Godzilla: The Virtue of Destruction

I remember seeing Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla film in an IMAX theater near Lisle, Illinois. I remember walking out of the theater thrilled, stimulated, and having had my faith in true "blockbuster" cinema restored. While carried primarily by younger actors and actresses, the film also features performances by well-established stars. But I have to admit that even the combined power of Juliette Binoche, Bryan Cranston, Sally Hawkins, and Ken Watanabe on the screen could not rival the sheer exhilaration of seeing the reigning king of pop culture iconography come stomping into Daniel K. moments before laying waste to Honolulu while locked in battle with another kaiju (Japanese, which roughly translates to "strange beast").

Original theatrical release poster

Years before Sean Connery carried Ian Fleming's James Bond into the public conscience, decades before George Lucas first transported audiences to that galaxy far, far away, and nearly a half-century before Disney produced the current holy grail of cinema, Marvel's "shared universe," Japanese filmmaker Ishirō Honda crafted a parable of the nuclear age so visceral in tone and so searing in message, that the film's titular monster would be solidified as a cinematic wonder, going on to spawn one of the longest running film franchises in history.

In the original Godzilla, the testing of atomic weapons awakens a long-dormant monster from its supposed hibernation, and from the depths of the ocean "Gojira," or, Godzilla, rises to terrorize Japan. After much devastation, the creature is defeated, but one of the film's main characters, Dr. Kyohei Yamane (Takashi Shimura, of Seven Samurai fame), points out that, should nuclear testing continue, a threat like Godzilla could easily rise again. Honda's original incarnation of the character was poles apart from the more lovable and somewhat cuter versions that would become so popular in the succeeding decades, where the very idea of "Godzilla" would more readily conjure up thoughts of a man in a silly rubber suit rather than echoes of a nuclear nightmare, though this more jarring concept was the symbolic power with which the character was originally imbued.  Nonetheless, the moral of the original tale is not to be missed: if mankind is not careful, he will bring about his own destruction. Stylistically, Honda's original piece played out more like one of those old fashioned film noirs, weaving a dark tale of science gone horribly, horribly wrong that was tinged with tragic romance and cast with apocalyptic vision. And like all great myths of forbidden knowledge, the film came with a pointed warning meant to shake the viewer out of a kind of acedia, a way of snapping the fingers of the imagination before the mind's eye as if to say, "Wake up, and pay attention!"

I am fascinated by how certain films and characters lodge themselves in the public sphere with the longevity of franchises like the one begun here, with Honda's film. How is it that, for almost a century, the character of Godzilla has continued to adapt to changing times and changing morals, but yet somehow remain enough of a constant to be instantly recognizable? The answer, I believe, does not lie within the character's ability to adapt, as opposed to how I am often told films and characters need to "update" in order to "stay relevant." On the contrary, I believe the key to the character's longevity lies in the thing that remains constant, the consistency of the character's essence, which comes to light when one understands a character's purpose. And when the character's purpose deals in timeless themes, the character becomes what is mythically known as an archetype, a character with a thematic arc that crops up time and time again, in thousands of different stories down through the ages.

For Godzilla, the thematic purpose of the character is spelled out quite plainly in the original film. Godzilla is a most unique kind of thematic archetype, one that is rarely embodied but frequently invoked: judgment. Honda's film is as striking now as it was upon first release, because of the timeless themes with which it deals. The notion of mankind's scientific reach having grown beyond what he can grasp is as mythic a place to start as any. From Eden, to Prometheus, to Frankenstein, and now to Godzilla, the idea that there are things we ought not know can be traced right back to the beginning of what C. S. Lewis identified as the "True Myth" of Christianity. More importantly, the idea that one's attempt to access such forbidden knowledge will result in one's downfall is just as crucial of a component to the mythic structure of the narrative as anything else. Adam and Eve have plunged us all in to sin. Prometheus incurs the wrath of Zeus and ensures that man loses access to the means of life. Victor Frankenstein loses control of his own creation. Warmongering men have awakened Godzilla.

