Godzilla misconceptions

Due to Godzilla being one of the biggest franchises and pop-culture icons in Japan and generally the world, it is not uncommon for non-Godzilla fans or even some Godzilla enthusiasts to believe in or create misconceptions or stereotypes about the franchise and spread them around directly or indirectly via virtually any means, from art to videos and from websites and misinformation to stereotypes. Here is a list of misconceptions and stereotypes.

Godzilla Is Green

 * Godzilla being green is a stereotype that started as early as the American poster for the 1956 Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. Godzilla has never been and was never green in Japan whatsoever until the MireGoji and GiraGoji designs on 1999's Godzilla 2000: Millennium and 2000's Godzilla vs. Megaguirus. Godzilla was green in The Godzilla Power Hour, Marvel's Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Dark Horse's Godzilla, King of the Monsters comics. However, all of these were American media.


 * Still, Godzilla has been represented green in media in Japan and even made by Toho, mostly in video games. Some examples include Gojira-Kun, Godzilla vs. 3 Major Monsters, and Godzilland.

Godzilla Junior, the juvenile Godzillasaurus featured in the films Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2, Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah is depicted as green in the final two films of the trilogy.

Godzilla Is A Lizard

 * This misconception is very heavily believed in, not just in the real world but also in the Godzilla universe. Godzilla quite simply is a mutated Godzillasaurus created from from atomic bombs, and his design is based on a tyrannosaurus rex crossed with a stegosaurus. Calling Godzilla a dinosaur or an aquatic dinosaur is not particularly wrong.


 * Calling Godzilla a lizard could mean that the person who calls him that may be confusing Godzilla for Zilla, the titular monster from the 1998 American "GODZILLA" film directed by Roland Emmerich, who in fact is a lizard. Specifically, a marine iguana.

Godzilla Breathes Fire

 * Anyone who is not familiar with Godzilla would immediately believe that Godzilla has a generic fire breath that may sometimes be blue. However, Godzilla's "fire breath" is a much more powerful Atomic Breath which he gained because of the atomic bomb that mutated him. Godzilla's atomic breath, sometimes called a heat ray, is much more powerful than fire and is typically blue, and is usually regarded as stronger when red or orange. Again, some versions such as the Marvel Godzilla and the Hanna-Barbera Godzilla have a normal fire breath, but these are not part of the main canon of the franchise. This may also be an influence from the 1954 poster of the first Godzilla movie.

Godzilla Isn't Sapient

 * Godzilla has been shown to have either semi-sapience or even human-like sapience in a majority of the films. In the Showa era specifically, Godzilla is completely sapient and can think, perform human-like activities, give directions, and even talk in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, which Mothra's Shobijin translate, and Godzilla vs. Gigan. In the Heisei era, Godzilla is able to detect threats and find his son, Godzilla Junior. Godzilla also seems to talk to Junior, warning him and telling him to follow. Godzilla also expresses feelings when Junior was killed by Destoroyah in the climax of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. In the Millennium era, Godzilla's sapience level changes between films. In Godzilla 2000: Millennium and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, Godzilla is a force of nature that protects his home, the Earth, from threats. In Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Godzilla is able to outsmart, evade and overpower all of the guardian monsters, meaning he was semi-sapient at least. In Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., Godzilla seemed to lose much of his sapience and became just a force of nature. In Godzilla: Final Wars, Godzilla is again at least semi-sapient, as he can understand Minilla standing in front of the humans as meaning that they are not threats, and Godzilla also could quickly discover weaknesses or flaws against his opponents that he could use to his advantage. In the end, Godzilla is usually semi-sapient in the films.

Godzilla Is Indestructible

 * Main Article: Godzilla
 * Godzilla has weaknesses. The two obvious ones are the Oxygen Destroyer and Meltdown. The Oxygen Destroyer reduced Godzilla to nothing (or to bones in Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla). Meltdown completely killed Godzilla and could have been catastrophic to the whole planet. However, there have been more weaknesses Godzilla has had. The Absolute Zero weapon used by Kiryu in Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla managed to leave a cavity in Godzilla's chest and force him to retreat. Dr. Shiragami's Anti-Nuclear Energy Bacteria managed to lower the radioactivity within Godzilla's body to the point of causing him to hibernate in the sea for three years. In King Kong vs. Godzilla, Godzilla was weak to strong voltages of electricity, but this weakness eventually faded away. Godzilla also can be completely devastated by his second brain's destruction, which was used by Super MechaGodzilla to kill Godzilla in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla 2. Curiously, although much of the destruction caused by Godzilla becomes surrounded by fire, in Godzilla vs. Megalon, Godzilla seems to have a very slight aversion to fire, as seen when he cowers behind Jet Jaguar and waits for him to lift him away from the flames.

Godzilla Appears In The 1998 Film Of The Same Name

 * Main Article: The Zilla Name Change
 * It is very common for non-Godzilla fans to believe that the titular character from the 1998 American "GODZILLA" film directed by Roland Emmerich and the 1998 animated series is called "Godzilla". However, this is not true whatsoever as the character has been legally renamed to "Zilla" in late 2005 because of the original 1998 character's trademark being cancelled intentionally and its copyright icons abandoned, as well as TriStar's rights to the franchise being lost in 2003 and the name change being confirmed by Shogo Tomiyama, the man in charge of the Godzilla franchise, in an interview in 2004, before the release of Toho's Godzilla: Final Wars film.


