Destoryah is Overrated

They essentially are though. Irradiated Dinosaurs with the exception of baragon as I don't think there was ever any backstory from him he just sort of appears in Frankenstein Conquers the World. To be fair to make something new becomes harder as time goes by simply because new isn't as easy. Sure Ghidorah was different but then again besides anguirus he was the second monster created out of a Godzilla movies with all the previous ones coming from their own starts. I feel Destroyah did add something new. While it's true Hedorah also had changing forms Destroyah obviously paid homage but added it's own twist. Born out of the actual thing that killed Godzilla gave him the rival feel, and I was at least excited to see Godzilla fight the monster who had just killed the baby I'd watch grow up throughout the series. Granted during the first watch I had no idea Godzilla was going to die. While the fight was slightly anticlimatic that's mostly due to as you said habit of the heisei movies to have fights featuring about 90% beams and a suit that wasn't easy to manuever in that was by no means the monster's fault as much as design and directing. 

But it's in design and directing where these beasts come alive. The reason Godzilla was beloved is because he birthed the genre, granted, but he was certainly inspired. The reason Rodan was beloved is because he's a beast that takes to the skies and attacks from above. He even had a mate in his debut movie. Baragon, still baffles me, but I assume it's because he was the beast that took on Frankenstien. The burrowing ability was new as well. Plus he's kinda cute... Varan never as beloved, why? One theory is because his execution was based on lumbering back and forth small sets like a smaller Godzilla. They even used stock footage from the Godzilla (1954) to tie together his attack.

I don't see how Destroyah being born of the only weapon to kill Godzilla added any sort of rivalry aspect than other monsters. It's not even the same Godzilla that's fighting Destroyah and there's nothing to suggest a rivalry during the battle. The backstory is almost non-consequential because he acts and moves (well... moves as much as he can) like SpaceGodzilla, Mecha-Godzilla...etc... from previous Heisei outings.

Granted, it is harder to give the audience something new to watch as time goes on, but that didn't stop the Gamera trilogy from giving the title monster a very different creature to fight three movies in a row-- excusing the Hyper Gyaos in the third film anyway.

There's simply more than backstory that makes these monsters. If that were the case, none of them would have caught on.

First off I think we need to give the other Heisei monsters some serious credit. I feel the biggest issue with Destroyah is how badly he streilizes other monsters. Biollante put Godzilla out of commission until the futurians arrived and nearly wiped his radioactive counter clean. Ghidorah's strength or power wasn't impressive, it was that the creature could be so efficiently controlled by the futurians! Ghidorah wiped the floor with Godzilla until its head controls were taken out. Battra twice took Godzilla with him to the ocean floor, the first time into magma and the second to HIS OWN GRAVE! Mechagodzilla was invulnerable to ANY blue ray, and was staked head to toe in insanely powerful weapons. In fact if Rodan wasn't there, Godzilla would have just died. DIED.

Hell even Spacegodzilla and Mothra had the abilities to use their BRAINS. I feel like the only conceptually interesting thing about Destroyah is the fact it is revived from the oxygen destroyer. Visually I can't stand Destroyah's final form, it does nothing for my imagination. I believe Destroyah is popular in the same way Bagan is; a thunder-thighed, sanguid coloured, spiky, batwinged, satanic boss monster catering to 'extreme' 90's sci-fi action. 

It's your opinion godzillafan1995 and that is fine. I like Destroyah and I think he's a badass.

Godzilla would have won but he was going to die but if was his regular form he would have kicked DESTROYHA'S ASS

I do find it rather odd that Destroyah, despite her strength and heavy armor, was killed by humans. :/

One burning godzilla is not the strongest recarnation it final wars And destroyah is not his strongest enemy it Keizer ghidirah. yes because he was bout to kill godzilla n it took godzilla at his strongest form to kill him. Now with destroyah yes he tough n took alot of his spiral rays but he wasn't close to killing he hurt him but still godzilla would of end up killing him. And if it was godzilla final war fighting destroyah then it would of end a whole lot quicker because in final war godzilla was killing everyone with one atomic ray n taking more than one monster until keizer ghidirah. But I do think destroyah is cool but not his strongest enemy.

