Godzilla vs. Science Mumbo Jumbo

A recent (as of June 17, 2017) article written by Dan Zinski on Screenrant.com had famed (and darned entertaining) celebrity scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson explaining why the existence of Godzilla is scientifically impossible. And yet we have over 50 movies featuring Godzilla stomping all over science. Why would movies lie to us?

Dr. Tyson goes on to say that “Godzilla could never exist outside of a fictional universe because the laws of physics simply would not allow for it. Essentially, a lizard-like being as huge as Godzilla would be too heavy for his limbs and would collapse under his own weight.”

Did he just call Godzilla fat?

“As you get bigger,” he says, “your weight goes up according to your column. But the strength of your limbs goes up only according to your cross-sectional area — so it’s a matter of area versus volume.”

“Godzilla would collapse under his own weight into a puddle of guts. It’s why heavy animals have thicker legs. So you can’t just scale up an insect and make them big.”

Try telling that to those bus-sized grasshoppers in The Beginning of the End (1957). But I’m skeptical over his cross-sectional statement because, depending on the species, a mere ant can lift 10 to 50 times its own weight. Scale ‘em up to 7-Eleven™ size as in Them! (1954) and the physics go out the window.

But Dr. Tyson’s argument flames the fans a bit more: “It completely negates half the horror movies of the 1950s…”

Perhaps. But Dr. Tyson does allow for a loophole that allows the Godzilla movies to get away with having a giant lizard who, in reality, would not be able to support his own weight. And this clause is radiation.

From the article: “Godzilla was awakened by radiation and given super-powers. Like Spider-Man, Godzilla was altered on a sub-atomic level and is now capable of doing things that he should not be able to do, like stomp on buildings, breathe fire and withstand endless attacks with missiles, bombs and all the other weapons humanity can concoct.”

Swish— nothin’ but net! So yes, Godzilla can exist outside of a fictional universe. Now we can all calm down. Watch Shin Gidzilla (2016) with its annoying sub-titles, and marvel over nature’s miracle as it squashes us like we’ve been doing to ants for millenia.

P.S. The Megalodon shark — PROVEN by fossils — grew up to 60 — 75 feet long. Where’s your science argument now, lab coat?

Irradiated Sci-Fi

Fifties sci-fi remains some of the coolest, cheesiest, wildest and excitingest movies ever made. Besides uninvited UFOs and alien b-holes showing up like holiday relatives, a large portion of ’em have to do with the effects of radiation-gone-wild on everything from ants (Them!/ 1954) and spiders (Tarantula/1955), to octopuses (It Came From Beneath The Sea/1955) and lizards (Giant Gila Monster/1959) – and all creatures in-between – including rats, bunnies, grasshoppers, salad tomatoes and people. Heck, just watching these movies gives you radiation poisoning. (OK, not really. But my glowing epidermis sure feels like it sometimes.)

I love the “mutated creature” stuff – quite a bit, as it turns out. But where radiation really earns its keep is when it turns humans into death metal monsters. Take for instance The Cyclops (1957), The Amazing Colossal Man (1957) and War of the Colossal Beast (1958), all created by B-movie legend Bert I. Gordon.

The monster is essentially the same in all three, with the actor Duncan Parkin playing the pitiful reconfigured giant – in two of the three with a mangled face and one presumably good eye. (Maybe the “I” in Bert I. Gordon is a subtle reference. Heh.) Duncan, by the way, is credited as a stagehand in The Beginning of the End (1957), that infamously bad giant grasshopper movie. Maybe he got a dose working on that one.

Amid all of them, The Cyclops, with its lava-lamp faced monster and shredded pants (apparently radiation mutates clothes as well), is one of those mega-cheesy guilty pleasures – and the first giant human monster movie. No, Gulliver’s Travels in 1939 doesn’t factor in because his size was regular – the people who f’d with his mind were super small. (Note: There may have been a giant human monster movie before The Cyclops, but I’m too busy combing my hair to do research. Note: v.2: 1952’s Jack and Beanstalk had a giant, but that one was not a monster movie – it was a comedy starring Abbott & Costello, the Laurel & Hardy of their day.)

A test pilot goes missing. Probably fell down a hole. So they go looking for him in one of Mexico’s deep, hole-filled jungles. Arriving via a small plane that looks about as sturdy as a two-seater kite, they encounter giant birds, lizards, bugs and a 50-foot giant human with a face distorted by radiation, of which there is plentiful in Mexico. This is why to this day people traveling there are warned not to drink the water, what with its f’d up face melting properties and such.

And what a mutated giant hey is – one eye is completely melted over with dripping skin gelled into place like a flesh curtain. The other eye, bulging to the point of popping, looks like it was too big to begin. Go big or go home, I say. And the all-angle teeth? Probably got that way chewing on small airplanes.

Of course, the search party has to bring along the missing pilot’s girlfriend so that the monster has something to distract him from the giant snake wrapping around his food chute, ala King Kong (1933). Even with only one kinda sorta maybe good eye left, he seems to recognize her. Get where this is going?

The craptacular special effects were slightly refined for Duncan’s next two roles as a homeless giant everyone wants to kill because he can get Frisbees™ off the roof without a ladder. Regardless, in order to fully understand yourself, take a look at these sci-fi classics and see if you can’t discover a part of you in them.

OK, that just sounded plain dumbass. Must be the radiation kicking in.