a.k.a.: Gojira, Shodai-Goji, Original Godzilla, First Generation Godzilla
Species: Mutant
Godzillasaurus
Origin: Near Odo Island
Height: 50m
Weight: 20,000t
Powers/Abilities: "Smoky" Atomic Ray
Main G-Series Credits:
1,
2 (Stock Footage), 22 (Stock Footage), 26, 27, 28 (Stock Footage)
Godzilla's birth parents are the fear of the bomb and the mystery and fascination with dinosaurs, two incredibly powerful forces during the 1950's of whom Godzilla is not their sole offspring. However, Godzilla's particular mix of inherited attributes are unique among his kind. While contemporaries the Rhedosaurus weren't much more than simple animals who's nuclear origins are simply an excuse for them to appear in the modern world, Godzilla is both an entirely new kind of (actual) dinosaur (perhaps the first instance of Spec Biology in monster movie history) which isn't merely a metaphor of, but a pure
personification of the bomb.
As a dinosaur, Godzilla is a mish-mash of parts from various bits of horrifying bizarre popular art of the time. A carnivorous theropod like a Tyrannosaurus, but with the stance of an Iguanadon, and dorsal plates inspired by - but distinct from - a Stegosaurus. A unique silhouette that would not feel too out of place among the kind of nonsense people actually believed back then, but maintains a character of its own. As a monster, Godzilla is an unstoppable and non-negotiable force, its slow swath of all-consuming destruction spreading ever outward, Godzilla is the god of destruction, and spews a beam of thermonuclear death, driving home that he is a very particular kind of destruction. When put together, Godzilla becomes something totally transcendent of a mere dinosaur, some sort of immortal god in the semblance of a yet unknown species. Not only that, but since the bomb has transformed him so, who's to say where the bomb really ends and the dinosaur begins? This caveat lets Godzilla, as a monster first, keep all of his characteristics in tact as science marches on and we are able to make certain conclusions about how much of the original animal is in Godzilla now. And with this, he carries, in his original chimeric form, a semblance of an emblem from a time when humanity was far more ignorant and naive, an avatar of a god that mocks our stupidity through its presence alone.
While Godzilla the monster made his existence well known to mankind, his prior life as an animal is mostly a large question mark. Dr. Kyohei Yamane has one theory, but it isn't
really until 1991's
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah when the matter is actually established on film. And while it may seem heretical to second guess Yamane's theory, in the late 70's and early 80's this was done multiple times. In fact, a number of U.S. sources actually ran with some of these alternate hypothesis, and even some original ones, and so depending on what context you're talking about Godzilla might still be a very much unknown quantity in the world.
In particular, Yamane's thesis, filtered through the lens of 50's sci-fi writer style bad fact checking, goes something like this: Godzilla's species is that of a Jurassic animal which was adapted to a marine lifestyle, evolving back into a sort of terrestrial one during the Cretaceous, and as it exists now is actually something of a mix between the two. It makes a fair amount of sense. An amphibious dinosaur sounds far more likely to both survive the KE event (in fact, it looks like with the evolution of birds being where it was at the time, it might have been
only amphibious or coastal dinosaurs who survived) and remain undetected for so long, as the only food source for such a large, undetected animal would logically be in deep water. There are other peculiarities to this oddly specific evolutionary history which become apparent in later Godzilla films as well.
Pre-1954
Obviously none of the islanders on Odo Island knew any of this back in "the old days." As I've theorized elsewhere, Oodako's lack of a proper name may be an attempt at suggesting that it really was a giant octopus responsible for the Odo Islander's "Gojira" legend, but let's assume for now that Godzilla was somehow responsible for it. This is interesting for a couple of reasons, mainly because it sets up right away that there is absolutely no ridiculous "suspended animation" nonsense being espoused, and that if Godzilla was effected by the bomb then he has to actually be present for that to have happened. So, so refreshing compared to the utterly nauseating crap
Godzilla's international contemporaries claimed. But there's also something else suggested by this, because it first means we have to accept that Godzilla (or his parents, or their parents, or what have you) was coming to the island and cleaning out their fishing grounds, but then, at some point, he stopped. Remnants of the placation ceremony survived into 1954, but they were of a purely traditional and symbolic variety, and for who knows how many years Godzilla simply lost interest in the island and its people. Why? It's really tempting to connect this to the advent of the industrial revolution and Japan's imperialistic age, and with all the over-fishing and world wars going on, Godzilla probably thought it a much wiser decision to start hunting progressively further and further away. Finally, with the Castle Bravo test, it became something he was no longer able to ignore.
