| “ | We call him... Gojira. | „ |
| Godzilla | |
|---|---|
| | |
| Nomenclature | |
| Foreign name(s) |
Gojira |
| Nickname(s) |
King of the Monsters |
| Biological Information | |
| Homeworld | |
| Species |
Titanus Gojira |
| Gender |
Male |
| Height | |
| Length | |
| Weight | |
| Eye color |
Golden yellow |
| Status |
Alive |
| Affiliation Information | |
| Allies |
Mothra |
| Enemies | |
| Production Information | |
| Portrayed by |
T.J. Storm (Motion capture)[4] |
| Roar | |
| First appearance | |
| Last appearance | |
The Godzilla (ゴジラ Gojira?) of the MonsterVerse, also dubbed Titanus Gojira, is a giant reptilian daikaiju created by Legendary Pictures that first appeared in the 2014 MonsterVerse film, Godzilla.
Following this, he appeared briefly in the post-credits scene of the 2017 film, Kong: Skull Island, making a cameo appearance as two cave paintings and roaring as the film ends.
He reappears in the 2019 sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, where he, alongside Rodan, Mothra, and Ghidorah all vie for supremacy on Earth.
Following 2019's monstrous clash, Godzilla will finally face off against Kong in the 2020 film, Godzilla vs. Kong.
Name
In Godzilla: Awakening, Godzilla is referred to as a "MUTO" due to him not having a name at the time.
Godzilla originally gained his true name from the Pacific islanders, who refer to him as "Gojira". Ishiro Serizawa also refers to him as "Gojira", prior to "Godzilla" being formally used. With that said, most of the English-speaking characters eventually start to call him "Godzilla" over the course of the film's events.
Michael Dougherty later revealed that the name "Godzilla" is not the primary name of the monster, but a nickname, with the scientific name used within the film's universe being "Gojira". The resulting scientific dubbing of Titanus Gojira comes from the Latin term "Titanus", meaning "Titan", and "Gojira" (ゴジラ Gojira?), meaning "Godzilla" in Japanese.
Design
Appearances
2014 design
Godzilla in Godzilla
For Godzilla's return, it was decided to give the King of the Monsters a newly revamped look. Thus, he was given a new design that didn't look radically different from the established Godzilla designs like the TriStar Godzilla design from the 1998 film did, but like the TriStar design, it was intended to have a more realistic approach. Just like the 2007 Godzilla design, this design is completely computer generated. Lead creature and concept designer Matt Allsopp, and WETA Workshop creature designers Andrew Baker, Christian Pearce and Greg Broadmore were tasked with bringing Godzilla into a contemporary reality while honoring his classic silhouette.
The 2014 design's face is blocky, its neck is broad and has shark-like gills, making this the first Godzilla design to feature gills. His eyes are small and a golden yellow color, and his teeth are small and not nearly as straightly lined up as in previous Godzilla designs. The head and neck seem to lean forward more and the nostrils are more separate, being on opposite sides of the snout, and making him more reptile-like instead of the more mammalian fashion of being close together in the front compared to past designs. According to Andrew Baker, the filmmakers studied the faces of dogs, bears, and eagles in order to make Godzilla's face look noble and majestic, yet not too cute or threatening.[5]
His dorsal plates are smaller than the previous designs, but they still retain the core maple-leaf shape, although straighter and very sharp, somewhat like MireGoji's creating a more jagged look when rising from the water. Godzilla's claws are black in color, and his feet are wider, resembling an elephant's feet with larger claws than the other Godzilla designs. His skin is more reptilian and crocodile-like, and rougher than the other designs, and is a very dark gray (almost black) color. His body and tail are very wide as well, making him look somewhat bulkier than other Godzilla designs.
Legendary confirmed that their Godzilla's tail is 550 feet and 4 inches long, his height is 355 feet, there are exactly 89 dorsal plates running down his back, the palm of his hands are 34 feet and 4 inches each, and that his roar can be heard from 3 miles away, loud enough to make an opponent go deaf.[1]
2019 design
Godzilla in Godzilla: King of the Monsters
While retaining the same basic design as his 2014 appearance, Godzilla received a slight revamp for King of the Monsters, with his dorsal plates changing in shape. Rather than being jagged and straighter in design, the new design features more protrusions. The three large central dorsal plates running from mid-way down his back are the same shape as the original Godzilla's dorsal plates.[6] The claws of his toes are also longer and curved. His skin is rougher in texture. The tip of his tail is also more rounded. In addition, his eye color also changes when he uses his atomic breath, becoming a bright blue, much like his attack.
Portrayal
Godzilla is portrayed through CGI and keyframe animation, with partial motion capture performance from T.J. Storm.[7] Andy Serkis, who performed motion capture for King Kong in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake, was consulted to make the Legendary Godzilla and the MUTOs' computer-generated movements more realistic.[8]
VFX supervisor Jim Rygiel said that this Godzilla's fighting style was based on those of bears and komodo dragons as they stand up tall and barge their opponents backwards with their arms. In the film, Godzilla is seen doing this with the female MUTO.[9] According to Moving Picture Company VFX supervisor Guillaume Rocheron, Godzilla's movements were also inspired by lions and wolves.[10] This incarnation of Godzilla was designed to be as biologically plausible and "realistic" as possible, with the design process being to try and imagine what Godzilla would look like as a believable, real, natural animal.
