Shin Godzilla vs. Godzilla Minus One: Movie vs. Movie Issue #10

 

Shin Godzilla (2016) vs. Godzilla Minus One (2023): Which is the Better Toho Godzilla Reboot?

Movie vs. Movie Issue #10

 

It’s been satisfying to hear so many people talking positively about Godzilla in the wake of Toho’s newest film, Godzilla Minus One, but something that has been rather upsetting is the recent online discourse surrounding the previous film, Shin Godzilla—and not just that film, but all previous Godzilla films, really, are being talked about badly by many people in the wake of the new one. All of a sudden Godzilla Minus One has been crowned the best Godzilla film ever (by some) which automatically turned the discussions of older films in the franchise into cesspools of negativity.

Shin Godzilla was successful when it came out in 2016, and fans embraced it along with many critics. Now, instead of just comparing the two fundamentally different reboots to the series, Shin Godzilla is being discussed as if it’s a piece of crap compared to Godzilla Minus One, largely due to something called recency bias (newer thing seems better than old thing, essentially). I re-watched the original 1954 Gojira, The Return of Godzilla, and Shin Godzilla very recently, amid having seen Godzilla Minus One twice in theaters in December.

Pitting the two movies against each other will seem controversial to some, but I’m really only doing this to celebrate both films and as a fun way to determine which movie I personally enjoyed more. I want to compare Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One and break both films down to see which aspects of each film were, in my opinion, better, because both stand out in the franchise as the only two times Godzilla was fully rebooted in his native Japan.

The 1998 and 2014 American Godzilla films can’t be compared to the original Japanese films, and The Return of Godzilla, despite being a reboot of the series, is actually more of a reboot sequel, because it follows the 1954 original but ignores all movies that followed and was set in what was then modern day, thirty years after the original. Shin Godzilla was the first reboot from Toho, ignoring all films (and other monsters) including the original, and Godzilla Minus One once again does the same. Both filmmakers had very different approaches to the concept, but both clearly understood what makes Godzilla, well, Godzilla, and both films are deserving of high praise. Since Godzilla Minus One is still so new, I’ll put a spoiler warning here that I will be spoiling everything about both movies.

 

Plot

Shin: Godzilla appears in his first form right away, and a collection of politicians assemble to figure out how to deal with this unexpected disaster. In a way, it takes the often repeated story beats of having Godzilla or another monster be a problem and a room full of experts try to figure out what to do and cranks it up to 11. Most of the movie is about people gathering in board rooms to figure out what the threat is and how to stop it. When put like that, it makes it sound boring and bad, but it’s neither of those things.

For the first time in a long time, Shin Godzilla was a story about what would happen if Godzilla showed up in the real world, and how the government would deal with it. There are no maser cannons or flying super weapons or extraterrestrials. The grounded approach to this outlandish idea really works because it discards all that baggage of previous movies. No person in this world has seen anything like Godzilla before, and no one really knows how to effectively deal with it. The political undertones and overtones dominate the story, with every single person given a title or position to demonstrate their “importance” in saving everyone from the monster. I didn’t get this the first couple times I watched it, but this is meant to be a comment on how no one’s job title matters, because all these people, despite their expertise, can save the city.

The suspense builds effectively in the first act as Godzilla comes ashore, causes some initial destruction and leaves, then returns in a larger form and is attacked by the Japanese Self Defense Force. It’s fairly standard stuff that’s been done many times before, but the modernization of the military attacks and the city damage make it feel less like we’ve seen this all before and more like it’s a new scale and vision of destruction. Then Godzilla does something new, surprising, and totally devastating in the middle of the movie, which propels us into the third act. The task force put in charge of researching Godzilla develops a plan to inject the monster with a coagulating agent and freeze it using tankers in order to avoid the alternative plan of having nuclear weapons used against it.

Though it follows familiar story beats, Shin Godzilla embraces the usually dry, dialogue-heavy scenes of people talking in rooms and makes them realistic and compelling, thanks to the diverse cast and interesting direction. Even though there is still action and excitement, Shin Godzilla does not insert unnecessary destruction or diverting scenes with side characters. It maintains a focus on the politicians and experts working together to solve the problem, and never loses sight of being constantly about Godzilla and how it affects Japan in multiple ways.

Minus One: Like in Shin, Godzilla appears in his first form quite early, when kamikaze pilot Koichi Shikishima lands his plane on Odo Island near the end of WWII. Koichi hesitates to shoot the monster and it kills nearly everyone on the island, then he goes back home to Tokyo, but it is in ruins from the bombings and his parents are dead. He takes in a woman named Noriko and an infant girl she rescued named Akiko, then gets a job as a minesweeper. A few years later, Koichi and his team are tasked with stalling Godzilla’s approach to Japan, and Koichi discovers the monster has grown much larger and more powerful since Odo Island (unbeknownst to them, due to the radiation from the Castle Bravo nuclear test in the Pacific).

