☣The Goro Maki Connection☣

[Inferno Rodan]

I don't agree with LC very often, but in this instance I think he's pretty much hit the nail on the head in his analysis (barring a detail or two that's overall irrelevant to the subject at hand). I mean, the very fact that multiple people have reached that conclusion independently of each other seems very telling of what the film's intent was.

[Tatsunoshi]

Maki's suicide wasn't likely as simple as drowning himself. It seems likely he had diving gear, dove down to where he had located Godzilla, and set some sort of charge to harm the creature and drive it out of the bay and onto dry land. That's where the explosion and huge geyser of water comes from at the start of the film in the bay-and the same explosion cracked the tunnel under the bay and allowed the blood from the injured Form 1 to flood into it. It "encouraged" Godzilla to mutate into form 2 to escape to dry land. Goro probably died in the explosion himself, probably intentionally, and as several have pointed out there's evidence to support his DNA might have been absorbed by Godzilla. And yes, this isn't my theory but Ayame's based on the shooting script and an early version of the art book.

[Lain Of The Wired]

Maki's suicide wasn't likely as simple as drowning himself. It seems likely he had diving gear, dove down to where he had located Godzilla, and set some sort of charge to harm the creature and drive it out of the bay and onto dry land. That's where the explosion and huge geyser of water comes from at the start of the film in the bay-and the same explosion cracked the tunnel under the bay and allowed the blood from the injured Form 1 to flood into it. It "encouraged" Godzilla to mutate into form 2 to escape to dry land. Goro probably died in the explosion himself, probably intentionally, and as several have pointed out there's evidence to support his DNA might have been absorbed by Godzilla. And yes, this isn't my theory but Ayame's based on the shooting script and an early version of the art book.

Holy crap, that thing about the underwater explosion being caused by Goro just blew my mind
I just assumed it was caused by Godzilla. Wow.
What else can you tell us about the script and art book?

[UltramanGoji]

Maki's suicide wasn't likely as simple as drowning himself. It seems likely he had diving gear, dove down to where he had located Godzilla, and set some sort of charge to harm the creature and drive it out of the bay and onto dry land. That's where the explosion and huge geyser of water comes from at the start of the film in the bay-and the same explosion cracked the tunnel under the bay and allowed the blood from the injured Form 1 to flood into it. It "encouraged" Godzilla to mutate into form 2 to escape to dry land. Goro probably died in the explosion himself, probably intentionally, and as several have pointed out there's evidence to support his DNA might have been absorbed by Godzilla. And yes, this isn't my theory but Ayame's based on the shooting script and an early version of the art book.

Yeah, doubling Lain's statement. This is completely new to me! I love this theory, I think it's the most plausible one I've heard so far.

[tbeasley]

Yeah I kind of assumed Maki might've suicide bombed Godzilla with a homemade depth charge or something.
There's such a flurry of events at the start of the movie which adds to the panic.

[Spydrmanjr]

This is my headcanon now.

[Mechagigan]

So maybe Goro himself isn't "within" Godzilla, but the two happen to share similar 'goals'... destruction. Goro as twisted revenge, Godzilla as an inadvertent result.

Goro lives on in Godzilla through similar ideals of hatred, but he may not necessarily be within the creature.

Seeing as he named Godzilla after the Odo Island myth, he had to have known of Godzilla's ways - hence, why he died to bring it to life. He knew his goal of revenge wouldn't be in vein.

[Tatsunoshi]

What else can you tell us about the script and art book?

Her script is a shooting script, and according to her there's very little that didn't end up on the screen. There are a few descriptions, especially during the first few scenes, that give hints about what happened with Goro (like 'a huge explosion is seen in the harbor and the Tokyo Bay Aqua Line beneath cracks'). I didn't get time to read it myself before we had to get back to the US, but it'll be there waiting when I get back.

The early version of the artbook she got from Toho, on the other hand, is filled with all kinds of off the wall concepts and crazy stuff. Anyone who ordered it is going to be very pleased, especially since they delayed production of it to include even MORE stuff.

[xenotactics]

Side note: Maki Goro / Goro Maki has been the name of two presumably unrelated leads in Godzilla films before. Son of Godzilla and Godzilla (1984). Any thoughts?

[MechaGoji Bro7503]

Side note: Maki Goro / Goro Maki has been the name of two presumably unrelated leads in Godzilla films before. Son of Godzilla and Godzilla (1984). Any thoughts?