Perhaps in the age of superheroes and "Mary Sues," who march ever forward in the good name of progress and "empowerment," we have forgotten that all things, right or wrong, come with a price. That evil corrupts through pleasure, and good only triumphs through sacrifice. The signs of our times are Disney vacations and Hallmark cards—the yearnings of the human spirit to finally come to a place of rest, where all is made well. Yearnings that are not wrong, to be sure. But if all is made well through a simple redefinition of right and wrong, something is amiss. It seems to me that we tend to forget that "all is made well" only when evil is dealt with, not when it is ignored or simply redefined into that which is good, or not as bad as it might actually be. Quick are many to tell me, "Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek, so you should get over your complaining about the way the world is and just be happy." And quicker am I to point out that the reason Christ commands us to not take revenge, to "turn the other cheek," is because revenge is not ours to take. This is Paul's point in Romans 12:19, in which he instructs believers to "leave room for the wrath of God." The point, of course, is not that vengeance is wrong. The point is not that grace deals with sin and that's the end of the story. The point is that vengeance is not man's to seek—it is God's. The Christian story does not end when Jesus ascends. The Christian story ends after he has returned, his robe dipped in blood, his eyes burning like flames, with a sword extending from his mouth with which to cut down all those who oppose him. Sounds a lot like judgment to me.

Godzilla (2014) poster

This is a point that both Honda and director Gareth Edwards understand, and as a result imbue their respective iterations of Godzilla with this thematic purpose. Edwards, however, puts a bit of a different spin on the character than Honda. Whereas Godzilla was, originally, an enraged monster disturbed by man, Edwards's take on the character positions Godzilla as an ancient alpha predator, but he does so without sacrificing the character's inherent mystique. Perhaps the chief complaint I have heard about how Edwards chose to portray Godzilla can be boiled down to this statement: "For a movie called Godzilla, there sure wasn't a lot of Godzilla in the movie!" While on one hand I can understand the frustration (the movie predominately follows a husband trying to get back to his wife and son in a world being ravaged by monsters), I cannot help but think such criticisms are somewhat unfounded, that they miss the larger point of Edwards's film. Edwards's cinematic style isn't actually all that different from Honda's, even though their respective iterations of the characters vary to some degree. In the original Godzilla, the vast majority of the movie revolved around a doomed love triangle, and the efforts of humans to understand and then survive the monster's onslaught. Godzilla was kept mostly shrouded in darkness and seen most frequently only in glimpses, and usually in strange angles, maintaining a mystique about the character that at once made Godzilla a being about which we were always curious, despite knowing that his ways were unfathomable.

In Godzilla (2014), Edwards updates the now well-established mythos surrounding the character to bring him into the present. He maintains the connection to the atomic age by having nuclear energy play a key role, but this Godzilla is less an angry monster out to destroy the men who have intruded upon his slumber; rather, this Godzilla rises to meet the challenge presented by the arrival of another monster (identified in the film as a "Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism" or "MUTO"), drawn to our world by our use of nuclear energy. Godzilla is the great equalizer, the one who comes to restore the balance of nature, which mankind upset through consistent abuse of natural resources and nuclear power. In order for him to do that, buildings will crumble. People will flee in terror. There will be a great and terrible cost before the situation is rectified.

What Edwards does incredibly well is imbue his Godzilla with age and, more importantly, reverence. Godzilla is not fully unveiled until around the halfway point in the film, and even then the moment is fleeting. He moves slow, graceful. He is ancient. He has been here long before any of us, and he will most certainly be here long after. Until the moment we see him in the film, the characters whisper about this monstrous being in hushed, urgent tones. When Godzilla is seen in full glory, we, as viewers, are privy only to the reactions on the faces of those characters who actually see him. Toward the end of the film, there is a shot that features Godzilla's tail sweeping through a haze of smoke and fog. Edwards positions the camera near the ground, looking up at the tail as it sweeps over the viewer's head. Then a flash of lightning, and for a moment, through the haze, we glimpse Godzilla's hulking behemoth of a form, the smoke curling about him, obscuring him enough that we only see his silhouette. It's a haunting, breathtaking shot reminding us that even though he might be standing in our midst, we humans are nothing compared to him. Our science has failed us, try as we might to understand his motivations. His ways are inscrutable, and he has come to rectify the problem that we have created.