It’s not long before Godzilla makes landfall and attacks Ginza, where Noriko is working, so Koichi tries to rescue her, but Godzilla’s attack annihilates the city and Noriko is hit by the blast wave from Godzilla’s atomic breath. Koichi now has a personal vendetta to bring down Godzilla, and works with his minesweeper team and a bunch of civilians to formulate a plan to destroy the monster. Koichi flies a reconstructed plane from the war to lure Godzilla into Sagami Bay, where they sink it to the depths using Freon gas, then inflate a giant balloon to bring it back to the surface and hopefully see it destroyed by the pressure change. Koichi flies his plane into Godzilla’s mouth and detonates a bomb, literally blowing the monster’s head off and causing it to crumble. After Godzilla’s defeat, Koichi, who managed to survive, goes home to Akiko, and discovers Noriko survived the Ginza attack and is recovering in the hospital.

Godzilla Minus One goes against the normal Godzilla story formula in one big way: it is primarily from the perspective of citizens, not scientists or government officials or politicians. The whole thing is not just a revenge tale, either. It captures post-war Japan very effectively, and that’s another way Minus One is different: no Godzilla movie has taken place this far back in history since Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991) and in that movie it was only for part of the story. The story is really about this man finding a surrogate family and learning to cope with the traumas of war and loss and guilt, and the way the characters are connected to the monster make Godzilla integral to the story, but the audience is given time to know the characters before they come together to save Japan and defeat the monster. 

 

Verdict: Both films pay their respects to the 1954 original (and many other later films), and do so in some similar ways. Just to name one, Odo Island is mentioned in Shin Godzilla as being the origin place of the monster’s name, and it’s also the setting for Godzilla’s emergence in Minus One in the first part of the film. This fictional island plays a big part in the initial discovery of Godzilla in the original. What it comes down to here is a matter of preference: do you want a richer story about the rise of a monster and a nation’s efforts to stop it, or do you want a simpler story about some characters whose lives become affected by the rise of a monster and their personal efforts to stop it?

I will probably state something like this for each section, but let me make it clear that I think the stories for both films, however different, are very well told and accomplish their respective goals. Shin Godzilla is simple in a different way from how Godzilla Minus One is simple. Shin Godzilla’s story manages to cover the origins of Godzilla, the actions, reactions, thought processes, and consequences of many characters, and the defeat of Godzilla in under two hours, and does so effectively. In this way, it very much feels like a modern day version of the 1954 original. Godzilla Minus One spans multiple years and tells the story of one man’s life, exploring the other people in his life, and the monster, in an era quite different from the original, despite being set only a few years earlier.

If I use just the logic part of my brain, I think Shin Godzilla’s story is better because it’s a more calculated version of the traditional Godzilla story that doesn’t miss a beat and somehow still makes it feel new and original, but I have to go with my heart and say I enjoyed Godzilla Minus One’s story more because I was into it for more than just the Godzilla destruction or the spectacle. Shin Godzilla builds to the second act well, but then loses a bit of steam in the third act, and concludes with a pretty far-fetched plan to stop Godzilla. Minus One builds and builds until it reaches the conclusion, in which I wanted to see the plan to stop Godzilla work, not just for the sake of Japan but for the characters I had come to like over the course of the two hour runtime. I have to give the point to Godzilla Minus One, even though the story does not go as deep in some regards as Shin Godzilla and is more traditionally structured.

 

Characters

Shin: Even with the Godzilla movies that prioritize monster action over human drama, there are usually a few main characters who lead the plot, but Shin Godzilla breaks this mold despite being an otherwise pretty straightforward reboot. It’s not that there aren’t main characters, but there are a lot of characters, and only a few of them are given much development (if any). There’s Yaguchi, the Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary, who is what I would call the protagonist, then there’s also Akasaka, Aide to the Prime Minister of Japan, and Kayoco Patterson, Special Envoy for the President of the United States, who is Japanese but speaks several lines in English since her character has a connection to the US.

None of these characters are everyday people. There are a couple scientists, but the majority of the cast are political figures. The intention was to take inspiration from the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and the Tohoku Earthquake/tsunami, demonstrating the government’s inability to take effective action in the wake of disaster, and that’s why characters like these dominate the story. The actors do a good job, and everyone comes off as very believable, however not many characters stand out as particularly unique or memorable or sympathetic for these reasons. 

