CM McCambridge
Far from the fun antics that became the Showa era Godzilla films, the Heisei era, a period of Japanese history beginning in 1989 with the ascension of Emperor Emeritus Akihito, brought with it a much more serious tone. With the titular Godzilla once again becoming a force of nature, its days as a fun-loving mascot were over, once again invoking the aggressiveness and intensity of the original film.
Beginning in 1984 with Koji Hashimoto’s The Return of Godzilla, the Heisei era took on a much more serious tone, with a greater focus placed on the way humanity survives in a world with multiple giant rampaging beasts afoot. Not to be outdone by the spectacle of multi-participant fights in the Showa era, the Heisei era developed a bit of a gimmick of its own with each kaiju obtaining some kind of second form before the final showdown. While there may not be as many monsters on screen as in Destroy All Monsters (Honda, 1968), the new forms present in each film still give audiences something to behold.
Keeping with the themes of the original film, the Heisei era really seems to focus on its metaphors, with Godzilla never entering mascot territory but staying, at least loosely, as representative of nuclear weapons. This can be applied everywhere, to such a degree that it becomes almost unmissable. Given how this era began in the last breaths of the Cold War, this interpretation seems to make sense, using a familiar metaphor to address the world as it had been for decades.
Unlike the Showa era, a love letter doesn’t quite seem fitting here. Rather, a recognition of this interpretation and the development of the franchise feels in order. The growth and maturity of the Heisei era is something to be appreciated, as much as it may have lost some of the fun of the films before. While there is plenty to love, with the advances in writing in the series, it would nearly come across as unkind to approach this era with the same simplicity.
The Return of Godzilla (1984, dir. Koji Hashimoto)
Ignoring every film since the 1954 original, Return became a bit of a return to form as well. While the original iteration of the monster was a clear representation of nuclear weapons, this new version seemed to be more of a manifestation of Cold War tensions. With Godzilla’s return being kept secret by the Japanese government, and escalating things between the Soviets and Americans, it only makes sense for this iteration to be something more fitting for the times. Even after Godzilla’s return is made known, the Soviets and Americans still insist on solving the issue with nuclear weapons, something the Japanese government refuses to do.
Such a return to form with the franchise is refreshing, especially after so many years of a vastly different tone. It only makes sense for Godzilla to both encapsulate and escalate Cold War tensions and seeing this update for a different era really hammers home just what the series is capable of doing. Even letting Godzilla nearly die only to be brought back by the use of nuclear weapons again ties in with this interpretation, showing that as long as they can be used in any capacity, the threat will remain.
It really feels telling that the answer to this issue in this time period is the newly developed Super X, a flying fortress designed specifically to counter nuclear warfare that has been equipped to combat Godzilla. Managing to more than hold its own, the Super X seems to be a reminder that even nuclear weapons can be countered with sufficiently advanced technology, rendering their development and hoarding a waste of valuable resources.
Fittingly, this film ends with Godzilla trapped inside a volcano, its own personal missile silo. In a myriad of ways, this new take on Godzilla seems as if it wants to come across as more scientific and fit for the modern age. Gone is much of the mysticism of the Showa era, replaced instead with an interpretation based on dinosaurs and nature. Godzilla even navigates through the planet’s magnetic field, making it more like birds, some of the dinosaur’s closest living relatives.
Godzilla vs Biollante (1989, dir. Kazuki Omori)
Picking up only hours after Return left off, Biollante brings an incredibly human story to this new era, something that nearly became a hallmark of it by the end. The idea of various groups hunting down the cells of Godzilla manages to add a lot of world-building to the series. Of course, anything that could be used to replicate even a fraction of the creature’s power would become a valuable resource, in the same way that nuclear weapons have been sought after by all sorts of organizations.
With new paramilitary organizations and the very much intentional disruption of the “Republic of Saradia,” a country attempting to move beyond relying on oil exports, it’s difficult to miss exactly what’s going on here. As the cells of Godzilla arrive there for research and to develop something new, so too do conflict and destruction.
