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Godzilla Minus One
(2023 film)
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| Alternate Title: | Godzilla Minus One (2023) |
| Directed By: | Takashi Yamazaki |
| Music By: | Naoki Sato, Akira Ifukube |
| Rating: | PG-13 |
| Running Time: | 125 minutesJP and US (2 hours, 5 minutes) |
| Aspect Ratio: | 2.39:1 |
| Monsters: | Godzilla |
Summary
Godzilla Minus One is a 2023 Japanese science fiction monster film written and directed by Takashi Yamazaki. Produced by Toho Limited. The rest of this section is under development.
Plot
This section is under development.
Japanese Release
Godzilla Minus One was released theatrically in Japan by Toho. It was initially scheduled for May 14, but was pushed back to July 2 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was released with both a Japanese-language dub and in its original English audio with Japanese subtitles. Like Godzilla: King of the Monsters before it, the film received its own Japanese tie-in song: "INTO THE DEEP" by the band MAN WITH A MISSION. Shun Oguri, like Ken Watanabe in the previous two MonsterVerse Godzilla films, provided the Japanese voice for his character Ren Serizawa. The film's Japanese dub also features Kazuhiro Yamaji, who previously voiced the character Endurph in the GODZILLA anime trilogy, as the voice of Walter Simmons.
Trivia
- Although the fifth film in the Godzilla franchise's Reiwa era, Godzilla Minus One is only the second live action film in the era.
- While Godzilla Minus One is the first Godzilla feature film Takashi Yamazaki has directed, he has helmed two previous projects involving Godzilla:
- Always: Sunset on Third Street 2 (2007), which features Godzilla in a dream sequence and, like Minus One, was released on November 3.
- The short film Godzilla the Ride: Giant Monsters Ultimate Battle (2021), created for a motion simulator ride at the Seibuen amusement park.
- Godzilla Minus One's runtime of 125 minutes ties it with Godzilla Final Wars (2004) as the longest Japanese Godzilla film.
- This is the first Godzilla movie to be primarily set before 1954. It is not the first time that an earlier setting has ever been depicted, however, as Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah involves characters time traveling to 1944.
- In his rampage through Ginza, Godzilla destroys the Wako headquarters. The same building has appeared in several other pieces of Godzilla media, including the original Godzilla (1954).
- Due to a miscommunication, Forbes' initial announcement of Godzilla Minus One suggested that it was in the same continuity as Shin Godzilla. It has since been corrected to say that it merely "follows [up]" the movie.
- On March 17, 2022, since-suspended Japanese Twitter user @raserkey alleged to have participated in the film as an extra and seen the title "Godzilla Zero" on staff documents. Though they accurately predicted that the project would be a Godzilla film before its confirmation that November, the title did not ultimately match the one which was revealed. By the time of the title announcement, however, "Godzilla Zero" had caught on in both the Japanese and English-speaking Godzilla fanbases.
- Some of the letters in "Minus" in the Godzilla Minus One English logo use the Sijusto font.
- Godzilla Minus One is only the fifth Godzilla film in which Godzilla is the sole giant monster present, after the original Godzilla (1954), The Return of Godzilla (1984), GODZILLA (1998), and Shin Godzilla (2016).
- Similar to Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991), Godzilla Minus One first shows Godzilla as a dinosaur-like creature on a remote Pacific island in World War II, although he battles Japanese repairmen instead of American soldiers. He is also confirmed to have been mutated by American nuclear testing in the Pacific.
- The scene in which Godzilla clashes with the Takao is similar to the Tasman Sea battle scene from Godzilla vs. Kong. In both cases, Godzilla clambers onto a military vessel, is repulsed and knocked back into the ocean, then fires atomic breath to destroy the ship from below.
- Director Takashi Yamazaki's favorite Godzilla film is Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), and he acknowledged it as an unconscious influence on Godzilla Minus One. In both films, Godzilla intentionally destroys cities and tramples on fleeing humans, his atomic breath creates a mushroom cloud, the finishing blow against the monster is dealt by a single-pilot craft attacking him from the inside as he attempts to fire his atomic breath, and the final shot of the film shows that a small piece of him is still alive.
