Zilla
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Godzilla film series character
Zilla
Species Irradiated Sea Iguana
Alias Godzilla, Tuna-Head, American Godzilla, GINO (Godzilla In Name Only), Godzilla 1998
Height 60-90 m (197–295 ft)
Weight 500 tons
Abilities Nuclear Flame Breath (Godzilla)
Speed
Burrowing
Atomic Flame Breath (Godzilla: The Series)
Enhanced Regeneration (Godzilla: The Series)
Enhanced Stamina (Godzilla: The Series)
Origins Nuclear testing in French Polynesia
First appearance Godzilla (1998)
Voiced by Frank Welker
Created by Dean Devlin and Patrick Tatopoulos
Zilla (ジラ, Jira) is Toho Studios's official name for the title character of the 1998 film Godzilla. The name was created for the character's appearance in 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars. Prior to the release of that film, the monster was simply called "Godzilla," which is still the official name for the monster in the 1998 movie.
Film appearances
Godzilla
Originally a marine iguana egg irradiated by French nuclear tests in French Polynesia, Godzilla makes its presence known years later when it attacks a Japanese fishing ship. The monster then heads to New York City, dragging three trawlers under the sea on the way, then creating havoc in the Fulton Fish Market, before rampaging through the city. Manhattan is evacuated and the military attempt to kill the monster, first luring it out with a huge pile of fish. It takes the bait, but then is scared off by small arms fire, and is chased by three AH-64 Apache attack helicopters. They fire, only to knock the top two dozen stories off the Chrysler Building. The monster escapes, but not before it is realized that it reproduces asexually, and is collecting food not only for itself, but also for its offspring. The military lures Godzilla out again, into the waters of the Hudson River and seemingly kill it with a torpedo. Meanwhile, hundreds of eggs are discovered in Madison Square Garden. The Baby Godzilla's begin to look for food, but are incinerated when the building is bombarded. The adult Godzilla emerges from the wreckage, and is lured to the Brooklyn Bridge where it becomes entangled in the steel suspension cables, and is an easy target for the fighters. After it is hit by twelve missiles, it screams in pain and falls to the ground, its heart beating slowly until it breathes its last breath.
All seems well until we see in the smoking ruins of the Garden, a single egg has survived and hatches revealing another baby Godzilla.
Godzilla: Final Wars
Under Xilian control, Zilla attacks Sydney, Australia, and later battles Godzilla there. He charges at Godzilla and jumps over his atomic breath, but is sent flying by a tail swipe from Godzilla into the Sydney Opera House. Godzilla releases his atomic breath at the famous structure, destroying it and atomizing Zilla in the process. The fight itself lasts 13 seconds, giving Zilla the record of the shortest battle in Final Wars, and one of the shortest defeats in any Godzilla film.
Zilla is the only monster in Final Wars realized completely through CGI instead of suitmation.
Zilla is suggested to eat two people in his initial attack on Sydney, something few other Toho kaiju have done. Though disputed, it appears as if Zilla possesses a breath weapon, as the film shows a crowd of people running until they are all blown away by a wall of fire which precedes the appearance of the monster walking into camera view. In an interview, the director of Final Wars confirmed this and stated that Zilla was emitting an acid fire from its stomach.
Godzilla: Final Wars references the 1998 Godzilla movie when Zilla is defeated. The Controller, in the Japanese version, says, "I knew that tuna-eating lizard was useless," a reference to the American creature's diet of fish in the 1998 film. In the American version, he calls Zilla a "tuna-head".
Godzilla: The Series
In 1998, Godzilla: The Series, a Saturday morning cartoon not to be confused with the original series from Hanna-Barbera, continued the story of Godzilla's surviving offspring from the 1998 film in a role reminiscent of the Japanese films of the late Shōwa era.
The series revolves around the only surviving offspring of the first Godzilla seen in the climax of the 1998 film. After the original monster was killed, Niko "Nick" Tatapolous the NRC scientist who first studied Godzilla convinces the military to conduct a search for any eggs that may have survived. Nick offers his assistance, and ends up falling into a small cavern containing amniotic fluid and one large egg. The egg immediately hatches, though the infant does not attack, and escapes by burrowing to safety after Nick scares it away.