Roar
Since the Godzilla roar is considered one of the most famous sound effects in film history, sound designers Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van Der Ryn were tasked with paying homage to it while revamping it and creating something new.
According to Edwards, they spent six months over the three-year production experimenting with different techniques such as a pine tar-coated leather glove on a double bass trying to match the initial metallic shriek, the following wail, and the finishing bellow of Godzilla's iconic roar. Using microphones that could record sound inaudible to human ears, the team recorded hundreds of sounds at a 192 kHz sample rate before slowing them down to an audible range until they stumbled upon the combination that gave them goosebumps.[11]
The final version that was created was the 50th the team produced. The pair tested the roar on a back lot at Warner Bros., using a 100,000 watt tour speaker array for The Rolling Stones. The roar was powerful enough to rattle pipes and rooftops, and was estimated that it could be heard up to three miles away. For this experiment, the crew actually sent out fliers to surrounding communities warning the neighbors about the potential sound disruption; despite these preemptive measures, however, Burbank P.D. started getting calls and people were tweeting 'Godzilla's at my apartment door!'[12] Additionally, Godzilla can make sounds other than roaring, best demonstrated after killing the male MUTO, and when he collapses to Ford's level, he growls in a soft way that sounds similar to a cat purring.
In an interview with Mike Dougherty, he revealed that even though he thinks the crew did a great job revamping Godzilla's roar, he pushed them further to bring it even closer to the original 1954 Godzilla's roar.[13] The latest version of the roar measures 174 decibels.[2] The final version of Godzilla's roar is overlaid with the roars from both the 1954 film and the roars used from 1962 onwards.
Personality
- Ford Brody: "A monster?"
- Vivienne Graham: "No. A god."
- ―Promotional trailer
In Godzilla, Godzilla's behavior seems to be that of a territorial animal. Ishiro Serizawa theorized that Godzilla is the driving force to restore balance to nature whenever that balance is disrupted, suggesting that he essentially considers the entire Earth to be his territory.
However, unlike previous incarnations, he doesn't blatantly attack or plow through ships at sea simply because they're there. In fact, with larger ships like aircraft carriers, he simply dives down under them. Even when the military launched a combined forces assault to stop him, he didn't seem to react or fight back and simply continued to hunt the MUTOs, even when he was being followed in close proximity by four naval ships. As opposed to any sort of morality, it appears to be that he simply considers humans to be tiny and insignificant and does not care about their general well-being but at the same time does not consider them worth destroying even though they, without harming him at all, fire at him nonstop.
He also does not seem to cause destruction on purpose. Even when he destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge, it did not appear to be intentional, but rather just him reacting from being hit in the gills by explosives. He shows little interest in humans, instead focusing his attention entirely on the MUTOs. It's possible that his supposed disinterest in humans well-being could be caused by their repeated attempts to kill him. After defeating both MUTOs, he leaves the humans alone without any more conflict.
Godzilla does however occasionally show signs of advanced thinking, as he is shown adapting his strategies to fight the MUTOs and even uses sleight-of-hand to trick the male MUTO into coming in range of his tail, which he uses to impale him on a fallen skyscraper. He appears to possess some degree of emotion as he briefly looks Ford Brody in the eye when he collapses to his level, which also could suggest that he has at least some degree of interest in humans.
Godzilla was designed to have a personality that would evoke the "last samurai" archetype, and be a lone, ancient warrior content with solitude and preferring not to be a part of the world but has to resurface when certain types of events force him to appear and set things right.
Godzilla also apparently has some degree of rivalry with Ghidorah and Kong, as he is depicted fighting alternatively with one of them in various cave paintings.
Godzilla has a symbiotic relationship with Mothra. She assists him in their fight against Ghidorah and Rodan, using her webs to glue Ghidorah onto a skyscraper, and incapacitating Rodan after he fought her. As she died, Godzilla absorbed her life-force, enabling him to go thermonuclear.
When Godzilla becomes the Alpha Titan, he does not attack others who followed Ghidorah, and instead spares them when they swear their allegiance to him.
