Warning: SPOILERS ahead for Godzilla Minus One!

Godzilla Minus One pulls heavily from the original 1954 Godzilla, but also owes a lot of its inspiration to a 40-year-old entry in the franchise. The latest movie in the 70-year-old kaiju franchise, Godzilla Minus One is streaming on Netflix, bringing its emotionally gripping and terrifying story into homes around the world. The movie pulls heavily from the original, delivering a serious, dark story about Japan post-World War II. However, instead of being about nuclear warfare like the original, Godzilla Minus One‘s cast provide powerful performances in a story about survivor’s guilt and the heroism of everyday people.

Even with this new lens for the movie, though, the film still touches upon nuclear warfare with its version of the titular monster. From absorbing radiation in Bikini Atoll to launching atomic breath that causes nuclear explosions, Godzilla’s newest rendition is very much informed by his oldest predecessor. Even at the end of Godzilla Minus One, his presence remains a threat to Japan and the world. However, he also pulls from another version that arrived on the scene 40 years ago, also in the role of an antagonist terrorizing the Japanese.

The Return Of Godzilla Is Closer In Tone To Minus One Than The Original

Godzilla Is Also A Villain In The 1984 Movie

While Godzilla Minus One owes its success to the original film, the movie more heavily borrows elements from 1984’s The Return of Godzilla. A direct sequel to the original movie, the film follows the titular monster’s reemergence in Japan 30 years after his original path of destruction. With the world now involved in the Cold War, humanity – including both America and the Soviet Union – have to put their differences aside in hopes of combating the kaiju‘s latest rampage. This leads to a bleak movie about humanity needing to come together to defeat a larger threat.

This mixture of a hopeless undertaking combined with people rallying together to do the impossible is similar to Godzilla Minus One‘s presentation. Both movies portray a version of Godzilla that’s almost unstoppable, breaking the ground beneath him while using a devastating atomic breath that levels cities in his wake. Because of how dark both films get before the hope of humanity prevails, many parallels can be drawn between the two entries and how they portray their conflicts with Godzilla. However, this is also only one part of the kaiju‘s history that helped make his latest film successful.

Why Minus One Is The Perfect Blend Of Different Godzilla Movies

Minus One Captures Godzilla At His Scariest

As previously mentioned, Godzilla Minus One still owes a lot of its success to the 1954 original, whose allegory for nuclear warfare made the movie’s own thematic explorations possible. The film also contains plenty of small references to other past films, such as the smaller version of the monster being a reference to Godzillasaurus from Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah. It’s also the first Toho Godzilla movie to show him entirely in CGI, taking after Hollywood productions in the Monsterverse in their portrayal of him.

With so many films influential to Godzilla Minus One, it’s important to note just how much the movie owes to The Return of Godzilla. With a similar premise and tone present in both movies, the newest installment captures the same destruction and fear as its 40-year-old counterpart does. Given this level of influence the Heisei era entry had on the movie, it wouldn’t be surprising if later renditions of the monster also pull from the same time frame.