A simple easter egg/reference I suppose.

[tbeasley]

The Art of Shin Godzilla is one hell of a book -
https://imgur.com/gallery/w0m6a

[MechaGoji Bro7503]

The Art of Shin Godzilla is one hell of a book -
https://imgur.com/gallery/w0m6a

Thats very interesting, thansk for sharing! Oh and see people he aint a microorganism! I was hoping it would reveal Godzilla's exact species, but I think there are alot of hints in there that we need to put together.

[Omegamorph]

A reptile with gills clearly looking like a chondrichthyan's?

hmmmm

[GoodOlGoji]

Good lord, that is great.

Why couldn't the supplementary material for 2014 be this engrossing?

*looks at the Godzilla: Awakening GN that I still own for some reason*

[Inferno Rodan]

The Art of Shin Godzilla is one hell of a book -
https://imgur.com/gallery/w0m6a

Neat, though it'd be far more interesting if it wasn't just droning on about the classification of various groups of prehistoric marine reptiles (all of which is extremely basic information to anyone with any interest in paleontology, but I digress) which have zero relation to Godzilla in any way. The only actual info about Godzilla is where he hypothesizes that the creature is some sort of marine reptile.

[Dawsbfiremind]

I think it's more of a Lovecraftian death: in that Goro might have gone insane from what he discovered and killed himself.
Also I can't help but think of that one SCP about the whale that attracts people to it who then become part of its body (then again, maybe none of those dudezillas were people at any point in time).

[Showa Gyaos]

I think it's more of a Lovecraftian death: in that Goro might have gone insane from what he discovered and killed himself.
Also I can't help but think of that one SCP about the whale that attracts people to it who then become part of its body (then again, maybe none of those dudezillas were people at any point in time).

That's what I believed at first. It was either that, or he took his own life because he didn't want to be around to see what would happen if Godzilla entered a largely populated area. It kind of drives home the "fate worse than death" trope. End your life sooner and quicker, or be punished by something that shouldn't exist.

[Dino-Mario]

Personally i believe that Maki willingly let himself be absorbed by Shin's first form. His wife died, his scientific colleagues accused him of being a madman, he had nothing else let for him. Plus, it would explain why Shin's "offsprings" are humanoid mutants.

[Zarm]

I think his offspring, as generated by mytosis (such as the blob that the relief workers found), we're just going to be clones, aren't they? The humanoid things at the end are something else- commonly theorized to be the fifth form. Not children, but the new Collective version of Godzilla himself, an adaptation to fight the collective that was defeating him.

Personally, I don't think that had any connection to Goro Maki, or that this version of Godzilla requires any kind of human catalyst in order to create human-form creatures. While there's no evidence either way, I just never bought the whole 'absorbed' thing; if only because I find no reason to actually believe that based on what we see in the film. Suicide, yes. Absorption- we don't even really know that that is possible, save for the theorized-whale tail. So positing that, then further positing it as Goro Maki's fate, when Occam's Razor allows for a sinpler explanation, isn't the leap for me.

Actually, based on the explosion at the beginning (which I'd forgotten about), I found the theorized 'suicide bomber' explanation the most plausible, as it accounts not only for a suicide that he could have known would actually work, but actually accounts for an element in the film that is otherwise left unexplained. So count me a believer in that camp. (But that's just me, and I can see absorption filling a similar role for anyone not convinced that the final shot of the film represents a symbolic adaptation to the form of what defeated him; namely, accounting for an otherwise-unexplained element of the film.)


EDIT: Fixed the gibberish-typoed first sentence after someone quoted it and I saw how nonsensical it was.

[Omegamorph]

I haven't actually seen the film yet -- country's going to distribute it in the first half of 2017, or so they've said -- but by reading plot details and this thread the thought I have is, perhaps within the established narrative Godzilla is the physical embodiment or manifestation of Maki's resentment and hatred on a purely allegorical level (think Super 8), without Maki actually absorbed within Godzilla

although this latter idea is intriguing, having Maki's resentment and hatred echo within an animal mind and driving it as if it were its own instinct, without the animal actually knowing why it does those things. There's something very visceral, very uncomfortable and very in style with other Japanese works in there, and if not here it would be great to see in another creature-centered story. If intentional, it could also be seen as a twisted reference to Godzilla being a man in a suit -- taken to a gritty biological extreme