Tag: science fiction

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At the heart of Agatha All Along (and its 2021 prequel WandaVision) lies the fundamental truth that the worlds we construct for ourselves are often the ones that help us manage, or indeed survive the most unbearable situations. These psychological constructions allow us spaces in which we confront our fears and our traumas, develop and play out scenarios for overcoming the myriad stresses that weigh heavy on us—our guilt, our grief, our anger—and sometimes create fantasy lives marked by denial and avoidance. These alternate realities can be seductive beyond the telling of it, allowing occupation of a happy, hopeful imaginative space; at the same time, though, they can hinder emotional growth and our acceptance of, among other things, the ultimate experience that is death. The process is natural enough in the real world, but these fantasies take on monstrous and destructive new significance when fueled by magical abilities that transform the psychological interior into the physical exterior. In WandaVision we watched the dehumanizing consequences of this transmutation when out of bottomless grief and anger Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) warped an entire town into a bubble of domestic sitcom-shaped fairyland in which she could live a life with her (non-deceased) husband Vision (Paul Bettany) and the two sons she created from nothing. In the process, she enslaved the innocent people of Westview, New Jersey, by puppeting them into characters for Wanda’s new life.  The series was an extended meditation on the damage that grief and unexamined psychological suffering can render on both trauma’s original victim and those around her. And among the lessons that WandaVision offered was the time-honored warning about the corruptive nature of great power, especially when power begins to perceive and use people as mere tools.

Agatha All Along continues along the road that its predecessor series first laid down, this time centering on WandaVision’s secondary antagonist, legendary witch Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), and her own struggles against the tragedies of her past. At series opening, Agatha is still in Westview, living out the fading ramifications of Wanda’s now-distorted spell that imprisoned Agatha in a false past and identity—she believes herself a hard-nosed cop in a small-town police procedural. When a mysterious red-haired woman turns up dead and snarky FBI agent Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza) arrives on the scene dropping enigmatic hints about the truth of Agatha’s situation (early on she asks Agatha, “Is this really how you see yourself?” and later, “Do you remember why you hate me?”), Agatha’s constructed world begins to crack. The appearance of a young man (Joe Locke) asking questions about Agatha and chanting in Latin becomes the catalyst for the walls to finally collapse and Agatha to reassert her true identity in the real Westview (albeit now without her Wanda-removed witching powers). Now back in control of her faculties, Agatha discovers at once that Rio is a sister witch (and former lover) come for revenge against her, that she is being pursued by the children of the Salem witches Agatha murdered in 1693, and that the young man (whom she names “Teen”) has his own agenda requiring Agatha’s assistance. Teen seeks the legendary Witches’ Road, a magical pathway that promises the fulfilment of one’s deepest desires to whomever can survive the Road’s various trials. Both Agatha and Teen are in search of power, something Teen senses he had but is now missing and something that Agatha knows she once wielded. The two bring together a coven, each member marked by a desire for liberation from their own traumatic pasts: Divination Witch Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Potions Witch Jen Kale (Sasheer Zamata), and Protector Witch Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), with Rio herself eventually joining as the coven’s Green Witch. In addition, Agatha dragoons her Westview neighbor and fellow victim of Wanda’s magic Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp) along for the perilous journey as the original Green Witch, an early sign of Agatha’s willingness to pitilessly use other people for her own selfish ends. The Road is conjured (via a haunting ballad which recurs throughout the series), and the trials begin.

Much of the series centers on the inability to control the chaos that imbues the world, and a concomitant desire for agency. Just as Wanda—scarred not only by Vision’s death but by those deaths she accidentally caused during her tenure as an Avenger—temporarily wrested the order of time and space into an emotionally satisfying frame, so Agatha throughout the series continually struggles for control, or at least be seen to have the semblance of control. She frequently and expertly deploys sarcastic confidence as a defense mechanism when her agency comes into question, even during her own Road-caused trial as she dares to taunt the spirits that come to punish her for her transgressions. Agatha is a figure determined to shape her own destiny—she accomplished this (gaining a noxious reputation among her sister witches) by serially murdering her covens and stealing their power. These killings were accomplished through Agatha’s careful, elaborate construction of a psychologically seductive narrative. In short, we learn Agatha invented the concept of the Witches’ Road, its generative ballad, its rituals and trials, and its possibilities for revelation and recovery—all framed as an ancient mythos to attract desirous witches into her trap. Over time her invention assumes an imaginative life of its own and becomes a fundamental part of witch lore despite its objective nonexistence—the emotional and psychological significance of story and its value as a mechanism of human control are key facets of the series (as they were in WandaVision). 