Nick's wish to capture and study the infant is met with opposition by the military who wish to destroy it. With the help of Dr. Mendel Craven, Elsie Chapman, and Randy Hernandez, Nick sets a trap for the infant. Unfortunately, the trap was designed for something the size of a human; the hatching had gone through a rapid growth spurt and is now 35 feet tall. He quickly destroys the trap and snatches Nick. However, before he can eat Nick, Godzilla detects the scent of his own kind on Nick and releases him. Nick realizes that the infant had imprinted on him, believing him to be his parent.
Over the next few weeks, HEAT studies Godzilla. They realize that he is sterile. Unfortunately, Monique Dupre, a French secret agent assigned to monitor HEAT's activities, tip off the military, who immediately attack and apparently kill Godzilla. HEAT has no time to mourn, as they have to go to Jamaica to investigate reports of people being attacked. They get ring side seats as giant squids attack the HEAT Seeker, but Godzilla, who had survived, now fully grown to 180 feet tall, and followed HEAT, quickly deals with the squids.
Not long after, HEAT discovers that another creature was responsible for the attacks, a giant, mutant, tar-eating crustacean called Crustaceous Rex (or "C-Rex"). After an intense fight, Godzilla manages to collapse a cliff on top of C-Rex, apparently killing it (since it returned in the three-parter "Monster Wars," it seems the mutant was only buried and managed to escape). Major Hicks, an army commander and recurring character in the series, is persuaded by Nick that having "at least one mutation" on the side of humanity is a good thing, and orders his men to stand down and let Godzilla remain free.
Powers and abilities
Godzilla/Cyber-Godzilla
For the 1998 Centropolis film, the attempt was made to interpret Godzilla more realistically than had ever been done before - to see him as an animal, and not as something else entirely. Built like a theropod dinosaur with his body held horizontally on long legs, Godzilla has a rectangular box-shaped head with a thick lower jaw - a "proud chin" - and long powerful arms similar to those of a spinosaurid. The characteristic maple leaf dorsal fins, of the Toho Godzilla, are instead rows of large curved dorsal spikes. Those fins begin at the back of the head and continue down the length of the body and whip-like tail, growing larger on the back. The two largest fins on the shoulders.
Originally, Godzilla was not to have any sort of breath weapon in the 1998 film, but an angry-fan petition forced Emmerich and Devlin to include one in their screenplay. Since Zilla is such a large animal, whenever he roars, a blast of powerful wind blasts out of his mouth. This breath weapon has many fan-created names, but in the script and the DVD audio commentary, it's called POWER BREATH. Twice in the film, it gives the illusion that Godzilla is breathing fire. The first time, he uses his Power Breath near two burning vehicles. The second time, he roars near two vehicles that crash into each other, causing an explosion.
Godzilla lacks the Toho Godzilla's strength, fast regenerative abilities and near-impenetrable hide, as proved by his death in the original film, but he is faster and more agile, being capable of running at 480 kilometers per hour (300 mph), outrunning several helicopters in one instance. In Final Wars, Zilla, as Toho's version of the creature, also showed the ability to make fast enormous leaps, demonstrated when he jumped over Godzilla's atomic breath to attack. Zilla is also not as aggressive or combative. It only acts aggressively when severely provoked and will usually flee. Most of the damage caused by it is purely unintentional, as opposed to the Toho Godzilla. That Godzilla is a vicious and savage fighter, and more than willing to destroy anything in his path and would aggressively pursue and fight anything until he has killed and/or destroyed it.
In the animated series, aliens called the Tachyons find the original Godzilla and resurrect him as Cyber-Godzilla. As Cyber-Godzilla, it possesses numerous new weapons, such as a sonic emitter, eight dorsal fin missile launchers, and Atomic Flame Breath like his son, but with a blue color. Metal parts replaced most of Cyber-Godzilla's body including a cybernetic right arm and a strange metal "helmet" for the cyborg's head. Cyber-Godzilla's roar was also changed to a more metallic sound. When he becomes a cyborg his skin changes from gray to brown and his back plates change from blue to gray. The color change is most likely indicating decay, since he became a cyborg a couple years after he had originally died.
