One dark night in 1954, Toho producer Tomoyuki Tanaka was on a plane thousands of feet above the waves of the Pacific Ocean. Toho's most recent idea for a movie had been shelved and he needed to come up with a new idea quickly. As he stared down at the sea below him, an idea struck him: what if a giant monster rose from the depths to attack Tokyo!? With the great success of giant monster movies such as King Kong and The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, such a movie was a stroke of genius. Soon, with the assistance of a team of now legendary men, including director Ishiro Honda, score master Akira Ifukube, and special effects man Eiji Tsuburaya, they began to make their movie. But the creature needed a name. Though it will forever be unknown exactly how the name came about and myths will circle it eternally, the Japanese words gorira (gorilla) and kujira (whale) were combined and the beast became known as Gojira, which in turn became, in the west, Godzilla.



The original Gojira was a radioactive lizard trying to destroy humanity. He was then dissolved in weird foam in his first movie by humanity, destroyed like all the other monsters we've come to know from that time period of cinema. Yet, he came back for more movies. Movie after movie, the huge demon's size and manner seemed to change. His strengths, intelligence, weaknesses, and some of his abilities were subject to change as well. Sometimes being as smart as a human, communicating with other monsters, other times being animalistically smart. From hero to villain to hero in movies that seemed to barely keep anything straight. In one movie he breathed his signature bad breath to destroy what remained of Tokyo after appearing to fight a monster even more bent in tearing the city apart as a joke to consistent fans about his inconsistencies. Sometimes the reason he can fight armies is because of a hard carpace, other times because of some hyper-healing ability. Not even his blood can stay the same, sometimes green when he bleeds. Other times, red like everything else.

Because the first two films were in black and white, American poster makers went with their own instincts and painted the Big G a deep forest green. Enter King Kong Vs. Godzilla, his first colour feature, and lo and behold, the radiation spawn is charcoal gray. Too late to stop the merchandising mishaps: to this day almost every model, toy and comic book still paints him the colour of money.

Godzilla (or Gojira, ???) refers to a series of kaiju (strange beast or monster), or more specifically Daikaiju (giant monster), films made in Japan. Godzilla is believed to have originally been intended by Toho to represent the United States of America (being superior in its destructive capability) and took the form of a radioactive prehistoric reptile. Given that his origin (in the 1954 film) was the ocean, Godzilla can be considered not just a monster, but a sea monster. Godzilla died at the end of the original 1954 film. Subsequent films in the series ret conned the first movie by assuming that Godzilla wasn't killed, and that the body of the monster was never found.

The series was revamped in 1985 with "Godzilla 1985"; this movie was created as a direct sequel to the 1954 film, and ignores the continuity of the previous sequels. Known as the Heisei series (for the ruling emperor of the time), the continuity ended in 1995's Godzilla vs. Destroyah after a run of seven films. The reason for the continuity shift was based on a realization that the marketing of the movies had removed the reason it was so loved. When it was discovered that Godzilla was popular with children, sequels were toned down in obvious screen violence, and Godzilla was made out to be a good guy instead of an indestructible abomination of the mistakes of Man. Characters such as "son of Godzilla" (a diminutive chubby replica who blew smoke rings) were introduced. However, the further Godzilla was taken away from his roots, the less popular he became. Hence, Godzilla 1985 brought the series back to form.

Depending on your opinion, either the 1970s were not kind to Godzilla, or fans are not kind to the Godzilla of the 1970s. The films of that era are often dismissed as cheap, poorly made, and generally pathetic or childish. Godzilla was in full ?super-hero? mode. Little kids in micro-shorts were running wild, but not nearly so in control as they were in the old Gamera films. A lot of serious Godzilla fans hang their heads in shame at the mere mention of some of these titles.

Contrary to what the English dub of the original Godzilla, King of the Monsters would have us believe, Godzilla was never "over 400 feet tall". What follows is a history of Godzilla's height, or correctly, increase in height. In the 1954 Japanese original, Dr. Yamane estimates that Godzilla is 50 meters tall (167 feet). Godzilla destroys Tokyo, but is later killed by the Oxygen Destroyer. A second Godzilla appears in the next movie: Godzilla Raids Again (1955). This creature is also 50 meters tall and would remain this size for the following Godzilla movies through to Terror or Mecha Godzilla (1975).

In 1984, Toho presented Godzilla (Godzilla 1985 in the U.S.) as a direct sequel to the 1954 original, thus ignoring the existence of the 14 other films in the series. At the same time, the height of the new Godzilla was increased to 80 meters (267 feet). Toho probably did this to make Godzilla appears more imposing alongside Tokyo's modem skyscrapers. Godzilla is also 80 meters tall in Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989). In Godzilla vs. King Ghidora (1991), futurians attempt to prevent Godzilla's creation. However, their complicated time-travel plan backfires, and Godzilla is reborn in 1992, now towering at 100 meters (334 feet). Godzilla is this size in Godzilla vs. Mothra, released in the U.S. as Godzilla and Mothra: Battle for Earth (1992) and the following sequels; Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (1993), Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla (1994) and Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995). When the series returned after the TriStar fiasco with Godzilla 2000, the King of the Monsters returned to the 80 meters (267 feet) version, and has stayed at that height ever since. These changes in Godzilla's height has meant a little confusion for collectors, especially when trying to estimate Godzilla's scale in relation to his height.