The trailer for Godzilla: King of the Monsters was unveiled at Comic-Con, and quickly ignited a hype explosion. The film boasts a stellar cast, beautiful visuals, and a story that explores environmental apocalypse, which seems depressingly appropriate.
Godzilla was first conceived nine years after the atom bomb was dropped on Japan, and the gargantuan, immensely destructive beast perfectly personified the fear of nuclear annihilation. The kaiju we see nowadays, or rather, “Titans,” seeing as Pacific Rim stole that word, represent our modern-day environmental anxieties. While we’re all excited to see Eleven and Tywin Lannister on the big screen, the monsters are the real stars of this story.
Godzilla has had many friends, foes, and frenemies over the decades, and King of the Monsters has chosen three fan-favorites – let’s take a look at who the thick-thighed lizard is going to be up against.
Mothra
As a fluffy, colorful, oversized moth, Mothra couldn’t be more distinct from her scaly, spiky brethren. She’s peaceful, pretty, and one of the most popular kaiju of all time, often depicted as an immensely powerful adversary.
While many of the kaiju tend to be aggressors, attacking cities and other beasts without provocation, Mothra is seen as a benevolent behemoth, a force for good. Details of her origin and purpose change depending on the story, but generally, Mothra is a protector, a peaceful creature forced into violence.
She often protects her birthplace, Infant Island, Japan, or the Earth itself, fighting against Godzilla, or beside him, depending on how much of an asshole Godzilla is being. In King of the Monsters, she appears to be imbued with an ethereal blue glow, and dwells inside a Chinese rainforest rather than Infant Island.
Origin
Rather than an irradiated mutant, Mothra is actually an ancient goddess worshipped by the inhabitants of Infant Island, and sometimes represented by two little twin fairies who speak on her behalf, which are probably not going to appear in King of the Monsters because they’ve aged terribly.
Like the Phoenix, Mothra goes through an eternal cycle of death and rebirth, emerging from her egg as a giant larva which must cocoon before she can become Mothra.
Abilities
Despite her soft, flappy wings, Mothra can achieve supersonic flight, fire lasers from her antenna, shoot webs from her mouth, stingers from her thorax, and drop shiny scales from her wings that reflect opponent’s projectiles back toward them.
She might be fuzzy and adorable, but she’s armed to the teeth, or rather, the proboscis.
Rodan
Rodan is an enormous flying reptile, similar to a pterodactyl, technically an irradiated pteranodon. Rodan was originally depicted as a species, before settling into a singular personality. His appearance varies quite a bit, depending on the film, but generally, he’s pretty clumsy looking.
While Godzilla was viewed as an embodiment of the American nuclear threat, Rodan is representative of the same fear originating from the Soviet Union.
Origin
While Rodan is supposed to be a pteranodon, awakened after millions of years and engorged by radiation, he doesn’t really look like a dinosaur – he’s kind of his own man-bird-reptile-thing. In his first movie appearance, two Rodan emerged from a volcano, disturbed by mining operations, and attacked the local city. Both Rodans died in that story, but seeing as one Rodan returned to the Godzilla cinematic universe, it’s assumed that one of the creatures survived, offscreen.
Rodan’s origin looks to have been tweaked slightly, and now the creature appears to have magma flowing through his body, seemingly having become part of the volcano. This fits with the theme of environmental destruction, as Rodan has become one of the elements, a living embodiment of volcanic eruption.
Abilities
Rodan can also fly at supersonic speed (kaiju are extremely aerodynamic, apparently), and can produce shockwaves just by flapping his wings. He’s also immune to Godzilla’s atomic breath, and in one movie, could shoot purple radiation beams from his mouth, but that ability never made a reappearance.
King Ghidorah
King Ghidorah is a bit like the Thanos of the Godzilla universe, the big bad, and looks like something you’d summon during a particularly challenging Final Fantasy boss fight. The creature is almost always an extraterrestrial antagonist, and usually inspires the other kaiju to team up to defeat him.
While Ghidorah’s origin story varies wildly across the films, his appearance remains consistent as a golden, limbless, three-headed dragon with bat-like wings. Ghidorah was assumed to represent the nuclear threat of China, but that was never an intentional design choice; Ghidorah’s appearance was in fact inspired by Yamata no Orochi, a legendary Japanese dragon with eight heads.
That being said, a giant golden dragon is rather evocative of China, and the nation had just acquired nuclear weapons at the time of Ghidorah’s debut, so the association wasn’t too far off the mark.
Origin
Ghidorah’s origins can get pretty weird and wacky, but the most widely-accepted version is that he is an ancient destroyer of worlds who dwells beyond the stars, and usually heads to Earth to destroy it – he’s rather like a Dragon Ball Z supervillain.
While the great dragon is immensely powerful, he isn’t the smartest kaiju, and is often falls victim to mind-control and manipulation. He’s a super weapon, exploited by others for nefarious purposes. But even if he’s acting on his own behalf, his goal is usually the same – destroy the planet.
His origin in King of the Monsters is currently unknown, but the official website describes him as an “extinction event,” meaning he could be interpreted as an alien menace, or a natural force of destruction acting on behalf of the planet.
Abilities
King Ghidorah is massive, towering over Godzilla, and his scales are extremely durable. Like Rodan, the creature is capable of supersonic flight and can cause havoc with a flap of his wings, even able to generate hurricanes.
His signature ability is to shoot “gravity beams” from each of his three mouths, which look and act a lot like lightning bolts. He’s also been seen forming a protective energy shield around his body, or sometimes a rocky meteorite, which he uses to transport himself between planets.
I don’t know about you, but I’m hugely excited at the idea of seeing these creatures rendered in modern-day CGI, duking it out over a destroyed cityscape; we’ve come a long way indeed from rubber costumes.
