‘Godzilla: The Official Movie Novelisation by Greg Cox’ Review

It’s fair to say that Godzilla has been a success on the big screen, especially based on the fact it already has two sequels confirmed.  It’s all about the spectacle of seeing the huge monster do battle, to hear his roar as he announces his arrival, and the destruction of everything around him.  How though would this translate into a book? I got to find out when I read Godzilla: The Official Movie Novelisation by Greg Cox.

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When a creature known as MUTO is released on the world the human race find themselves outmatched by the unnatural beast.  When signs are discovered showing another beast, Godzilla, long though dead has returned, they find he may be the answer to all their problems, though also one of the biggest destructive forces alive.

The written word is a strong tool, in fiction all the reader needs is a little imagination to translate those words into whatever the writer desires.  This is why Godzilla translates to page quite well.  Greg Cox has the task to tell the reader the scale of the battle that takes place between the mammoth creatures, and this is done well.  It is obvious that Godzilla is huge, that the human race has no chance to fight against him and that he is here to clean up their mess.  The arrogance to try to attack him of course is stupidity, especially when they’ve already thrown their greatest weapon at him and he survived.

Godzilla is nature’s weapon against humanities mistake.  It’s our fault that we fed the MUTO to give them the ability to grow, but it’s nature’s problem that they are messing with the balance of the planet.  The fact that the humans run away like little ants thinking they can destroy these huge beasts is laughable, and in fact down-right stupid when they keep on providing the MUTO with more nuclear fuel to feed them.  You’d think we’d get the message that these monsters feed on the weapons we are throwing at them, so STOP throwing it around.

Another problem I found with Godzilla is that there is too much focus on the people at ground level.  I know a highlight for some is that we are meant to see the battles from the level of the people on the ground, but the story created for Ford and his family if anything is just generic and a little forced to give the story some humanity.  For my tastes I just want to get to the battle and let Godzilla do what he does best.  I can understand the need for a human side to the story, but the human element do tend to hinder the progress of the huge monster battles.

Godzilla’s strength especially in the novelisation is that it is made clear that Godzilla is a force of nature, his awakening comes when he is needed to rebalance the food chain and take away the MUTO danger which should not exist.  Humans are inconsequential to the battle, no matter how important they feel they are to events.  In the end this is a story too big for them, they need to just take a step back and let Godzilla show who the boss is.

Godzilla: The Official Movie Novelisation by Greg Cox is a good read and I would recommend it, but it does show the weaknesses of Godzilla the film.  While some people may argue that the human element was weak and needed to be strengthened I would rather it have less of a focus.  This is only a small issue really (much like the human race compared to Godzilla) and I for one enjoyed the book a lot.

Godzilla: The Official Movie Novelisation by Greg Cox is out now.

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