‘Godzilla Minus One’ – Part Two: Conflict Exposes Character, Visual Storytelling, and Redemption

In Part One I proposed that this film about a giant reptile that destroys Tokyo should be a contender for Best Picture Oscar, or Best Foreign Film... and we looked at how every character in the film is defined by the horrors of war. Struggling with it. I don't think there is a character in this film who isn't deeply scarred by World War Two... including the big guy. 

Our protagonist Kioshi failed his Kamikaze mission, then failed to shoot Godzilla when he attacked the airplane repair facility - killing everyone except lead mechanic Tachibana. Kioshi's make-shift family: Noriko whose entire family was killed in the war. The foundling baby Akiko whom Noriko and Kioshi "adopt" whose parents were killed in the war. "Auntie" Sumiko who lives in the war-destroyed shack next door. 

The three other men in the mine sweeper: Captain, a sailor who survived. "Doc", a government scientist who knew that the government would rather spend human lives than the money for airplane ejection seats. And the "Kid" who has romanticized the war and wishes he had been part of it... not realizing how it has destroyed the lives of everyone around him. This movie is all about the characters and really digs into the emotions and Post Traumatic Stress and Survivor's Guilt of not being among the dead.

In Part Two we are finally going to get to Godzilla... by looking at how Conflict Exposes Character, Visual Storytelling, and Redemption.

CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD!

CONFLICT EXPOSES CHARACTER

After the first Godzilla attack where Kioshi failed to use his kamikaze plane's machine gun to kill the beast and all of the airplane mechanics except Tachibana were killed, the story focused on the characters dealing with post-war survivor's guilt and the loss of all of their loved ones. Baby Akiko isn't the only orphan, every character in this story has lost their family and returned to a city in ruin. But to keep us from losing track of Godzilla, we get a couple of reminder scenes - the main one being when Odo Island's legendary dinosaur creature becomes a victim of the Bikini Atoll atomic test blast. Whatever doesn't kill Godzilla makes him stronger, and now the big guy has a "nuclear option".

“I want to live again!”

A couple of years have passed and baby Akiko is now a cute toddler. Kioshi has used some of his money from minesweeping to rebuild his parent's house, and the city of Tokyo has also been building. But the horrors of war still weigh down every character in the story. Kioshi and Noriko may be sleeping in separate beds, but they are a family. But there is still that lurking fear of sudden death. If your parents were killed in the blink of an eye bombing, how do you form connections with others ever again? When little Akiko calls Kioshi "Daddy", he tells her he isn't her father. This is a brutal moment, a character moment. But is an extension of Kioshi's pain at losing his parents. All of the characters are suffering from the war, and that's what defines them. We are looking at the pain of surviving while others died. The return to "normal life" isn't easy.

Noriko finds an office job in the Ginza district, and “Auntie” Sumiko looks after little Akiko, who is now drawing pictures of “Mommy” and “Daddy”. Kioshi softens, and accepts the little girl as his daughter... and Noriko as his platonic spouse. There’s a great scene when they have the three men on the minesweeper over for dinner, and we see that life is getting closer to normal.

Enter Godzilla.

Godzilla comes to shore in Tokyo Bay, and attacks the Ginza District... where Noriko is riding the commuter train home from work - and spots Godzilla through the window! There’s a great, scary, scene where a TV News Crew on the roof of their building filming Godzilla’s attack become victims of the attack. In the original “Godzilla” (“Gojira”) (1954) the creature was a violent monster that was scary. That was a monster movie, a horror movie. After that, Godzilla became tame and a little goofy. The protector of Japan when other monsters attacked. The movies were aimed at kids, but adults like me could have fun watching the big guy fighting other Kaiju. This Godzilla attack was a return to the horrors of the original film.

Godzilla grabs the commuter train, yanks it off its tracks, and hundreds of people fall to their deaths. Noriko hangs on - and we get a scene that rivals the end of Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning when the train car hangs over the bridge and Ethan and Grace are dangling over the river. Noriko is dangling over Tokyo as people fall to their deaths around her. When Godzilla moves the train car back... over the water... before tossing it, Noriko lets go and splashes into the bay.

