When Godzilla was reborn for his Heisei era of films, the King of the Monsters had changed. The overall tone was darker than his wild and wooly ‘70s output, and the films’ plots often seemed concocted to reflect popular American blockbusters. In Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah there are elements of Terminator and Back to the Future, in vs. Mothra there are bits of Indiana Jones, and in vs. Destoroyah there’s a lot of aliens. Combined with an extended plotline featuring the telepathic Miki Saegusa as the closest the series has to a non-Godzilla leading character and you get a period that feels quite different from the classic Showa Era, even as it recycled old monsters to attract moviegoers.