This film also introduces extrasensory perception (ESP) to the series. Perhaps this too is meant to come across as a means of incorporating science, but it feels more like a nod to the Showa era craze of ESP, something especially prevalent in the 1960s. Introducing Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka) to the series, Biollante really manages to mix the fantastical with this standout member of the fictional Japan Psyonics Center. There’s no shot in these films that has stuck with me nearly as much as a group of children all holding up drawings of their visions, and every single one being Godzilla returning and attacking Japan.
The titular Biollante being a combination of nature, humankind, and Godzilla feels apt as the first creature to go up against Godzilla in this series. Starting as a method of both preserving life and cleaning up nuclear waste, Biollante really represents the possibilities of what could have been, had the science not been used as a form of counter-weapon. As is the case with nuclear research, there are endless possibilities that have instead largely gone towards weapons, with funding for anything else being laughable by comparison.
While Biollante is being created, the second answer to this issue comes on screen, the Super X2, following the former in Return. While still not perfect, the Super X2 once again is a means of fighting Godzilla without the use of nuclear technology, instead utilizing highly advanced weaponry to hold its own against the monster.
In a way, Biollante really manages to set up all the rest of the Heisei era. The second form Biollante gets is repeated in every other film, the idea of heating Godzilla comes back in full force at the end of this era, and the increased focus on ESP is prevalent in every Heisei film that followed. If Return was a thesis statement, Biollante was the abstract.
Godzilla vs King Ghidorah (1991, dir. Kazuki Omori)
Following the more realistic intrigue and geopolitics of Biollante, Ghidorah returns to some of the sci-fi of the Showa era, with a group of time-traveling “Futurians” coming back to dispose of Godzilla and ensure that King Ghidorah destroys Japan before it can become an economic superpower.
There’s something wonderful about seeing more of the sci-fi camp of those Showa-era films here. After Biollante’s more grounded tone, Ghidorah is filled with all kinds of fun and little nods– even including a character obviously meant to be Steven Spielberg’s father, who would later tell his son stories of the flying saucer he saw that would lead to films such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. Even more exciting than this pseudo return to form is the return of Miki Saegusa, who gets to grow in this world in parallel to Godzilla. Now working with the government to monitor Godzilla, Miki does take a little bit more of a backseat role in this film, but that’s not terribly unlike Godzilla, who is a victim of circumstance in many ways.
With a stated plan to erase Godzilla from existence via time travel, this film is making it clear that we can’t just ignore nuclear weapons or try to forget their history. Maybe this is a too in-depth reading, but given the more overt themes of the last two films, but it feels necessary. By erasing Godzilla from history, something even worse comes from it: King Ghidorah. Even then, Godzilla never truly goes away, only momentarily, and it comes back even stronger than before thanks to the newfound changes in its history. With Godzilla no longer being mutated by the dropping of the atomic bomb, Ghidorah takes its place, wreaking even greater havoc. Unbeknownst to all, however, is the fact that this new history leads to an even larger and more powerful Godzilla.
In some ways, it seems as if King Ghidorah is just as much representative of nuclear weapons as Godzilla is in this film. The development of one only leads to an escalation and a more powerful version of the other, something which happens both with the new form of Godzilla and the resurrected Mecha-King Ghidorah. The development of more destructive weapons did not deter anything but rather escalated it, leading to even more destructive weapons being created to stop that one, all to stop the possibility of future expansion.
Fittingly, neither Godzilla nor Mecha-King Ghidorah truly won. The film ends with them both in a near stalemate, and Mecha-King Ghidorah flying Godzilla out to sea. Although the latter would return, the film succinctly shows that no greater weapon is capable of acting as a true deterrent, only an inspiration for something even more destructive.
Godzilla vs Mothra (1992, dir. Takao Okawara)
Drawing quite a bit of clear inspiration from Indiana Jones, Mothra really is the most adventure-oriented film of the bunch. The instantly-lovable Takuya Fujito (Tetsuya Bessho) is a clear direct analog and really does steal the show more than he may have been intended to. Much like Ghidorah before it, Mothra brings back some elements from the Showa era, most notably Infant Island and the Cosmos, twin priestesses of Mothra.
