So what happened to San Francisco and Las Vegas?

[Destoroyah of Worlds]

Radiation is not the cause of a wildlife upsurge in reality, but it seems GKOTM didn't have its facts straight. It's the absence of human activity and the habitat loss that comes with said activity. Acute radiation poisoning would kill almost all wildlife in the immediate area. Only years later would there be a rebound. That's assuming that Godzilla deposits harmful isotopes with long half lives, though.

Actually the monsters did help plant growth. The newspapers mention prehistoric plant mutations over attack sites, which implies the monsters mutated them.

[BlankAccount]

It implies they are waking up creatures from long ago, plants and animals from their ecosystem.

[Stump Feet]

Yeah it’s quite strange, prehistoric plants are regrowing, species who were endangered and went extinct in recent decades are popping back up, all thanks to Titan radiation and Behemoth sh*tting everywhere.

[G2000]

Actually the monsters did help plant growth. The newspapers mention prehistoric plant mutations over attack sites, which implies the monsters mutated them.

Well, yes, but that's the point he was making: IRL radiation wouldn't support plant growth like depicted in KoTM, but rather kill it off.

It really didn't bother me, I got what they were going for (the Titans are sort of like "natural gods" bringing the Earth back to it's natural state) and I guess the "radiation" aspect of it was meant to be an attempt at psuedoscientifically explaining how they were capable of doing that, but ultimately it probably wasn't the best way of explaining it.

[BlankAccount]

I just see the plants as being from the same ecosystem as the monsters.

[Relair]

Since there's no way to tell exactly what kind of radiation Titans emit, and to what degree, its not really unreasonable to just buy Emma's explanation. Handwaved science is a staple of nearly every scifi franchise, it doesn't really bother me. It sounds like some people must go into fits watching Avengers and such too, Bruce Banner should have just died not been given super powers!

[BlankAccount]

Since there's no way to tell exactly what kind of radiation Titans emit, and to what degree, its not really unreasonable to just buy Emma's explanation. Handwaved science is a staple of nearly every scifi franchise, it doesn't really bother me. It sounds like some people must go into fits watching Avengers and such too, Bruce Banner should have just died not been given super powers!

Or heck people should just die being near Banner or the Hulk. Yes he absorbs radiation but everything that is consumed is expelled out of the body eventually.

[Stump Feet]

sounds like some people must go into fits watching Avengers and such too, Bruce Banner should have just died not been given super powers!

Sounds to me like you ignored the entire point of why it was brought up in the first place.

I don’t think the problem is whether or not it’s realistic or scientifically accurate, it’s that radiation has always been treated as a negative thing in the Godzilla franchise, it was built on that principle alone, yet in KOTM, it’s outright glorified as it “brings back the ecosystem”.

[Shoopwoop17]

sounds like some people must go into fits watching Avengers and such too, Bruce Banner should have just died not been given super powers!

Sounds to me like you ignored the entire point of why it was brought up in the first place.

I don’t think the problem is whether or not it’s realistic, it’s that radiation has always been treated as a negative thing in the Godzilla franchise, it was built on that principle alone, yet in KOTM, it’s outright glorified as it “brings back the ecosystem”.

Possibly as an allegory for nuclear energy in the modern world. Or is that too much of a conspiracy theory?

[MegaEvilSaurus666]

Since there's no way to tell exactly what kind of radiation Titans emit, and to what degree, its not really unreasonable to just buy Emma's explanation. Handwaved science is a staple of nearly every scifi franchise, it doesn't really bother me. It sounds like some people must go into fits watching Avengers and such too, Bruce Banner should have just died not been given super powers!

Marvel is full of characters that are nonsensical by scientific standards. But, that's Marvel. It's still entertaining because of the world those characters are set in, the style of the story telling, and the history of the comics themselves. There's far weirder in the Marvel comics than Hulk as well. So, it is the context that makes it work.

Things like the idea of radiation helping the environment clash with previous films and real life. The history of the Godzilla franchise makes this harder to "handwave", and the real world nuclear disasters that have happened make it seem worse. There are real world analogues to this, while Hulk is purely fictitious and doesn't aim to be any more than that. Hulk's gamma ray origin is part of his own franchise's history, while radiation is damaging to the world and creates frightening creatures in the Godzilla franchise's history.

Also, I'm sure we could assume what radiation the Titans emit based upon the radioactive isotopes and elements found in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors. The hollow earth/ancient city part of the film has a line where they tell us what radiation is being detected, if I recall correctly. I could be wrong.

[_JNavs_]

So do they ever say blatantly whether it's the radiation itself that's causing San Fran and Vegas to flourish with life? Or is it because the Titans cleaned them out, leaving them too irradiated for human interaction (which is exactly what happened in the first act of Godzilla 2014)? Over time slowly allowing life to flourish again? Because that's what I got from it.

And if the latter is the case, then you guys are tripping over your own shoelaces for nothing lol.

[Breakdown]

So do they ever say blatantly whether it's the radiation itself that's causing San Fran and Vegas to flourish with life? Or is it because the Titans cleaned them out, leaving them too irradiated for human interaction (which is exactly what happened in the first act of Godzilla 2014)? Over time slowly allowing life to flourish again? Because that's what I got from it.

And if the latter is the case, then you guys are tripping over your own shoelaces for nothing lol.