The power of narrative formation reveals itself with the existence of the Road; Agatha is as shocked as the rest of the coven, whom she planned to murder for their magic, to see her fictional creation appear from nothing as the ballad is sung (though she covers her surprise as part of her elaborate façade of omniscience). A competing story has suddenly emerged to force Agatha’s own into reality, as “Teen” turns out to be Wanda’s conjured son Billy, whose spirit entered the body of a recently dead teenager. Billy struggles throughout the series with his own identity, being unsure who he really is; that identity crisis fuels the recognition of the vast power of creation he inherited from his mother. Seduced by the idea of the Road, he unconsciously wills it into existence and sets the coven upon the path but within this larger storyworld there emerges the potential for individual autonomy. We see Lilia, Jen, and Alice face down their own past regrets and fears: for Lilia, the trauma of the death of her coven and loved ones; for Jen, the binding that separated her from her magic; and for Alice, the generational curse that destroyed her mother. In the process, each witch gains a certain measure of liberation—unlike the toxic, dehumanizing stories of Wanda and Agatha, in which people are merely characters to be cast or instruments to be used, Billy’s more empathic narrative allows for agency and emotional progress. For example, at one point, an angry Billy protests to Agatha that coven members should look out for one another and that “people can’t be replaced.” Agatha replies characteristically and drily, “Can’t they?”      

The root of Agatha’s nonchalance about others and ease of taking life, however, lies, as did Wanda’s actions, in deeply buried personal tragedy. Flashbacks show how in the 1750s Agatha had a son, Nicholas (Abel Lysenko), with whose six years of life she bargained for with Death (revealed to be Rio’s true identity). At Nicholas’ death, he had begun to work on Agatha’s conscience, proposing another way to live beside preying on other witches. A traumatized Agatha then develops the mythology of the Road as a psychological defense for her toxic grief, with tragic results. However, Agatha’s exposure to Billy’s capability for compassion and empathy, as well as her fatal embrace by Rio and subsequent reemergence as a ghost, marks a potential change in Agatha’s behavior and the ways in which she chooses to see the world. Agatha All Along proposes that the true power of narrative construction lies in its malleability and the many ways that stories and their narrators may exchange toxicity and trauma for emotional and personal renewal. It is no coincidence that the series centers on witches—a class of people marked by traditions of undergoing harsh injury, suffering, misogyny, and persecution—hoping to inject into this troubled historical legacy the potential for hope, escape, and recognition.

Jeremy Brett is a librarian at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, where he is, among other things, the Curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection. He has also worked at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. He received his MLS and his MA in History from the University of Maryland – College Park in 1999. His professional interests include science fiction, fan studies, and the intersection of libraries and social justice.

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Once Upon A Time In The Future: 2121 (2121), directed by Serpil Altın—regarded as the first woman science fiction director in Turkey—presents a poignant exploration of a future Earth devastated by environmental decay and extreme scarcity. Against the backdrop of an uninhabitable surface, survivors reside in underground colonies ruled by the dystopian “Young Administration,” a government implementing “The Scarcity Laws” that demand the removal of older generations to ensure resources for the young. Through the lives of a family faced with an impending birth, Altın’s film probes complex questions around generational sacrifice, ethical choices, and survival under eco-authoritarianism. This ambitious Turkish science fiction film balances thematic weight with visual sophistication, marking a pivotal moment for both Turkish cinema and sustainable filmmaking in the science fiction genre.

