New Replies (Page 594)

I do wonder what the difference is between Shin Godzilla and the anime trilogy, then.

The former is an award-winning critical success, while the latter.... is not. I'm personally fine with it, but it seems that across the world, the anime trilogy hasn't been as all-received. Is Godzilla the problem? I don't think it is.

It seems to be more about the setting and the squandered potential of it compared to Godzilla's presence in the setting.

Godzilla remains a powerful force that shows the folly of Humanity's struggle in the trilogy, much like other beloved iterations. It helps that he does retain many of the same basic characteristics of other Godzilla incarnations; shape, atomic breath, and power.

Change is fine as long as it doesn't interfere with the basic premise surrounding a character or thing's meaning. For example, Godzilla was born of the post-war's socio-political climate and he continues to embody ideological shifts in Japanese culture. The basic point of Godzilla is to encapsulate cultural anxiety that might compel the Japanese people to engage it. Shin Godzilla does exactly that. The anime trilogy tries its hand at it and even Godzilla '14, while a little more shallow, has seeds of those ideals.

The 1998 movie, however, never engaged important topics inspired by Japanese culture or wanted to use Godzilla and his kin as a metaphor. Instead it represented a very American attitude toward adversity: Our own cultural might, particularly military, is enough to eventually overcome any obstacle. And in 1998 it happened. Godzilla was killed by the most basic US weapons, representing the polar opposite of what he's meant to stand for. Godzilla submitted to conventional crisis management instead of challenging it as he had for decades.

Beyond that, Godzilla's changed plenty with acceptance. Sure Godzilla "evolved" in Shin Godzilla and fires a laser from his tail, but he's had radical changes like that before:
- His super regenerative abilities weren't canon until Godzilla vs. Biollante.
- He didn't have a "nuclear pulse", with beams of light and a shockwave coming out of his body, until 1989 either.
- He didn't have an alternate, red spiral ray until 1993.
- He had never been green, with purple spines and an orange ray until 1999.
- He had never been a white-eyed, soul manifested creature until 2001.

Adjustments have happened before with and without fan outcry, but in each of these cases, time remembered them as the norm--Because the essence of what the character represented on a basic level remained unchanged.

King Ghidorah has been through a lot too. Although, he may be energy in this new incarnation (not confirmed) he's still an intergalactic destroyer from space--Something actually far closer to the original origin than either of his Heisei or Millennium counterparts. But the point is, of course, that he is always Godzilla's arch nemesis--His ultimate foil in any given situation. Affiliation be damned.

After 1998 fans went a little bonkers about any minor changes regarding Godzilla and it still haunts the franchise. We had good reason to be skeptical of any new shift, but I think enough time has passed to experiment. You can change the exterior a little bit without forgetting what it all stands for.

Images were legit, NECA and Legendary have requested I remove the images and I obliged. 

godzilla3580 Pretty sure it's sticking out of Mothra's abdomen, otherwise it wouldn't be positioned the way it is.

Btw, I think it looks cool. Hope that she gets justice in the next film. (Even though Michael Dougherty might've forgotten about her and the other monsters besides Godzilla.)

Question: Is that part sticking out Mothra's abdomen, or is it part of something behind her?

Is it just me or does it seem to resemble a certain drawn image that was claimed to be a "leaked design"?

Reminds me of Mothra's look in GMK. If it is the final design, I'd be ok with it.

The 1st Godzilla movie was excellent. This one you can tell is going to be awesome. It is only going to get better with Godzilla vs Kong.  Finally some epic movies are coming.  

ah okay thanks

From what we know it's supposed to be a prototype but close to the final design. Could be final but we're erring on the side of caution until we know 100% for sure.

so wait is it a prototype or a final look?

That's cool. Can't wait to see what becomes of it. (As in it might not even be in the final film. [Like the Dilophosaurus being in JW:FK.])