She flat out states that the radiation the Titans leave behind causes life to flourish in the city ruins, I think.

[_JNavs_]

So do they ever say blatantly whether it's the radiation itself that's causing San Fran and Vegas to flourish with life? Or is it because the Titans cleaned them out, leaving them too irradiated for human interaction (which is exactly what happened in the first act of Godzilla 2014)? Over time slowly allowing life to flourish again? Because that's what I got from it.

And if the latter is the case, then you guys are tripping over your own shoelaces for nothing lol.

She flat out states that the radiation the Titans leave behind causes life to flourish in the city ruins, I think.

If that's the case then couldn't it be interpreted as, due to the radiation Titans leave behind, humans couldn't rebuild, which gave nature the chance to rehabilitate herself, long thought extinct species coming back, fauna flourishing, etc etc. akin to what happened in G14?

[BlankAccount]

So what happened to Hawaii?

[Breakdown]

So do they ever say blatantly whether it's the radiation itself that's causing San Fran and Vegas to flourish with life? Or is it because the Titans cleaned them out, leaving them too irradiated for human interaction (which is exactly what happened in the first act of Godzilla 2014)? Over time slowly allowing life to flourish again? Because that's what I got from it.

And if the latter is the case, then you guys are tripping over your own shoelaces for nothing lol.

She flat out states that the radiation the Titans leave behind causes life to flourish in the city ruins, I think.

If that's the case then couldn't it be interpreted as, due to the radiation Titans leave behind, humans couldn't rebuild, which gave nature the chance to rehabilitate herself, long thought extinct species coming back, fauna flourishing, etc etc. akin to what happened in G14?

Yeah but humans and Titans coexisted at one point, so the radiation the Titans give off can't be THAT deadly. Maybe they emit their own, unique kind that up until now was unknown to us?

[_JNavs_]

She flat out states that the radiation the Titans leave behind causes life to flourish in the city ruins, I think.

If that's the case then couldn't it be interpreted as, due to the radiation Titans leave behind, humans couldn't rebuild, which gave nature the chance to rehabilitate herself, long thought extinct species coming back, fauna flourishing, etc etc. akin to what happened in G14?

Yeah but humans and Titans coexisted at one point, so the radiation the Titans give off can't be THAT deadly. Maybe they emit their own, unique kind that up until now was unknown to us?

That's true, the disaster at the beginning of G14 was due to the nuclear collapse because of a Kaiju tremor (I think right?). Which is why it was "uninhabitable", but remember when the Brody's went back there, the air was perfectly fine, which means whatever radiation it was, it was only temporary.

With that being said, the third act of G14 had the entire environment around San Francisco turn into an apocalyptic landscape, probably due to all that radiation and debris between the MUTOs and Godzilla kicked up during the fighting, yet the Pre G-team managed to have no problem setting the bomb off in the middle of it, so I'm thinking it's gotta be some kind of natural Titan filtering system that makes it less severe long term.

[BlankAccount]

Mr. MUTO had been eating radiation faster than the reactor could contaminate the city. Part of the reason MONARCH refused to kill him at first was fear that the reactor still had enough to be an actual nuclear disaster.

[Breakdown]

If that's the case then couldn't it be interpreted as, due to the radiation Titans leave behind, humans couldn't rebuild, which gave nature the chance to rehabilitate herself, long thought extinct species coming back, fauna flourishing, etc etc. akin to what happened in G14?

Yeah but humans and Titans coexisted at one point, so the radiation the Titans give off can't be THAT deadly. Maybe they emit their own, unique kind that up until now was unknown to us?

That's true, the disaster at the beginning of G14 was due to the nuclear collapse because of a Kaiju tremor (I think right?). Which is why it was "uninhabitable", but remember when the Brody's went back there, the air was perfectly fine, which means whatever radiation it was, it was only temporary.

I always assumed either the male MUTO absorbed it all, or despite there being no radiation risk from the collapsed plant, the presence of the male MUTO meant that it's existence needed to be made secret and so the cover story was that the city was heavily contaminated, thus leading to it being deserted.


Edit: Ninja'd

[Mr_Goji_and_Watch]

The whole point of Janjira being evacuated due to radiation was that it was a cover up lol

[MegaEvilSaurus666]

but remember when the Brody's went back there, the air was perfectly fine, which means whatever radiation it was, it was only temporary.

I'm going to just point out that radiation is as temporary as the radioactive element/isotope's half life is.

I did a little research, so I'm going to get nerdy for a bit here. I think this will be useful in understanding the topic.

Iodine-131 has a half life of 8 days. Cesium-137 has a half life of 30 years. Polonium-210 has a half life of 140 days (and we live with it daily in small doses less than or equal to 100 micrograms; larger doses can be fatal in mere days). Plutonium-239 has a half life of 24,110 years, and becomes uranium-235 with a half life of 703.8 million years. (both emit alpha particles, and while not as dangerous as beta, x, or gamma, they are carcinogenic if ingested).

These isotopes have vastly different rates of decay, reactivity, and particle emission. Most of these are used in nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, however. Some of these are found in nuclear waste, along with Americium-241. Ingestion, inhalation, and absorption of these materials can cause health issues and death.

I'm also going to point out that the only kind of radiation that plants can benefit from is non-ionizing photochemical radiation in real life (ultraviolet, visible light, infrared).