Minus One: Notice how much more I talked about the characters in the plot part for Minus One compared to Shin? That’s because it is a much more character focused story. I didn’t even mention that Koichi suffers from survivor’s guilt after he opted out of killing himself in the war the way kamikaze pilots were supposed to, which is then compounded when he fails to shoot Godzilla on Odo Island and survives while most others do not. Koichi is a terrific main character and the actor Ryunosuke Kamiki does a great job in the role (despite some overacting at times), but the supporting characters are just as endearing. I heard more people single out the character of “Doc” than any other as being just so damn likable and cool, which is rare in a Godzilla movie, to be honest.

Given that it’s so character focused, I would have liked to have gotten to know Noriko a bit better. She shows up while being chased by some people, and then just becomes part of Koichi’s life, but there isn’t much insight into where she came from or what she’s really like, it’s mostly focused on Koichi. That being said, there aren’t too many characters, and all of them feel like they serve a purpose in being there. The relationship between Koichi and the mechanic Tachibana was interesting, but the dynamic of the surrogate family at the core of the story is what really makes the character drama work better than it does in most Godzilla movies. 

 

Verdict: I can’t imagine there’s too much disagreement here that the characters in Godzilla Minus One are overall better than the characters in Shin Godzilla. While it could be argued that Shin’s characters feel more like real people and fit in the world of that film perfectly, I think the time Minus One spends in developing the relationships between them and seeing them change over time and through experiences is why they make a bigger impression on the story they are in. I’m giving the point to Minus One. 

 

Monster

Shin: The other most important character aside from the human main characters is Godzilla himself—or should I say itself? Although Godzilla is traditionally identified as male, this version is much less anthropomorphic and more of a mysterious organism than a radiated dinosaur. That being said, it still adheres to the recognizable Godzilla silhouette and behaviours...eventually.

Initially, Godzilla (or ShinGoji, as it’s technically known) has a very different form that looks like a deformed deep sea creature with large googly eyes, residual arms, and gills gushing blood. It mutates and grows in size, looking a bit more like what's expected, and then when it comes back later in the film it’s in a form that’s recognizably Godzilla: a bipedal monster with dorsal spines and a long tail. The body also glows red with exposed flesh and the head/jaws unhinge when it opens its mouth to expel its atomic breath, which begins as smoke that ignites into flames and eventually concentrates into a purple beam. Its tail appears skinless at the tip, which is a cool detail, and comes into play later, showing the ability to fire its own atomic beam, for the tip of the tail is also an undeveloped head. ShinGoji can also fire atomic energy from its dorsal spines like lasers, and when all three of these attacks are going at once, this is possibly the most powerful and most dangerous form of Godzilla ever seen.

The details on ShinGoji are excellent. The atomic beam it fires is so powerful it seems to struggle with controlling which direction to point it. It even has nictitating lenses that cover its eyes when attacking or when under attack. The way its skin looks is true to the original Godzilla’s design while also making it new and yet still drawing on the same origins for why 1954’s Godzilla had the skin that he did: to resemble the burns that victims of the atomic bombs were left with. This Godzilla is still a product of mutation from nuclear radiation, but it is theorized to be a deep sea creature from prehistoric times, and has evolved to mutate in order to survive.

Minus One: Godzilla has a more traditional origin and appearance in this film compared to ShinGoji. In the opening scene on Odo Island we see Godzillasaurus, which is the un-mutated form of the monster that resembles a giant dinosaur. This Godzilla (MinusGoji) is later mutated by the Castle Bravo nuclear weapon test in the Pacific, and when we see it again, it looks most similar to the Heisei era Godzilla design, but with bigger spines, and skin more similar to the American MonsterVerse version. Unlike ShinGoji, MinusGoji does not mutate beyond exposure to radiation, and has instantaneous regenerative abilities. It is also not as large, nearly matching the height of the original Godzilla, at 50 metres.

When it comes to the atomic breath, it’s not devastating in the same way as ShinGoji’s, but still more powerful than most past iterations of Godzilla. It is such a powerful blast that it detonates like an atomic bomb when it hits its target, complete with a blast wave and everything, and scorches Godzilla itself, which means it can’t just use the beam as a steady stream of attack. One of the biggest differences with this Godzilla is its malice against humans. While ShinGoji wades through buildings and is impervious to nearly all military attacks until bombs blast through its dorsal spines (then it retaliates with its atomic breath and beams), for the most part it doesn’t really seem to notice or care about humans, and is so big (the second tallest version ever) that it doesn’t affect people on the human scale, instead acting more as a walking natural disaster. MinusGoji purposefully attacks people, goes out of its way to destroy ships, and then goes ashore for an intentional bout of destruction.

