Godzilla Minus One has absolutely blown away audiences this year. There are a lot of technical things that make Godzilla Minus One outshine its counterparts in as far as moviemaking goes. From the stable short development of two years (a rarity for most big studio projects these days), good VFX and CGI, to superior writing and practical release date, Godzilla Minus One is advanced. I think it’s pretty safe to say that the Godzilla franchise did better than any major American film studio in making a memorable movie that has people talking positively about it. When I think back on the last year and the successful films, I think of the indie projects from A24 and Blumhouse, not Marvel, Disney, or Warner Bros.
In the last decade, America has seen a slump in the massive spectacle of the blockbuster film as we shift from the fun original pieces to the franchise-based continuous release schedule. You just need to look outside to find someone who has beef with the movies these days — go online to the stock of the film companies and look at the mountains in decline.
1. The comprehensive development process
The oasis of cinema that is Toho’s Godzilla Minus One in the middle of a bland preplan lineup was astonishing. If you know anything about giant monster movies, Kaiju or Godzilla, congratulations, you have excellent taste. That said Godzilla Minus One is in a league of its own. In 1954 Toho created the original Kaiju film as a metaphor for nuclear war, couple years pass, and the bases of monster mayhem action films are born for the entertainment of the world. Despite being the inventors of the genre Toho wouldn’t see the serious horror and eldritch elements return to the franchise until the revival in 2014 with Legendary studios. This minor resurgence would also fade as more movies were made until Takashi Yamazaki appeared on the horizon. I like to think Yamazaki walked into the studio with a golden light following him and, in dramatic slow motion, placed the script in front of the Toho studio execs. When they opened that manilla folder angels were singing. That obvious didn’t happen but I can’t emphasize enough how much of a miracle it was that Godzilla Minus One was able to stay so close to artistic cinema.
2. The Amazing script
Considered one of the greatest Japanese film makers, Yamazaki, set out to return the genre to its roots by branching off from the new tone and world set up in Shin Godzilla by Hideaki Anno in 2016. Partly because of a worldwide pandemic and because of the Legendary studios’ release schedule for their own entries, Godzilla Minus One was placed on a back burner for the time until Yamazaki secured the studios’ support with his own original script and him as the director. Thank goodness he did because I can’t imagine a world without Godzilla Minus One.
Godzilla Minus One is a love letter to the resilience of humanity but mostly Japan. This film focusses a lot on the fallout of World War II, specifically the nuclear bombings. The film is a deep commentary on the reality of post war circumstances and survivor’s guilt. Fallowing the story of a failed kamikaze pilot of Kōichi Shikishima played by Ryunosuke Kamiki (who is absolutely phenomenal) the film allows the viewer to see through Shikishima what the emotional journey of grief is like in the face on an almost incomprehensible force.
This is the real genius behind Yamazaki and his crew in that they go all in on the metaphor aspect and let the story set the pace with ebbs and flows that progressively become larger beats leading to a cathartic climax. Shikishima has moments of joy interspaced between bouts of guilt over things he cannot control. That is why Godzilla works so well in this serious war movie. The story itself treats the giant radioactive lizard with a sense of terrified awe and mystical suspense as a grand metaphor for inescapable guilt that can only be expressed with out words. The most gut wrenching moment in Shikishima’s story have little to no words and is carried mostly by the actors themselves and the soundtrack.
3. ‘Godzilla Minus One’ just sounds and looks great
This is one of the first Godzilla films in years to have an almost entirely original soundtrack with the exception of the main theme which is a staple of the franchise. This whole soundtrack is grippingly eerie and emotional. The use of operatic chorus and synthetic melodies blend together to create what I can only describe as the sounds of angels in grief. It doesn’t sound natural, and it works so well because Godzilla isn’t natural in this film.
Sporting a new design, Godzilla Minus One looks the most like a villain then he has in over a decade. Wow? Isn’t that something to think about? Shin Godzilla has a stretched body. Uncomfortable textures of stretched flesh induce sympathy for such a creature. It is not hidden from the audience that Shin Godzilla is in a state of constant burning pain. You fear this godly force of nature, but you feel sympathy for it because it is an animal and doesn’t know what it’s doing. Shin Godzilla had blank googly eyes that expressed no thought. I love it. The intellect and almost blunt malicious behavior shown by Godzilla Minus One contrasts with his look of a fancy dinosaur. In most parts of the movie, he seems to go out of his way to make Shikishima suffer. Godzilla attacks boats en-mass out of nowhere, the levels Ginza in what is a reference back to the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This Godzilla is here to make the audience feel chills down their spine. Oh boy and do they deliver! This paired with the haunting scenes of destruction, left in the wake of both war and monster, with the period technology, and clothing really makes it feel like you’re a film goer of the 1950’s about to be introduced to Kaiju for the very first time.
4. It’s getting a black and white release
Once in a blue moon there comes a story that is so good that the absence of color heightens it. Think Casablanca and maybe Sin City. That’s what Toho thought when they saw the final version for Godzilla Minus One — this film needs to feel even more epic. By having the color removed, every scene is given the feeling of a historical news reel and bring the period of the piece further flung back into the 1940’s. Godzilla Minus One becomes even more visually striking. They did not just put a filter on either, Toho went back and digitally stylized each frame to get the best black and white look for the film. They then put Godzilla Minus One in theaters for one week to let audiences enjoy it one more time. Toho is just that cool.