The 1974 version of Megarogoji is my favorite showa design

My favorite suit overall is 1999's Miregoji

Godzilla (1998) and Zilla are separate characters. Godzilla (1998) lasted until 2003 but any future incarnations of the character will be referred as Zilla. Since that Tri-Star held the rights to the character during that time Godzilla (1998) is a legal incarnation even Toho has a trademark icon for both Godzilla (1998) and Zilla

Chapter 4: Primeval Pantheon

Quaternary Period: Early Pleistocene

On the surface many things have changed since the pliocene epoch. Upright apes eventually evolved into tooling making near-hairless apes called Homo habilis, an early human. A scavenging party of H. habilis stalk the coast line of any beached fishes, whatever fish they find they quickly snatch. Their leader Koba was brought the first fish they caught. Before he could tear into its flesh with his sharp jagged stone, sharp jagged spikes burst out out of the water. Koba looked up as he brought the fish up to his mouth, there before him was a massive reptilian creature, Vindexgodzillasaurus fabula. Its carcass washed up on to the shoreline, covered in massive bite and claw wounds. The early humans approach the dead godzilla, they can hear a loud "CRUNCH" the closer they approached the kaiju carcass. A large single claw grasped on to the carcass, then came another single hooked claw. The two claws dug deep into the dead godzilla as it pulls the rest of itself up on top of it, the beast looked vaguely insectoid as well reptilian. The creature ignores the little humans as it spreads its wings to attracts another member of its kind...a female; she lacked the wings of the males and was far larger than him. The female approached the massive carcass to lay her eggs inside the massive carcass, but not before turning her red gaze towards Koba and his troop.

Koba stood definitely at the parasitoid kaiju, he shouts as he his fists before pounding at his chest. The female opened her jaws wide with the intent of swallowing Koba and his clan whole. Then came a thunderous shriek, the female snapped her jaws close as she jerk her head towards the location of the shriek. Two kaiju lepidopterans came soaring from the heavens, in appearance they resembled African Moon Moths; Waxema and Wanema. They were closely related to the kaiju known as Mothra who hails from the South Pacific. The two kaiju moths dive bomb the parasitoids, their antenna discharge a powerful beam at the pregnant parasitoid's swollen belly. However the male sacrifices his wings to shield his mate from harm, he roars in agonized pain, his mate quickly resumes her goal to lay her progeny inside the godzilla carcass. The male parastoid endure as much as he could until his mighty leathery wings could withstand the beams no longer; the beams burnt away flesh and damaged the supporting tissues and structures that made up his wings to the point they just snapped off. The Waxema and Wanema came back around to finish off the male, again firing their prismatic beams into the crippled parasitoid.  

^ ;)

Godzilla 1954 from castle bravo nuke

and also after the testing of castle bravo in 1954, I'm sure thats what made Godzilla awaken

Yeah, I'm pretty sure Godzilla is male. And all for the same reasons The King of the Monsters said.

It all looks amazing. It make me even more excited for the upcoming films. Nice job to the creators.

Huge-Ben Ok, see you then.

I actually wrote a summary of how Godzilla's gender has been addressed officially by Toho for Wikizilla. For the sake of simplicity I'll just paste it here, apologies for the wall of text. The important takeaway is that Toho officially classifies Godzilla as a male and always has. Even the 1998 TriStar Godzilla is officially a male even though it can lay eggs. Anyway, here's the summary:

While the Japanese dialogue in the Godzilla films uses gender-neutral pronouns (equivalent to "it") to refer to Godzilla and all the other monsters, official translations of the films, including dubs and subtitle tracks, will often explicitly identify Godzilla as being a male creature. While some translations will still refer to Godzilla as "it," he has never been referred to as a female in any of his onscreen appearances. Further establishing Godzilla's male gender is his official title, King of the Monsters, or Monster King (怪獣王 Kaijū-Ō) in Japanese. This title was first used for Godzilla in the 1956 American re-edit of the original Godzilla film, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! This title has subsequently been applied to Godzilla in both official Japanese and American media, and has become synonymous with the character, even to the point of being trademarked by Toho. Worth noting is that English dialogue even within the Japanese versions of the films will often refer to Godzilla using male pronouns, examples being Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II and Godzilla: Final Wars. Officially licensed English-language media, such as the Hanna-Barbera Godzilla cartoon, American Godzilla comics, and the films of the MonsterVerse, all consistently refer to Godzilla as a male, with some of the designers for Legendary Pictures' Godzilla even taking care to make the monster's design appear "masculine."[4]

