Godzilla Misconceptions You Like To Clear Up

[edgaguirus]

The Mutos are not Mothra. I have a friend who insisted they were.

[Kaltes-Herzeleid]

-Godzilla breathes fire...that one bugs me a lot...his atomic ray doesn't even look like fire anyway.

-All Godzilla movies are "cheesy." In general that best applies to the 60s and 70s, granted some of the later and more recent ones have their moments, but nowhere near as much as those movies.

-Gamera and Godzilla have fought in canon before. No, they have not.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

From what I recall the whole Titanosaurus was suppose to be in the heisei Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla before being replaced by the more popular Rodan is a misconception right?

[Ryguy]

He is technically a dinosaur in all continuities, he's just not a mutated Godzillasaurus anywhere except the Heisei series.

How so?

Godzilla 1954 and Showa Godzilla are stated by Dr. Yamane to be transitional / hybrid animals between land and sea reptiles and Legendary Godzilla is explicity a Permian era animal.

Speaking of misconceptions, the only thing that suggests/supports this is Awakening, and to say that its canonicity status is dubious at best would be extremely generous, because, aside from being contradicted by the opening credits, there's no way in hell that Serizawa's in his 70s during G'14.

Never trust a tie-in comic/novelization/what-have-you that was based on a script that wasn't the final one.

I haven't read Awakening yet, but how exactly do the opening credits oppose what was written in it?

[Ivo-goji]

The meteor Monster X emerges from being Gorath. Even though the Final Wars makes a major plot point about Gorath not being real, and the fact that a meteor and a planet are two different things.

Dehsghidorah being born from the tail of Cretaceous King Ghidorah. The tail became a copy of Grand King Ghidorah which fought Armor Mothra after the original Grand King Ghidorah was erased from history.

Heisei Godzilla being the same as Shodaigoji. He's a second Godzilla.

[GodzillavsZilla]

Bumped!

Destoroyah's pronunciation and spelling of his name. Most people call him "Destroyah", but there's clearly an o between the t and r, making the pronunciation, "Dest-o-roy-ah" like how AVGN says it. I don't even know why people leave out that o when they spell Destoroyah.

People in Japan call Godzilla, "Godzirra". I've seen this multiple times and it's just not true, it's Gojira.

"Godzilla is green." No... Well, sometimes...

"All Godzilla movies were made one after the other." This is kind of true, but not entirely.

[eabaker]

Destoroyah's pronunciation and spelling of his name. Most people call him "Destroyah", but there's clearly an o between the t and r, making the pronunciation, "Dest-o-roy-ah" like how AVGN says it. I don't even know why people leave out that o when they spell Destoroyah.

That "o" is an artifact of transliteration tennis.

[Gawdziller]

I just call him Steve to avoid all this mess.

[Pkmatrix]

Bumped!

Destoroyah's pronunciation and spelling of his name. Most people call him "Destroyah", but there's clearly an o between the t and r, making the pronunciation, "Dest-o-roy-ah" like how AVGN says it. I don't even know why people leave out that o when they spell Destoroyah.

For me, it's because the first two translations I saw (way back in G-Fan in 1995) called her either "Destroyer" or "Destroyah". The first time I ever saw or heard anyone call her "Destoroyah" was YEARS later when the Sony/Tristar VHS was released in '99 - I've never accepted that (IMO ridiculous) translation, and thus still call her either "Destroyer" or "Destroyah".

(For similar reasons, I will ALWAYS call Mothra's opponent in Rebirth of Mothra "Death Ghidorah" and NEVER the absurd mistranslation "Desghidorah".)

[Mr_Goji_and_Watch]

The misconception that Destoroyah has a gender. It's basically a bunch microorganisms put into one.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

Destoroyah killing Godzilla. I've seen people saying this throughout the internet such as "The Monster who killed Godzilla" and no, no he did not. In reality. Godzilla really died when he reached 1,200 degrees. In fact had Godzilla not been dying from meltdown once he reached 1,200 degrees, he probably would've still actually ended up killing Destoroyah since after being hit with so many red spiral rays (Which mind you is impressive durability to survive all those, same attacks that defeated SpaceGodzilla in two shots), he ended up trying to retreat heavily implying Godzilla was winning, only for the military to finish him off with his signature weakness.

I won't argue though that Destoroyah is arguably one of Godzilla's most powerful foes that even if he did end up being overpowered and retreating. He still manage to hold his own against one of the most powerful incarnations of Godzilla for a while.

In other words though. Yes it was the movie that Godzilla died in but not by Destoroyah's hands as many would say.

[LamangoKaijura]

Well, he killed Godzilla, just not the one dying.

[BlankAccount]

Destoroyah killing Godzilla. I've seen people saying this throughout the internet such as "The Monster who killed Godzilla" and no, no he did not. In reality. Godzilla really died when he reached 1,200 degrees. In fact had Godzilla not been dying from meltdown once he reached 1,200 degrees, he probably would've still actually ended up killing Destoroyah since after being hit with so many red spiral rays (Which mind you is impressive durability to survive all those, same attacks that defeated SpaceGodzilla in two shots), he ended up trying to retreat heavily implying Godzilla was winning, only for the military to finish him off with his signature weakness.

I won't argue though that Destoroyah is arguably one of Godzilla's most powerful foes that even if he did end up being overpowered and retreating. He still manage to hold his own against one of the most powerful incarnations of Godzilla for a while.

In other words though. Yes it was the movie that Godzilla died in but not by Destoroyah's hands as many would say.