The themes of Mothra are a little less obvious on first watch, but they seem to come across as an attempt at showing how tragedy, especially natural disasters, can escalate tensions. With a meteor initiating the plot, it does seem to make sense. The Heisei era, while starting with strong metaphors, gets a bit more murky as time goes on, not unlike the Showa era before it. Even then, the film ends with Mothra going off to prevent yet another meteor from crashing into the Earth, showing that the prevention and recovery from disasters is far more important than escalating tensions and warfare. Mothra even took this responsibility from Battra, showing greater collaboration to prevent disaster. This theme becomes even more apparent with the history presented to us, that Battra was born specifically to stop mankind from altering the weather and damaging the Earth.
Takuya is also made to collaborate to avoid disaster, dodging a long prison sentence for his thievery to instead lead an expedition to find Mothra’s egg on Infant Island. Just as humanity now has to keep Mothra safe, so too does Takuya need to keep those with him safe, something he nearly failed at on the expedition.
With Godzilla once again swimming through magma to travel from a fault between tectonic plates all the way to Mount Fuji, it erupts, and Godzilla fights with Battra and Mothra in new forms for one last grand showdown. Mothra and Battra manage to team up against Godzilla in spite of their own conflict, something which seems to hammer home this idea of collaboration in the face of disaster. Frankly, it would not be a huge leap of one’s imagination to see it as a response to Typhoon Yunya the year prior, or any number of other natural disasters around the same time period.
Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla II (1993, dir. Takao Okawara)
Created from the salvaged remains of Mecha-King Ghidorah, MechaGodzilla is arguably the most direct answer created to stop Godzilla in these films. Mankind’s own custom-made counterpart, complete with the same design, created from yet another creation designed to stop Godzilla.
However, MechaGodzilla serves a greater purpose than combat. This same film features Baby Godzilla, hatched from an egg in another nest not at all dissimilar to a cuckoo, once again solidifying the comparisons of Godzilla as a mutated dinosaur to modern-day birds. Unlike Godzilla, Baby Godzilla is a herbivore and develops an immediate fondness for humanity. If Godzilla still stands as a metaphor for atomic weapons, then Baby Godzilla is a vision of what we could make with the same technology if we applied it elsewhere. The most notable comparison is clean energy, but there are surely a dozen more.
Given how the Showa era films treated Minilla, it was refreshing to see Baby Godzilla actually be cute, rather than need to act that way. As much as I may personally love Minilla, that opinion is certainly not shared by others, but that same animosity doesn’t seem to be present for Baby Godzilla. With Miki back as a main character once again, the differences in characterization and worldbuilding really became apparent in MechaGodzilla II.
So much of this film clearly inspired 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong (dir. Adam Wingard), that going back to it feels like looking at the script notes. Even MechaGodzilla being made from one of the heads of King Ghidorah is a key part of this story, although it does play out differently. More excitingly, Rodan is back and like every other kaiju in the film, gets a new form over the course of it. Just as the others, MechaGodzilla gets it’s own new form to become Super MechaGodzilla in the film’s third act. While this trend does become a little bit laughable five movies into this series, it does serve as a noble attempt to update some of the material for a new age, one that was already looking for things to be a little different, and a little darker.
There’s something undeniably very sweet about Baby Godzilla and Godzilla meeting and leaving together. After seeing this same Godzilla seem to recognize someone and acknowledge that before coldly killing them in Ghidorah, it seems as if these films finally allow for a little growth and a little hope on top of that. Maybe things can get better. Maybe we don’t always have to fight.
Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla (1994, dir. Kensho Yamashita)
While I’ve seen the design of SpaceGodzilla criticized as corny and over the top, I would be lying if I said that it didn’t grow on me over the course of the film. More than many others in this era, SpaceGodzilla really does tie plot threads together from the films that came before it. Mothra is still in space, but she learns of SpaceGodzilla and sends a warning to Earth. Godzilla’s cells, which were such a big deal in Biollante, come back as what led to the creation of SpaceGodzilla. Miki is back and her ESP is front and center due to the plan to control Godzilla via telepathy. Baby Godzilla is back, and plays a major role in the film. Even M.O.G.E.R.A. seems to be drawing on MechaGodzilla, being made of two pieces that combine as at the end of the last film.
The attempts to control Godzilla in this film make it more difficult to fit into the same metaphor as a nuclear weapon, and yet it still seems to work. Even at their best, nuclear weapons can still be uncontrollable. In the wrong hands, namely those of Susumu Okubo (Yosuke Saito), these weapons can bring untold terror. Okubo attempts to control Godzilla in the exact same way as the United Nations, and even then it wrestles out of his control just as quickly as he had seized it.
In the same way that MechaGodzilla II inspired Godzilla vs Kong, it’s clear that the coagulant in this film inspired the same idea in Shin Godzilla (2016, dir. Hideaki Anno, Shinji Higuchi). For the last time we’ll put a pin in something, Godzilla defeats SpaceGodzilla with a heat ray. For reasons that will soon become obvious, this is yet another piece of foreshadowing for the last Heisei era film and perhaps the most direct cause of what audiences would see a year later.
The end of this film marks a key point of development for Godzilla in this era. After so much else has happened, it seems to thank Miki for the removal of the control module. It’s only a simple nod, but it adds so much and leads more directly into the way we would see Godzilla act in the following film.
Godzilla vs Destroyah (1995, dir. Takao Okawara)
The last film of the Heisei era, and boy was this one something else. Godzilla becomes its own doomsday clock, ticking down over the course of the film to a nuclear meltdown that would destroy the Earth, igniting its atmosphere.
In the same way that SpaceGodzilla drew on the other Heisei films, Destroyah really draws on the original, bringing back the oxygen destroyer as the cause of the new monsters roaming the Earth. Putting a nice little bow on the era, Destroyah pits Godzilla up against the same thing that once defeated it, but now as something it’s capable of fighting back against.
Throughout the film, there’s a shocking lack of hopelessness, in a way that comes across as inspiring. When Godzilla’s energy is out of control and going to ignite the atmosphere, humanity finds a way to both stop it and buy themselves more time. When Godzilla is going to undergo a nuclear meltdown and burn through to the center of the Earth, they combine new and old tactics to stop this possible end. At no point is all lost, but rather there is this constant forward motion to find a solution.
There’s a scene in this film that really stands out to me, one that I can’t help but bring up here. When Miki is talking to another psychic, she admits that her powers are weakening and that she’s afraid. While the other psychic is eager to lose her powers and live a normal life, it’s such a great piece of development for Miki to have this vulnerability. Over these films, we’ve seen her do incredible things, and for her to acknowledge that she’s afraid of losing that ability really hits home after several films with her.
Just as Miki expresses fear and sadness, we see these emotions in Godzilla for the first time as well. After Destroyah kills Baby Godzilla, Godzilla seems to not immediately understand what’s wrong, and wails in agony. While not quite as drastic as the Showa era development, this humanization still is apparent and feels earned after all this time.
The escalation of the threat of Destroyah is incredible to behold, with humanity clearly being slowly overwhelmed after developing solutions to so many other monsters in these films. Even at the end, they really can only watch as Godzilla fights Destroyah, before swooping in with the new Super X3 to ensure the Earth stays in one piece.
The hope seen is not fleeting, even as the Godzilla we’ve spent all this time with finally dies. Baby Godzilla absorbs enough radiation to not only come back but to grow into a near-identical copy of the Godzilla we’ve known, ready to take on any threat to humanity, just as it had seen its predecessor do.
There’s a lot that can be said about this era, how the metaphors are so abundantly clear, how the formula gets repetitive, and how the recurring human characters don’t develop consistently. Above all of this, however, is the fact that this is a collection of films that really did try to do things differently. There’s more development, there’s more consistency, and, above all else, the stories told here are truly human.
