Godzilla Minus One
- decapvada
- Mar 11, 2024
- 4 min read
Usually when a work receives rave reviews across the board, one is cautious and yet there is something about the kind of positivity that Godzilla Minus One received. It’s almost as if the moviegoer had become starved, not specifically of Godzilla, but of real, relatable characterization in cinema. Usually, I am weary of such positivity. For a change, I am energized.

Godzilla has always been a part of my life. I remember first watching Son of Godzilla and the many hero-zilla movies when I was young. I am a Jet Jaguar fan and always will be. However, it wasn’t until later in life that I saw the 1954 original. My first actual taste of the allegorical nature of Godzilla was through the Americanized version of Return of Godzilla, or Godzilla 85, with Raymond Burr. Regardless of how clumsily edited his scenes were, there was something beautiful about human sympathy with Godzilla and Burr’s monologue. It moved a seven-year-old me. That image of Godzilla being lured into the volcano I have never forgotten.
Later in life the Big G and cinema go hand in hand. I saw the Mathew Broderick abomination and Gareth Edward’s flawed gem on the big screen. The Monsterverse rolled on, going from the dark and serious beginning to something that resembles Godzilla’s silliest Japanese movies with the Kong crossover. Then, Shin Godzilla returned the franchise to the dread and terror of the 1954 classic. It brought out a brand new, even more monstrous creature and with it a newfound sense of mystery and awe.

In 2023 Godzilla Minus One did something that had not been done since the 1954 original. It married the great themes at the franchise's core with potent human drama. Just as Godzilla 54 showed us the naked terror of the Japanese people facing nuclear death, Minus One Shows us the ramifications of facing death on the human soul and the strength it takes to find the will to survive against impossible odds.
Protagonist Shikishima, a failed kamikaze pilot, suffers survivor's guilt. He was supposed to die. It was his fate, his job, and yet post World War II he lives, and survives, because of his fear of death. Shikishima is a victim of war, much like Godzilla, whose own genesis occurs during the film. Their fates are entwined with the same kind of sadness, they are aborted lifeforms born from fate with no clear direction or home. It is a brilliant arc. Will Shikishima find a reason to live in the face of an even bigger threat?
I greatly admired the direction around the human characters. Their pain was shown completely in frame, the actors were allowed to flex their ability to portray intense emotion without sudden jerks to action or lines of pointless comedy to break the moment. This is a movie about human emotions and I fear that mainstream movies have become afraid of letting us feel them in recent years. It reminded me, oddly, of David Lynch and how he filmed Grace Zabriskie's incredible performance as Sarah Palmer in Twin Peaks resulting in scenes that are as rivetting as they are uncomfortable to watch.

Godzilla is more fearsome and terrifying than he has ever been. There’s something believable in his eyes, a rage so great that it must wreak havoc on the human race and inside him is a power more terrible than the atomic bomb. The Japanese are faced with the complete futility of war embodied. And his eyes. There’s just something about his eyes that makes him even more fearsome than Shin.
The classic musical score is reused and as always, through its genius, it acts as a duo theme. The great bellowing horns that have always represented the appearance of Godzilla remains as well as the powerful string motif that for so many years has been the heart behind desperate heroism of the Japanese people. Here, the defence of Japan is not instigated by the government at all but by the people taking up arms themselves to protect their families and homes. While it is the powers above that make the decisions that affect all life on the planet, it is the victims, the soldiers, and the pilots, who suffer the most and are the true heroes of this story.

Minus One greatly affected me. As stated, Godzilla is a figure I have loved my whole life. For many of us, he has not had a film that perfectly combines human drama and the powerful iconography and metaphor of the concept since the original. Finally, with Minus One, we have it.
It is not a perfect film thanks to some odd pacing issues in the second act and despite there being a gigantic monster, some of the motivations of those in power were jarring. Regardless, Minus One perfectly lays out a human story and cast of characters for us to empathize with rather than struggle with. How we feel toward these characters helps intensify the action, the conflict, the struggle and the terror of Godzilla. Imagine a universe where this happens in a Godzilla movie post-1954. I never would have bet on it.

Godzilla himself is like a mirror image of Shikishima. Whereas his human counterpart suffers in disgrace because of his existence, Godzilla is fueled by an unstoppable rage that resents the fact he has been changed into this monstrous, fearsome abomination. For Godzilla, the only reason to exist is to destroy in an almost ritualistic fury compelled by instinct. Shikishima on the other hand, must find a reason for him to exist at all. At the heart of the greatest Godzilla movies has always been a battle between life and death. In this, the most perfect film in the franchise, it is finally, completely embodied by its story and characters.
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