The Big Picture

Back To The Future II
inspired
Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah
, leading to the only Godzilla film featuring time travel.
Time travel allows films like
Back to The Future
and
Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah
to explore intriguing “what if” scenarios.
The unique twist of time travel in
Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah
changed Godzilla’s motives and created a memorable installment.

Time travel has been a staple trope in cinema for decades, and it really became popular in the 1980s with films like The Terminator, Star Trek, and Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It allows audiences to use their imaginations and dream of what the future could look like, with its endless possibilities. But perhaps the most famous entry into the time travel genre is the Back To The Future trilogy, which follows Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) and Doc Brown (Christopher Lloyd) as they travel to various decades, both in the past and future.

In the first film, Marty, a teenager living in 1985, gets trapped in the 1950s when he uses the DeLorean time machine to quickly escape a terrorist group that is after Doc Brown after he promised them plutonium. He finds the Doc Brown of the past to help him figure out how to get back to his own time. In the second feature film, Marty has to travel to the future to stop his kids from falling down a dark path. It turns into a huge dystopian tale as Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), the notorious villain in every film, gets ahold of the DeLorean and makes some changes to the past. But did you know that Back to the Future Part II directly influenced one of the most weird and wonderful Godzilla films?

Back to the Future 2 After visiting 2015, Marty McFly must repeat his visit to 1955 to prevent disastrous changes to 1985…without interfering with his first tripRelease Date November 22, 1989 Director Robert Zemeckis Runtime 108 Writers Robert Zemeckis , Bob Gale Studio Universal Pictures Tagline Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads!

How Did ‘Back To The Future II’ Inspire Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah?
The director of 1991’s iconic Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah, Kazuki Ômori, said in a 2022 interview with Medium that the success of Back To The Future II made Godzilla co-creator, Tomoyuki Tanaka, think about the possibilities of a Godzilla adventure featuring time travel. Even though he was initially against the idea of time travel, thinking that it was too much for him and that if you add time travel, there are too many possibilities. According to Ômori, Tanaka saw that Back To The Future II had higher attendance rates than his Godzilla vs. Biollante in 1989, which led him to consider and pursue the idea. Thus, it gave us one of the best of the Heisei era (refers to a political period in Japan), Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah. It is still the only Godzilla film featuring time travel.

Time Travel and Godzilla Are a Match Made in Heaven
Image Via Toho

In Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah, Godzilla, usually the film’s antagonist, becomes the world’s savior as he defeats the golden-scaled, three-headed King Ghodorah. In this installment, the Futurians travel back in time from the year 2044 to warn the people of Japan that Godzilla will come back to ruin them. Their plan of action is to travel back to 1944 with Terasawa (Kôsuke Toyohara), psychic Miki Saegusa (Megumi Odaka), and Professor Hironori Mazaki (Katsuhiko Sasaki), a paleontologist, and stop Godzilla from ever being created by the 1954 Castle Bravo H-bomb test. Their mission succeeds, but little do the people of 1992 know that the Futurians plan on creating another monster of their own using three Dorats to create King Ghodorah.

We later figured out that the Futurians were part of a political party known as the Equal Environment Earth Union. Their goal was to extort Japan because it was becoming increasingly corrupt. Once the travelers return to 1992, they see Ghodorah terrorizing the nation. So, their best solution is to recreate Godzilla to defeat the creature. It turns out that Godzilla wasn’t gone after all but was in the depths of the ocean, and after Godzilla absorbed the nuclear submarine, he became even bigger than before. Godzilla and King Ghodorah duke it out in an epic battle, Godzilla decapitating one of Ghodorah’s heads, and they both plummet into the ocean. But we know Godzilla won by the monstrous scream he lets out at the film’s end, letting audiences know he shall return.

Related Robert Zemeckis Wanted Ronald Reagan To Be in ‘Back to the Future Part III’ This U.S. President was nearly demoted to the Mayor of Hill Valley for this Western sci-fi comedy.

This bizarre plot of Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah was the first and last of its kind. It had time travel, giving the film a new twist and changing Godzilla’s motives. During the earlier films, Godzilla was a symbol of nuclear war, a world gone wrong, and something humans couldn’t take back after creating it. But Godzilla was absolved of this wartime connection when he was deliberately created using the nuclear submarine; Godzilla became a force to help Japan save their nation. But since the time travel aspect seemed to be popular enough, why didn’t they make another one featuring time travel? Maybe to keep the uniqueness of the film, or because once is enough. Either way, the film is one of the better installments within the ever-growing franchise.

Time travel films like these work so well because they explore the possibilities we ask ourselves every day. What if you could go back and fix this horrible mistake you made? What if you could take back what you said? How would your life be different? Films like Godzilla vs. Ghodorah, The Terminator, and Back to The Future explore these questions differently but always make audiences consider the possibilities. An idea they all explore is the effect fixing the past has on the future. Even with the technological advances in these films, it’s interesting to see how they explain it to someone who has no idea what a hoverboard or cyborg is.

What Other Films Inspired ‘Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah’?

Back to The Future II wasn’t the only influence for Godzilla Vs. King Ghodorah. Kazuki Ômori told Medium that some of the biggest inspirations for the film were The Terminator and Aliens. The influence of The Terminator is evident; like in Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah, The Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger), who is a cyborg assassin, has to go back in time to save the future. His target is Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), but he ends up befriending and protecting her when secrets about the future are unraveled. Similar to The Terminator, everyone in Godzilla vs. King Ghodorah seems to have ulterior motives, like the Futurians who end up creating King Ghodorah and John Connor (Edward Furlong), who was the one who sent the T-1000 assassin, giving both films good plot twists.

It’s almost time to evacuate another town as we reunite for another adventure in the MonsterVerse. Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire, premieres next month and will pit Kong and Godzilla against a colossal threat that will challenge the existence of the monsters and our own.

Back to the Future Part II is available to rent on Amazon.

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