The rivalry in my eyes stems from his origin. He was born from the only real thing to kill Godzilla, and while this wasn't the same Godzilla it was a stronger one thus he didn't kneel over and die after just 1 shot. To see the strongest form of Godzilla take on a personified version of the thing that killed him made the fight for me. True it was never established as a rivaly, but as I said with Ghidorah no movie except maybe Spacegodzilla coming to earth simply to kill Godzilla ever established a rivalry it's mostly been up to the fans.

I don't know why you don't think Destroyah is iconic. True he may not hold the same stature Ghidorah or Mothra do, but he is definitely among the upper level of monsters popular from the series as evident by the fact he's been returned in almost every game released after his movie showing the monster has a following and popularity larger than a lot of the monster's who's place he took. There's also the fact heisei movies were't released initially in the US unless you special imported them before DVDs. That alone could also explain a lot of the villains from heisei not having the iconic role they may deserve over showa monsters whos movie was realeased in the US, in movie theaters in most cases.

Perhaps rivalry is the wrong word for either King Ghidorah or Destroyah-- "foils" might be a better noun in the sense of creatures trying to outdo another. (In that case I still believe King Ghidorah is the better represenative since he keeps coming back for more against Godzilla both within a single movie and amongst several.)

The problem is the ideas you described are there, but there's nothing onscreen to show this battle was any different from other Heisei battles. Changing the color of Godzilla's beam and look and "saying" Destroyah was birthed from the Oxygen Destroyah isn't enough. The stakes were never raised from previous battles: Just a lot of bumping into one another and beam spitting, like always. The backstory just wasn't enough to make up for a bulky, stagnant creature. That said, for a Heisei battle, it was more entertaining than the previous three films.

Was he as great of a threat as Godzilla in the movie? We'll never know, they don't bother to show or explain that. What would he have happened to a city had he attacked it? Would it had been any different from previous monsters? We won't know that either, he simply wen't into battle. But it would've been a great opportunity to show how dangerous he was and set him apart from other Heisei beasts from the audience.

There's an old adage in film that cites, "show don't tell." Destroyah is a case of "tell" relying on same'ole, same'ole to "show". Characters tell us he was awoken from the Oxygen Destroyer. He's  a dangerous beast...etc...etc... But none of that really comes off the screen. At least no more than, say, SpaceGodzilla. Great ideas are one thing, but execution is the other half.

Now is Destroyah popular amongst the fanbase? Absolutely. I like the creature despite its flaws and enjoy seeing it in comics and video games. But so are a lot of other monsters. That doesn't make them iconic. I imagine he's popular due to the film's popularity which, in truth, was very gimmicky looking back on it. This is a movie I love, mind you, but that doesn't keep it from being near-fatally flawed.

oh just to point out, out of all the heisei monsters, king ghidorah destoryed/attacked the most cities, where's the movies after had mostly one city attacked.

To be fair, I only remember one city being attacked by King Ghidorah. It's been awhile since I've seen that film, does he attack other cities? Do we see it or is it just one of those things they state?

the first city he attacked was kyushu, then the futrianians mention to order ghidorah to destroy hokkaido, he then on screen attacks hiroshima then before he goes for godzilla he must have attacked any other city but isn't mentioned what cities.

Oh, right... There's some sort of montage with it or something of that nature isn't there? It's been ages since I've seen the movie. My copy of the Japanese version got screwed up and I refuse to watch the english dub, so... there we are...

why hasn't tristar released a better version of the movie, and when i mean better i mean better quality and on a stand alone dvd, and could a blu ray version be nice, the dubbing isn't that bad though.

Because they're cheap? Sony was on the ball for their Showa and Millennium releases, but that was after they finally realized there's a market for those who want the Japanese versions and decent quality releases. I'm still crossing my fingers we'll get a better re-release of these films this year backing the new movie.

do the japanese versions including the toho blu rays include subtitles.

