Welcome to watch Mojo is the verdict, the series where we tackle the biggest debates in pop culture and put them to rest today we'll be deciding once and for all is Godzilla.

A good guy is uniquely prepared to determine which of these titans are here to threaten us.

He's a Simon guardian, a watchful protector.

Remember, Like any high profile court case, there are strong arguments to be made on both sides.

If you disagree with our verdict, be sure to state your case in the comments below, Let's dive in.

Oh, but first, a spoiler warning is in effect.

As the most popular and arguably first Kaiju in cinematic history, Godzilla casts a massive shadow with 36 films to his name and counting.

Godzilla truly earns his title as the King of the Monsters King.

But while Monster typically has a negative connotation, Godzilla is an official cultural ambassador of Shinjuku.

Tokyo Mayor Ken Ichi Yoshizumi has called the character quote the pride of Japan kind words for a creature that levels cities.

But such is the duality at the heart of this debate.

You're carrying me five.

Godzilla is an instantly recognizable pop culture icon.

But is he the good guy?

Let's consider the evidence.

I got boxes.

It takes evidence.

Other documents proving it.

Changing allegiances.

When Toho first unleashed Godzilla upon the world, he was portrayed as a creature of senseless destruction.

A villain.

Mhm.

To understand Godzilla's early years, you have to consider Japan's then recent history, namely the nuclear devastation they experienced during World War Two.

And so the first Godzilla film, released in 1954 introduced the massive reptile is being born of American nuclear tests.

He was the fear, anxiety and fallout of nuclear weapons personified.

Okay, Twister.

Uh huh.

God told me to motto.

There is a trend in pop culture, however, in which villains who find lasting popularity risk being recast as an ally or anti hero.

Come with me if you want to live, It's okay, Mom.

He's here to help.

Okay, Sure enough, in 1960 four's Ghidorah, the three headed monster, the fifth film in the franchise, Godzilla became an unlikely savior.

Since then, the films have more often than not pitted him against a variety of worst Kaiju.

Against this slew of mutual threats, Godzilla and humankind found themselves allies.

The hero worship of Godzilla began in earnest.

He became the People's Kaiju People's champion.

Mhm sounds pretty good to me.

Motives?

Yeah, that's true.

I think she wants a motive.

Godzilla has saved the day more than once, but what drives him?

Has he developed a relationship with humanity and taken it upon himself to serve as our Titan protector?

Or is he simply committed to keeping other Kaiju down?

Revisiting Godzilla's actions, it's incredibly difficult to discern whether he bristles at Kaiju attacking humans or whether he simply takes issue with any show of force from another.

Kaiju.

Yeah, mhm, yeah, mhm.

Mm.

As with any long running franchise, the character's motivations have evolved over time.

Surveying his career after 1964 however, a relatively consistent pattern emerges.

He does not attack individual humans unless provoked, but he also does not go out of his way to protect them.

That was interesting, same right.

This leads to the conclusion that Godzilla's motivations are not altruistic but rather self serving.

Godzilla appears to be single mindedly focused on defeating those he views as being a threat to his status as Earth's Alpha, being classic dominant alpha territorial behavior, collateral damage.

This is war, peacock.

Casualties are inevitable.

You cannot make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Every cook will tell you that.

But look what happened to the coke.

Sometimes doing the right thing is destructive.

Just ask Superman in his fellow heroes, How many buildings have they totaled?

In the name of the greater good, the greater good.

While a superhero throw down is invariably messy, the good guys consistently make compromises in battle to minimize loss of life.

You need men in these buildings.

There are people inside and they're gonna be running right into the line of fire.

You take them to the basement or through the subway, you keep them off the streets.

In contrast, Godzilla seems wholly focused on the task at hand.

Property damage and casualties be damned.

Yeah, You know, in any Kaiju brawl, the blame is hard to place.

When two giant creatures are pushing each other around, who destroyed which building doesn't really matter, Everything fades together to simply become their environment.

Uh huh.

Looking at the destruction caused by these battles, however, once again underlines Godzilla's priorities.

There is no effort on his part to minimize collateral damage.

Whatever the battleground.

Everything around him becomes a tool in service to his quest for dominance over his foe.

Good thing he's on our side.

For now, the ends versus the means.

Godzilla's bill for collateral damage is high, but it pales in comparison to the potential destruction caused by other Kaiju.