We get the impression of immense age from the monster, from both the scientist and the villager, who variously claim Godzilla's origins lie in "the olden days" to as far back as the Jurassic period. But how old is the individual, really? There's really no word on it at all, but we might be able to take an educated guess with the help of a little math.
Coelophysis, hundreds of which have been found, particularly in Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, are one of if not the most well known late Triassic theropod, and a close (if not synonymous) relative of
Gojirasaurus. While a very distant relative, we do know that
Coelophysis reached sexual maturity at around their 2nd or 3rd year and their maximum size at about 8 years. Superficially similar giant carnivorous theropods like
Allosaurus and
Tyrannosaurus had a maximum life span of maybe 30 years (Sue the
Tyrannosaurus was 28 when she died), and reached maturity in their teens, a lot like Ian Curtis.
Allosaurus is said to have reached maximum size at 15, and
Tyrannosaurus' puberty lasted from age 14 to 18. But these animals both have pretty similar histories, small carnivorous hunters that increased in size as their prey did, their biology has to be pretty far removed from something like Godzilla. For a modern comparison, the only living "Terror Bird," the
Cariama, which has a cute miniature version of a killing claw and is just under a meter all, lives for about 50 or so years, which coincides with the absolute theoretical oldest age for
Aptenodytes, the largest living penguin.
Although the deep sea and island hopping habits of the species means there's a good reason humans haven't been stumbling into them all the time, when we look at the Godzilla cycle as a whole, there's only maybe 4 or 5 individuals left that we know of in the post-war world. This actually seems to indicate they have a very prolonged life cycle, as does the two on-screen births of a Godzilla, albeit both under the influence of mutagenic radiation. Perhaps with more competition, or in the deep past, the maximum life expectancy for an individual was ~30 years got
Godzillasaurus and it's immediate ancestors, 50 at the most, but with a total lack of natural predators and the biggest problem facing the species being getting enough food and finding a safe place to stash their incredibly slow developing eggs, maximum life expectancy gradually evolves into a minimum, and while the creatures may still mature between 15 to 18 years old, it wouldn't be unusual in the early modern period to find an individual who might be 100 or so years old. After all, there aren't many of them, and if they don't cling to life as long as they can, we wouldn't have any Godzillas at all.
One last point to make about the first Godzilla's age, is that the sacrifice to a sea monster thing doesn't seem to be a very widespread or well known tradition. It looks like it's kinda just Odo Island that did this, and that raises the question of why other island settlements weren't fighting off
Godzillasauruses of their own. Did they just get lucky? Going back to both the animal's island-hopping lifestyle and the fact that there was a time when "Gojira"
stopped eating all the fish and the old ways transitioned into a vestigal ceremony, it does give the impression that the same animal is responsible for the tradition. And then we have to consider the old man who takes this Gojira business very seriously. The character is played by Kokuten Kodo, reprising his role as a stock elder character in several Kurosawa films from the 40's and 50's, who was born in 1887, making him 67 in 1954. Assuming his character is the same age, there would have to have been some semblance of the ceremony in 1887, and if we say he was just a child when Gojira stopped coming, and it was the previous generation or two that instigated it... we could make things nice and symmetrical if we said Gojira first came to the island in 1854, 100 years before
Godzilla and about the time the Elder's parents would have been born. Counting backwards, we might say that the first Godzilla was 115 years old, born in 1849. But then, this is just my own guess.
1954 - Godzilla
At some point before March 1st, 1954, a
Godzillasaurus egg was laid on Adonoa Island in the Bering Sea. We know it must be before this date because the resultant hatchling was
not a mutant Godzilla but a pristine
Godzillasaurus, although it didn't stay that way for long. This is in contrast to Minilla, who's egg has been around since 1955. We also know that the Adonoa egg can not be the child of the Lagos Island
Godzillasaurus, and that the 1954 Godzilla did have a child, which is not Minilla, because that's explicitly the child of the Lagos Godzilla. Therefore, probably in the spring of 1953, "Gojira" mated with the female
Godzillasaurus (who has never been seen on film but was scripted), who laid the egg in early 1954, while Gojira returned to his favorite fishing spot he used to visit as a younger dinosaur. But instead of a plentiful fishing ground with annual sacrifices like he remembered, Gojira saw the sun rising in the west, and everything changed.