The story centers on Zeynep (Selen Öztürk) and her husband Onur (Çağdaş Onur Öztürk), who live in one of these underground colonies with their young daughter (Sukeyna Kılıç) and Onur’s elderly mother (Ayşenil Şamlıoğlu). Zeynep is pregnant with their second child, a development that brings both joy and tension, as the government’s population control measures become more invasive and threatening. The family’s young daughter adds another layer to their struggle, embodying innocence and hope amid a repressive environment, and forming a strong bond with her grandmother despite the regime’s harsh policies.

As Zeynep’s pregnancy progresses, the family is forced to confront the brutal laws that threaten the grandmother’s life, torn between obedience to the regime and their commitment to one another. The young girl’s presence intensifies the family’s determination to preserve their unity, even as they weigh the risks of protecting their elderly matriarch in a world that has sacrificed empathy for survival. Together, they must navigate a series of moral and existential choices, challenging the regime’s authority in their bid to protect each other.

Serpil Altın explains her motivations behind 2121, calling it a “documentary of the future” that reflects her mounting concerns over humanity’s environmental impact. Inspired by questions from her daughter about the planet’s future, Altın wrote the script alongside Korhan Uğur during the pandemic, using the atmosphere of that period to shape the film’s narrative. Altın discusses her motivation for creating 2121, focusing on climate change concerns and her desire to explore what the world might look like 100 years from now. As Turkey’s first “green film,” it reflects Altın’s commitment to eco-friendly practices on set, such as minimizing waste and using sustainable materials, recycled materials, digital scripts, and energy-efficient lighting to minimize environmental impact. Altın also addresses the film’s themes of generational power dynamics and the hypothetical scenario of young people ruling over older generations. Her commitment aligns with industry trends where environmentalism influences both the film’s message and its production methods, showcasing how cinema can promote sustainability in practice as well as theme.

One of the film’s most unique features is its focus on generational sacrifice, an idea that is uncommon even within dystopian sci-fi. This adds a provocative ethical layer, inviting comparisons to Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005), where characters’ lives are valued solely for their utility. By requiring that older generations sacrifice their lives for the younger, Altın critiques not only environmental neglect but also the tendency to devalue past generations’ wisdom, positioning her narrative as a reflection on the costs of generational inequality. The family’s decision to bring new life into a world that prohibits it represents a hopeful defiance, asserting a belief in resilience and humanity’s will to persist.

In 2121, environmental collapse and authoritarian control echo themes found in Logan’s Run (Michael Anderson, 1976) and THX 1138 (George Lucas, 1971). In Logan’s Run, citizens are sacrificed at age 30 to maintain balance; both it and 2121 explore resistance against population control, however, 2121 emphasizes the moral dilemmas of a family’s choice to protect their elderly, underscoring intergenerational bonds. Similarly, THX 1138 portrays a sterile, authoritarian society suppressing individual emotions, and 2121 shows a government that places control over compassion, threatening family unity. Together, these films critique dehumanizing societies prioritizing order and resource management over human connection, but 2121 uniquely explores the resilience of family loyalty and ethical decision-making in a world where survival clashes with empathy.

The film’s choice to center on a family facing generational conflict under authoritarian policies places it in the lineage of dystopian stories like Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006) and the Hunger Games (2012-2015) film series, yet with the intimacy and moral complexity of Turkish storytelling. While the Mad Max (1979-2024) franchise  and Snowpiercer (Bong Joon Ho, 2013) portray futuristic societies with intense action sequences to reflect chaos and scarcity, 2121 conveys urgency and tension through subtle, measured pacing and human connection. This juxtaposition between global sci-fi conventions and Turkish sociopolitical motifs adds a fresh dimension to the genre. Altın’s approach is introspective and intimate, framing the conflict around human values and familial bonds, allowing the film to resonate emotionally while exploring grand ecological themes.

