Dead fish are the most potent symbols within Godzilla Minus One to signify director Takashi Yamazaki’s successful attempt to reestablish the nuclear anxieties central to the original film in the franchise. Each time the colossal monster surfaces from the deep in Yamazaki’s movie, Godzilla is preceded by a collection of floating dead fish killed by his own poisonous radiation. In the wake of Oppenheimer – Christopher Nolan’s epic examination of humanity unlocking the horrific destructive power of the atom – and the recent threats of Russian madman Vladimir Putin to use nuclear weapons in his deranged pursuit of empire, a return to the original preoccupation of the 70-year-old kaiju franchise is sadly apropos.
