Beloved Fictional Character: Godzilla

This year we’ll enjoy a new Godzilla Film. Unlike the 1998 film where Godzilla was a mutant iguana, here Godzilla is depicted as an ancient creature and he isn't playing the part as the “bad guy”, but more as the defender of nature. So basically he is awoken to fight  the other monsters, to restore the natural balance of nature before going back to his deep slumber in the depth of the ocean.

Going back to the history of Godzilla, away from it’s current celebrity fame, and away from all the merchandise and commercial value. Godzilla holds a deeper and tragic memory that shouldn't be forgotten by mankind, and in my opinion shouldn't be dimmed by the lime-lights of cinema, to prevent it from happening again (sadly it did, again and again!). What I am talking about here is Nuclear disaster.

Created in 1954, Godzilla is a metaphor for nuclear disaster, conceived at the time where the WWII bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 were still fresh in the memory of Japan, and also the Lucky Dragon 5 incident (A Japanese Tuna fishing boat that was exposed to a nuclear fallout from a US owned thermonuclear device in 1954).

With a concept that Godzilla is a monster that is a product of nuclear radiation, here are a few concepts of Godzilla and how it fits in to the metaphor:

• Godzilla the destroyer: is a portrayal of the mass destruction that can be caused if nuclear power is used in a weapon, just like in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a nuclear monster can wipe out cities in one blow, and the normal human armed forces can barely hold up against it, leaving behind piles and piles of casualties of war.
• Godzilla the defender: a metaphor to the nuclear energy power plants that have been created since the nuclear fusion was discovered. Although it is for a good cause to bring electricity to the population, a nuclear reactor can cause catastrophic disasters for one reason or another like what happened  in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Just like when Godzilla is battling other giant monsters being the defender of nature, but due to his size and powers, he is still an impending danger to humanity.

Well Homo sapiens are continuously striving to live up to their name as a species (Homo sapiens means “wise man”), we are becoming more conscious of how our actions can affect the planet. We are seeing more governments invest in solar power and also wind power as means to provide energy, instead of fossil fuel, hydrocarbons or nuclear fusion. I hope humankind can move forward on purging the constant abuse it has done to  Mother Earth for the last few centuries in the name of progress.