Want To Understand The MonsterVerse? Watch Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster

It’s common kaiju knowledge that even though Godzilla has spent many years of his existence as a defender of Earth, he didn’t begin his cinematic life that way. Even early films like Godzilla Raids Again and Mothra vs Godzilla, installments that see Godzilla wrassle with other 15-story foes, frame Godzilla more as a grumpy creature trying to keep other monsters off his lawn rather than a noble warrior. That would change, though, with 1964’s Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, a film that didn’t just introduce us to the idea of Godzilla as mankind’s savior, but is also extremely influential when it comes to the current line of American “MonsterVerse” blockbusters.

Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster introduced the space dragon King Ghidorah to the Godzilla series, a mighty threat that is the closest thing that the franchise has to a sort of “final boss.” But even when Ghidorah is wreaking havoc, it takes a while for Godzilla to warm up to benevolence. He spends most of the film knocking over buildings and battling the flying Rodan, content to do his usual shtick. It’s only when a young Mothra larva, the child of the adult Mothra from the previous film that Godzilla murdered, comes along and begs Godzilla and Rodan to put aside their differences and fight Ghidorah, that Godzilla has a change of heart.

From this point on, Godzilla will need little persuading when it comes to taking down anything that threatens humanity, as he would soon tackle everyone from Gigan to MechaGodzilla. And though the Godzilla films are divided into eras and are typically accompanied by soft reboots that put Godzilla back at his indifferent square one, he always eventually leans toward being the go-to help against invading monsters. Godzilla Minus One received acclaim for bringing Godzilla back to his tragic, atomic roots, but it wouldn’t be too surprising if we soon see him taking on another supersized foe, one who is likely just as destructive but doesn’t have the moral benefit of being, well, Godzilla.

The MonsterVerse, which began in 2014 with Godzilla and most recently featured another Godzilla team-up with 2024’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, has always operated on this blueprint. It not only raced to get to the monster mash part of things (Godzilla doesn’t end with a solo romp through a major metropolis, but in Godzilla taking on two huge enemy “titans”) but to make Godzilla a kind of chaotic force for good. The film asserts that Godzilla is nature’s balancing act, a creature that exists to tilt the scales when Earth is in danger. But little sequences, like when Godzilla shares an exhausted moment with the main character and then bounds out of nowhere to decapitate a foe and save that character, indicate that he’s our dinosaur divinity.

2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters plays like a remake of Ghidorah, not only showcasing the same quartet of monsters (Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra and King Ghidoraj), but also by leading Godzilla toward a similar conclusion. Godzilla, with some help from Mothra, vanquishes King Ghidorah, and by the end, even Rodan is bowing at his feet.

And though their tussle in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire shows that Godzilla is no fan of the big, angsty ape, the two MonsterVerse films where they show up together don’t end with the titanic struggle we saw in the climax of 1962 King Kong vs Godzilla. Instead, they team up to defeat a more powerful foe. Any chance of Godzilla being a bad guy gets the fast forward button to make more room for the battle royale.

This has differentiated the MonsterVerse from modern Japanese Godzilla efforts. Shin Godzilla portrays the beast as a ceaselessly evolving god and a biological anomaly that the Japanese bureaucracy, stuffy with traditionalism, can never hope to truly handle. In Godzilla Minus One, he’s in nuclear nightmare mode, combining both the shame of post WWII Japan and the hubris of unhinged scientific progress. Both the Godzilla: Planet of Monsters anime film trilogy and the Godzilla Singular Point series turn “the Big G” into a titanic hazard. The MonsterVerse, on the other hand, has Godzilla fresh out of the action figure packaging. He’s a fire-breathing G.I. Joe.

This transformation began in Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster, and while some might hope for a MonsterVerse film that allows Godzilla to be a big-screen trauma metaphor (the small screen’s Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has that covered), The New Empire was the sixth highest-grossing film in the world in 2024. That likely indicates that wherever Godzilla is going, he won’t be the only kaiju in the arena and he’ll probably be on his best behavior. But that’s okay — the past 70 years of Godzilla history have shown us that few cinematic characters are as adaptable. And saving the world can be just as good as stomping on it.