When a massive, gilled monster emerges from the deep and tears through the city, the government scrambles to save its citizens. A rag-tag team of volunteers cuts through a web of red tape to uncover the monster's weakness and its mysterious ties to a foreign superpower. But time is not on their side - the greatest catastrophe to ever befall the world is about to evolve right before their very eyes.
17 Jun Shin Godzilla (2016)
Evolution vs Adaptation
If you read anything about this, it likely focuses on the fairly brutal commentary on the state of Japanese civil servants and politicians — and dependence on the US. It is three quarters of the film and why it was so successful in its home country. Let me set that aside.
The monster here is what interested me. There’s all the stupid stuff: laser beams from scales on back, mouth, tail. Molten radioactive vomit. Seemingly deliberate destruction. This time, the radioactive origin is not from the US bomb (though it makes an appearance), it is from badly disposed waste from Japanese sources.
I think the effects within these cartoon constraints are pretty high class.
But much more notable is the deign of the creature, minus the ray blasters. This guy evolves, through what is said to be four phases. The expectation by our elite team that immediately understands the creature is that it will continue to evolve and divide and be the end of all mankind. That gives us several creature designs, including the very first that we encounter with puzzlement. This is is not our familiar franchised design, the form that can host a man inside.
There’s a bunch of complex explanation — all completely pseudoscience — about the origin, possibly the goofiest in the franchise.
Posted in 2025
Ted’s Evaluation — 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.
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