Edwards chooses to paint Godzilla in a more heroic light than Honda. Of course, this is done out of respect for the character's legacy, since many of the Japanese films after the 1954 original came to view Godzilla as less of a rampaging force of nature, and more of a quirky kind of antihero with attitude. Godzilla found himself protecting the people of the Earth in those films, rather than acting as their judge, jury, and executioner. This is an interesting development, to be sure. One that deepens Godzilla as a character by ever so slightly shading him with emotions. There is a scene in Edwards's film in which the protagonist comes face-to-face with Godzilla, and the two of them lock eyes. For the briefest of moments, Godzilla looks tired. Worn out. Old and graceful and wise and fully ready to be done with this destruction business so he can go back to whatever forbidden depths he emerged from to fix the problem that humanity created. Then a cloud of smoke and dust closes in, and he is obscured from sight once again. It's a surprising and moving moment of calm in the midst of a fierce battle. But we know that to destroy the monsters man has conjured up is like slapping a band aid on a gaping wound. In the Flood, God destroys everything and preserves only a precious few, including the man named Noah. But the destruction of everything in the world does little to eradicate the problem that made the world worth destroying in the first place: the desire of the human heart for things belonging not to it, the desire for sin. This is the lesson of Noah's story in Scripture. This, too, should be the lesson we take away from a viewing of Godzilla.

To be sure, the virtue of redemption stories should not be missed. We are quick to see the ways in which movies about heroes who sacrifice themselves to rescue others points back to Christ and his ultimate sacrifice. But we are less ready to acknowledge that Scripture's narrative does not end with Christ's victory over death, even though we know on some subconscious level that this is true. Indeed, the story cannot end there, because the narrative is incomplete. The problem has not been solved, the crisis only temporarily averted. We know that Christ dies and resurrects for the benefit of those who are Christians, who place their faith in him to carry them through the shroud of death and into eternal life. But what about those who scorn him? Those who never come to faith? What about all the injustices that occur in this world, and wrongs that are never righted? Do these things just go away? It's that old and clichéd idea that asks the question, "How can there be a good God when bad things happen in the world?" The simplest answer is this, "Because that good God will deal with those bad things, just not according to how you think they're going to be dealt with." Remember, the reason that we do not take revenge to repay injustice is because the power of determination, the power of defining good and evil does not rest in the hands of men. So leave room for the wrath of God, because he will be the one to avenge you.

North American theatrical release poster

There is something about vengeance that functions on a primal level, a kind of catharsis which sees evil repaid. This is why my favorite films always contain shades of noir. No incarnation of Godzilla is a true film noir in the classic sense, but noir sensibilities infuse the best of these movies with such a sense of cosmic justice, a kind of moral gravity that brings the divine gavel smashing down. I applaud the efforts of Toho, the Japanese studio that owns the rights to Godzilla's character and legacy. In their most recent live-action outing, titled Shin Godzilla (2016), they effectively update the character's origin story and bring him back to his Japanese roots. A not-so-subtle social commentary on the ineffectiveness of the Japanese government to deal with a number of natural disasters that befell the country in the past decade, from tsunamis to nuclear meltdowns, Godzilla is again presented here as the one who has come to restore order to a chaotic world: only this time, he is hardly a relatable character at all, more of a blank force of nature that's not concerned with dueling other monsters, but with bringing judgment to mankind and mankind alone.

The theological connections here are not to be missed. In fact, they are spelled out quite profoundly in Toho's 2017 Godzilla film, Godzilla: Monster Planet, a piece of Japanese animation that gives us a look at the largest Godzilla ever to take to the screen. I've never been an avid watcher of anime (animation that takes its cues from a distinct Japanese art style), my exposure to the genre has been limited to what I know through the dissemination of pop culture. But I know when I first heard that Godzilla was going to finally step into the realm of anime, I had mixed feelings. On one hand, it seemed like a match made in heaven. A distinctly Japanese character appearing via a distinctly Japanese storytelling medium. Why hadn't this been done before? At the same time, I was troubled that this would somehow lessen the character's influence, reduce him to nothing more than a caricature, akin to those older movies where he became something of a slapstick character. Upon viewing the film, I was delighted that my concerns were unfounded.