For Turkish cinema, this film is a milestone, demonstrating how local filmmakers can address global issues through culturally resonant narratives. 2121 has garnered multiple awards and screenings at international film festivals, furthering its impact globally. Additionally, the film has attracted the interest of an American distributor, signaling its resonance beyond Turkish borders and contributing to the international conversation on climate change and human resilience. In doing so, 2121 not only carves a path for Turkish eco-science fiction but also calls on viewers to reconsider their relationship with nature, urging us to act before today’s hypothetical dystopias become tomorrow’s realities. 2121 takes an activist stance, critiquing contemporary society’s detachment from nature and reliance on unsustainable consumption. Altın’s willingness to confront these issues brings Turkish cinema into a more active role in the global eco-cinema movement. 2121 doesn’t shy away from tough questions, but instead cloaks them in the ironic echo of “Happy Lives”—a haunting slogan that serves as both warning and lament for a future we can still change.

WORKS CITED

Altın, Serpil. “Serpil Altın ile: Sürdürülebilir Film Yapmak Üzerine.” Interview by Halil Şimşek. The Magger, 21 March 2023. https://www.themagger.com/serpil-altin-roportaj-surdurulebilir-film-nedir/. Accessed 15 Oct 2024.

—. “Serpil Altın – Director of Once Upon a Time in the Future: 2121.” Interview by Davide Abbatescianni. Cineuropa, 18 Sep 2023. https://cineuropa.org/en/interview/449988/. Accessed 16 Oct 2024.

—. “Bir Zamanlar Gelecek: 2121’in yönetmeni Altın: İklim krizi şaka değil!” Interview by Deniz Ali Tatar. 24 Saat, 08 Jan 2024. https://www.24saatgazetesi.com/bir-zamanlar-gelecek-2121in-yonetmeni-altin-iklim-krizi-saka-degil. Accessed 16 Oct 2024.

Mack, Andrew. “Once Upon A Time In The Future: 2121 Trailer: The First Turkish Sci-fi Directed by a Woman Presented at AFM.” Screen Anarchy, 02 Nov 2023. https://screenanarchy.com/2023/11/once-upon-a-time-in-the-future-2121-trailer-first-turkish-sci-fi-directed-woman-afm.html. Accessed 15 Oct 2024.

Özgür Çalışkan, Ph.D., is an associate professor in Anadolu University’s Department of Cinema and Television. He completed his BA in Cinema and Television at Bahçeşehir University, his MA in Digital Culture at the University of Jyvaskyla, and his Ph.D. at Anadolu University. He has participated in exchange programs at the University of Ulster and the University of Ljubljana and served as a guest lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Valencia. An Executive Board member of the Eskişehir International Film Festival, Çalışkan publishes and lectures on cinematic narrative, screenwriting, film genres, science fiction, identity, and digital technologies.

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“Achtung. Achtung.” The first line of Rose Engine’s 2022 science fiction survival horror game Signalis isa distress signal repeating a single German word over an interstellar radio, flashing over a dramatic glitching red CRT screen. The opening is an obvious deep space horror trope meant to denote the game’s membership in the lineage of other SF and survival horrors such as Alien Isolation, Dead Space, and Silent Hill. However, it’s not long before this genre allusion is betrayed. Signalis proves through its referential prowess and surrealist mechanics as not only an SF survival horror, but a psychological text that challenges the delineations of genre, and engages with transmedia cultural, historical and philosophical discourses on the nature of personhood, death, and memory. The game opens with the player journeying out from a crash-landed spaceship into a strange deep hole in the ground where a nightmarish mining facility spirals impossibly deep into the earth and the laws of time and space become distant memories. As the title cards flash, so do lines from Chambers’ The King in Yellow,a shocking rendition of Bocklin’s painting The Isle of the Dead, and several lines from Lovecraft’s The Festival. The message the developers telegraph with this intensely convoluted yet beautifully referential introduction to the game world is clear: this game is not what you think it is. Achtung. Achtung. Danger. Danger.