Kioshi hears news of the attack on the radio and races to the Ginza district, as Godzilla continues his destruction. This is action that brings Kioshi's love for Noriko to the surface. He finds Noriko on the street, part of a group of people running from Godzilla, and grabs her. They might sleep in separate beds with a curtain between them, but he loves this woman enough to risk his life for her. 

Godzilla destroys every building that has been rebuilt after the war, and uses his nuclear breath to burn everything. When he turns his breath of Kioshi and Noriko and the people on the street below him... Kioshi pulls Noriko into an alley... but isn't fast enough. Noriko is blown out of his arms by Godzilla's nuclear breath. Gone. I gasped every time I watched the film - you can't do that in a movie! You can't create a character that the audience grows to love, and then kill them. Except, that's exactly what you need to do.

30,000 people were killed in the Godzilla attack... including Noriko.

When Kioshi gets home, little Akiko asks "Where's Mommy?" Devastating. Every Godzilla attack in this story isn't just to create excitement and spectacle, the conflict is used to bring emotions and character to the surface. These are character scenes. Ironic that the Godzilla attack scenes are probably the reason why it wouldn't be considered for an Oscar nomination when those are the very reasons why it should have been a nominee.

VISUAL STORYTELLING

“It’s my fault for thinking I could dream again.”

Movies have always been aimed at an international audience (except for a brief period during World War Two) which means that when we are crafting our screenplays we need to think beyond the English-speaking (or Japanese-speaking) audience. One of the reasons why Godzilla: Minus One was a hit in the United States, is now the All-Time Top Box Office Film from Japan, and got a secondary Black & White release, is that it's designed for an international audience... and many of the big emotional moments are due to the film's visual storytelling.

When Kioshi returns from the war, he makes a traditional Japanese tamaya shrine to his dead parents in the shack he builds from the destroyed family home. This is a symbol of the loss of his family in the bombings - always there, in the background of every scene. Because his parents are dead, we need a way to show that he misses them, that he is haunted by their deaths. The shrine, and his prayers, help the audience feel those emotions... And when Kioshi adds a photo of Noriko? Without dialogue, when he prays at the shrine, or looks at it, or even just walks past it... the emotional weight of those losses touches the audience.

The story also uses Visual Storytelling to create suspense and anticipation. Before Godzilla attacks Odo Island in the opening scene a group of deep-sea fish float to the surface. One of the Mechanics mentions that it's part of the local legend of Godzilla. From that point on, before Godzilla attacks the dead deep sea fish float to the surface. Sometimes the characters see them and are warned that Godzilla is coming, other times the characters don't see the dead fish... but the audience does. This creates suspense - we know that Godzilla is coming but the characters don't. I'm sure that some audience members yelled at the screen, in hopes that the characters in the film could hear them.

After Godzilla kills everyone on Odo Island except Kioshi and Tachibana, head mechanic Tachibana collects all of the family photos from his dead crew, puts them in an envelope, and gives them to Kioshi - the man responsible for their deaths. Kioshi carries this envelope with him, and all he needs to do is take it out of his pocket and we know that he is feeling responsibility for the deaths of all of those men. In addition to scenes where he takes the envelope from his pocket are scenes where the pictures are scattered on the floor - all of those faces of dead men and their wives and children looking up at Kioshi. Like the shrine, this is a way to show the ghosts and guilt our protagonist must deal with.

Another visual element demonstrates Godzilla's "nuclear powers" and helps the audience know when the big guy is gaining or losing strength. His spike-like fins begin to glow blue and pop out when Godzilla goes nuclear. His strength is increased and his "nuclear breath" can burn and destroy everything in its path. We also get the amount of time it takes Godzilla to "replenish" his power - which sets up a ticking clock later in the story. But whenever we see those spike-fins glowing blue and popping out? Our characters are in big trouble!

The story does a great job of creating big emotional situations where we don’t need to understand the dialogue to feel the emotions in the scene. Instead of characters talking about their feelings or thoughts, they are demonstrated through actions.

