Godzilla, also dubbed as Titanus Godzilla, is one of the two main protagonists of the MonsterVerse franchise.
He is a prehistoric, predatory, reptile-like Titan who is the last surviving member of his species still alive, the current Alpha Titan, one of the oldest Titans known to this day, and one of the most powerful creatures on Earth. He serves as the protector of the planet's ecosystem and makes sure it is under control by forcing other Titans to submit to him and killing the destructive Titans that refuse to serve him.
He is also Mothra's partner and Kong's former rival, best friend and partner.
Personality[]
Unlike most other previous incarnations, Godzilla is never outright hostile or dangerous towards humans every time he crossed paths with them unless he is provoked, despite being a gentle and benevolent creature like his close friend, Mothra and his former rival, Kong. Apparently having witnessed humanity's curious usage of nuclear power and even their destructive capabilities with it during the hunt for Shinomura beforehand, the amphibious reptile Titan opted to avoid needless conflict against them if he can help it, even when they initially perceive him as a threat and attacked him in some occasions. Although he was responsible for some human deaths and destruction throughout his hunt for two MUTOs, it was all simply the result of his overall size and collateral damage from the fight against the two Titans. Even the destruction of the Golden Gate Bridge during the aforementioned hunt could've been avoided had the military allowed him to find the way to get past on his own.
But Godzilla does display inquisitiveness toward humans in some occasions, he first noticed Ford Brody who apparently had something to do with MUTO couple abruptly leaving him for their ruined nest thus allowing him to turn the tide of his battle against them before unknowingly saving Brody's life by killing the female MUTO. During Ghidorah's reign of terror over the Earth's Titans, he sees Ishiro Serizawa approaching him and placing his hand on his face and later, leaning forward to inspect Mark Russell as if deducing that he brought the former into his home along with the nuclear bomb that revitalized him. Though he never sought pointless conflict against humanity and even cared with their well-being somewhat since he ensured his fellow Titans not intrude human settlements after becoming their alpha, Godzilla fully aware with worst thing they capable of and apparently keeping them under his watchful eyes.
The events of Godzilla Dominion sees him engaging a terroristic human faction who responsible for both the slaughter of whales and Na Kika's capture upon recognizing the threat of said faction posed him to recover the planet, save his fellow Titan and indirectly helping Monarch in neutralizing their common enemy. Similarly, he targeted Apex Cybernetics' facilities in Godzilla vs. Kong when he sensed the organization's shady activities that involve a familiar alpha call not unlike Ghidorah's (which later revealed to be the construction of Mechagodzilla), though his aggressive approach unfortunately (yet momentarily) tarnished his reputation which was exactly what Apex Cybernetics had planned all along. Both instances showed that he has the capacity to be aggressive and violent towards mankind if provoked, a fact that Madison Russell had acknowledged since it's not his nature to attack human settlements seemingly without reason or warning.
Godzilla's personality evokes that "last samurai" archetype, 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 (in Godzilla's own case, the imbalance of the nature of his home planet) befitting Serizawa's theory of him as the driving force to restore balance to nature. Whenever that balance is disrupted, Godzilla would go on his way fighting any aggressors who threatened it regardless of the odds. This, in turn, led to Monarch describing his behavior as that of a "protector", calling him an "ancient guardian of the natural world", which considered him as the greatest defender of the planet under most circumstances. Whenever Godzilla is not enraged and in combat, Monarch describes him as "slow, graceful, inquisitive even".
Godzilla's most notable relationships with other Titans are with MUTOs, Mothra, Ghidorah and Kong. With Mothra, they are true allies, more so than their past incarnations, that were prone to be at odds with each other since their species have symbiotic relationships with one another. This was evident through Mothra's undying loyalty towards him when other Titans were coerced to serve Ghidorah and Godzilla himself, in turn, avenged her defeat at the hands of their common enemy. With MUTOs in general, he perceived them as an uneasy ally at best (as some MUTOs such as the one that appeared in the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters do respect him) and both deadly pests and natural enemy at worst.