Throughout the decades, Godzilla, the character, has gone through almost every motivation and characterization possible, but never has any Godzilla equaled the sheer single-minded destructive rampage that the original unleashed in 1954. Whether it was intentional malice or not that provoked the attack, this Godzilla was also unique in the completely indiscriminate nature of his destruction. Maybe he was angry and vengeful, but that revenge was still totally directionless. Godzilla, as a character, isn't apparent here, instead he is only the personification of the forces that spurred him into action.
The dates of the film coincide roughly with the actual filming. The original marks his first ship sinking on August 13th, and assuming it takes a few weeks for the electric perimeter to be built, the conclusion of the story might take place around mid to late October, or maybe even as late as November 3rd, which would be pretty cool. However long the event played out over, Godzilla's path seemed to take him on a bee line through Odo Island to Tokyo, then back out for several weeks, and then back again. Maybe the depth charges alarmed him a little, but then after realizing it wasn't an issue, he came back to tore everything to pieces? I'm looking at the fact that after his second, totally devastating rampage, he was found hanging out in Tokyo Bay, which is odd considering how much time must have passed between his two attacks.
At any rate, with the deploying of the Oxygen Destroyer, the only time in main series continuity that weapon was ever used, the nightmare of Godzilla finally ended and the monster was
killed off for real.
Post-1954
Or not... ?
This database's policy is that only Godzilla gets separate articles per continuity/individual/etc., but it's interesting to note that the 1954 Godzilla, by virtue of it being a connecting thread between all (or most, really) of the main series timelines, is the
only Godzilla to appear in multiple sequels in different timelines where they're not only the same individual, but also take the monster's previous appearance as back story. Compare this to, say, the Lagos or Adonoa Godzillas, who despite appearing in multiple continuities never share any history with each other. Hence, it's sensible to have a separate article for the Showa and Heisei Lagos Godzillas because they are
completely different, but the rules are tested a bit when it comes to the Millennium and GMK Godzilla, and even the "Kiryu" Mechagodzilla. Still, I'm sticking with the format.
1954/1996 - 呉爾羅 • Prototype/Ancient/Folklore Gojira
The earliest development of the character Godzilla in any sort of recognizable form is totally unknown, because we don't really know where he started. And in fact much of his predecessors - a giant octopus, a giant ape, someone suggesting the name "Angirasu" for the monster, etc. - are equally shrouded in myth and rumor, probably all intentionally. What can be said with certainty is that the "G" in
Project G stood for "Giant," which means the name wasn't there yet, and that the name
was there when Shigeru Kayama wrote the original version of the story. It isn't hard to find sound-bites in books, documentaries, and even wikipedia about a phase when the monster was under consideration as a literal gorilla-whale hybrid, but whether or not this actually matches up with the decision to make the monster a dinosaur is debatable. So the only true prototype version we have of Godzilla, for sure, is the one in Kayama's original story.
And wouldn't you know it, the details of this monster are nebulous and unspecified. We know about the monster as a character, that it comes from the sea, is motivated by hunger, has been stealing fish from villagers since the "old days," and he can't stand lighthouses. The only physical descriptions, that I know of, being that the story is still untranslated and I have to rely on second (or third?) hand sources, is the big ears that flop when he's angry, and that because he steps on things, he presumably has feet of some sort.
In fact, there's no word on if this monster was even a mutant, or was simply "woken up" by the bomb after being in hibernation since the old days. Based on his behavior, more similar to the Rhedosaurus than Godzilla, and Kayama's previous catalogue of straight sea monster stories that got him the job in the first place, and especially considering Honda's influence on the finished film, there's not a real reason to believe the prototype Godzilla is anything more than an ordinary, if enraged, animal.
Now while you would think that over the years "Proto-Godzilla" would have gotten a fair amount of exposure and publicity, this monster has curiously faded into obscurity. While the early concrete versions of the monster, such as the "Warty" and "Scaly" marquettes, have gotten multiple figures and collectibles of themselves, a vague sea monster with flappy ears has only ever been seen again, far as I know, once: in "Origins of a Species," the very last Godzilla comic published by Dark Horse.
The flappy eared monster therein is supposed to represent a legendary monster, a stylized representation of Godzilla viewed through the lens of a second or third generation Odo Islander who's telling the tale to their grandchildren or so. It's interesting that this tall tale Godzilla strongly resembles Gorgo in the face, which may or may not be intentional. It's fitting, then, that the prototype of Godzilla, from the development of a film that's so shrouded in it's own folklore, now exists in published material
as a legend.