Signalis is set in a dystopian future where humanity has spread across the solar system under totalitarian militaristic rule. Even in deep space, the long tendrils of fascism exert their crushing grip on the last vestiges of humanity and its replicas. The player follows one such “Replika”, Elster, an android created using edited memories copied from a long-dead human. The plot follows her on a nightmarish cosmic journey after her ship, the Penrose, crashes and its only other inhabitant goes missing. Most of the game takes place in the strange underground government mining facility stuck in a dreamy time loop that shifts to reflect the repressed memories of Elster, her originator, and her missing friend. The developers have woven themes of identity and memory throughout the game world and many have speculated the plot itself is a living memory, an existential crisis, or the melting dreams of an artificial being whose concept of ‘self’ is coming apart at the seams. The possibilities for exploring the notion of personhood are plentiful, and Signalis knowingly presents these themes at the forefront of its game world inviting speculation meant both to enhance the player’s experience and to incite a deeper consideration of the genre themes at play in games centered on artificial protagonists.

The game’s survival horror mechanics are directly reminiscent of Resident Evil and Silent Hill—a limited 6-item inventory, a stash box only found in safe rooms, a sprawling puzzle-filled map requiring continuous doubling back and detailed exploration, and enemies that deal high damage compared to your very limited health. Stealth, exploration, survival and purposeful confusion are the driving forces of play. These classic mechanics weave expertly alongside a story of surreal complexity that requires a constant re-exploration of the environment, and a science fiction setting that blurs the lines between the possible and the otherworldly. In the era of infinite inventories and mechanics that encourage larger and larger amounts of time spent in menu optimizing status over in world exploration, Signalis’restrictive inventory system is a refreshing callback that forces the player to stay in the scary enthralling game world and boosts rather than breaks immersion.

Interspersed throughout the story are interactions with literary works that at first glance seem out of place in the science fiction world, but which upon further examination serve to situate the game within genre traditions of cosmic horror and the problematic nature of some of the genre’s more historically prominent creators. It is likely no coincidence that the player is invited into the deeply fascist dystopia of the mining colony with the words of HP Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers, authors whose prominence gave rise to the cosmic horror and weird fiction literary genres, and who in equal measure were notorious racists who wielded white privilege to enable their rise to literary fame. Working in cosmic horror has troubled creators for generations: how do we reconcile these deeply problematic authors with their contributions to the genre and all it offers as a space for creative and horrific expression? Here Signalis gives us an engagement with cosmic horror that future developers should note—treating these ‘fathers’ of cosmic horror as themselves horrors. Where it could have been easier to make cursory allusions to the cosmic horror genre in the setting of Signalis using similarly aligned aesthetic tropes, Rose Engine has made a concerted effort to engage with the authors themselves in the game world, framing these works as fascist, hellish, and problematic objects that trouble the player, protagonist, and NPCs alike.

Mechanically, Signalis is definitively retro-tech. From the HUD and UI to the limited player mechanics, to the creation of a gameworld where analogue technology dominates over digital, the metallic and plastic clicking and clacking of mechanical interaction are a key element of the game’s design and play well with the game’s use of low poly modeling. Although the game is cross-platform, it is best described as a PlayStation 2 throwback. This is common in many retro-style survival horror AA games that seek to emulate the Silent Hill and Resident Evil style, Another comparable release much like Signalis in its recreation of this look and feel is Headware Game’s 2024 Hollowbody which likewise relies on a limited inventory, low poly modeling, fixed camera angles and surreal horror elements. Even though the developers likely wanted to re-create the visuals of the bygone era of 2000s survival horror, the graphics of the game also speak to the developers’ ability to write an intriguing story. Where modern AAA releases rely on ‘good graphics’ and impressive animation, Signalis pulls off the same impact with low graphics fidelity and uncomplicated mechanics. What keeps the player entranced in this retro space is the strength of how the retro technical look plays into the expertly crafted storyline and atmosphere, which is only enhanced, rather than undercut, by the limited and vintage quality graphics. This is perhaps one of the reasons for the current appeal of the early 2000s or Playstation 2 era survival horrors: a desire to push back against the supplanting of well-written and truly surrealist stories with impressive visuals as seen in the AAA industry, and instead return to narrative-driven horrors that work with what technologies are available to tell compelling stories.