Teaser poster for Godzilla: Monster Planet

While I would never call this my favorite Godzilla film, it certainly has got to be one of my favorite interpretations of the character. In the world of animation, the creators really get to let loose with what might have been impossible or too expensive to do in the world of live-action film, so they blow him up to gargantuan proportions appropriate for the tale being told. The story of Godzilla: Monster Planet finds the people of Earth plagued by the appearance of giant monsters at the end of the 20th Century. For decades, the people attempt to survive, but are pummeled time and again. Godzilla, the most devastating of these monsters, is responsible for the deaths of millions. Humanity, with its numbers dwindling, finds itself outmatched. But the arrival of two alien races, the Exif and the Bilusaludo, whose motivations are shrouded in secrecy, elect to help mankind to try and survive the onslaught of the monsters. But outmatched by Godzilla, mankind is forced to rely on the aliens and their technology in order to flee the planet.

This is all backstory, of course, and the film opens with humanity and their alien allies adrift in space aboard a ship. It's all a set-up very reminiscent of Battlestar Galactica. The plot of the movie gets going when the humans decide to return to Earth. Though they have only been in space some twenty years, because of time dilation and gravity and all that scientific mumbo-jumbo that I'm still trying to figure out, it seems as though an indeterminate amount of time has passed on Earth. What is for humans twenty years, is to Earth hundreds, if not thousands of years. So they return home, with a plan to destroy Godzilla if he is still there.

The Earth they return to has changed—drastically. The planet has been overrun by a kind of evolved plant life, and at the top of the food chain is Godzilla. There is much talk throughout this movie by the human characters, who seek to reclaim "our home" or "our planet." It seems as though the mentality of the characters is that Earth belongs to them simply because they were born there. And so they launch a plan to destroy Godzilla that, shockingly, works. By the film's end, Godzilla is dead. And they humans celebrate their victory—until a mountain in the distance explodes. And out of the rubble rises...another Godzilla? One of the team's scientists quickly realizes the false presupposition with which they had returned to the planet. It has been not a few hundred or few thousand years since mankind has been gone, it has been 20,000 years. The Godzilla they had just fiercely battled and destroyed was the evolutionary offspring of the Godzilla that had nearly eradicated man all those years in the past, the Godzilla which now resurfaced. And time has not only worked wonders on the planet. Godzilla himself has grown to tower over 300 meters in height. To put that in perspective, all other incarnations of Godzilla range from 50 meters to about 100 in height. This new incarnation is by far the most imposing. To the film's credit, even in animation, you can practically feel the size of this being.

As Godzilla proceeds to decimate the humans, who have realized their selfish ambitions too late, one of the Exif alien characters, Metphies, looks on from a distance and says, "When those fleeting lives destined to die, forget their humbleness and sing praises of glory, such will shake the very heavens and split the earth, and they shall know the wrath of the divine. The inevitable incarnation of destruction." And this is exactly the kind of thematic purpose with which the character of Godzilla was originally imbued. This is the great warning that this character and these films offer us, as humans—what I call the virtue of destruction. The same lesson taught to us in the story of Scripture, recapitulated time and again through myths of old. When mankind grows beyond himself, when human hubris runs wild and unchecked, the wrath of the divine will inevitably be incurred. Judgment will be incurred.

Godzilla is by far the most interesting Christ-figure in all of pop culture. Because he exemplifies a facet of Christ's being that is taught less frequently in contemporary churches, much less put to screen. With Godzilla, we see the Christ of the apocalypse, the Christ of judgment. The one who returns to recompense those who have remained in sin, who have never learned what it means to deny the self, to tame the hubris. When I left that theater in 2014, I was reminded what great blockbuster cinema can do for us. I was reminded that the wrongs of this world can be endured, because the wrongs of this world have stirred up the wrath of a divine avenger who is coming swiftly and soon. For vengeance is his, and he will repay.

And this, in turn, keeps me on the straight and narrow.