Origins
| “ | Now grown to almost 400-feet tall, Godzilla stands as king of all he surveys. Initially thought to be a threat, we now understand his potential to become our world’s ultimate guardian, a towering apex predator emerging from the mysterious depths of the ocean to battle aggressors that threaten the balance of nature. The creature designated Titanus Gojira draws its immense power from a bio-nuclear circulatory system that activates when threatened, triggering a neutron flux that travels up its shard-like backspines to nucleosynthetic throat chambers where it explodes into a directed wave of atomic breath. Through this remarkable process, Godzilla’s roar itself becomes nature’s most devastating weapon. The Monarch facility designated ‘Castle Bravo’ was built specifically as a flagship underwater observation base by Monarch to study Godzilla in his natural habitat. Our findings so far have been hard earned but revelatory. Sub-aquatic audio captures suggest the creature utilizes a range of communication frequencies more complex than anything we had imagined. When not enraged into action, the creature is slow, graceful, inquisitive even. His size and radioactive signature make him easy to monitor, with scans showing him traveling through various oceanic channels on routine patrol routes propelled by his massive tail. There are sporadic gaps where his signature disappears from tracking logs, and analytics is working closely with our mythography team to determine the cause. Dr. Brooks’ ‘Hollow Earth’ theory is gaining more traction because of this finding and is currently leading the on-going investigation. It is possible that the epicenter of these sightings is proximal to a previously undiscovered vile vortex. | „ |
| — Cryptid Profile |
For Godzilla's return, the King of the Monsters was given a radically new origin story that deviates from the previously established origin of him being mutated by the Hydrogen bomb: In Godzilla: Awakening, the prequel to Godzilla, Godzilla is explained to be an ancient lifeform from the Permian period. As the planet cooled and its natural atmospheric radiation began to decrease, he adapted to survive various extinction events by diving deep into the ocean and consuming the planet's natural geothermal radiation in a hibernation-like state from its molten core until 1954, when a nuclear submarine woke him up.
Godzilla was theorized by Ishiro Serizawa to have been the Alpha predator of his ecosystem, and prevented the other species from overpopulating and overrunning the world, acting as a force of nature that maintained balance.
History
Godzilla: Awakening
An ancient Alpha predator that thrived during the Permian period, Godzilla retreated to the ocean depths as the radiation levels of Earth's surface declined, instead feeding on the planet's natural geothermal radiation from its core. Godzilla remained dormant underwater for hundreds of millions of years, including the extinction of the dinosaurs, appearing occasionally at various points in human history, inspiring the mythologies of several cultures. In 1954, an American nuclear submarine unknowingly awakened him when it reached the lower depths of the ocean, drawing him to the surface in search of new sources of radiation. Godzilla attacked and fed on American and Soviet nuclear submarines in the South Pacific Ocean, with each nation believing the other was responsible for the attacks.
When Godzilla's existence became known, the American military began detonating a series of nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands to try and kill him, under the guise of nuclear testing. On March 1st, 1954, Godzilla was lured ashore at Bikini Atoll, where the American military detonated their first-ever dry-fuel hydrogen bomb, code named Castle Bravo, in an attempt to kill him. Godzilla vanished following the detonation, and the United States covered up all evidence of his existence. A scientific organization known as Monarch was formed to study Godzilla and any other supersized "hyperfauna" like him, and continued to search for him in the following decades.
Kong: Skull Island
Cave painting of Godzilla fighting Ghidorah in Kong: Skull Island.
| “ | The 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear tests weren't tests, they were trying to kill something. | „ |
| — William Randa |
Godzilla was first mentioned by Monarch operative William Randa, who stated that the creature had torn through the U.S.S. Lawton, and Randa was the sole survivor of the ship's destruction. He later stated that the 1954 nuclear tests were not tests, but attempts to kill Godzilla.
Later, in 1973, Houston Brooks and San Lin would brief James Conrad and Mason Weaver on multiple other monsters who ruled the world alongside Kong. This included Godzilla, along with Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah, who were shown to the two via classified Monarch cave paintings.
Godzilla
In 2014, Godzilla detected the mating call of a MUTO, a parasitic lifeform that lived during his era and laid its eggs in the corpses of his species. In order to preserve his own existence, Godzilla came ashore in Honolulu to fight the winged male MUTO before it could meet up with its female counterpart and reproduce. Godzilla confronted the MUTO at the Honolulu airport, engaging in a brief clash before it flew back out over the ocean. Godzilla returned underwater and continued pursuing his enemy. The United States military believed Godzilla to be just as big a threat as the MUTO, although Monarch scientist Ishiro Serizawa stated that Godzilla was only present to hunt the MUTO and that he should be allowed to do so, but was ignored.
When the female MUTO emerged in Nevada and began heading to California to meet up with the male, the military formed a plan to lure Godzilla and both MUTOs out to a remote island and kill them all with a nuclear warhead several times more powerful than Castle Bravo. Serizawa believed the detonation would fail to kill any of the creatures and warned William Stenz, the Navy admiral in charge of the operation, to call off the attack. Stenz regretfully told Serizawa they had no choice and allowed the warhead to be armed and carried by boat over San Francisco Bay.
