I was watching
Godzilla:Tokyo SOS on Netflix. They have this giant Mechagodzilla and it's frame is evidently made from the bones of Godzilla. None the less Tokyo gets attacked by Godzilla again. The prime Minister says "That must be another Godzilla!"
WTF?
This is a sequel to Mechagodzilla vs Godzilla that was made not too long ago. From the flashbacks I gathered they retrieved the bones from the original Godzilla out of Tokyo Bay (from the very first Raymond Burr movie).
Is it true? Are there more than one or two Godzillas out there?
BTW this is a Godzilla movie but it does have much better special effects than any other I've ever seen. Pretty good for a giant monster movie.
Godzilla movies are really wonky on their continuity.
The Godzilla from the first movie, "Godzilla King of the Monsters" aka Gojira, the original 1954 B&W film, is killed at the end of the movie. His bones are seen on the sea floor.
The next 14 films from 1955's Godzilla Raids Again, AKA Gigantis the Fire Monster, through 1975's Terror of MechaGodzilla, feature a second Godzilla. These films pretty much stick to a rough continuity. He ends a movie buried in ice, and starts the next one emerging from an iceberg. The first 15 movies are commonly referred to as the Showa series.
It gets a bit confusing when Toho, the movie studio that owns the rights to Godzilla decided to bring him out of retirement for Godzilla 1985 AKA the Return of Godzilla. For this one, the studio decided to ignore all previous films except the 1954 original. Compounding matters is Raymond Burr reprising his role from that film making the claim that this is actually the same Godzilla from the first movie because "they never found a body", despite the fact that we clearly see a body at the end of the movie.
Godzilla 1985 was followed by six more films starting with Godzilla vs Biollante in 1989, and ending with Godzilla vs Destroyah in 1995. These films are known as the Heisei series and do a good job of sticking to a continuity. At the end of Godzilla vs Destroyah, Godzilla suffers a nuclear meltdown and dies. This was based on a Toho decision to again retire Godzilla and to hand the property off to the Americans who it was thought would produce an American series of Godzilla movies. However, also at the end of that movie, the radiation from Godzilla's meltdown has mutated Godzilla Junior into a full grown, new, Godzilla, who it was thought, would have his own series of films, but was never seen again.
The next Godzilla film was the American version. But the less said about him(her? it?), the better.
Disapointed with the the American Zilla, Toho once again rebooted their franchise with 1999's Godzilla 2000 starting what came to be known as the Millennium series. Continuity once more went out the window, and all previous films except maybe the 1954 original were ignored.
The following film Godzilla vs Megaguirus (2000) really takes a wrecking ball to the continuity by stating that this film's Godzilla attacked Japan in 1954, 1966, and 1996, everytime the Japanese came up with a new energy source. The storylines from every previous film, including the previous year's Godzilla 2000 and the original 1954 film are ignored.
Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-out Attack, released in 2001, rewrote the backstory yet again! Now Godzilla was not only a giant dinosaur mutated by nuclear radiation but also a collection of tormented souls of World War II dead. HAH! Take that, established backstory! He's a completely different monster from any of the previous incarnations. The 1954 original is referenced, as well as a joke line about an attack by a giant monster on New York in 1998, that the Japanese are emphatic was
not Godzilla. Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Baragon, monsters from previous films, are featured in this movie, but also have their origins completely changed. They're now Spirit Guardians of Japan.
This brings us up to 2002's Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla. The backstory has been rewritten again. Ignore all previous Godzilla movies except the 1954 original (and maybe 1961's Mothra and 1968's War of the Gargantuas, since they show up in stock footage and are mentioned to have attacked Japan). The original 1954 Godzilla's corpse was recovered and a giant Godzilla robot was built around the bones and spinal cells of the dead monster. Although the film is titled Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, the robot is called Kiryu in the movie.
In a rare change of pace, 2003's Godzilla-Tokyo S.O.S is actually a direct sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla with no new continuity retconned in like the previous movies.
The last Godzilla movie to date, 2004's Godzilla-Final Wars, is Toho's 50th anniversary Godzilla film. Apparently, they decided to just go back to the continuity from the Showa series, bringing back almost all the monsters from the first 15 films, plus the American Zilla. Stock footage from the original Showa movies are used to setup the story where Japan and the World have been attacked by giant monsters since the 50's.
So how many Godzillas are there? It depends on which movie you are watching. In Godzilla-Tokyo S.O.S, there are two. The dead 1954 original, and the live one in the film.
Also, anyone interested in seeing Godzilla movies can find them over at
crackle.com. They've got several, including Godzilla-Final Wars, streaming ala Hulu.
