Want to know more about Godzilla’s foes and compatriots in the monster world? Take this opportunity, in the precious days before the release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, to look over this profile of Rodan, the flying menace.
Name: Rodan
Etymology: “Rodan” is a bowdlerized version of the Japanese name “Radon,” which is, in itself a contraction of the word “pteranodon.”
Species: Mutant pteranodon.
Description: Brown, leather-winged reptile.
Abilities: Rodan can fly incredibly fast, laying waste to the ground below him in a series of supersonic booms. His wings are so powerful, they can cause gale-force winds. Rodan is immune to Godzilla’s nuclear breath.
First Appearance: Rodan (1956)
Actors Who Played Him: Hauro Nakajima, Masaki Shinohara, Teruo Aragaki, Naoko Kamio, Jason Liles.
Rundown: While the original 1954 Godzilla was the first film directed by the great Ishiro Honda, Rodan was his third, cementing his technical skill with kaiju material. If Godzilla was a symbol for the American nuclear attack following WWII (as is the most commonly accepted interpretation), Rodan was meant to represent Russia’s nuclear threat. While Rodan is a fun monster, he has always been depicted as a secondary or tertiary monster in the Godzilla universe. Indeed, the stiff-armed design and large, silly eyes were meant to make Rodan look deliberately sillier than Godzilla. Rodan is like Godzilla’s sillier, wimpier sidekick.
The sight of Rodan flying overhead is always an impressive one, usually achieved through a combination of puppetry and impressive stunt work. In Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, Rodan was realized entirely through puppetry. But Rodan, when compared to other monsters, looks a little silly. He has short, stubby legs, a lack of arms, and not much in the way of articulation. As such, his fights are limited to a few signature moves. Rodan has been heavily featured in the Godzilla canon, having been seen in (as of the 2019 film) six Godzilla films, not counting appearances via flashback or stock footage. And while he will always have a spot at the big kid’s table, Rodan may have to fight his way to the top.
Origin: In the 1956 Rodan, the creature was awakened from an extended underground dormancy by nuclear blasts. This continuity has never been re-written in the Godzilla franchise, so we can assume that Rodan always was a mutated dinosaur, or simply a dinosaur that can remain dormant for extended periods. At the conclusion of Rodan, both the title monster and its mate – a second Rodan – were seem melting into a volcano. One can only assume that one of these monsters was the same one to appear in Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), his next on-screen performance.
In the Heisei era, the second Godzilla continuity, Rodan’s origin is never given, but he does appear in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993) in the role of Godzilla’s protector (?). In that film, when Godzilla was in dire straits with Mechagodzilla, Rodan flew to a nuclear power plant, absorbed its energy, and became Fire Rodan (technically a different monster according to Toho). Fire Rodan melted down on top of an ailing Godzilla, transferring all his powers into Godzilla’s body.
In the Millennium era, Rodan had a small role in Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), the biggest monster conflagration of the series, and, at the time, the presumed final chapter in the Godzilla franchise (the series has since been rebooted three times: Once in America with the 2014 film, and twice in Japan with the anime trilogy and with the excellent Shin Godzilla). Perhaps feeling sympathy for a long-time series regular, Godzilla did not kill Rodan in Final Wars, but left him unconscious.
In the Netflix anime trilogy, Rodan is seen to be dead, as his skeleton makes a cameo appearance. I like to think he died of old age.
Commentary: Rodan deserves credit for being what is essentially the Godzilla franchise’s primary fodder monster. He is used to round out super-monster teams when King Ghidorah attacks, or he is used to provide Godzilla with a momentary distraction on his way to other, more powerful monsters; but – apart from his debut – Rodan never seems to present a genuine threat to Godzilla. You will note that there is no film called Godzilla vs. Rodan. As a flying monster, he provides a good deal of variety in visuals and in fight choreography, but doesn’t have the same personality as Mothra, King Ghidorah, and definitely not of the G-Man himself.
Perhaps Godzilla: King of the Monsters will provide him with some well-deserved credit.
