Rey Schaffner
Contributing Writer
rls6117@psu.edu

“Godzilla”, ever since the monster’s debut film in 1954, Godzilla has seen major transformations not only in terms of design, but in terms of the direction of some films, the movies are one of the longest running franchises that is still continued to this day. 69 years, going to be 70 in November, Godzilla’s franchise has not only given viewers a wonderful display of what the character is capable of doing and fighting, but has shown viewers a deeper and sometimes darker message.

It all starts back when the debut film came out nearly 10 years after WWII. Every fan knows that Godzilla has roots in anti-nuclear messages, showing that because Godzilla was created of such a horrible means, nature has come back to bite humanity in the butt. Therefore,
giving off the consequences in the form of a giant radioactive lizard that has the capability
of being an entire atomic weapon itself. Even though some of the movies have taken a turn in the form of Godzilla facing off many other kaijus, such as Mechagodzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and many others, his original message still stands within some of the more serious and stand alone movies.

While Toho stopped producing Godzilla movies around 2004 with their final title known
as “Godzilla: Final Wars”, it would be over 10 years in which Toho produced another Godzilla movie. While Legendary studios took the helm and made a new Americanized version
of Godzilla, 2014 “Godzilla” brought him back to the big screen in a new light, but still covered the environmental messages the original 1954 “Godzilla” had. Instead of destroying humanity for creating him, Godzilla is now defending Earth from other creatures that seek its destruction. 2 years after the success of Legendary’s Godzilla, Toho decided it was
time to produce another Godzilla movie. 2016 was the year of “Shin Godzilla”, which took a darker twist on the monster, but was still rooted in the original movie’s environmental messages.

Despite a lot of transformations Godzilla has seen and many different iterations of the
iconic monster, the message of Godzilla still remains the same even after almost 70 years
since he was introduced to film. While some movie franchises struggle to keep character
iterations the same over time and sometimes even fail at portraying certain characters,
Godzilla’s franchise truly does show how a 70 year old monster movie about atomic weapons can still be watched and enjoyed to this day. Even in different iterations and sometimes Godzilla has seen to have comic crossovers where he fights some characters from DC, this giant lizard will continue to reign as King of the Monsters.