There are plenty of big franchises, but there’s nothing like Godzilla. The king of Kaiju brings monster mayhem with themes of man’s propensity for destruction to the silver screen.
Now, it’s back again.
The new film is called Godzilla Minus One, and it’s getting rave reviews from fans and critics alike. But why is it called Minus One, of all things?
Godzilla Minus One is titled so because the king of Kaiju brings a post-war Japan suffering from the effects of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings to a new low. When Japan lost everything in the war, it was at a zero. Godzilla’s destruction pushes the nation to a ‘Minus One.’
Explained: The Title of Godzilla Minus One
Godzilla Minus One is the 37th film in the franchise, and it’s the 33rd installment made by Toho. In the Godzilla Reiwa era, it’s currently the eighth film.
Written, directed, and produced by Takashi Yamazaki, the film currently holds a 98% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes after 44 reviews. Everyone online who has seen the movie is raving about it.
But some people are confused about the title. After all, why is it called “Minus One”?
This is because Godzilla Minus One is set in post-war Japan, which is recovering from the effects of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So the country is at an all-time low- a zero, so to speak.
When Godzilla wreaks havoc and flattens cities, the creature brings the nation to less than zero, which is minus one. In a July 11, 2023, Forbes interview, the President of Toho International, Koji Ueda, said:
“The concept is that Japan, which had already been devastated by the war, faces a new threat with Godzilla, bringing the country into the ‘minus.’”
However, there’s another fan theory going around. The new film is plotwise set before the original 1954 black-and-white film in the timeline of the Godzilla films. The first film, in some ways, is Godzilla Zero. So, the latest film is the ‘minus one.’
Godzilla has always been a symbol of the nuclear age. So, keeping the title ‘Minus One’ aligns with the monster’s origins.
In an interview with NPR, William Tsutsui, the author of “Godzilla On My Mind: 50 Years Of The King Of The Monsters,” elaborated on this theme that’s concurrent with the Kaiju:
“Godzilla was very much born with the nuclear age. The original film came out in Japan in 1954 and was very much inspired by the atomic bombings of 1945 and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the lingering traumas in Japanese society and in the Japanese psyche about those events.”
He further said that the H-bomb testing particularly inspired Godzilla. As per Tsutsui:
“But even more proximately, it was inspired by American H-bomb testing in the South Pacific – hence, the narrative in the movie that Godzilla is a dinosaur left over from the Jurassic age that is rendered monstrous and destructive by radiation.”
Also, the author explained that Godzilla was always meant to be an outside threatening force, like the U.S. He said:
“There are a lot of metaphors you can use for Godzilla. The makers describe Godzilla as being death, as being fear incarnate. But clearly, there was this threat of Godzilla being an outside force that was threatening to Japan.”
Godzilla Minus One is currently in theaters.
Did you watch Godzilla Minus One? How would you compare it to the previous installments? Does the film justify its title?
Let us know in the comments below.