1956 - Godzilla, King of the Monsters
While
Godzilla, King of the Monsters was a fairly drastic "Americanization" of the original, all of the changes and edited/added scenes form a story which only overlays the existing narrative, so not a hell of a lot actually changes. The one big thing is the year, now 1956, which means that Godzilla spent two years since his mutation just sort of idling around, I guess. The only other alteration to the character itself was a throwaway line added for shock value by Steve Martin (but not
that Steve Martin) about how the monster is apparently over 400 feet tall. This line sounds like it belongs in a trailer, but in the context of the movie, it may be that Martin is just really fucking terrible at guesstimating. Alternatively, the 1956 U.S. Godzilla could actually be over 120m tall, and all of those buildings might just be way larger than they are in real life.
1977 - Cozzilla
In the Italian colorization,
Godzilla, il Rei di Monstri or more popularly known as (even to the creator)
Cozzilla, the date has been
mostly restored. In the original Godzilla's first ship sinking occurs on August 13th, with the rest of the story taking place over a month or more, but here Godzilla's final rampage is moved up to August 6th to coincide with the dropping of "Little Boy" on Hiroshima 9 years earlier. Since this is a colorization of
Godzilla, King of the Monsters (with a handful of strange, confusing stock footage thrown in for no conceivable reason), which as I just mentioned merely overlays the Steve Martin narrative over the mostly untouched original story, so too does
Cozzilla follow in roughly the same time period, meaning the initial ship sinking must have occurred in late June or early July. Also, this version of Godzilla had an ability to wildly shift its color into a bizarre array of kaleidoscopic neon hues. Or... something.
1985 - Godzilla 1985
In the Americanization of
The Return of Godzilla, which likewise to the original was a direct sequel to the Americanization of the first film which ignored the first 14 sequels, the origin of the monster is handled with an ominous air, with Martin bringing up the fact that 30 years ago no one ever found Godzilla's body. Now,
Godzilla, King of the Monsters didn't actually change the ending or anything, Godzilla's skeleton still evaporates at the end, but the characters in the film don't necessarily know this, and the implication that Martin is making is that this Godzilla is actually the same one from 1956, reconstituted through some unknown means in something of a prediction of GMK. It doesn't explain why Godzilla is now 80m tall now... but then again, perhaps he shrunk from the original 120m?
Because
Godzilla 1985 was the last Americanization before
Godzilla 2000, with all of the subsequent Heisei or VS. series films getting a straight, almost completely unedited dub that changes nor adds anything, there is no separate Americanization continuity that acts as a sequel to the glorified Dr. Pepper commercial. This means that without an Americanized
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah we never actually get a confirmation of whether Martin's line is a result of no witnesses or a legitimate retcon. Either way, with the original film being only available to westerners through the grey market for so long, many people incorporated
Godzilla 1985 into the regular Heisei timeline, which caused everyone a lot of headaches in the 90's as
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah and
Godzilla vs. Destroyah were very clearly not a part of Steve Martin's world.
2000 - Godzilla 2000 (U.S. Version)
Last note about the U.S. first generation Godzilla is that there was a rumor going around at the time of
Godzilla 2000's U.S. version theatrical release that the film ignored all previous Godzilla films except the original and
Godzilla 1985. Now on the surface this is ridiculous because why would Godzilla shrink 30 meters, but it's established at this point that the Americanizations don't really have much concern over spurious things like facts or measurements, and the 1956 Godzilla could have been 120m and the 1985 Godzilla could have been 50m depending on how little information the loopers had. And when we look at the people involved in the Americanization of
Godzilla 2000 and the end result, it isn't unreasonable to suggest that these people were so clueless that they legitimately thought this was the case or intended something like this from the start. And if that's true, and the 1985 Godzilla is the same as the 1956 one as per Martin's line, then so is the Michael Schlesinger one.
1977 - King of the Monsters: Resurrection of Godzilla
In the beginning, the film that became the introduction to the Heisei Godzilla was a totally different beast, not only to that particular film but to the entire series. Although the tradition has by now been well established that remakes are not tolerated, in the late 70's the rules weren't quite nailed down yet, and a lot of strange ideas were considered. As such, the original 1977 draft of
Resurrection of Godzilla called for a straight retelling of the original film, but in color, and as such would have featured the return of the first generation Godzilla.