Godzilla Minus One makes Godzilla a bad guy again in a different way from how Shin Godzilla does. ShinGoji is an unpredictable mutating monstrosity, but MinusGoji is a mean, angry monster, and it has a constant connection to the main character, which strengthens its role as the villain. 

 

Verdict: The name is right there in the title. Of course the depiction of Godzilla matters, but this once again comes down to personal preference. Do you find the mutating overpowered version of the king of the monsters scarier, or do you find the smaller, more traditional version scarier? Are you a bigger fan of a different, more extreme design, or a more familiar design? Do you like purple atomic breath or blue atomic breath?

The details of the design come down to semantics, really, but I have to conclude that I prefer the look of MinusGoji. ShinGoji is unique and awesome, but those beady eyes and that lack of expression in the face are what bring it down a bit for me. MinusGoji is one of my favourite designs ever. It has a better balance of the best features from the best designs, and I always like when the dorsal spines are larger. I’m giving the point to Minus One based on the final forms only, but again, both are great, and if this were based on creative reinvention, ShinGoji would win.

 

Special Effects

Shin: Beyond just the monster, Shin Godzilla updates the visual effects for the 2010s in some significant ways. The Toho films in the 2000s utilized plenty of CGI, but still relied heavily on miniature effects and actors in suits to portray the monsters. Shin Godzilla primarily relies on CGI to create the destruction, many of the vehicles, and Godzilla itself. When Godzilla first comes ashore and swamps the streets with boats and watery wreckage, it looks almost exactly like the real documentation of the 2011 tsunami—not a coincidence, and quite impressive. All the destruction, from the buildings falling to the vehicles being smashed, is well done, especially considering Toho isn’t exactly working with a Hollywood-sized budget.

As impressive as the CGI is, though, it isn’t always consistent. Some shots of Godzilla look incredibly realistic, but some shots just don’t look quite right. There are moments of close-up CGI on things like trains and tanks and even Godzilla itself (mainly the first form) that don’t hold up, and there are a few detectable errors, so as good as the visual effects are, I would not say they are consistent throughout. 

Minus One: Godzilla moves quite differently in this movie because it is smaller and different in posture and proportions. It isn’t just because of the different design, but that factor largely contributes to Godzilla looking more realistic overall and remaining consistently convincing every time it appears on screen. The visual effects also work to create an immersive post-war setting, never once feeling like modern Japan trying to be passed off as the 1940s. There isn’t quite as much city destruction as in Shin Godzilla, but when it does happen, it looks extremely good. The details of people getting squished and metal warping in a realistic way all adds to the believability. Not every shot is flawless, but the general level of special effects is high and remains more consistent from one scene to the next. 

 

Verdict: In both cases, these are the only Toho Godzilla films to feature an entirely CGI Godzilla, and both of them manage to make Godzilla look and feel like there’s still a man in the suit, but in a good way—in the sense of still having a convincing element of realism in something totally fantastical. It’s a little unfair to just give Minus One the point since it has the automatic advantage of having been made more recently, but I think even beyond that, the overall visual design for Minus One is still a bit above Shin.

 

Music

Shin: The music is varied while also pulling from the Godzilla score archives. The new music by Shiro Sagisu goes from epic and orchestral to a whole choir singing haunting sounds that’s reminiscent of the children’s choir from Gojira, to tracks with heavy metal guitar and other tracks that perfectly fit with an apocalyptic scenario. Some of the tracks are from Akira Ifukube’s original score for Gojira, and most of them have not been used in any Godzilla movies since the original. The music was not remastered or re-recorded, meaning it sounds a little different from the new music because it’s in mono audio, but it gives the soundtrack an even wider range and emphasizes certain Godzilla scenes in new ways from how the tracks originally did.

Minus One: Naoki Sato recomposed the original “Godzilla March” and cranked up its intensity with an even faster tempo. I’m sorry, Bear McCreary, but I think Naoki Sato outdid himself with an updated version of the original theme. I still love Bear McCreary’s score for 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters and respect that he composed a score that sounds perfectly like a modern version of Ifukube’s original, but Sato’s has even more energy, and to compare them, Sato’s sounds more effortlessly epic, whereas McCreary’s sounds like it’s trying too hard to sound epic. Comparisons to that American Godzilla score aside, Sato’s soundtrack also includes a new theme that is uniquely intense and very memorable, plus tracks that have slow, ambient sounds that perfectly add to the unnerving feeling in the film and other tracks that capture the epic terror of the monster. 

