I was watching Godzilla this past weekend with my son. We watched the 90s version of Ghidora when these time travelers went back into time to create Ghidora...it was actually well done, and had some great 'rubber suit dude smashing city' effects.... My six year old and I got to thinking about his fire breath, in that movie...just what it is it that makes it so destructive? Radiaton? heat? energy? A combination of the three? Because the moment he shoots stuff it just blows up the target with out much effort... Rob
It has "evolved" over the years into pretty much an organic phaser-like beam weapon that is never truly explained, because it would make no sense. The original film portrays it differently, as a more breath-like gaseous release that is clearly supposed to be just highly radioactive. Really, of course, it was destructive for the exact same reason the atomic bomb was. It was a direct allegory for the bomb.
Cool..thanks for the 411...now if only we can figure out why Vincent Price didn't give GIGAN hands!!! Rob
Goji pretty much nailed it, so I'll just add my two yen. 1954/56 - Seemed to be like radioactive steam, like might get released from a reactor. Classically, some dragons had no fire, just breath that was hot and fetid, sometimes acidic. G Raids Again - Seems to be evolving into a beam, still not entirely focused. Kong/Mothra/Ghidorah - Focusing more, still seems half an impact weapon as much as a burning one. Explodes weakened targets. Sea Monster/Son/DaM - More and more like a true phaser, even varying in what it does a bit (BTW, the AIP dub of DaM features Hal Linden and George Takei) Hedorah - Can actually be used as an awkward rocket Gigan/Megalon - The targets seem harder, so the beam must strike dead-on and point-blank to really do the damage. MechaG - Power upgrade seems to match the foe involved, so hard to tell Hanna-Barbera - Laser eyes...just laser eyes. Let's move on. G84/85/Biollante - Sharper, brighter, more destructive. Several efforts to 'reflect' the beam back at him--the beam is invariably too much. G is firmly established as a walking nuclear reactor. 90's Ghidorah/Mothra/MechaG/Space G/Destroyah - His dorsal fins are often joined by his entire body and the blue-white beam is sometimes overridden by a red-orange beam that has to build up and is completely overwhelming. This version of G finally builds up too much power and implodes. 1998 - In a scene some think was thrown in to placate angry fans, flames appear to leap from the mouth of 'Zilla', though it could also be that the line of flame leapt back to it. In the superior animated series that followed, the grown offspring indeed possessed that weapon. Millennium/2000/Megaguirus - The red-orange beam is beginning to predominate, and is able to take on pretty much anything it hits. 2001/GMK - G's power levels in this are infamous. He is able to summon a full beam with no effort and no notice, completely incinerate/atomize his foes, and is able to use the beam to sweep the sky of attacking aircraft without a break. 2000's MechaG - Still high by historical standards, but toned down just a bit from 2001. Final Wars - G surpasses or sinks further than GMK when he attacks an oncoming asteroid that has yet to enter Earth's orbit! Seriously, his beam is now like the Kame-ha-meha from Dragonball Z. A fun movie, but in spots, so very bad. Well, here's hoping the next revival series learns its lessons from all this.
Yeah I never quite got that bit, was he (well she, actually) breathing fire, sucking fire in, or was stuff just exploding coincidentally in front of Godzilla?