1994 - Godzilla 7: Godzilla vs. Godzilla
The next aborted return of the original Godzilla to the silver screen was in the earliest versions of
Godzilla 7, where it came back as "Ghost Godzilla," a spectral version of the original monster that would have somehow killed the current generation of Godzilla, the second iteration in the Heisei timeline.
2000 - Godzilla X Megaguirus
While the issue of whether the Millennium Godzilla was the original or a new one was never established in
Godzilla 2000 (although the new Battle Spirits card suggests it is indeed a second one), in
Godzilla X Megaguirus we're given the monster's back story, which takes us through some new footage of Godzilla's 1954 attack on Tokyo, featuring the Millennium Godzilla in Shodai-Goji's place. No mention of an Oxygen Destroyer at all, and then we fast forward to 1966, and of course in the present of the film the Godzilla featured is the same one, meaning, at least in GxM's continuity, the Millennium Godzilla is the same individual as the one from 1954.
2001 - Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah
In something of a revival of the "Ghost Godzilla" story, the 1954 Godzilla was likewise brought back from the dead, although this time as some sort of a zombie possessed by other ghosts rather than an incorporeal ghost itself, as the GMK Godzilla from... you know, GMK.
2002 - Godzilla X Mechagodzilla
In yet another, slightly broader approximation of Ghost Godzilla, the 1954 Godzilla is brought back from the dead again in the Kiryu/Shinsei timeline, only this time not as Godzilla again, but as a spooky ghost-cyborg version of Mechagodzilla. Although mostly machine, Mechagodzilla's DNA computer created from material extracted from Godzilla's spinal column (the skeleton in this timeline doesn't completely dissolve like in the original story, but lingers behind and is recovered by the government) causes it (somehow) to retain the memories of Godzilla from before his robo-resurrection. It is the reason behind a number of instances when a mysterious force overtakes the machine and causes it to become unresponsive and act under it's own will.
1998 - Legends of Godzilla CCG
In the card game
Trading Battle was based on, "Hydrogen Bomb Giant Monster Godzilla" is presented as is from the film, but in the context of the game mechanics, represents less of "this is the Godzilla from 1954" and more of "this is a Godzilla with the attributes of the 1954 one." Illustrated most starkly by the card's "digivolutions," putting it in the middle of an evolutionary tree that, in the films, were all different individuals, digivolving from Minilla and to the Showa or "Second Generation" Godzilla as is the literal translation of the character's only "official"-ish name.
水爆大怪獣 ゴジラ（初代） • Hydrogen Bomb Giant Monster Godzilla (First Generation)
1954
Godzilla
Ancient Godzilla Species
[X] [X] [ ] [X] [ ] [ ] [ ]
Fire Water Electric Earth Space Air Forest
★ Radioactive Flame (Heat Beam)
← Little Baby Monster Minilla
→ Gigantic Flame Beast Godzilla
6/5/3/7
(note: the image used in this article is a recreation of the original card, which can be viewed
here.)
1998 - Godzilla Generations - Dreamcast
Godzilla Generations is one of those games that presents elements of different movies just as they are, with something of a museum replacing new stories or characterizations. The original Godzilla or "GODZILLA 1st" here is a secret character, the first one, who is unlocked after playing through the game once with either of the two initially playable characters, 80's Godzilla or '74 Mechagodzilla. Playing through the "campaign" mode as GODZILLA 1st unlocks the 1998 Zilla, here called "GODZILLA USA" for legal reasons that I'm not going to get into here. GODZILLA 1st is basically a clone of the 80's Godzilla in game but it isn't able to use the Spiral Heat Beam because... well, because that's not a thing 1954 Godzilla can actually do.
初代ゴジラ GODZILLA-1st
A: Atomic Ray
B: Block
X: n/a
Y: Roar (recovers health)
L: Tail Whip left
R: Tail Whip right
1998 - Godzilla Trading Battle - PlayStation
First Generation Godzilla was one of the cards obtainable in the PSX game which was a variant of the
Legends of Godzilla CCG. Because the cards themselves level, the stats of the cards change over time.
2007 - Godzilla Unleashed - Wii
The very last of the last minute additions to the game, Godzilla 1954 is pretty obviously 90's Godzilla with a different head and black & white. A quick fix, but it actually works pretty well and doesn't stand out as particularly unfaithful, especially compared to some of the... other monsters... Because of this '54 is also a clone of 90's Godzilla, and directly so unlike 90's differentiation from the "2000" Godzilla (who of course is actually the 1999 Godzilla). As such he has the same totally nonsensical fireball attack that not only has Godzilla 1954 ever had, but no Godzilla has ever had. The only thing that comes close is the Hanna-Barbera cartoon where Godzilla breathed actual fire, but even then it wasn't in the form of a fireball, and the 1954 Godzilla is certainly not the same as the Hanna-Barbera one.
