Man oh man, but I do love Godzilla.
I’d say it’s a guilty secret, except that I have no guilt and I don’t keep it a secret by any means. I get a very deep sense of well-being and satisfaction when I see a Godzilla movie. Any Godzilla movie… except the one made by that dude who did Independence Day.
See, to me, Godzilla represents the very primal force of the Earth itself. He / she / it is a guardian dragon in the classic sense, whether the beast is portrayed as the villain or hero of any particular movie.
So when I see that majestic, slow, lumbering saurian crest the waves, or loom over a hilltop, or stride through a cityscape, I am very willing to suspend my disbelief… in fact, if Godzilla and the other giant monsters of the Toho mythology existed in this world, I actually believe it would be a better place.
Is that crazy, actually wishing for a world where physically impossible monsters could rise out of the ocean, or a volcano, or fly in from space, at any moment and do more damage than any weapon of mass destruction made by human hands?
Not so much. Think of Godzilla as a nuclear deterrent that is not controlled by any of man’s nations. A living weapon of the Earth that stands eternally in the wings, ready to lumber onstage when we humans get too full of ourselves, too damaging, or too disrespectful of the gifts we’ve been given.
What kind of world would that be?
Would the Soviet Union and the United States have danced their Armageddon dance for so long, knowing that Godzilla could unilaterally insure their destruction at any moment? Would there even need to be such a thing as the Kyoto Accords to control global warming, when Godzilla would break free of the first melting iceberg and march into the industrial world, a stern and unstoppable slap in the face of the First World?
Would there be terrorists, when a four hundred foot bipedal lizard with atomizing breath loomed more real and more immediate than any of Abraham’s gods?
I’m just sayin’, y’know?
Something to think about.
Postscript: Think about it, I have. And a few years later, I wrote my first Daikaju Universe short story, “Reggie vs. Kaiju Storm Chimera Wolf,” which (among other things) explores the concept of kaiju as universal forces of inscrutable justice. Give it a read for just $0.99!