Kamen Ranger’s Ramblings: Clueless Godzilla Scientists

Do Scientists In Godzilla Know What They’re Talking About?

We all know this trope. Some unprecedented event is taking place – be it a natural disaster, alien invasion, monster attack or all three combined  – and there’s a scientist character on hand to explain to the rest of the cast how/why this has happened and you just know they’re making it all up.

In some cases, as with several Godzilla movies, they confirm they don’t know for sure, the most glaring example of this is in Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla in which Dr Chinatsu Gondo proposes two theories to explain SpaceGodzilla’s existence without having any way to verify either. The theories involve black holes and white holes, neither of which are anywhere close enough to earth to make this plausible, which has led me to this conclusion: Scientists in Godzilla have no idea what they’re talking about.

It makes sense if you think about it. Even years after giant monsters are an established presence in these films they still know very little about them. I’d wager that any scientist with the great misfortune to find themselves in a situation involving a giant monster just makes up their theories and recommendations as they go along to keep their job.

I’d love to make a monster movie comedy where we follow the scientist in charge of studying the monster and coming up with ways to combat it and through a series of misunderstandings and hi-jinks ends up accidentally defeating the monster but then has to live with being constantly brought in to deal with monster attacks that he has no more idea how to stop than the intern getting him coffee.

The only scientist that comes to mind in Godzilla that knew what he was doing was Dr Serizawa and even then he was only an expert in killing lots of things horribly, oh and oxygen. Even Professor Yamane doesn’t know what Godzilla’s deal is for sure, though his theory is at least a little more grounded than Gondo’s Space Godzilla theory.

In short I’ve rumbled the racket that scientists in Godzilla movies have had going for years, they’re all hacks and frauds who have no idea what they’re doing. But let’s face it. It’s not like any of us could do any better.

What would you make up to explain a monster’s existence? Would you even stick around long enough? Let us know in the comments.