When Godzilla defeated Kong, whom he then considered a rival, Godzilla simply beat him into near-death as opposed of killing him outright both to ensure he maintained his alpha Titan status and out of frustration over Kong who unknowingly and repeatedly deterred him in his search for the one who responsible for recreating Ghidorah's alpha call. After the defeat of Mechagodzilla, Godzilla stopped seeing Kong as his enemy and the two parted ways as allies, having gained mutual respect towards one another. Lastly, as with Ghidorah, on the other hand, the two are fierce archenemies whose feud is best described as the battle between light and darkness.
Godzilla's capability of forgiveness best showcased upon becoming the Alpha Titan once again, he spared Rodan, despite the fact of the pterodactyl-like Titan had previously served Ghidorah as his minion and severely injured Mothra as well as welcomed other Titans when they swear their allegiance to him.
Godzilla continued fighting for greater good and maintaining world balance in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, though the close call from fighting Mechagodzilla, Apex Cybernetics' out-of-control masterpiece, apparently left him traumatized and bitter. He resorted to violently execute Scylla and Tiamat when it became apparent that they are beyond reasoning in their respective confrontation and even willing to steal the energy of a nuclear power plant in France to attain necessary amount of energy to evolve as part of preparation against Skar King's looming threat he sensed from distress signal emanated by Iwi tribe from Hollow Earth. In those instances, he displayed little to no hesitation to retaliate against those who crossed his path, which unfortunately culminated to a misunderstanding with Kong who ironically showed up to enlist his aid against their common foe all along. It wasn't until his reunion with the newly reincarnated Mothra who appeared in time to clear up the misunderstanding between both Titans that his personality returned to his more level headed self.
Physical Appearance
Godzilla's appearance is mostly similar to that of his previous incarnations, being a gigantic, bipedal, stocky, muscular reptilian creature with scaly skin and bony dorsal plates along his back and tail. While this version of Godzilla is more realistic in appearance, he doesn't look radically different from the previous established designs and many aspects of the MonsterVerse design have an overall highly angular and spiky appearance to them.
Godzilla's face is boxy with tiny, yellow eagle-like eyes in sunken sockets and has a broad muzzle with thin, spread-out, reptilian nostrils as opposed to the more mammalian, clustered-looking nostrils of his previous incarnations. His mouth is lipless with numerous small, unevenly spaced, needle-like teeth that are always visible, even when his mouth is closed and sticks out over both his upper and lower jaws, much like crocodiles. While Godzilla has no true ears, he does have a pair of small scutes in the same general location that ears would be that can give the impression of them when viewed from frontward angles. These pseudo-ears are the first in a series of small spikes running down the sides of his neck. Similar bumpy spikes can be found on the sides of the edges of his lower jaw, his shoulder area, and the sides of the beginning of his thighs. His neck is also short and extremely muscular while each side has several leafy-looking gills and his underside is partially covered with a series of overlapping, spiky, dewlap-like plates. He also displays a stocky, muscular physique with long, burly arms, large partially webbed, crocodilian-like hands with small sharp claws, long pillar-like legs attached to enormous, sturdy thighs and hips, and stumpy, elephant or sauropod-like feet with dull claws. He also has wide broad shoulders and a barrel-shaped torso with a pair of large-scale patterns on his chest. His dorsal plates are somewhat flat and of moderate size and have a mildly jagged, slightly chipped-away appearance to them. His tail is abnormally long and more whip-like with a much thinner tip while the tail segments are thinner and more angular. His skin is much more reptilian and lifelike instead of being keloid scar or tree-bark-like which is found on many of his previous incarnations and appears to have many visual similarities with crocodilians and sea turtles. Godzilla is uniformly colored, including the plates, a dull greyish-brown or green.