The male MUTO used its electromagnetic pulse ability to disable the military's vehicles and steal the warhead to be used as a food source for the nest in which the female would lay its eggs. Godzilla emerged from the Bay shortly afterward, surfacing near the Golden Gate Bridge. Tanks were deployed onto the bridge and opened fire on Godzilla while civilians were attempting to cross it. Godzilla withstood the artillery fire until a blast hit him in the gills, causing him to accidentally smash into the bridge and cleave it in two. Godzilla shrieked and continued to approach the city, where the MUTOs had constructed their nest. Shortly afterwards, Stenz has a talk with Serizawa and in the process, he finally has a change of heart. Realizing that Godzilla may be the only one capable of destroying the MUTOs, Stenz and the military finally allowed him to proceed into the city.
When Godzilla entered downtown San Francisco, the male MUTO attacked him while its mate laid her eggs. Meanwhile, Brody and several other soldiers were sent into the heart of the city via HALO jump to recover and disarm the warhead before it could explode. Godzilla finally reached the nest and roared at the female MUTO, who charged at Godzilla and tried to attack him, but Godzilla barged her backwards and pinned her to the floor, planting his foot firmly on her throat. Soon, the male reentered the battle and Godzilla ended up getting overpowered. With the nest unguarded, the soldiers recovered the warhead, while Ford Brody opened a gasoline line, causing the entire nest to explode in a fireball.
The female MUTO witnessed the explosion and stopped pummeling Godzilla to rush towards the nest, while her mate continued to pummel Godzilla for a few more moments before realizing what happened and flying off with her. The female howled in anguish and sadness over her dead offspring, but became enraged upon seeing Brody near the nest. Before she could kill him, Godzilla emerged from behind her, and attacked with a sudden blast of his atomic breath, buying time for Brody to escape and for the other soldiers to carry the warhead to the docks. The male flew behind Godzilla and pulled him out of the way, allowing the female to recuperate and chase after the soldiers. As the male flew behind Godzilla to try and grab him again, Godzilla, with a mighty swing of his tail slammed the male MUTO into the side of a skyscraper, killing it instantly. Godzilla stopped for a moment to catch his breath, only for the skyscraper to collapse onto him and bury him in rubble. As Godzilla laid on the ground being buried in debris, he caught a glimpse of Brody, who was running to the docks. The two briefly stared at each other before Godzilla was consumed by a cloud of dust and debris.
Brody continued onward and reached the docks, only to witness the female MUTO kill all of his companions. Brody approached the warhead attempted to try and disarm it, but it was clamped shut, so he switched on the boat instead preparing to send it out to sea where it could detonate safely. Suddenly, the boat's engine deactivated as the female MUTO approached, her EMP field disabling all nearby electronics. Brody drew his pistol and aimed it at her, fully expecting to be killed. Just then, out of nowhere, Godzilla came up behind the MUTO and bit down on her neck, pulling her away from the boat. Godzilla grabbed her jaws with his claws, pried them open, and finished her off in a "Kiss of Death" by firing his atomic breath down her throat until her neck blew open and her head tore off, killing her instantly. After decapitating the female MUTO, Godzilla roared victoriously before dropping her head and collapsing to the ground due to exhaustion. The boat reactivated and began heading out of the bay, while Brody was rescued by a helicopter and the boat exploded with the warhead far from the city.
The next morning, San Francisco was in ruins, while military and emergency personnel surrounded Godzilla's unconscious body. Serizawa and his assistant Vivienne Graham looked sadly at Godzilla, believing him to be dead. Suddenly, Godzilla's nostrils flared and he began to stir. Everyone looked at him, wondering what was going on, and Godzilla's eye opened, confirming that he was alive. Shortly afterwards, Ford, Sam, Elle, and other families were finally reunited. Meanwhile, as Godzilla stood up and began walking back out to the ocean, the media hailed him as the "King of the Monsters" and a hero who saved San Francisco. As a result of that, the city’s residents began cheering for him. When he finally reached the shoreline, Godzilla let out one last victorious roar before sinking back into the sea and disappearing beneath the waves.
Post-2014
Following the destruction of San Francisco in 2014, Godzilla was tracked by Monarch. Godzilla swam through the Pacific Ocean, passing Skull Island in the process. He eventually disappeared for some time into the Mariana Trench before resurfacing, and headed down south where he arrived at the Antarctic, near Outpost 32, where Ghidorah was contained in ice, and being monitored by Monarch.
Godzilla: Aftershock
In the prequel graphic comic to King of the Monsters, Godzilla's quest in stopping the MUTO threat revealed to be far from over, as the greatest of the MUTOs, MUTO Prime, emerged and set out to continue what its fallen progenies started. Godzilla soon faces the new threat in multiple confrontations starting from an American military base in Guam. The two titans soon bring their battle to Barents Sea and later, Athena II Nuclear Power Plant in France at which Godzilla came close to death's door with MUTO Prime nearly infecting him with its eggs. The fight soon ends in a stalmate with both enemies exchanging roars before the latter retreated back underground. Godzilla returned to the sea, but is visibly injured from the encounter.
