We got smart people working on the new Godzilla film. David
Goyer knows what he is doing, considering working with Christopher Nolan –
therefore gaining story telling chops that he seemed to have been missing from
work like BLADE TRINITY. Max Borenstein and Frank Darabount added their
expertise, and now we wait for two and a half months for the film to come out.
Now, with two trailers – one which seems to have confirmed parts of the story
which a leaked script – a script a lot of people claimed to be a fabrication –
declared. The script was said to be a pre-Max Boreinstein script, but there is
definitely enough that made it through to the final product based on what we
had seen.
Here is my guess at the story, and an analysis of such. You
could say this is a kind of, “I told you so” vanity post.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki are bombed. In the midst of the Cold
War, 1954, American and Russian Nuclear Submarines are taken down in the South
Pacific. Both countries find the beast lurking around the Bikini Atoll, and perform
a series of nuclear bomb drops in order to kill the creature. The public is
told that they were just tests, and they assume that the creature – dubbed
Gojira by people living in the area after their diety – is gone – dead.
Let’s jump to 1999. Joseph and Sandra Brody work at a
Japanese nuclear power plant. Something goes terribly wrong. A meltdown occurs,
and while both of them try to be heroes, Sandra is locked into the plant,
leaving Joseph there to watch as containment doors doom her fate.
In the intermediary time between 1999 and 2014, scientists
find a fossil and a pair of insects surrounding it in Antartic ice. Its dubbed
Jira by Proff. Serizawa, who is working with Dr. Wates – Japanese for whale. It
bears a resemblance to the creature from 1954, and based on observations the
insectoid monsters seem to be the natural predators of the… okay, I’m saying
Godzilla from this point on. With this
finding, government enforcers get into the fray…
2014, 15 years latter, Joseph and his son – Ford (who has a
wife and child of his own, wife’s name is Elle) come across something which
leads them to check the remains of the Chernobyl-esque remains of the “Q-Zone”.
This is not something officially sanctioned, and they are being watched with
the Brody men checking out the destruction. Something happened 15 years ago,
and when they are taken away via hand cuffs for arrest, Joseph demands answers.
They are owed to him. Something more happened. It wasn’t an earthquake.
Something very big attacked the nuclear plant, and killed many people –
including his wife, his son’s mother.
Going back to America, turns out that Godzilla is alive and
kicking and he is out for food. His exposure to the bomb has changed him, and
government secrets are now out in the open with the new internet age. And there
will be innocent blood on the hands of such. Out of the appearance of Godzilla
also comes the Mutos, who have been cultivating secretly in the skinholes
around the Earth.
Godzilla and the Mutos have it out at an Airport, Las Vegas,
and ultimately San Francisco. Dr. Serizawa has to find a way to kill Godzilla
while Ford Brody has to try to make sure that his wife and child aren’t new
victims, even if it means helping Godzilla win against the Mutos – who have
also been absorbing energy from nuclear weapons. Can Godzilla win against his
natural predator? Can he triumph where others of his species didn’t.
THE STORY ANALYSIS
Oliver Stone says that the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki weren’t necessary, and it is seen as blasphemous. THE CHINA SYNDROME
comes out, and films like the original Godzilla – which have been turned into
another thing from the original intention – are no longer needed. You can
express themes via humans. Particularly when it comes to an American take on Godzilla,
you have to sell that yeah, America is guilty of actions like the Lucky Dragon
No. 5 incident. Godzilla gets to be a figure in which guilt can be conveyed. No
one will feel bad about nuclear weapons tests. People will feel bad when a
variable spawned from the bomb hurts their own. That is what Godzilla is.
Godzilla is that variable. In 1998, they chose to just look at Godzilla, the
loner of his species. And then they kill his kids and kill him just because he
couldn’t live in this world… which isn’t so tragic since you are releasing him
from a certain pain. Let me further illustrate what this Godzilla film will be
via juxtapositioning:
The Japanese Godzilla was about nuclear weapons on the
victim’s side – nuclear bombs are a terrible weapon of war which effects
humanity negatively not just directly, but also through a ripple effect
culminating with Godzilla. The new American Godzilla is nuclear weapons as a
bad because when it effects nature and humanity in a negative, man tries to
cover it up and turned a blind eye – keeping secrets. But those secrets can
come back to haunt you, and the continued use of nuclear power will create
something which will feed on what it was made from. It may sound like a rehash
of the Diet debate scene from the original, but where as the revelation of
Godzilla to the public was going to effect the Japanese negatively through no
fault of their own, America (and possibly Russia) are very much at fault. And an American Godzilla cannot neccessarily damn nuclear weapons in the same way - we won WWII with nuclear weapons. We made it through the Cold War with the best nuclear arsenal. We have more nuclear energy plants than any other country. The politics are tricky, but this film does find a way.
You cover up the past, and it will repeat. That seems to be
another theme running throughout the scenario. They covered up Godzilla, and
thought they killed it. But then all of a sudden Godzilla comes back and has
another monster doing battle with him. Joseph’s wife dies, and not Ford’s may
as well. This is why a character, Yuri Tachibana in GODZILLA, MOTHRA, KING
GHIDORAH: GIANT MONSTERS ALL OUT ATTACK was recording everything with her
handycam.
The theme of this film, as stated by the filmmakers and in a
piece of dialogue from the new trailer is that nature cannot be tamed, and
since we act within nature, we have to deal with the natural effects of our
actions, its not just the humans our politicians have to handle. Nature spews
out creatures which level the odds between itself and the humans that oppose
it, along with humans being subject to “what goes around, comes around”.
You read that here first, I would think.