A common point of confusion that has led some to speculate that Godzilla is female is the presence of his sons, as no mate for Godzilla is ever seen onscreen and only female reptiles can produce eggs. However, Godzilla's son in the Heisei series, Godzilla Junior, is explicitly confirmed to not be Godzilla's biological son, but rather another member of the Godzillasaurus species that Godzilla simply adopted. Godzilla's relation to Minilla, his son in the Showa series and in Godzilla: Final Wars, is unclear, as it is never explained in the films themselves if he is Godzilla's biological child or if he was adopted like Godzilla Junior. Even still, Godzilla is explicitly described as being Minilla's father and not his mother, being referred to as "Papa Godzilla" (パパゴジラPapagojira) in supplementary materials for Son of Godzilla. In addition, the film's director, Jun Fukuda, clarified at the time that the Godzilla featured in the film was in fact male.[5]Furthermore, both the 1998 informational book The Official Godzilla Compendium and Toho's official English-language website state that Minilla was adopted by Godzilla in Son of Godzilla.[6][7]

Another common source of confusion regarding Godzilla's gender comes from the 1998 American Godzilla film directed by Roland Emmerich, which featured an incarnation of Godzilla that lays eggs asexually. Even despite this ability, this version of Godzilla is explicitly referred to as a male in dialogue, with Nick Tatopoulos even calling it "a very unusual he" after discovering its ability to reproduce asexually. The film's official novelization even refers to Godzilla as the "father" of his asexually-produced offspring. This Godzilla's sole surviving offspring from Godzilla: The Series does not retain his father's ability to reproduce asexually, and later mates with a female mutant Komodo dragon named Komodithrax to act as a surrogate father to her offspring. When the original Godzilla returns as Cyber Godzilla in the series, Nick refers to the creature as the other Godzilla's "daddy." The Godzilla featured in Shin Godzilla also possesses the ability to reproduce asexually, but not through the production of eggs. Rather, cells that are removed from Godzilla's body will continue regenerating, potentially growing into fully-functioning organisms and allowing Godzilla to propagate across the globe. In addition, at the end of the film, this Godzilla's next stage of evolution is shown to be a collective of smaller human-sized forms that were frozen while fissioning from the tip of his tail. The same applies to Godzilla Earth from the GODZILLA anime trilogy, whose cells gave rise to an entire ecosystem of organisms possessing his DNA, including another Godzilla dubbed Godzilla Filius.

The Godzilla book written by Ian Thorne also makes the strange claim that "Gigantis," as Godzilla is called in the Americanized version of Godzilla Raids Again, is a female monster. This is most likely just one of the miscellaneous errors contained in the book, as dialogue in Gigantis, the Fire Monster consistently refers to Gigantis with male pronouns.

While a female member of Godzilla's species has never appeared in a film, some have been featured in official non-film media. Examples include Rozan from A Space Godzilla, Bijira and Majira from Gojira-kun: Kaijū Daikōshin, and Gojirin from Get Going! Godzilland. The monster Biollante, spawned partially from Godzilla's own cells, is considered to be a female monster, and she and Godzilla are compared to a "brother and sister" at one point in the film Godzilla vs. Biollante.

Not really a Zilla fan TBH - too many kaiju running around is asking a bit too much of my suspension of disbelief, especially with the 2014 Zilla dwarfing most of the largest Dinosaurs.

Considering its size and likely lifespan It wouldn't surprise me if Zilla was asexual, giving birth to a sole live offspring (no eggs) - making Zilla neither mammal nor reptile, fitting in with its depiction as a 'Titan.'

Would be nice to see a Gappa rip off where Godzilla married Ma ma Gorgo as long as they don't kill off any Zillas. Any of the Godzillas could be female.

Fantastic work Ben! Nice job. I too am looking forward to the rest of your interviews! :)

I can promise you that the interview I hhad with Alan Maxson will be the interview everyone will eat alive. We covered pretty much everything about the movie for next year, but unfortunately, I can not publish the article until after the movie releases next year.

Another great chapter, SFK.

This (and the previous topics) should be placed on the website in a fasihion similar to how KaijuWorld's How to include Toho Monsters into the Monsterverse forum series is placed so that people can know what the story is about from beginning to end. Other than tht, it's a nice chapter, so keep up the good work.

By the way, have you read Xenotaris' Gojiverse forum yet? It's awesome in my opinion, and it's really interesting. (Plus me and him are the only ones commenting on that forum, so it would be nice to have everyone else [including Chris and yourself] read the forum and leave their opinions [and some helpful criticism] on the forum for Xenotaris.)