Around this time, Monarch had determined that the ultimate MUTO was the same one who had slain Godzilla's predecessor, an older member of his kind that was known to the ancients as "Dagon", by infecting him with its parasitic eggs using its ovipositors. The deceased Dagon was later entombed in a cavern in the Philippines, the same cavern which was unearthed in 1999 and confirming that the two MUTOs that were unintentionally released (before their eventual destruction at hands of Godzilla) were none other than MUTO Prime's children. As if that wasn't bad enough, MUTO Prime now sought to kill Godzilla in the exact same manner as his predecessor. Fearing this, Monarch developed a plan to replicate the sonic pulses given off by the MUTO eggs (to pacify MUTO Prime) in hopes of aiding their kaiju ally.
By the time two of Monarch's agents, Dr. Emma Russell and Tarkan Cavusgolu, arrived at a decommissioned nuclear submarine power cores in Nevada with the prototype ORCA sonar device developed by the latter, Godzilla and MUTO Prime were already locked in combat. The two then join the fight by activating the device just as MUTO Prime is about to deliver a killing blow on Godzilla with its ovipositor, causing it to hesitate. Seeing an opening, Godzilla quickly grabs his foe and lift it onto his back before employing a nuclear pulse at a point-blank range through his damaged dorsal plates, launching the beast into the air and shattering its additional limbs in process. With the greatest of MUTOs weakened, Godzilla delivered a final blow by stomped the beast's skull, killing it.
After the fight, the exhausted Godzilla roared victoriously before weakly walking off into the sunset.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Godzilla in Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
In sequel to "Godzilla", Monarch and a recently-reawakened Godzilla travel to Antarctica where the team realize Alan Jonah's intentions to free a Titan encased in ice called "Monster Zero". Once there, Jonah's team ambushes the Monarch soldiers while Mark is unable to rescue Emma and Madison. In desperation, Emma frees and awakens the Titan herself. Monster Zero begins rampaging until Godzilla emerges through the ice, engaging in a fight that ends with Monster Zero flying away but Graham is killed in the ensuring mayhem, Much later over the oceans, Godzilla emerges from the ocean and engages Monster Zero, successfully tearing off one of its heads. In the midst of the battle, the military launches a missile known as the Oxygen Destroyer towards them, seemingly killing Godzilla, who sinks into the ocean. Monster Zero survives the missile unscathed and regenerates its missing head with a recovered Rodan which becomes submissive to its rule, later. Eventually Monarch discovers that Monster Zero’s real name is Ghidorah, an alien who has usurped Godzilla’s position as the Alpha Titan.
Following Ghidorah’s ascension and the awakening of Titans around the world, Mothra emerges from her cocoon underneath the waterfall and flies to a facility in the Bermuda Triangle where it is able to communicate with Godzilla, who had survived the detonation and is recuperating in a chamber inside an underwater city. Monarch use the communication frequency to locate the pair, There, Mark and a Monarch team board a submarine to revive Godzilla, as they realize the natural process could take years. Ultimately, the team decide to detonate a nuclear weapon, allowing Godzilla to feed on the radiation, but due to earlier damages the submarine suffered from a vortex, the weapon system is offline. Serizawa volunteers to manually detonate the weapon, which revives Godzilla, At Fenway Park, Madison broadcasts a frequency that attracts all the Titans to its location. Ghidorah arrives at Boston and attempts to kill Madison, only for Godzilla to appear with Monarch's assistance to engage it. Mark leads a Monarch team to rescue Madison and escape the city before Godzilla overloads and emits a thermonuclear explosion. Mothra and Rodan arrive and fight each other while Godzilla battles Ghidorah. Mothra defeats Rodan but is disintegrated by one of Ghidorah's blasts, after an intense battle Mark, Emma, and Madison are reunited and attempt to restart the damaged ORCA to lure Ghidorah away from an injured Godzilla. As they are evacuated, Emma drives away with the ORCA to continue luring Ghidorah so Mark and Madison can escape, sacrificing herself in the process. Godzilla recovers and unleashes thermonuclear blasts, bombarding Ghidorah with atomic pulses that destroy him for good. Rodan and the other Titans then converge on Godzilla, bowing to him as their new "King of the Monsters".
It is revealed that Monarch has divulged their information on the Titans to the public. News clippings reveal Godzilla’s swimming path having a restorative effect on coral reefs and fish populations, as well as him keeping the other Titans in check. Another article elaborates the discovery of ancient paintings displaying Godzilla battling Kong.
Godzilla vs. Kong
Godzilla will encounter and battle Kong in this film.
Abilities
Amphibious Nature
In Godzilla, Godzilla now possesses gills and amphibious lungs so he can stay underwater indefinitely, but he closes his gills when he's on land so he can use his lungs. These gills appear to be his weak points, as Godzilla reacts aggressively whenever he is struck in the gills by artillery fire or strikes from the MUTOs' claws.
Atomic Breath
As shown in Godzilla, Godzilla's atomic breath was more of a focused, fiery shaped energy beam that Godzilla spews out. Godzilla only used it against the MUTOs after he had taken a severe beating and was already growing weaker, showing that Godzilla only uses it as a last resort against opponents he can't physically overpower on his own.