 

Verdict: Either film deserves the point, really, because both soundtracks accomplish exactly what any good soundtrack should: they enhance the film and sound incredible just to listen to the music on their own, but when played in accompaniment of their respective movies, they fit perfectly. It’s a very close one, but at the end of the day I have to pick the score that I find bolder and more dynamic, so the point goes to Shin Godzilla.

 

Final Three Factors

Sound Effects: Both movies re-use the original Godzilla roar sound effect. In Shin, it sounds almost exactly the same as in the 1954 original—that is, like a mono audio clip. I incorrectly stated in my Godzilla Minus One review that all the roars in Shin are like this, but that isn’t true. When the third form of Godzilla throws its head back and roars before retreating to the ocean, the roar has a much deeper quality to it than the original, and for its final roar before being frozen the roar from 1984’s The Return of Godzilla is used, which is a nice touch. As for Godzilla Minus One, the roar is kept the same yet also updated by being given more distortion and significantly more bass. Not only is the roar better in Minus One, the overall sound design is superior. Not that Shin Godzilla has a bad sound design, but those mono tracks/sound effects do not have the same impact as the equivalent tracks/sound effects from Minus One, and all the sounds of the guns and missiles and destruction, while perfectly good in their own right, are still not as good. The way the sound is mixed in Minus One is also excellent. It might be the best sounding Godzilla movie ever.

Action: Neither of these movies are what I would classify as action movies, in the same way I would not classify the 1954 Gojira as an action movie, either. Shin Godzilla went back to the horror roots of the monster and played it straight, and Minus One did the same, but also injected more terror and made Godzilla even meaner. While I think Minus One has some fantastic moments of action, with the minesweeper chase standing out in particular as one of the most suspenseful scenes from any Godzilla movie, I think Shin actually has a bit of a better balance with action and drama. There is more city destruction, the level of destruction is far more devastating and surprising, and Godzilla is shown just enough. Minus One is focused on the human drama, but never forgets Godzilla, either, showing the monster just enough as well, and every time the main character witnesses Godzilla’s wrath it is impactful. For once, I’m going to give both films a point, because I can’t decide which one was more successful with the action. Both films used it sparingly and made it all effective and memorable, and because of the different focus each film has, the action feels right in both cases.  

Ending: I have to mention the very end of both movies, because both essentially have a “happy” ending. Yeah, many people died because of Godzilla, but the monster is defeated at the end and the main character seems hopeful about the future. In Shin, Yaguchi and Patterson have one last flirtatious conversation, then he looks out at Godzilla’s frozen body in the distance, and in Minus One, Koichi reunites with Noriko in the hospital, his war finally over. But, both endings tease that the horror is not over. Shin ends with showing humanlike creatures sprouting from Godzilla’s tail: the monster’s final mutation stopped dead in its tracks, for now. Minus One ends with a fragment of the disintegrated Godzilla reforming in the depths of the ocean.

I love both endings, but I think they were both going for the same thing, and Shin did it better. The precise shots of Godzilla frozen in place, without any music or sound at all, ending with the camera moving up the length of its tail showing the terrifying mutated forms emerging from it, then hard cutting to credits with the classic “Godzilla March” playing immediately hits hard and is quite an unsettling way to leave off. The shot of Godzilla’s reanimating flesh in Minus One is cool, but the shot isn’t as impressive, and the music is the recomposed “Godzilla March” but it’s a bit overdone—not just overly dramatic, but also it had already been used earlier in the movie. So, I think Shin Godzilla has the better concluding shot, and therefore gets the point.

 

Conclusion: It has been a very interesting exercise in deconstructing both of these films against one another. This might be my favourite entry in my movie versus movie series that I’ve done so far. Shin Godzilla scored 3 points, but Godzilla Minus One scored 6, which doesn’t really reflect how tough it was to compare them. I’m not surprised Minus One outscored Shin since I did enjoy it more, but I enjoy both films, and I hope that’s the takeaway from this whole thing. It’s not that Godzilla Minus One is better overall than Shin Godzilla, per say, but in some ways I think it is better, and in other ways it’s not as good. Both movies are significant for returning to Godzilla’s roots as a horror movie monster that threatens Japan, stripping away the cheesy sci-fi trimmings of the majority of the sequels and the monster brawls that came to define the series, and bringing the filmmaking techniques fully into the 21^st century with CGI that, at times, matches the high Hollywood standards. Both films contributed to making what I would call the real Godzilla relevant again amid Hollywood’s MonsterVerse version, and are crucial reminders that even when Hollywood succeeds in making a good Godzilla movie, nobody can do one like Toho.