1 godzilla was super sayin 

2 if destroyah had spamed his energy sword easy win

3 created by an oxygen destroyer

4 looks badass

thing is godzilla maybe more powerful but he still has the same durability as his previous form, so destoryahs weapons should have distintergrated his skin right off, however that energy beam was pretty effective but why does he even have that, how does that have to do with him being a living oxygen destoryer, and if he is born from a weapon that can remove oxygen in water and air then shouldn't he have the ability to strip the air of oxygen making people and godzilla sufficate. really as gman has said, they way destoryah is represented, he is no different to fighting spacegodzilla. if anything that laser sword was the only weapon that was pretty effective and caused scared damage to godzilla.

This is still getting argued on? I mean whatever your personal thoughts are on Destroyah he's only been in 1 movie. There are characters like Mothra Ghidorah and Mechagodzilla who collectively are in about half the movies in the series but we're still arguing over a monster that was in 1? If you want to make a topic about overrated any of those 3 monsters would fit it better than Destroyah.

As for that last post they never said he wasn't any more durable he could have had better defenses too. They can't literally make him an oxygen destroyer because that would be ridiculous even for a Godzilla villain. That's like making Godzilla a bomb that just walks into the city detonates destroying everything like a nuke would, and walking back into the water. They're personifications of the weapons that doesn't mean they have to do exactly that. Godzilla represented the Nuclear bomb and that was evident by the destruction he caused in the first movie. Destroyah was represented by the Oxygen Destroyer as evident by the fact he was in the movie to kill Godzilla. He came close. No bodily injuries besides the horn ,but once again as I've said before he dragged, thew and beat Godzilla down for most of the fight at his strongest. No monster in the heisei era came any closer without a human mind and plan behind their actions. Ghidorah was winning when humans were controlling him. Biollante fought him after the anti nuclear bacteria was injected into him, and mechaG was piloted by humans with lots of planning and data to back up their plan. Destoyah was just a monster. No1 helped him do better, made Godzilla weaker, or showed any indication that he was aware of any weaknesses. In fact Godzilla is at his strongest, and he's the 1 that gets help from the military. So could the fight have been done better? Of course as all heisei fights could have but from what you see and the things you know you can determine roughly how strong the monster is in comparison with others. Thus a lot of people see Destroyah as the strongest Godzilla foe. 

Lets give the guy credit for actually digging up this topic and instead of dragging it out into a new one...

@GodzillaFan1995

True that Destroyah isn't much different than SpaceGodzilla and his Oxygen Destroying powers seem to only go as far as its microscopic trait when it eats the fish away-- then it's gone. (Which I don't understand. You would think that trait would have evolved with him, but... whatever... Heisei series...) Then again Destroyah really isn't the Oxygen Destroyer. He's just mutated by Oxygen Destroyer-- coming from a Precambrian era where it thrived without oxygen. When the Oxygen Destroyer was detonated the creatures awoke and began to mutate from its exposure.

It doesn't excuse how generic and poorly executed Destroyah is in some places. It would've been nice if they had gone the extra mile to make Destroyah a little more unique in his actions from SpaceGodzilla. But that's Kawakita for you.

@Durp004

"Destroyah was represented by the Oxygen Destroyer as evident by the fact he was in the movie to kill Godzilla. He came close."

I find this comment rather curious. Other than the aquarium scene, there really isn't anything in the battle against Godzilla to suggest he's created from the Oxygen Destroyer. Unless there's a deleted scene where the Oxygen Destroyer shot lasers over and over. Destroyah being "in the movie to kill Godzilla" is really weak connection to the Oxygen Destroyer-- the list of monsters, characters, aliens, weapons..etc... that "want to kill Godzilla" round the block all the way to the original film. Even if it were true, it didn't look Destroyah had any greater desire to kill Godzilla than anything else in the series.

Destroyah might infact be Godzilla's strongest enemy, but vague association, the audience being told what to think...etc... but that hardly makes him his greatest.