 * New Godzilla fans may be confused about the Zilla character's official name, and may be lead to believe that at least the 1998 character's name is "Gino", an acronym for "Godzilla In Name Only", by other Godzilla fans who also are not aware of the name change. This is easily not true, as "Gino" is not an official name and has never been used in any official media.

Zilla Has Atomic/Fire Breath

 * There is a scene in the 1998 American "GODZILLA" film which shows Zilla blowing at a few cars and creating an explosion of fire. Many people have misinterpreted this as Zilla breathing fire or even an atomic heat ray. This is actually just Zilla blowing his power breath, a flammable breath that ignites flammable objects such as gasoline when enough force is exerted. The 1998 Zilla was never intended to have any type of atomic breath, but the power breath was put in the film to please the fans that wanted an atomic heat ray. In Godzilla: Final Wars, Zilla is shown appearing after two similar explosions dissipate.


 * However, Zilla's son, Zilla Junior, from Godzilla: The Series, does have a green atomic breath. The original Zilla from 1998 also appeared in the animated series as Cyber-Zilla, and had a blue atomic heat ray, obviously an homage to Godzilla. Originally, though, Zilla's son was not going to possess an atomic heat ray in the 1998 film's sequel, "GODZILLA 2".

Zilla Is More Realistic Than Godzilla

 * Main Article: Godzilla (1998 film)
 * What is realistic or not depends on one's opinion. However, as all fiction, Zilla and his movie are just as unrealistic and implausible as the real Godzilla. Enormous, velociraptor-like mutations created from irradiated marine iguanas by nuclear fallout on French Polynesia (marine iguanas don't even exist in French Polynesia) are not known to science. Zilla existing is just as probable as someone finding a living velociraptor on their own backyard, as no amount of exposure to atomic radiation can make a reptile grow several stories tall and give them power breath. People might confuse animalism for realism in this case, as the Zilla character is certainly much more animalistic than Godzilla, although that does not make the character more realistic in any way. Changing a fictional giant dinosaur's design to look like a Jurassic Park velociraptor doesn't make him any more realistic; he's still a fictional character. In the end, both are fictional characters that do not, have equal chances of not, and will never exist in reality.

Zilla Was Not Going To Be In Godzilla: Unleashed

 * According to an interview with Simon Strange conducted by Chris Mirjahangir from Toho Kingdom, Zilla was in fact considered for the game, but due to lack of popularity from fans who said that "his inclusion would ruin the game", Zilla was scrapped.

Zilla Junior Was Dubbed "Godzilla Junior" By Toho

 * There's a popular rumor saying that Toho honored the animated Zilla by calling calling him "Godzilla Junior" seeing that it was worthy of the Godzilla name. This rumor has yet to be confirmed, however, as there has been no official statement from Toho. It turned out that this rumor was just a misconception created by fans of the animated series, and Toho added no comment to the matter.

King Ghidorah and Keizer Ghidorah Are The Same Monster

 * Some fans, such as James Rolfe from Cinemassacre, believe that the monster King Ghidorah appeared in Godzilla: Final Wars, as a form which Monster X transformed into. However, there is no proof that this is an incarnation of King Ghidorah, and is instead another monster in the Ghidorah species. This is supported by King Ghidorah and Keizer Ghidorah having two different, still-functioning copyright icons and Trademarks each.

Godzilla vs. The Devil

 * "Godzilla vs. The Devil", also known as "Godzilla vs. Satan", was supposedly an unmade Godzilla film proposed by Tomoyuki Tanaka in 1978 as an attempt to revive him after the poor box office performance of 1975's Terror of MechaGodzilla that never got past the planning stages. It supposedly was known that Godzilla would have been pitted against several demon monsters and finally would have squared off against Satan himself in a climactic final battle.


 * None of the above information on "Godzilla vs. The Devil" is true (other than the fact that Terror of MechaGodzilla was not a box-office hit). This film was a misconception which got well-known due to Toho Kingdom hosting it for several years. Anthony Romero of Toho Kingdom apologized for hosting this content in "Toho Busters", saying "Toho Kingdom itself is guilty of this as well, as the concept was listed on the site for years. Regardless, the project was not something that Toho had officially considered."

King Kong vs. Godzilla Alternate Ending

 * This is a widely published misconception that plagued all American fans of Godzilla who did not have access to the Japanese versions of Godzilla films before the internet was around to disprove this. According to this misconception, there were two endings for the 1962's King Kong vs. Godzilla, one that played in the United States where King Kong surfaces from the water at the end of the film and another that played in Japan where Godzilla is the one who surfaces. This is not the case; King Kong is the monster that triumphs at the end of both versions.

The Godzilla From Godzilla 2000: Millennium Reappeared In Godzilla vs. Megaguirus

 * This is a very popular misconception that comes simply from the fact that the MireGoji suit was used both in Godzilla 2000: Millennium and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus. A look at Godzilla vs. Megaguirus disproves this rather quickly. There is no continuity between the two films, and the only directly connected films of the Millennium Series are Godzilla Against MechaGodzilla and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S..

Bagan In Final Wars

 * This misconception originates from a video uploaded to YouTube on June 19th, 2012, which supposedly consists of cut footage of Bagan from Godzilla: Final Wars. The footage is a hoax, showing off the monster called Reizaus from the television show Super Fleet Sazer-X.