Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) Saturday Monster Movies

GMK is a wholly new approach to the Godzilla mythos. Whether it succeeds or not may be up for debate.

The animistic and religious nature of the Godzilla story has always been an aspect of the films. However, this might be the first time a supernatural angle has been tried. Godzilla in GMK is a monster created by nuclear power, but he is filled with and powered by the spirits of the angered souls of the Japanese who died during the war. The threat here is not just a product of technology and mankind’s hubris, it is spiritual.

Countering Godzilla this time around, we aren’t just seeing humanity or other monsters, but the elemental powers of the earth represented by “The Guardian Monsters”: Mothra (the sea), Ghidora (the sky), and Baragon (the earth). So, a rather Buddhistic outlook.

In the end, Godzilla is defeated with a lot of destruction, and the apparent death of all the Guardians as well. (It seems their death is needed to be effective somehow.) It is an empty victory though, as these stories all hint at, save the first film, before they had the idea to feed sequels.

Lesson: animistic interpretations of reality end up leaving a lot to be desired, and relying on the “elements of the earth” to solve your problems will leave said problems with a still-beating heart.