Gary To Doughy: Legacy Of Legendary's Godzilla Facelift

Gary to Doughy: Legacy of Legendary's Godzilla Facelift

With the first season of Monarch finished airing some lingering questions remain. The show partly served to bridge the gap between the grounded world of the 2014 film and the more fantastical later entries, but one interesting choice was to retain the 2014 design as Godzilla's canon appearance during the flashbacks.

However, as early as a year after his trip to San Francisco, Goji is already sporting his 2019 look despite sticking to the prior appearance for at least 60 years.

Note the wider, more splayed out dorsal fins. While the show does a ton of world building, why exactly Godzilla changed between walking into the sea and his sand bath in Algeria is left unsaid.

While unexplained changes in appearance are nothing new to Godzilla, 2019's new look went hand in hand with a substantial increase in size, despite Goji remaining a stable 108.2 meters for the last 60 years. With some exceptions (the First Mothra's radical senescent size decrease between 1961 and 1964), kaiju in the Godzilla series do tend to have some narrative justification for size changes (Heisei Godzilla's second dose of atomic radiation). When King of the Monsters originally came out I thought Godzilla's growth may have been in response to Serizawa's own nuclear boost, but in retrospect he begins the film near the 120 meter mark and remains that way versus Kong and beyond.

While it's not clear in the show whether the transition to Doughegoji came with the corresponding size boost (I won't claim to be able to distinguish 355 from 393 feet with no frame of reference), the new design's proportionately smaller head would imply some amount of growth, or else the Monsterverse Godzilla pulled a Biogoji and suffered a radical case of skull shrinkage. That said the head does appear to be somewhat larger in the show than 2019, which may suggest they were using an intermediate design rather than a straight jump from Garegoji to Doughegoji.

Another interesting point of comparison is the Atomic Breath seen in the show.

While it seems more substantial than in the 2014 film, its relatively subdued effect on the relatively lightly built Ion Dragon evokes its earlier performance more than the beefed up version seen in 2019. In any case it's a far cry from 2021's "Shin Godzilla, but Thick and Blue and Heteronormative".

I knew something was up when I saw 16 new posts on my Dashboard

Congratulations to Takashi Yamazaki and the entire effects time that worked on Godzilla: Minus One. It's amazing what they managed to accomplish with that low a budget, they definitely deserve that Oscar.

I only wish it wasn't confined to the technical awards gulag, but at least it cleared house once more at the Japanese Academy Awards.

Hey Wait a Minute

While I haven't read the novel myself, I remember reading that the original Mr. Hyde was actually closer to the Garwolf, in that Jekyll deliberately transforms into Hyde in order to act out his immoral impulses without fear of consequences, rather than it being purely involuntary like it is in many later tellings.

Who's your favorite of the classic universal monsters and why? (based solely on their portrayals in the universal movies, sequels and crossovers included, not their original book counterparts.)

The Wolf Man, because the character was both written and performed so well that he basically redefined what werewolves are in Western culture. None of the other Universal monsters can claim that impact, and since they never recast him, he also remains the most consistently well characterized and acted monster from film to film. Dracula and Frankenstein got their characters shaved down in sequel after sequel, but Lon Chaney Jr. made sure Larry Talbot was never less than his best.

Godzilla Minus One

If I had a nickel for every post New Century Toho Godzilla film with an inciting incident involving failure to fire an aircraft cannon at a potentially vulnerable early form of Godzilla, I would have two nickels. If I had a nickel for every post 2000 Toho Godzilla film ending with an internally injured Godzilla torn apart by its own atomic breath, only for a remaining piece in the depths of the ocean to show signs of life, I would also have two nickels. Bonus points (pennies?) for criticism of Imperial Japan and a heat ray that recreates the effects of the atomic bombings. Jokes aside, this movie was excellent. A return to basics yet bristling with themes and character depth, not just good kaiju eiga but great cinema in general. If it doesn't take the number 1 spot for best Godzilla films of all time, its definitely in the top 3.

The chances of this are low but never zero considering del Toro's interests.

Obviously I'm excited for Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein film for Netflix, but I'm also thinking ahead.

I want to see a giant Jacob Elordi fight Baragon at the foot of Mt. Fuji in the sequel.