Other than that, thanks for reading.

New topic for the last few chapters. Topics can only be so long.

This was awesome. Can't wait for the next three interviews. So exciting.

Nice chapters. Can't wait for the section(s) dedicated to the Pleistocene (the time of the Ice Age and the appearance of man).

Neogene Period: Pliocene

Kaiju Insects and other arthropods began to become more widespread through out the hallow world. However the Mothras are dwindling in number, now having to compete with the Battras for food and shelter. Megalons prowl the ocean floors as well as coastlines where basal godzillasaurids and megaspinosaurids once flourished. Ebirahs becoming ever so bolder to venture on to land to steal carrion from other scavengers. Giant Spiders known as Kumonga and Mother Longlegs as well as giant predatory insects like the Kamacuras, meganulon, meganula, and megaguirus have quickly replaced or drove out most of the surviving theropod dinosaurs out of the tropical regions. Skullcrawlers were steadily becoming bigger and much more agile but were still restricted to deserts.

New animals from the surface began retreating to the hollow world. Most of them are picked off by the occasional theropod dinosaur, predatory arthropod, and sometimes by river dwelling cephalopods like the Mire Squid and Gezora. Among these mammals that survived are the ancestors of the Sker Buffalo, the Kongs, the Icarus Tiger, and the Ceasars.

Vindexgodzillasaurus gareth evolved from Paleovindexgodzillasaurus, more robust than its miocene ancestor. A genus of skull crawlers slowly leave the desolate deserts of the hallow earth, feeding on the eggs of the kaiju arthropods. Garethgoji walks among the kaiju-sized redwood trees of the northern regions, the hallow world's background radiation energizes and nourishes the many kaiju animals and plant species. Paleokong gigas were tyrannosaurus sized gorilla-like ancestors to the Kongs, their natural enemy are the armored tyrannosauriod Vastosauruses. The basal kong and his rival predators were frighten away by Garethgoji's lumbering stroll through the kaiju forest. 

Two Godzillasaurus proteus commence a shouting match between themselves, their shouting matches escalated into the two igniting their atomic fire breath. They keep at it until the loser is knocked backwards. The victor roars triumphantly as the loser retreats back into the forest. 

Super jealous dopepope! But what a phenomenal experience!

Paleogene Period: Oligocene

Much of the world has changed on the surface. Elephant-like creatures began to dominate Africa then spread into Asia while many other interesting mammal groups went extinct due to the spread of grasslands.

The world down below was in turn changed as well, volcanic rivers of molten lava destroyed many of the habitats that dot the many fault-lines of the surface world; many of them existed since the Jurassic. This change lead to the decedents of the Erectogojiras to have split into two new lineages, the strange Anomalogojiras "Strange God Incarnate" which has developed not only a metamorphosis life-cycle akin to amphibians but has also evolved away much of its body density allowing it to grow much bigger when it reaches adult hood and has developed a jaw structure similar to snakes, allowing to grab a whole of larger prey. The other was Teratogojira winstonsis "Stan Winston's Monster God Incarnate"; in appearance it resembled canceled 1994 american godzilla.

The two godzillasaurus lived apart from each other in their own separate biomes, only meeting on occasions when crossing the coastline. Anomalogojira was unique for its species among many other strange traits, it was known to hunt other godzillas but more specifically it hunted basal members of the godzillasaurids, driving most of them to extinction; only the genus Parazillasaurus survived its onslaught by migrating further to the polar regions of the hallow world. While the more land based Teratogojiras prowled the land for kaiju herbivores.

Teragoji rose from his slumber when he smelled blood, he slowly climbed down from the hill to the black sand beaches. There was the laid the carcass of basal godzillasaurid Coelogojira "Hollow God Incarnate" it was similar to Zilla but fatter and with webbed claws. Now all that's left of it was its spine and a partially eaten skull. Teragoji sniffed the carcass, it's been freshly killed, a blood trail leads back into the water. Where maple leaf-shaped spines retract underwater...

