The newest trailer for Godzilla Minus One has dropped and teases us with the epic return of Godzilla with a series of quick glimpses at the devastation the titular lizard kaiju will be causing on a war-torn Japan.
The exposition revealed within this new trailer also explains why it’s called Godzilla Minus One with a series of title cards referring to the fact that Japan has lost everything in the aftermath of war and that Godzilla showing up now takes the war-torn country from “zero to minus.”
It has long been held that Godzilla, the enormous lizard monster from Ishiro Honda’s 1954 film that first surfaced from the depths of the ocean to wreak havoc across Japan, was a metaphor for Japan’s post-war trauma caused by the use of nuclear weapons against them at the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Since then, the enormous lizard has undergone numerous iterations and retellings, some of which have been kinder and more protective than others. However, its historical connection to some of Japan’s darkest periods has perhaps never been better defined than in the upcoming Toho film Godzilla Minus One, which will be released in theatres on December 1st.
RELATED: Godzilla Minus One Release Date, Trailer Officially Announced
The Godzilla Minus One trailer also gives us a quick look at the fact that humanity will be trying to fight back against this newest iteration of the lizard kaiju, both on land and by sea. However, the odds, as always, seem rather stacked in Godzilla’s favour. The events of the new movie is set take place decades before the events of 2016’s Shin Godzilla, and with it being clear its separate from Shin Godzilla, and instead of him being a representation of accelerated and forced evolution, it does appear to retain that movie’s sense of despair and awe-inspiring catastrophe from Godzilla’s emergence, and subsequent rampage across Japan. One of my personal favourite lines in the trailer was spoken by, what looks to be, a soldier stuck on a boat, “that monster will never forgive us.” which reminded me of the 2014 Godzilla movie and Rey Serizawa’s epic, “Let them fight.”
If Shin Godzilla is a representation of the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster, then Godzilla Minus One is putting the big lizard right back in his original context, but it seems both movies share a desire to return some of the kaiju’s frightening elemental power from the original films.
You can watch the trailer here:
Takashi Yamazaki will pen and helm Godzilla Minus One, Toho’s 33rd Godzilla movie and the first live-action one since Shin Godzilla was released back in 2016. Toho is currently prohibited from releasing a live-action movie in the same year as Legendary Pictures, which released Godzilla in 2014, Kong: Skull Island in 2017, Godzilla: King of the Monsters in 2019, and Godzilla vs. Kong in 2021. This is due to an agreement between Toho and Legendary Pictures, who currently produce the Monsterverse films. The good news is that Toho will be motivated to produce Godzilla Minus One swiftly this year in order to get the world ready for Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire in 2024.
What do you think of the new trailer? Are you excited to see Godzilla return to his roots? Let us know in the comments below!
