Editorials
Meet the Monsters: Getting to Know Rodan Before He Returns in ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’
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.
I was never against Sony’s initial idea to produce solo movies based on Spider-Man’s most memorable supervillains. After all, a hero is only as good as his Rogues’ Gallery is intimidating, so it stands to reason that there were plenty of dark stories to tell here.
While rushed productions like Morbius and Kraven the Hunter didn’t quite turn out as I had hoped, it’s a relief to see James Gunn and the DC Extended Universe learn the right lessons from Marvel’s flops by investing in supervillain stories that aren’t afraid to step into the horror genre.
The new trailer for James Watkins’ upcoming Clayface movie is a great example of this, as the new footage confirms our suspicions that the movie is set to be a full-on piece of body horror focusing more on telling a standalone scary story than setting up a brand.
With that in mind, I’ve decided to take a closer look at the trailer in order to find out what we can expect from this highly anticipated comic-book adaptation from hell.
So without further ado, here are four things we learned from the new Clayface trailer!
4. Matt Hagen is a Club Vesuvius Regular
A seedy nightclub owned by “former” mobster Johnny Sabatino, the comic books have established Club Vesuvius as a hotspot for criminal activity and metahuman action since 2009. Throughout the years, the club has seen everything from an attempted arson by Firefly to magical acts performed by Zatanna herself.
The trailer for Clayface appears to suggest that Vesuvius will feature prominently in this story as well, as the footage shows us several shots of Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries) casually attending the club as well as a couple of more concerning moments where Gotham City Police roll up to the establishment to deal with some kind of emergency.
3. The Movie Will Not Adapt Any Single Specific Comic
As I mentioned before in my Clayface primer for horror fans who aren’t all that familiar with the character, the initial teaser for the film had me convinced that the project would be more of an adaptation of Batman: The Animated Series’ two-part episode Feat of Clay rather than any specific comic-book.
This latest trailer has only confirmed my suspicions, with Hagen’s predicament here feeling much more in line with Marv Wolfman and Michael Reaves’ sympathetic vision of the character than the more traditional criminal that we usually see in the comics. That being said, I’m curious to see how the filmmakers intend to connect this tragic version of Clayface to the more unpleasant monster we saw in Creature Commandos now that it’s been confirmed that these are indeed the same person.
2. James Watkins is Combining Practical and Digital Effects
I’ll always prefer a well-executed practical effect over CGI simply because the former is closer to the stage magic that inspired early moviemaking. That being said, there’s an undeniable artistry to well-crafted visual effects, and I’d argue that a character like Clayface requires the best of both worlds in order to be convincingly brought to life on the big screen.
I’m clearly not the only one who thinks so, as the trailer has shown us that Watkins is combining digital imagery with prosthetics and plenty of flesh-colored goop to depict Hagen’s unique brand of monstrous body horror. James Gunn had already promised us that the film would feature plenty of old-school practical effects wizardry, so it’s exciting to see that this approach in action.
1. Hagen Will Eventually Transform into Clayface’s Iconic True Form
In the comics, whenever Clayface isn’t pretending to be someone else, the character spends most of his time in his “natural” form resembling a gigantic golem-like monster. This look has certainly evolved over the years, but, at this point, most artists have settled on a vaguely humanoid shape accompanied by a gaping maw (though the villain’s terrifying re-imagining in DC’s Absolute Universe is a bit more complicated than that).
While fans were initially skeptical regarding whether or not the upcoming adaptation would even feature this admittedly outlandish design, the trailer has basically confirmed that Hagen’s condition will get progressively worse until he finally resembles the hulking monstrosity from the comics!
Be sure to comment below if you think we overlooked any interesting details in the trailer, and keep in mind that Clayface will be hitting theaters on October 23.
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