Director Ishirō Honda’s 1954 sci-fi movie classic Godzilla was born from a very specific anxiety, as most good fiction is. With the post-atomic age ushering in a new threat of mutual assured destruction, this legendary kaiju represented the bespoke fears of the world in this era of brinkmanship.
In his own way, writer/director Takashi Yamazaki played upon similar fears in his addition to the canon, Godzilla Minus One. To do so, he set the 2023 movie release in a post-World War II Japan that was still a couple years out from realizing those fears in order to explore a different angle of vulnerability.