Perhaps most impactfully is Signalis’engagement with an array of musings and histories related to death and dying. Arguably, we can consider the entire story as one drawn-out death played and replayed through memory in the mind of two decaying minds clinging to each other in the depths of space. More specifically, within the facility, death constructs both the environment and actions of the NPCs—Replikas wander the halls in a zombie-like state, molding, and slowly crumbling. The walls of the facility bleed and turn from metal to cancerous flesh over time. It’s no coincidence the developers chose Japanese as one of the dominant surviving cultures and languages in their distant society, with their depiction of mass death in the facility often showing ashen shadows of bodies imprinted on walls and floors, calling to mind the tragic imagery of victims of nuclear fallout. Bocklin’s Isle of the Dead is not only a painting found throughout the game, but makes its way into the game as a location visited by the player, inviting us to situate the game alongside the symbolist tradition of depicting death through lenses of oblivion and the surreal. At one point the player explores a literal hellscape, and encounters rituals of death and funeral whose names are long lost. Through and through death lingers over the entirety of Signalis,keeping it unrelentingly on the mind of the player.

Signalis is a challenging game, not only because its mechanics are unforgiving, its puzzles challenging, and its environment deeply upsetting, but because it demands a level of analytical, philosophical and historical engagement the player may not anticipate from a Playstation 2 homage. However, Rose Engine’s work is worthy of playing, and replaying, as it offers multiple points of entry for analytical engagement and is unique in both the survival horror and science fiction genres. Overall, Signalis is a work that delivers on the key elements of both deep space horror and retro survival horrors, is an expert return to 2000s aesthetics and modes of play, and layers in unique and compelling storytelling that touches on themes of personhood, death, and memory in completely unexpected and deeply evocative ways.

Bryn Shaffer is a graduate student at the University of British Columbia School of Information, where she holds a SSHRC award for her thesis work on information video games, and is an ALA Spectrum BIPOC scholar. Her research interests are in video games, HCI, horror and capitalism and labour studies. When she isn’t writing her thesis, she’s writing video game reviews and essays for the internet, or playing video games with her cat Salem.

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Scholar and translator Jeffrey Angles notes in his recent translation of the original Shigeru Kayama Godzilla novellas, that Kayama used the massive, irradiated reptile as a driver for suggesting that “humanitarian values, especially when coming from the postwar generation, will be what Japan needs,to guide the country through its ethical dilemmas” (Angles, 215) That observation could just as equally apply to the 2023 film (and most recent franchise reboot) Godzilla Minus One, in which the realization of ethical commitment to a new future, to a new generation, is brought to bear by a traumatized and shaken population emerging from complete catastrophe. Godzilla’s use as a metaphor for the atomic bombings of Japan and the existential fear of nuclear war is already well-known, but much of the genius of Godzilla Minus One is an explicit coupling of that to the deep trauma produced by the American firebombing of Tokyo and immense conventional destruction levied against a civilian population in the course of war. The people of Tokyo near the end of World War II did not experience an atomic attack, but no less than the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki suffered incomprehensible loss and the end of everything and everyone they knew, believed, and loved. It is in the aftermath of that loss that Godzilla arises. The 37^th film in the Godzilla franchise—and the 33^rd by Toho Studios—Godzilla Minus One strips away layers of backstory, titanic battles between kaiju, and many of the traditional Godzilla tropes, to create an ultimately simpler story of character and the ways in which humans not only process and learn to cope with shock, but transform it into constructive, beneficial action.