Godzilla (the series)
Godzilla's only surviving son who appears briefly at the end of the 1998 American Godzilla and the star of Godzilla: The Series, differs from his parent in many ways. He is the same size as his parent and is extremely fast and manuverable. He also possesses many of the Toho Godzilla's notable abilities, including a fast healing factor, a much tougher hide, and the ability to fire a concentrated blast of radiation from his mouth, which is green in color and resembles a flamethrower. His dorsal fins and neck frills glow blue and his eyes flash yellow (in some episodes red) just before he uses it. Unlike his parent, who was asexual, this Godzilla is sterile. Toho honored this one by calling him "Godzilla Jr." seeing it was worthy of the Godzilla name. But Most Godzilla Fans Prefer to Call him "Zilla Jr" Instead.
Baby Godzillas
The baby Godzillas are the offspring of Godzilla. The first Godzilla asexually laid over two-hundred eggs in Madison Square Garden. When they hatched, they fed on fish that their parent had left for them. When they ran out of fish to eat, they began hunting for other sources of food. They also began eating humans who smelled like fish. All the baby Godzillas were killed by a missile strike to the Garden, except for one. He appeared briefly at the end of the 1998 film and later starred in Godzilla: The Series. The baby Godzillas were fast and agile, like their parent, and Tatopolous said that they were all asexual and were "born pregnant".
Reproduction
Godzilla reproduces through asexual reproduction; a trait which is not uncommon in some reptiles. In the 1998 film, Nick Tatopolous states all the Godzillas were "born pregnant". However, the last baby Godzilla, which appeared briefly at the end of the 1998 film and would later star in Godzilla: The Series as an adult, is sterile (possibly due to a birth defect). In one episode he falls in love with a mutant komodo dragon named Komodithrax. She has the ability to fertilize her own eggs, thus laying a giant egg all by herself. Godzilla and Komodithrax begin to raise a family, Godzilla being the egg's surrogate father. Unfortunately, both Komodithrax and the egg are killed in the same episode.
Other appearances
Godzilla made an appearance in a 2006 Doritos commercial, in which he picks up a truck of Doritos and shakes chips into his mouth. In another Doritos commercial, he devours a spicy variant of Doritos, roars in pain, and dives into the Hudson River. Both were meant to parody the bait scene in the 1998 movie. At the time of the release of the 1998 movie, he made several commercials for Taco Bell, crossing paths with the Taco Bell chihuahua.
He also made an appearance in Armageddon alongside other Godzilla toys during the opening sequence in New York, when a little dog attacked the Godzilla toys on sale. This was a friendly jab at the other big special effects movie of that summer, the Roland Emmerich American version of Godzilla, which was released a month and a half earlier.
In the Robot Chicken episode "That Hurts Me", the segment "Godzilla Remade Again" featured Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich remaking Godzilla once more; the segment goes on to show a scene of baby Zillas attacking, only to begin inexplicably roller skating and dancing in a rink. When the studio head bemoans the fact that he trusted Devlin and Emmerich to make a decent Godzilla film, for the second time, and that they instead have produced an unmarketable pile of crap, for the second time, Devlin and Emmerich give each other a high-five.
Godzilla's roar is uttered by a garden snake in the very beginning of the Camp Lazlo episode "Snake Eyes". The roar is also audible in the trailer for Spider-Man 3, when the Sandman dives down from the sand truck.
In a Phineas & Ferb episode a T-Rex is shown being over 100 ft tall and useing Godzilla/Zilla's trademark roar.
Video games
"Godzilla-USA" was a playable character in Godzilla Generations for the Sega Dreamcast. Unlocked after finishing the game with "Godzilla 1954", he is the fastest of the playable characters. His roar restores less health than the other Godzillas, but he is a bit tougher to compensate. His breath weapon is a powerful blast of air; while the shortest-ranged, it has the longest duration, able to take down the Super X in one blast and the Super X-II and Super X-III with two blasts if timed right. His special attack is a fast run that crushes and smashes everything he runs over and into. He doesn't take damage while charging and it lasts a fair amount of time.