REDEMPTION & SACRIFICE

After Ginza, the people of Japan become proactive. They can’t wait for the government to save them, they need to save themselves... and “Doc” has a plan. One of the techniques in Heist movies and Commando Raid movies and many other genres and subgenres is a step-by-step briefing on the plan so that the audience knows how things are *supposed to* work... so that they will know when things go very very wrong. Doc outlines his plan with charts and graphs and visuals, so that the audience is both impressed with the plan, and will later know when the unexpected happens. This is a great scene, because “Doc” has just been a member of the mine sweeper crew up to this point, and Kioshi and the Captain and the Kid realize that their friend is a genius.

Part of the plan requires a pilot to keep Godzilla busy while a pair of warships tie him up with freon gas tanks and sink him into a deep trench in the ocean... which will kill him. And if that doesn't work? There are also floatation devices that will rapidly bring him to the surface - giving Godzilla the bends and killing him. "Doc" has a backup plan for everything that might go wrong.

This is a big, rousing, emotional scene. Every character in this story has been living with the horrors of war, the ghosts of their dead loved ones, and the feelings of helplessness. But now they have a plan - a way to solve the problem. All of our characters who have been struggling throughout the story, now have hope. They will win the war against Godzilla!

Kioshi volunteers to be the pilot, now all they need is a plane...

“My war isn’t over yet.”

One of the things that you should be thinking about when writing your screenplay is that if you have a choice between something normal & average and something interesting & exciting? Go for the interesting! The plane they find is a Kyushu J7W Shinden experimental fighter plane... which is kind of the Japanese version of the German “Flying Wing” plane from Raiders Of The Lost Ark. This is a real plane, but looks like something from a 1950s science fiction movie. This is why you need to do research before writing your screenplay - you need to know that this cool plane exists! You need to know all of the possible things that could be part of your story so that you can put them in the story. This plane is one of the stars of the movie! But the plane needs a mechanic, and Kioshi knows just the guy...

Tachibana. The head mechanic from the beginning of the film. Who hates Kiochi and blames him for the deaths of all of the other mechanics on Odo Island. This is the most emotional and dramatic possibility. Kiochi must work with the man who hates him - and who Kiochi lets down. Story is conflict, so you want to keep bringing together characters that have conflicts with each other and forcing them to work together - that will pull all of those emotions to the surface.

This leads to a great visual moment: Tachibana's leg was injured in the Godzilla attack at the beginning of the film... and we see a man limping to the airplane hanger where the fighter plane is. We don't need to be told who that man is. After a big confrontation between the two men, Kioshi tells Tachibana that he has a secret plan to destroy Godzilla that no one else can know about... a Kamikaze attack on the creature. The mission that he couldn't complete at the very beginning of the film, he will complete now... and die in the process. The story circles back to the beginning - the thing that Kioshi was most afraid of doing... he must do. There is no escape from his self-sacrifice. He wants Tachibana to remove the fuel tank he will need to fly back to Tokyo and add a bomb. He knows that Godzilla is armored on the outside, but if he can fly into Godzilla's mouth and detonate the bomb from inside the beast?

Hey, told you there would be spoilers!

Of course, nothing goes as planned.

CONCLUSIONS

“We leave you the future.”

Whether your story is about Godzilla or Ferrari or Bernstein or a Professor and the Student he hates who must spend Christmas Vacation together; from the concept to the screenplay - it's always going to be about the people and their emotions... when Godzilla attacks. Or an asteroid is hurtling towards Earth. Or Freddy Krueger shows up in your dreams. Or you have watched your family die and now you are the Road Warrior... a man who suppresses his emotions because they are too painful. Go through all of the big genre films that really work and you will find that it's all about the characters. Godzilla is the catalyst or the trigger that brings the emotions to the surface. The people who buy the tickets might come for Godzilla destroying Tokyo, but stay for the emotions and big character moments of the survivors.

That's what is important.

Your Story Checklist:

1) Are you using conflict to pull emotions to the surface?

2) Are you not pulling your punches? You want the little girl to ask “Where’s mommy?” That’s devastating!

3) Are you telling your story visually so that the audience is experiencing what the characters are experiencing?

4) Are you setting up the twists and turns in the story, so that when they happen they are both surprising and logical?

5) For all of the relentless conflict that has brought your character's emotions to the surface, do you have a resolution that gives the characters (and the audience) hope and closure?

Even genre movies need to be about the characters!

Best Special Effects is great, but it should have been nominated for Best Motion Picture!