Both the trauma of war and the human failure war signifies suffuse the entire film, centered on pilot Shikishima Koichi (Kamiki Ryunosuke). At the very end of the war, Koichi lands his plane at a garrison on distant Odo Island, claiming technical problems. Mechanic Tachibana Sosaku (Aoki Munetaka) quickly realizes Koichi’s true motive—to avoid fatal service as a kamikaze; a realist, Tachibana supports Koichi’s choice to live in a world when the outcome of the war is patently obvious. But war, in the person of Godzilla, is not done with Koichi; the monster rampages through the garrison, which is decimated after Koichi freezes in terror and fails to turn his plane’s gun on Godzilla. Once Godzilla departs, only Koichi and a wounded, enraged Tachibana are left amid the bodies and the wreckage. In an example of Godzilla’s ongoing metaphorical shifting throughout the film (and, indeed, the franchise), Koichi cannot escape modern war’s destruction, which knows no limit and which indiscriminately creates victims, no matter how hard he tries or how remote the location to which he flees. War, like a giant monster, is relentless in its progress. The film, interestingly, presents a monstrous and deadly Godzilla from the outset—the 1946 US atomic bomb tests that in previous incarnations of the franchise create Godzilla, here simply amplify him, both in size and destructive capability (i.e., his radioactive heat ray); Godzilla Minus One suggests that war to a great extent is only a continual evolution towards greater and greater harm, but that in some form has always been a part of the human experience.

Koichi returns to a devastated, defeated Tokyo, carrying only the family photographs of the men on Odo for whose deaths he feels responsible. The scenes set in the ruins of the city are powerful in their presentation—a once-thriving capital is a place of shacks, shanties, food lines, and the ghosts and memories of the countless dead slaughtered in the firebombings. The dead include both Koichi’s parents and the children of his embittered neighbor Sumiko (Ando Sakura), who rages at Koichi for not having sacrificed himself as his duty to try and save the nation. Her reaction only compounds his survivor’s guilt, yet he discovers a motive for living when he encounters Oishi Noriko (Hamabe Minami), a young woman, left utterly alone, carrying baby Akiko (played by Nagatani Sae as a toddler) through the ruined streets. By 1946, the three have become a found family (overcoming Koichi’s terror of closeness and its concomitant risk of loss), imagining the possibility of hope and renewal, both on the personal and the national level. The strength of human connection proves powerful even in the face of existential oblivion—when Koichi tells Noriko he has obtained risky work on a ramshackle boat charged with destroying American mines, she grows furious and terrified, ordering Koichi not to get himself killed.

The minesweeping crew represents different elements of the postwar Japanese generation—
Koichi, the traumatized veteran, wracked by guilt-ridden nightmares of Godzilla; Noda Kenji (Yoshioka Hidetaka), the former weapons designer wrapped in his own introspective remembrances; Akitsu (Sasaki Kuranosuke), the cynical captain bitter at his government’s history of using and silencing the common man; and Mizushima (Yamada Yuki), too young to have seen service but anxious to prove himself. Akitsu counterbalances Mizushima’s youthful enthusiasm, telling him at one point, “To have never gone to war is something to be proud of.” Following reports of Godzilla sinking American ships, the crew are posted with orders to stall the monster until naval reinforcements arrive. Their encounter with Godzilla reveals his new mutations—increased size, deadly heat ray, and his regenerative powers that let him rapidly recover from both naval artillery and a mine jammed into his mouth and then exploded by gunfire from Koichi. But this defeat proves a turning moment for Koichi in his journey towards redemption. In a desperate plea to Noriko that he be able to “put all this to rest”—his guilt at being alive at all—she responds, “Everyone who survived the war is meant to live.” Koichi gains newfound purpose and determination; he is reconstructing himself just as the Japanese nation has begun to reconstruct itself after the war, just as the Ginza district of Tokyo, where Noriko now works, is busily rebuilding itself. A new and horrific attack by Godzilla on the city, though, levels much of Ginza, kills 30,000 people, and apparently kills Noriko just after she pushes Koichi out of the way of the blast wave caused by Godzilla’s heat ray. Koichi is left with a renewed sense of trauma and guilt, castigating himself for daring to try and live when his redemption remains unfulfilled.