In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla has differently shaped dorsal plates based on his 1954 incarnation while his face has slightly larger eyebrows as well as a slightly smaller head from the rest of his body. He also has a much thicker neck, longer legs, sharper claws on his feet with his toes more spread apart from each other, broader shoulders, and a much thicker tail with a round tip instead of a pointed tip. While his tail is officially longer than it was in the 2014 film, it appears slightly smaller in proportion to the rest of his body.
In Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla receives some extra wounds while his eyes are reworked and even the atomic breath charge-up of his tail and dorsal plates are once again changed.
In Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, Godzilla appears with two designs: one appears similar to the design from the 2014 film during a flashback in 1954 during the nuclear bomb testing at Bikini Atoll, and a second design set in 2015, which is identical to the former, except he possesses the 2019 dorsal plates. His plates are a smaller size to enforce them being new and growing after MUTO Prime destroyed his previous plates.
Whenever Godzilla charges his atomic breath, his eyes, mouth, nostrils, and dorsal plates glow blue, but in Godzilla vs. Kong, they glow blue frequently, even when his atomic breath is not charged. In his burning form during his final fight against Ghidorah in Boston, Godzilla has orange and red cracks that appear all over his body while his eyes glow orange when he charges up a nuclear pulse.
In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Godzilla's appearance is similar to the previous design from Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong at the start of the film, at one point appearing with bright glowing-blue markings similar to his Burning form. After going through a metamorphosis which changes his appearance, Godzilla gains additional bulk and muscle in his upper torso and back, though his abdomen is much thinner than before. Most of his skin now has a much more spikey and rough texture, with his chin and jawline bearing tiny protrusions and his neck being flaky. The skin on Godzilla’s underside, lower legs, and the front of his thighs is very smooth in contrast. His head and arms are larger than before, the latter being visibly elongated and muscular as well as now sporting elbow spikes similar in shape to his dorsal plates. The webbing between his fingers is more noticeable and his legs are slimmer. Most prominently, Godzilla's dorsal plates now curve backward and have a fleshy texture with visible veins, and his tail sports a thagomizer made of plates. When Godzilla charges his energy, it glows magenta. Otherwise, the base of the plates resemble Godzilla's skin in color and texture, whereas the outlines fade into a pale rose color and have a pointy, crystal-like texture. Two rows of pointed protrusions run along the sides of his neck and upper face before stopping at the front ends of his brow ridges. Godzilla’s bioluminescence can now extend to his entire body, creating a veiny and nerve-like image. Godzilla's energy in his evolved form takes on certain shades of pink, magenta, and purple throughout the film, pink when quickly charged up before slowly transitioning into magenta and purple depending on how long he harnesses it before utilization. Like in the previous movie, Godzilla is consistently depicted with his body glowing in energy both before and after evolving, albeit more intensely than before.
Trivia[]
- This is the second incarnation of Godzilla to be featured in an American-made film after the TriStar Godzilla from the 1998 film.
- Unlike most other previous incarnations, this version of Godzilla is portrayed as a protagonist/anti-hero, instead of as an antagonist.
- This is the most heroic incarnation of Godzilla so far, alongside his Showa incarnation.
- Unlike most other previous incarnations, this version of Godzilla is never dangerous or hostile towards humans in the MonsterVerse unless he is provoked.
- In each of the films that Godzilla has appeared in, his atomic breath's appearance changes:
- In Godzilla, Godzilla's atomic breath physically resembles a fire-like breath, likely, due to interference from the M.U.T.O.s' EMP field.
- In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla's atomic breath physically resembles a laser-like beam. It can be argued that, the beam originally appeared this way, since it's exactly how it looked like, when used against the Shinomuras.
- In Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla's atomic breath physically resembles a heat-ray, when released at maximum power. The weaker version of the breath is much fiery, by contrast as seen, when energizing Kong's axe.
- In Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Godzilla's atomic breath is magenta, formerly blue, but changed when he killed Tiamat. It remains unknown if he still has the magenta colour after GxK or if he used all of the power of the magenta colour to clean up Skar King's mess.
