the main focus of the fight was this enormous kaiju fight rather than his terrifying symbolism.After that, he faced Kong in King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962, and by the time of the fifth Godzilla film, the giant had completely changed for the better. It’s understandable why. Given his popularity and the fact that he was growing particularly well-liked among kids, it made more sense to present Godzilla as a prizefighter prepared to defeat his most recent opponent.During the height of the Showa Era, a number of films were overtly intended for children. But eventually, fans became weary of this Godzilla, and the franchise was dormant for over ten years when Terror of Mechagodzilla sold the fewest tickets of any Godzilla film, ’75.
Godzilla got back to work in 1984 with the appropriately titled The Return of Godzilla. The Return of Godzilla, the first picture in the Heisei Era (so named because of the Japanese emperor in power at the time the films were released), merely acts as though the fourteen more ridiculous Godzilla films never happened. Although it’s not quite as gloomy as that image, it’s a direct successor to Godzilla from 1954, and it takes the monster extremely seriously.
He doesn’t have to fight any more monsters; instead, the film depicts mankind coming to terms with the reemergence of a grave threat, with the main metaphor modified to take into account contemporary nuclear anxieties. A storyline that adds weight and importance to the film is the idea that the Cold War rivalry between the US and the USSR poses a threat almost equal to that of Godzilla.But like the Showa Era before it, the Heisei Era eventually descended into growing silliness, although with ever improved production quality. Godzilla was still a villain when he made it through the next movie, Godzilla vs. Biollante, against a giant mutant rose imbued with a dead woman’s spirit (long story), but by the time this series ended in 1995, he was essentially back to being a good guy who battled any worse monster that was attacking Earth, including SpaceGodzilla, a particularly goofy enemy that was Godzilla from space.
Right now, the Heisei Era is the most similar period to the MonsterVerse. Its first film, 2014’s American Godzilla, may not have been as somber as The Return of Godzilla or even the original masterpiece, but it still has a sense of grandeur and realism. In contrast, four films later, characters are attaching a robotic power glove onto Kong’s arm to give him a power boost to battle the next monster, and they are constantly switching between their advanced hidden bases both inside the Earth and on the surface.The United Nations Godzilla Countermeasures Center in the Heisei era and Monarch in the MonsterVerse are two examples of anti-monster agencies that have become more prominent over the course of the shows. GxK adds yet another similarity: both series have made telepathic humans who can communicate with the monsters load-bearing characters.
There is much to adore about the MonsterVerse and the Hesei Era. (In all honesty, I’m not sure how ironic it is to argue that Godzilla vs. Kong is a five-star movie.) Simply said, they’re not serious films. Without the pressure to surpass the previous film, all of the serious Godzilla films are either stand-alone productions or the first in their particular chronology. For example, the 2016 Japanese film Shin Godzilla reimagines the King of the Monsters as an eldritch monstrosity representing the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe and the inadequate reaction by the government. Because there was no direct sequel to that film, Godzilla remained powerful and never became ordinary, much less a heroic character who engages in combat.
Given the economic and critical success of Godzilla Minus One, it makes sense that there are rumors of a direct sequel floating about. If it occurs, comparing the sequel to the first one will be significantly more fascinating than comparing Minus One to Godzilla x Kong. GxK’s blatantly lovely, largely charming ignorance only indicates that, assuming his stories have any room to continue, this is what always happens to the King of the Monsters. He was transformed into a towering monster by nuclear testing, and a huge idiot by sequels.