At this point, the film begins to center on a collective popular effort to stop Godzilla from returning to Tokyo; the struggles of the Japanese people as a whole become signified by a concerted endeavor by men at the lower end of the social order to save their nation. Unlike previous Godzilla films, there are no labs full of white-coated scientists developing high-tech solutions to eliminate the monster, only Noda putting together a desperate plan to entrap Godzilla with freon gas and destroy him via rapid underwater descent and reascension. There are no masses of generals and other officers in war rooms and bunkers planning stratagems and massive responses, only a single former naval captain, Hotta (Tanaka Miou), asking for former naval personnel as volunteers to steer four disarmed destroyers into harm’s way. There is no help coming from either the Japanese government, which has no resources to muster, or the occupying Americans, who fear military action might antagonize the Soviets—in this, Tokyo’s desperate hour, victory and the end of years of prostration will come through the mutual efforts of ordinary men—navy veterans, engineers, and tugboat crews. Years of feeling betrayed by a neglectful and abusive government, and without agency in a newborn world, are to be superseded by a chance at preserving, not taking, life. As Noda says to the assembled group of volunteers the night before the attack,     

Come to think of it, this country has treated life far too cheaply. Poorly armored tanks. Poor supply chains resulting in half of all deaths from starvation and disease. Fighter planes built without ejection seats and finally, kamikaze and suicide attacks. That’s why this time, I’d take pride in a citizen led effort that sacrifices no lives at all! This next battle is not one waged to the death, but a battle to live for the future.

  The hope of a better world becomes the engine driving the war against Godzilla, who represents at this one moment both the endlessly destructive past and the potentially devastating atomic future
—Godzilla Minus One posits that the legacy of the one and the looming danger of the other are effectively countered only by a common human effort, one that looks unselfishly to what might come after. As the volunteers, including Noda and Akitsu, board their ships, Mizushima—enthusiastic to help—is purposely left behind; over Mizushima’s protests, Akitsu mutters, “We leave you the future.” Stopping Godzilla has transformed from the simple killing of a monster into, instead, a dramatic step in the process of Japanese societal rebirth and restructuring, and another progression towards exorcising the trauma of war. It is an emotionally resonant return to the original postwar ethos of the Godzilla saga –a turn away from the frequent positioning in the series of Godzilla as Japan’s protector rather than its destroyer and back towards his symbolic image as the terrible power of war and nuclear destruction. (The film also, I note, supplies a psychological complexity and thematic value absent from the recent American “Monsterverse’ Godzilla series, which would rather ape traditional disaster movies and add unnecessary backstories than confront the real human traumas and costs inherent to Godzilla.)

Koichi also finds in this battle his own restoration, and an end to his crippling guilt. He pilots a late-war experimental fighter to lure Godzilla into position in Sagami Bay—the plane is repaired by Tachibana, one of the ghosts of Koichi’s past, reconciliation with whom is vital to Koichi’s healing process. And before Godzilla can use his heat ray to eliminate the volunteer fleet, Koichi flies the bomb-filled plane directly into Godzilla’s mouth, destroying him from the inside. He survives because Tachibana had installed an ejector seat, demanding of Koichi that he must put aside his guilt and live. And so, Koichi does, indeed, live, having given himself, his adopted daughter Akiko, and his nation, a new chance for life. It is telling that the film’s final line of dialogue, from Noriko (who has survived and is in hospital) to Koichi, “Is your war finally over?”, references the psychological struggles that have defined him, his friends, his country, and, indeed, the film as a whole. What Godzilla, a monster whose metaphorical nature has been a fundamental part of the character since his 1954 inception, represents in this impressive and striking film above all is the collective ordeal of the Japanese wartime and postwar experience. That trauma is both a shared experience and shared uniquely by each individual Japanese; much of the strength of the impressive Godzilla Minus One comes from its recognition of the psychological journeys that both societies and individuals take in overcoming guilt and trauma inflicted by the vagaries of catastrophic war.
 

WORKS CITED

Angles, Jeffrey, translator. Godzilla and Godzilla Raids Again. By Shigeru Kayama, University   of Minnesota Press, 2023

Jeremy Brett is a librarian at Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, where he is, among other things, the Curator of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Research Collection. He has also worked at the University of Iowa, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the National Archives and Records Administration-Pacific Region, and the Wisconsin Historical Society. He received his MLS and his MA in History from the University of Maryland – College Park in 1999. His professional interests include science fiction, fan studies, and the intersection of libraries and social justice.