- This incarnation of Godzilla's recent design is based on the original 1954 design, the ShodaiGoji suit from the 1954 film, as director Gareth Edwards wanted to create a Godzilla design that's very modern, but still respects and resembles the design from the original Toho films.
- This incarnation of Godzilla's combat style mostly resembles a bear and Komodo dragon, and only use his atomic breath sparingly, contrasting to other incarnations, who use the breath attacks more often. But this changed when he used his atomic breath more frequently against the Ion Dragon, Ghidorah, Kong and Mechagodzilla.
- This is the second incarnation of Godzilla to use his tail to grapple or wrap around monsters like Kong, the first being his Millennium incarnation from Godzilla vs Megaguirus, and ironically, Godzilla in his evolved form now resembles Miregoji due to his pink dorsal spines and bioluminescence.
- Godzilla's pinkish appearance in his evolved form is confirmed to be inspired by Goku's Kaio-ken from the Dragon Ball franchise.
- When Godzilla begins glowing for his climactic battle against his enemies, the way his dorsal plates light up with blue as he shoots his atomic breath is similar to Toothless, whose spines also light up with energy as he charges up and unleashes his plasma blasts.
- Coincidentally, both the 2014 Godzilla movie and How to Train Your Dragon 2 came out in 2014. Five years later, Godzilla: King of the Monsters and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World both came out in 2019. Just like the ending of Godzilla: King of the Monsters where Godzilla becomes the Alpha Titan after defeating Ghidorah, Toothless becomes the Alpha Dragon after defeating Drago's Bewilderbeast.
- Godzilla jumping off a cliff and diving into the water in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is similar to the TriStar Godzilla, who jumped over a bridge and dived into the deepest part of the East River while running through the West Side Highway in New York City.
- This incarnation of Godzilla is one of the friendliest towards humans. Ironically, his copyright holder Toho Studios reverted Godzilla to his traditional unfriendly self in their 2010s domestic films for political and environmental purposes. His counterparts in Shin Godzilla and the anime trilogy are metaphors for both the damage done by the United States for meddling in foreign affairs and the homeland disasters that struck Japan in the 2010s decade including the Tōhoku earthquake and Fukushima nuclear disaster, thus making him incredibly malicious and detrimental to the human race's fate, the Minus One Godzilla retains these characteristics.
- This incarnation of Godzilla also has the best dynamic with Mothra, in contrast to their previous incarnations, who are prone to be at odds with one another as much as with humanity. Interestingly, Mothra's status as "Queen of the Monsters" suggested their relationship is more than just allies, resulting in many fans shipping both Titans together (see relationships with Mothra section above for more information).
- Godzilla is credited as himself in the sequel, despite T.J Storm still being credited for the monster's motion-capture portrayal.
- This is the first incarnation of Godzilla to possess gills, the other being the Godzilla from the Toho 2016 reboot, Shin Godzilla, except that the latter only had gills in his 2nd and 3rd forms, not the entire movie like the MonsterVerse Godzilla did. This allows Godzilla to sleep underwater, while the Showa Godzilla slept on land.
- This incarnation of Godzilla is considered to be one of, if not the most powerful Titan in the MonsterVerse.
- In an early draft, Godzilla was going to be found frozen in the Siberian Glacier, but was later dropped when a "Man of Steel" had a similar scene where the Fortress of Solitude was found frozen.
- The scene in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire where Monarch found him frozen solid as he absorbs radiation in Tiamat's lair serves as a nod to this concept.
- There are possible reasons why Godzilla is losing to Mechagodzilla, shown when both he and Mechagodzilla had a beam clash and he lost, despite his atomic breath being much more powerful than Mechagodzilla's proton scream.
- The most probably reason is that he was already heavily exhausted and injured from his fight against Kong in Hong Kong, yet chose to fight Mechagodzilla regardless, which would've led to his death if Kong didn't intervene and save his life.
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 Monsters
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 Monsters
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