A school of fish darted away as something big was approaching them. A giant both filled with misshapen and ingrowing teeth charge at the fishes. The swarm of fish began to dart apart but the jaws spread further open and like a pelican it scooped up the fish; the beast closes its jaws closed. The water sends vibrations as Teragoji prowls on the shorebanks, Anomalogoji makes a u-turn back to the beaches. Its maple-leaf spikes stab through the water surface, the rest of the beast bursts out of the water like a crocodile before slowly rising on its hind legs, it resembled shin godzilla's first form but with fully developed front limbs. It hissed before dropping back down on all fours, its spines began to glow simultaneously, its mouth opens then its lower jaw widens before rising its head up to fire its atomic breath at Teragoji. 

Teragoji hissed, forearm bleeding from the burns. The land godzilla began to charge up his spines for a counter-attack, Teragoji unleashes his atomic breath back at the strange water godzilla. Anomalogoji's skin catches on fire, flesh splitted open, the water godzilla attempts to retreat but Teragoji grabs it by the tail and drags the beast out of the water to finish it off with another atomic blast to the face.

Neogene Period: Miocene 

Teratogojiras have out competed the Anomalogojiras on both dryland, coastline, and shallow seas; driving the highly derived godzillasaurid into deeper water. Allowing Teratogojiras's decedents to further diversify; Paleovindexgodzillasaurus evolved from one of these godzillas. However unlike its close relative the Godzillasaurus, it preferred the deep ocean of the hallow world, where it hunted deep ocean kaiju arthropods. Anomalogiras still thrived in the open oceans, they generally ignore the deep sea Vindexgodzillasaurus since they hunt different prey.

There laying at the bottom of the hallow world's oceans was Vindex, an adolescent Paleovindexgodzillasaurus. His kind have taken over the bottom of the oceans since they have re-evolved gills. He hunts for a species of kaiju lobster, called Ebirah. Vindex carefully eyes the Ebirah, any sudden movements would undoubtedly frighten the smaller kaiju away. Vindex slowly opens his jaws before suddenly snapping them closed, the Ebirah quickly darts away as another kaiju darted through the water an attacked Vindex. Vindex was being constricted by an aquatic dracosaur called Eomanda, the ancestor of Manda; they aren't typical a threat to Paleovindexgodzillasauruses but since Vindex is barely a subadult, the manda wants him to be her next meal. The Eomanda targets Vindex's gills, but Vindex manages swipe at her snout before her bites connect.

They struggle for hours before Eomanda releases her constriction then swiftly swims to the surface, Vindex lands softly on the hallow ocean floor before he to must come up for air. Manda's head bursts of the water, she inhaled as much oxygen her lungs could carry. A Paleorodan gigas skims their enormous beak across the hallow ocean, snapping the snake-like Manda in their beak. By the time Vindex came up for air, both Paleorodan and Eomanda were gone.

Yeah i'm still doing this. I've been a little busy too. 

1) Well the godzillasaurids have branched into many new niches. The pack hunter Godzillasaurids are going to eventually lead to Zilla's kind. While most godzillsaurids that are closer to the classic godzillas are going to be solitary predators with the exception of the showa godzilla.

2) Its okay. I'll be geting back into writing a new chapter.

Hey, man. I'm still interested in this. (In fact, I'm beginning to think I'm the only one interested in this.) But two things:

1) Why did you decide to have the Godzillasaurids be pack hunters in the Late Cretaceous when before they were (and after the Late Cretaceous chapter, they became again) lone predators?

2) Are you still working on this? I'm interested to see how this goes. And my interest in this hasn't dwindled at all. I've just been too busy irl. So, sorry about that.

That is all I need to say. Thanks for listening.

I guess now's the time to speculate on why, and I think it's either for 'new' footage of a perspective of that scene in 2014 (aka Godzilla's first appearance) or some sort of new look for Skull Island. But if I'm really honest, I'm wondering how this might affect filming for Jurassic World 3 (if filming for this movie takes until 2019). Other than that, sounds awesome.

And after the long work days, I got to hang out with one of the best Godzilla artists I know, Lenny Romero. Go check out his 'Lenzational' artwork:

Lenzations Etsy Shop

And if that weren't enough awesome for one show, along came Michael Dougherty, director of Godzilla 2. He's a true fan of the genre, the characters, the monsters, and everything that we all love about it. I was super happy to chat with him. He made my day. 

Here's T J Storm, GODZILLA HIMSELF, mocap actor in both the first and second films. Another amazing person to interact with. He also signed my artwork of Godzilla.