‘Godzilla: The Planet Eater’ Actually Has Something To Say

The Story of How Cosmic Nihilism Can Destroy A World

Destroying the World

If you haven’t watched Godzilla: The Planet Eater, the newest Godzilla anime on Netflix, I am not surprised. The first two films in the series (Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters and Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle respectively) were pretty terrible. They followed a ragtag group of humans and aliens (named the Bilusaludo and the Exif) returning to Earth after Godzilla kicked them off the planet, and in a weird twist, terraformed the entire ecosystem to fit its needs.

The third movie tackles something unexpected — a fervent form of religious fundamentalism that perpetuates a toxic and destructive cosmic nihilism. It parallels a phenomenon happening in the real world. The Planet Eater is not a good film, but it does provide a cautionary tale on how radical ambivalence brought on by nihilism can have a detrimental impact on the world. It’s an eerie examination of climate change denialism, and that, I think, deserves further discussion.

The central plot of the film is that after a series of setbacks, the coalition of humans and aliens have become deeply religious as a coping mechanism. An Exif named Metphies claims that his people have actually scientifically proven the existence of their God and that if everyone just believes strongly enough in their God, it can defeat Godzilla.

This seems absurd, but as one character says:

“Everyone’s spirit dropped when we saw Mecha Godzilla couldn’t win. It makes sense to cling to a God to escape from the despair.”

It turns out that Metphies has not proven the existence of God at all, but Ghidorah, an extra-dimensional being that feeds on the destruction of dying worlds. Metphies claims Godzilla and Ghidorah are part of a natural cycle occurring across the galaxy: once civilizations reach a certain level of development their pollution leads to the creation of a gigantic monster that brings about the destruction of their planet.

Although this premise is pretty dumb, intended or not, it is a very apt metaphor for climate change.