He wouldn't have had so many spiral rays though. I actually think had he not been powered up into a super monster, Godzilla would have been killed by Desotoryah who was also a super monster. In other words, the very thing that kept Godzilla alive in his fight with Big D was ironically the very same thing that was slowly killing him in the long run, out of control power.

That's just my belief though.

[GodzillaFan1990's]

He wouldn't have had so many spiral rays though. I actually think had he not been powered up into a super monster, Godzilla would have been killed by Desotoryah who was also a super monster. In other words, the very thing that kept Godzilla alive in his fight with Big D was ironically the very same thing that was slowly killing him in the long run, out of control power.

That's just my belief though.

Good point there tbh...Never thought about that. Still though. Destoroyah didn't end up killing Godzilla in the end which these people are always saying so I wanted it be to be cleared up is all.

[BlankAccount]

He wouldn't have had so many spiral rays though. I actually think had he not been powered up into a super monster, Godzilla would have been killed by Desotoryah who was also a super monster. In other words, the very thing that kept Godzilla alive in his fight with Big D was ironically the very same thing that was slowly killing him in the long run, out of control power.

That's just my belief though.

Good point there tbh...Never thought about that. Still though. Destoroyah didn't end up killing Godzilla in the end which these people are always saying so I wanted it be to be cleared up is all.

Not to sound like DBZ, but the movie did give us a clue about their power levels, with the computer measuring Micro-Oxygen saying "impossible to measure" when all the Destoryah creatures combined into one and with the Super-X 3 pilot saying "what radioactivity" when he saw the radiation was off the charts on the computer as Godzilla melted down.

[g2vd]

Destoroyah killing Godzilla. I've seen people saying this throughout the internet such as "The Monster who killed Godzilla" and no, no he did not. In reality. Godzilla really died when he reached 1,200 degrees. In fact had Godzilla not been dying from meltdown once he reached 1,200 degrees, he probably would've still actually ended up killing Destoroyah since after being hit with so many red spiral rays (Which mind you is impressive durability to survive all those, same attacks that defeated SpaceGodzilla in two shots),

Not true. Actually SpaceGodzilla was going to explode either way his Shoulder Crystals were destroyed in the battle and his energy was out of control, Godzilla didn't even need to do anything so all the Spiral Rays did was accelerate the process if anything.

He wouldn't have had so many spiral rays though. I actually think had he not been powered up into a super monster, Godzilla would have been killed by Desotoryah who was also a super monster. In other words, the very thing that kept Godzilla alive in his fight with Big D was ironically the very same thing that was slowly killing him in the long run, out of control power.

That's just my belief though.

Not really actually in my opinion the only thing I believe Film Destroyah has going for him is his durability, otherwise he's the most sluggish and lumbering monster in the Heisei Series not a Mecha or Biollante. and his beam really had no special effects on anything nor did it do anything spectacular and he didn't even spam it like the other monsters previously, in my opinion I find Film Destroyah to just be terrible.

[BlankAccount]

The mouths not moving right thing is not a Godzilla thing or even a Japanese thing, it's a dubbing thing and when Hollywood movies get brought over to countries that don't speak English as their first language they get dubbed in another language so our mouths don't look like they are "moving right". Case and point, look at the Japanese trailer for the U.S. Godzilla 2014. Look at the white Navy man's mouth. Does not match with the Japanese voice or even what the Japanese voice is saying.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fcao-mCwFIk

I don't know why but when I explain this to people or show them that clip it's somehow a "shocking revelation". I've given up on assuming anything is common sense anymore. shm

[Rodan]

Destoroyah's pronunciation and spelling of his name. Most people call him "Destroyah", but there's clearly an o between the t and r, making the pronunciation, "Dest-o-roy-ah" like how AVGN says it. I don't even know why people leave out that o when they spell Destoroyah.

That "o" is an artifact of transliteration tennis.

Indeed. I always leave it out because, while I'm aware it's present in Toho's chosen English spelling, it feels like a transliteration artifact that's removed from its original intent.

It's definitely not intended to be "Destroyer" either. At least not to the extent that, in an English translation, it would share its name exactly with the Oxygen Destroyer.

The Japanese name for the weapon in the '54 film is オキシジェン・デストロイヤー (okishijen desutoroiyaa). The monster's name is a near-homonym, spelled デストロイア (desutoroia).

There isn't a great way to bring that into English. Destroyah's Japanese spelling brings in the short "a" that's become an iconic suffix for giant-monster names, ditching the original long "a" in the weapon that's usually used to denote "er" sounds in loan words. "Destroyah" over "Destroyer" at least preserves the idea that there's a slight difference between the monster and the weapon at the end of their names, and that the former is intended to fit in amongst giant-monster naming schema. The extra "o" serves no such purpose and is simply an odd holdover from the syllabic Japanese writing system, when all other artifacts in the name have been removed.

(For similar reasons, I will ALWAYS call Mothra's opponent in Rebirth of Mothra "Death Ghidorah" and NEVER the absurd mistranslation "Desghidorah".)

F'real.

[eabaker]

The mouths not moving right thing is not a Godzilla thing or even a Japanese thing, it's a dubbing thing and when Hollywood movies get brought over to countries that don't speak English as their first language they get dubbed in another language so our mouths don't look like they are "moving right".

Heck, for a long time it was standard for Italian films to shoot totally without sound, often with actors of various nationalities speaking their native languages on set, and so even the domestic versions were obviously dubbed; usually even the native Italian stars were dubbed by other people.

[edgaguirus]

The dubbing thing occurs in several foreign films. It's even become a cliched joke.