Though it doesn't appear to have the same destructive properties as the versions prior, the blasts were strong enough to push back, severely weaken, and eventually kill, the female MUTO, showing that while it may not have the destructive force of its predecessors, this version of Godzilla's atomic breath is still incredibly deadly in its own right.
It is entirely possible, however, that Godzilla never used his atomic breath at its full power, seeing as the glow from his dorsal plates was very faint. This is also seeing as how Godzilla was already extremely weakened in battle and had used up a lot of energy when he began using it, while the film's official novelization and an earlier screenplay suggest that the female MUTO's EMP field severely weakens his atomic breath, so whether or not it's capable of more is unknown at this point. The neon-blue glow on Godzilla's plates begins at the tip of his tail and goes all the way to the top of his neck in this film, and to let the audience know when he was going to fire it, an electric humming sound is heard.
In Godzilla: Awakening and Godzilla: King of the Monsters, his breath is far more intense and beam-like in appearance, implying that his breath is not at full power in Godzilla and can be even stronger when he is in better condition. His eyes and numerous orifices around his scales also glow neon-blue moments before and when he unleashes the beam from his mouth.
Bio-atomic Nature
Godzilla's power originates from a bio-nuclear circulatory system. Activating when threatened, a neutron flux is triggered that travels up Godzilla's dorsal fins to nucleosynthetic chambers in his throat and explodes into his atomic breath. His radioactive signature also makes it easy for Godzilla to be followed and monitored.
Durability
In Godzilla, Godzilla was stated to have survived exposure to the nuclear tests carried out in the South Pacific in the 1950s, even appearing to have withstood the detonation of Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb, at Bikini Atoll while directly next to the bomb. A testament to his durability is his survival of numerous extinction events that occurred millions of years before his encounters with humanity.
Additionally, like his previous incarnations, Godzilla showed no outward signs of damage from any weaponry used by the United States Armed Forces, including heavy gunfire, missiles, tank shells, and various other weapons. In fact, Godzilla seemed to not even notice most of these attacks, only flinching slightly at artillery fire striking him at point-blank range and briefly showing visible pain after being struck directly in the gills.
In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla is able to survive a fall from thousands of feet after being airlifted by Ghidorah, though he is still weakened by the sheer amount of pain caused by the impact.
Energy Absorption and Projection
In Godzilla, Godzilla still feeds on nuclear radiation and is able to sustain himself for millions of years at a time by absorbing geothermal radiation from the Earth's core.
Godzilla is capable of healing from his wounds by absorbing large amounts of radiation. However, how quickly he heals depends on how serious his injuries were. An example of this is when he was fully healed following the Battle of San Francisco after presumably absorbing the radiation from the atomic bomb detonating off the city's coast, while it took him five years to heal from injuries inflicted on him by MUTO Prime, as well as nearly dying from the effects by the Oxygen Destroyer, only to instantly recover after facing a head-on nuclear blast.
Intelligence
While fighting the MUTOs during the events of Godzilla, Godzilla figures out their strengths and weaknesses through repeated clashes with them. He lets the male MUTO fly in close to attack him, and he then used his tail to slam him into a building, killing it. With the female MUTO, he fired his atomic breath right into her mouth after forcing it open, making her neck explode, and decapitating her. In Aftershock Godzilla lifted Muto prime on his back so he can blast her up with his trump card, and in King of Monsters Godzilla took advantage of his aquatic nature to drag King Ghidorah down, causing Ghidorah to panic and allowing Godzilla to remove one of his heads.
Radiation Stream
In Godzilla: Aftershock, Godzilla has demonstrated the ability to use a powerful attack after MUTO Prime shattered his dorsal spines with her sonic roar. The radiation stream is strong enough to gravely wound MUTO Prime.
Senses
Godzilla has a very strong sense of hearing, as he was able to track down the MUTOs' locations from the ocean by their mating calls.
Speed and Agility
Godzilla's top swimming speed can reach up to 40 knots, and he is fast enough to slam the male MUTO onto a skyscraper with his tail. Godzilla is also able to run at great speed when charging Ghidorah.
Stamina
Godzilla was at one point, also pinned underneath a skyscraper that collapsed on him, while he paused to catch his breath. It did not keep him subdued for long as he quickly got back to his feet to continue pursuing his enemy.
While the MUTOs fought Godzilla to the point of exhaustion, he managed to get back to his feet and return to the ocean in a matter of hours, showing no physical fatigue or injury. This could be a testament to Godzilla's durability, showing that he was either simply exhausted, or because of his healing factor that allowed him to recover from any wounds he sustained by sunrise.
Godzilla is shown to be able to travel for thousands of miles for a long period of time to track down his enemies, and he does not show any signs of exhaustion when he reaches his destination to prepare himself for battle.