Should he not intervene?

Sure, his throw down with Fedora in their 2019 battle destroyed a massive portion of Boston.

But there's nothing to suggest that God or a would have stopped there after awakening the other Titans, this three headed Kaiju could have and likely would have brought about the end of civilization as we know it.

Godzilla's methods leave much to be desired, but at the end of the day, his actions avert disaster of a larger scale.

It's easy to lay 50% of the destruction at his feet when he's using that atomic breath and throwing Muto's around.

But arguably everything that he destroys would have been destroyed by the other Kaiju.

His acts of destruction served to mitigate greater potentially limitless destruction, acceptable losses in the battle to save the planet.

There's actually a term for this concept, and it's called the Godzilla threshold.

I shall never cross this threshold again in my lifetime.

Me neither.

The enemy of my enemy.

They say that the enemy of your enemy is your friend.

But does that make them a good guy?

You let me is my friend.

The world of comic books is rife with examples of sworn enemies calling a truce in the face of a mutual threat.

Batman and Joker, Superman and Lex Luther.

When such allegiances are formed, this is an opportunity to find common ground.

Oh, my God, what's that?

It's bigger Jaws.

Oh, my God.

Now we have a common enemy.

We have to work together.

Even when the parties go their separate ways and maybe even return to their combative ways, There's a newfound understanding, if not respect.

When this is over, it's back to business as usual.

Wouldn't have it any other way.

The thing is, Godzilla's apparent truce with humanity is never negotiated.

There are no terms in attacking Kaiju.

Godzilla and humankind find a common enemy.

Godzilla's efforts to destroy the Kaiju benefit humanity.

And when Godzilla is in peril, humanity may even go out of their way to lend him support.

Mhm, yeah, all right.

Godzilla, for his part, however, never appears to make any compromises in the name of humanity.

The benefits humans enjoy are a byproduct of his goals, not something that factors into his navigation of the conflict.

So you'd want to make Godzilla our pet.

No, we would be hit the surprise witness.

Public perception, Your Honor, I object.

And why is that, Mr Reid?

Because it's devastating to my case.

Overruled.

Good call.

Like beauty, Good guy status is largely in the eye of the beholder.

Public perception is arguably more powerful than the actions upon which it's based.

Who the hell are you?

Mhm.

We're the good guys.

For better or worse, Godzilla status as a good guy needs to take into account how he's been represented both in the world of the films and by cinema goers looking at the history of the character he has inspired both fear and hope.

The franchise began with Godzilla being feared and maligned.

But as occurs in most of its individual instalments at the end of the day, Godzilla has people cheering for him.

Yeah, he might not show up for the parade, but we throw it anyway before we continue.

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The verdict.

Yeah, What's the verdict?

Humanity may celebrate him, but Godzilla is not a good guy.

Here's the thing, though.

He's not the bad guy, either.

And I say, Sandy, if you are a bad guy, but this does not mean you're bad guy Godzilla is, quite simply, a force of nature.

He is no more a bad guy than a hurricane or tornado.

He's destructive and causes loss of life, but he's just playing his part in a larger system.

In the monster verse films, his role as an agent of balance has been made more explicit than ever.

I believe he's here to restore balance When you think of the quintessential good guy in popular media, there is typically an element of self sacrifice in the name of others.

There is a commitment to a larger cause and an attachment to the concept of right and wrong, brightest a blackest night.

No evil fell escape by side.

Godzilla doesn't check any of these boxes.

He is a lion protecting his place as the leader of his pride.

The effects Godzilla has upon humanity, good or bad, do not matter to him.

So why do we see him the way we do?

He's a Simon guardian, a watchful protector.

Easy.

We're a narrative society.

Stories help us make sense of the world and have dating back thousands of years, beginning, beginning of everything.

The hero is perhaps the oldest and most easily identifiable figure, And so when a character like Godzilla saves us, we naturally associate him with the archetype of the good guy.

But what he represents is something larger.

Godzilla is more akin to a God than anything else.

And so our attraction to Godzilla as a figure speaks to something primal, a need to project intention onto the chaos of the natural world, like we did with the Greek and Norse gods of old gods, Gods.

Godzilla is an inherently dangerous entity that, like the elements we hope, will act in our favor, and we celebrate whenever he does long left thinking.

Do you agree with our picks.

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Nothing.

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