Unlike
Generations and
Trading Battle, though, this game is
not a museum piece, and the characters are all in-universe versions with similarities to their movie counterparts, but they are not identical to them...
except for Godzilla 1954 and 90's Godzilla, who are left out of the story altogether and are not playable in the single player campaign mode at all. Despite this, all three of the monsters are given their own bios and stats, and the stats are universal across each iteration (and are unique from the film versions), while the bios reflect that of the original character. Clearly scale was on the developers mind since they bothered to make sure each of the monsters' game stats reflected their stature in-game, but this contradicts the museum-like nature of the two "bonus" Godzillas. Both Godzilla 1954 and Godzilla 1990's are kind of stuck in this weird in-between area where they're half of one thing and not quite the other.
Godzilla 1954 is a secret character, because of course he is, and is the last monster you get in the game, requiring every other monster to be unlocked before you get a chance to play him. Unlocking secret characters in this game, like in
Save the Earth, is a horrible nightmarish chore, because you don't actually "unlock" them, you unlock the opportunity to buy them from an in-game store with stupid in-game credits. You know that thing
Smash Bros. does with trophies? Yeah,
Godzilla Unleashed does that with
playable characters. It takes 100,000... uh, monster coins or some bullshit, to buy Godzilla '54 even after you've unlocked him, and who knows how many playthroughs of the single player mode that equates to. But once you have him, you're finally done unlocking all the things, and can actually start playing the game. Hooray!
Godzilla 1954
Height: 100m
Weight: 55,000t
Bio: The original king of the monsters, this towering behemoth was the first
post-war radioactive monster unleashed upon the world. Godzilla '54's
atomic-powered body was so powerful that each footprint he left was a
crater seeping with lethal radiation. The infamous day that Godzilla
rose from the sea to conquer Tokyo will be remembered as the beginning
of the humanity's epic struggle against the reign of giant monsters.
Basic Attacks (swinging wiimote while attacking uses a stronger, directional variation)
A: Punch
B: Kick
A+B: Tail Whip
Energy Attacks (hold Z then C to charge energy)
Hold C: Atomic Ray
Tap C: Fireball
Grapple Attack: Backwards Drop-Kick
2013 - Godzilla: Daikaiju Battle Royale - Flash
On November 3, 2013 (Godzilla's 59th birthday, how cute), Godzilla 1954 was finally added to the ever growing roster of Alex Merdich's fan flash fighting game
Godzilla: Daikaiju Battle Royale. While the game is very much a museum-game (which I think by now has officially become a thing I'm just going to start saying), bolstered by Merdich's attention to detail and loving recreations of the original material, the arcade mode does present itself with some sort of loose story. The original concept of a straight
Monster of Monsters sequel expanded into something wildly different, but this wrap around story that puts the ladder into context is the last remnant of it. What's interesting about this is that Godzilla '54 actually has a unique ending to his ladder, reminiscent of GvsKG where once he's done saving the Earth from space monsters... he's still Godzilla, and he's still going to be just as destructive.
The other unique things about him is the tail whip, an indespensible component of Godzilla's arsenal in the game this was originally intended to be a sequel too, is finally incorporated, making Godzilla '54 really the only iteration of the character you'll ever need to pick. More than that, though, Merdich's devotion to getting everything right landed him in a weird position. The movie was black and white, but the Godzilla suit itself was not. But not only that, there's so many different stories about which color the suit was, spawned both from intentional tall tales and the fact that there were actually four full costumes constructed for use in a black and white film all within a few years of each other, and after a few decades memories get blurred together and no one can seem to keep the story straight about whether the suit seen in the original
Godzilla was red, brown, or grey. Merdich's solution to this was to give the character multiple costumes, a black and white, grey, brown, and green (!) version including white, blue, and orange beam effects for each of the non-monochrome versions. Why Merdich went with green, which no one has
ever claimed the original suit to be, but not red, who some major players insist was at least the color of the prototype suit, is very curious. But regardless it's a very cool addition to the game.
Godzilla 1954
Special Abilities:
Incandescent Atomic Ray: Hold S, can be aimed up or down and fired while walking
Tail Whip: Hold down, Z
Regeneration: When idle animation loops three times, 5% health is regained
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