Strength and Combat
Like his previous incarnations, Godzilla possesses immense physical strength and can use his huge mass as a weapon. He is able to toss both the male and female MUTO around with ease by biting into their bodies and he is able to effortlessly push the female MUTO backward with his arms (like a bear would with its opponent). The strength of his tail swing was great enough to kill the male MUTO outright as well as knock over a large skyscraper by accident.
However, unlike previous incarnations, he didn't use his arms much to toss them around. This is due to his fighting style being modeled after those of bears and Komodo dragons which, despite having powerful jaws and teeth, use their front legs and claws as their primary weapons.
Overall, this Godzilla's fighting style seems to be somewhat of a reversal of his previous incarnations, preferring to be in close quarters and direct combat with his targets rather than relying on his atomic breath or throwing objects. Godzilla is also able to cause tsunamis just by going ashore.
Similar to other Godzilla incarnations this Godzilla possesses enormous physical strength and was able to physically incapacitate and raise the MUTO Prime, in spite of her comparable size and weight to Godzilla.
In Godzilla: King of the Monsters Godzilla was able to spin and throw an even bigger monster like Ghidorah with ease, and was strong enough to rip one of his heads apart.
Thermonuclear Pulses
In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, after absorbing the radiation of a nuclear blast and Mothra’s life force, Godzilla started to heat up and glow fiery red, burning and melting objects in his vicinity while becoming completely immune to Ghidorah's gravity beams. This energy overload grants him control over tremendously powerful thermonuclear pulses. These pulses are powerful enough to incinerate most of Ghidorah's body and a large portion of Boston with him. The shape of the pulses also resemble Mothra's wings while the sound of the explosions resemble Mothra's screech, for this ability is a result of Godzilla and Mothra's symbiotic bond, and can only be used in the most specific of circumstances.
Weaknesses
Despite being incredibly powerful, Godzilla does have a few weaknesses of his own.
Gills
The gills on Godzilla's neck appear to be a weak spot, first demonstrated when he smashes through the Golden Gate Bridge after being hit there by missile fire. The two MUTOs were able to draw blood from Godzilla by hitting them with their claws.
MUTOs
While Godzilla is a powerful Alpha predator of his prehistoric ecosystem, the MUTOs have evolved over millions of years to specifically hunt and battle his kind. As such, they have specific adaptations to counteract Godzilla in battle, such as hooked claws to snag his vulnerable gills, EMPs to disrupt his atomic breath, and the different fighting styles of the male and female to tag-team and overwhelm him.
Numbers
Even though he is very large and strong, Godzilla can be overwhelmed if fighting against numerous foes on his own, as seen when he fought against the MUTOs, he couldn't predict, nor block, their blows in a two-on-one situation.
Oxygen Destroyer
Godzilla was severely wounded by the Oxygen Destroyer and almost killed by it (a weapon which had little effect on Ghidorah, due to his extraterrestrial nature). The Oxygen Destroyer forced him to retreat so that he could regenerate, but the process would have taken him years before he would be ready to face off Ghidorah again.
Short Arms
While Godzilla's arms are shown to be strong enough to pry open the female MUTO's jaws and to shove her backwards, they are shown to be too short to reach the top of his head: a weakness exploited by the male MUTO, who latched onto the back of Godzilla's head just out of reach.
Video games
Godzilla (2014 video game)
| “ | A relic species of an extinct organism which stood at the top of the ecosystem that was bombarded with high density radiation during Earth's Paleozoic Era. It escaped to the deep sea during the mass extinction of all living things in the Permian period. Lurking for eons at the bottom of the ocean, where it managed to perpetuate its species, it appeared on land once again in the 1940s, when it was tracked by both U.S. and Soviet armies. Able to walk upright vertically on two legs, it can survive on land, in water, and below the earth. It possesses tremendous physical strength, and in combat, most foes are overwhelmed just by the enormous destructive power of its long tail. Its ultimate weapon is the heat ray it blasts from its mouth. Although his version of Godzilla was created in Hollywood entirely through CGI animation, the production team put great emphasis on giving it the sense of a costumed character. For the battle in the last scene, human movements were reproduced with CGI animation using motion capture technology, so that the characters' personalities would shine through, allowing audiences to empathize with them. | „ |
| — MonsterVerse Godzilla Kaiju Guide bio |
Add an image to this galleryMoveset
| Square | One tap: Right Scratch Two taps: Left Scratch Three taps: Slap Down |
| X | Tap: Tackle Tap + Roar: Armor Tackle |
| Triangle | Tap: Bite Tap + Up: Grab Press Tap + Down: Tail Sweep |
| Circle | Tap: Atomic Ray Tap + Roar: Rushing Blast |
| R2 | Tap: Double Tail Attack |
Trivia
- While most TV commercials and promotional material depicted Godzilla as a destructive force, in the film he is actually more of a hero as opposed to an outright antagonist as the trailers would have let the audience believe.
- Unlike previous versions which frequently use their atomic breath in battle, this Godzilla only uses it as a last resort and only three times. It is likely that he is effectively "vomiting" up all his stored energy, and as such only uses it in an emergency defense as it drains his power quickly.
Showa Godzilla's "gill-pores".
- As he breathes with both lungs and gills, Godzilla is more similar to an amphibian as opposed to a true reptile. However, the second Showa Godzilla was mentioned in a mook book to bare gill-pores on its neck, regardless of being it an official status or not. In this book, the first Godzilla was mentioned to be a female, was a member of an ancient semi-aquatic, gentle reptiles than a radiated mutant, and some individuals started attacking humanity to revenge for what had caused by a nuclear testing.
- Based on the medieval art of sea monsters shown in the prologue, it is implied that this individual Godzilla has been alive for at least several centuries and the sea monsters spoken of in myth and legend were in fact sightings of him.
- In spite being called a "predator", he never eats the MUTOs once he catches and kills them. It is likely that they are simply rival species, who Godzilla actively hunts and destroys as they pose a threat to the existence of his species.
- This incarnation of Godzilla's story in the film bears many resemblances to "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi", a story from Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book featuring a mongoose:
- Both Godzilla and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi the mongoose are faced with a mated pair of their natural enemies (the MUTOs/the cobras Nag and Nagaina) in which the female is the larger and deadlier of the two.
- Both the MUTOs and the cobras are a dangerous threat to the humans and are raising a clutch of eggs which threatens to hatch into more of their kind.
- Both Godzilla and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi hunt the pair for no moral or noble reason except for the fact that they are their natural enemies (yet by default are the 'heroes' as they are indirect allies of humans).
- Both engage the male enemy first in combat, managing to kill him.
- In both cases the antagonists' nest of unhatched eggs are destroyed, enraging the much more dangerous female.
- The angered female directly threatens to kill a main human character, but is intercepted by Godzilla/Rikki-Tikki-Tavi who arrives in time and manages to kill her as well.
- Both Godzilla and Rikki-Tiki-Tavi are honored for their deeds and become 'protectors' of sorts to the humans.
- Godzilla is implied to be the last of his kind, as the MUTO spores were found in the fossilized skeleton of another member of his kind, Dagon, suggesting that his species was wiped out by the MUTOs with him as the sole survivor.
- According to Ken Watanabe, he was originally supposed to name-drop the monster as "Godzilla", however, seeing both him and his character were Japanese, he insisted that the original Japanese name, Gojira, was more appropriate.[citation needed]
- After the gills were added to this Godzilla design, they were later added to Godzilla's immature form in the 2016 film, Shin Godzilla.
- In Japan, many have hypothesized that Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera Trilogy could have inspired Godzilla and Mutos in this film due to similarities in characters. In an interview on Kinema Junpo, Kaneko himself admitted this and commented as "Gareth...of course he must have watched Gamera. It's alright though.".[14]
List of appearances
Films
Video games
Comics
- Godzilla: Awakening (First appearance)
- Godzilla: Aftershock
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 (May 21, 2014). Godzilla Facts. Tumblr. Retrieved July 21, 2017
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 (April 26, 2019). King of the Monsters Profile. Twitter. Retrieved April 26, 2019
- ↑ Barry, Vic (April 29, 2014). Godzilla Ultimate Trivia. The Movie Bit. Retrieved July 21, 2017
- ↑ Arce, Sergio (May 29, 2014). Meet the actor who gives life to Godzilla, who spoke with crhoy.com crhoy. Retrieved July 21, 2017
- ↑ Murphy, Mekado (May 9, 2014). Face-Lift? Well, You Still Look Like Hell. NYTimes. Retrieved June 14, 2017
- ↑ Loo, Egan(December 1, 2018). Godzilla: King of the Monsters Film's Monster Design Concepts, Figures Unveiled. Anime News Network. Retrieved December 1, 2018
- ↑ Arce, Sergio (May 29, 2014). Meet the actor who gives life to Godzilla, who spoke with crhoy.com. crhoy. Retrieved June 14, 2017
- ↑ (April 20, 2014). GODZILLA (2014) - ANDY SERKIS ON MO CAP & MONSTER'S MOTIVES IGN. Retrieved June 14, 2017
- ↑ (January, 2014). Buzz Sci-Fi Special - Roar deal (Exclusive). Gojipedia. Retrieved June 14, 2017
- ↑ Giardina, Carolyn (May 27, 2014). 'Godzilla': How the Filmmakers Created the Iconic Creature and a Fully CG San Francisco (Photos). The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 13, 2018
- ↑ GODZILLA Production and Images. SciFi Japan. Retrieved January 8, 2018.
- ↑ Ray, Amber (May 22, 2014).'Godzilla': The secrets behind the roar. Entertainment Weekly
- ↑ Goldberg, Matt (March 21, 2019). Michael Dougherty Says His ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ Is to ‘Godzilla’ as ‘Aliens’ Is to ‘Alien’. Collider
- ↑ Sekiguchi Y., 2014, Kinema Junpo, p.48, No.1666, ASIN: B006CDA5BI, Kinema-Junpo,Co.,Ltd.
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