Godzilla vs Kong Officially Makes Godzilla’s Atomic Breath Name Canon

The opening credits of Godzilla vs Kong officially used the name atomic breath for Godzilla’s famous attack. The atomic breath is a blast of energy from Godzilla’s mouth that often resembles blue flame. It’s not fire, though, but a line of extremely hot nuclear energy. Every single version of Godzilla has used this powerful attack, and the MonsterVerse version is no different. Though this power has been showcased in every Godzilla appearance in the modern Legendary MonsterVerse, this is the first time that the term has been used in a MonsterVerse movie.

Godzilla made its first appearance in 1954’s Godzilla, which kicked off the first era of films starring the world’s most famous kaiju. This was called the Showa era of Godzilla films, and even then Godzilla had his most famous power. In the current movies, his atomic breath is still insanely powerful, with an energy yield of 3.15 x 1014 joules [10 to the 14th power], which is an immense amount of energy and heat generated every time he uses his greatest weapon and arguably the reason he’s the King of the Monsters.

What is different with Godzilla vs Kong is that the actual name of the attack, atomic breath, is used in the movie. It’s a first for these films, even if it’s only in the opening credits. The MonsterVerse movies have tended to take the approach of a mostly grounded view of its various kaiju. The humans in these films initially didn’t have a ton of information about any of the giant monsters, including Godzilla himself, and it adds a sense of grandiosity and mystery to each creature. Due to this, they’ve never given specific names to Godzilla’s powers, and so no character has actually yet said the phrase “atomic breath” in the movies. Even in this film none of the characters call it that. They often refer to it in vaguer terms, talking about it in terms of Godzilla’s power or energy, but the scientific notes in the opening credits officially name it as such.

The fact that the name atomic breath is now made canon in the films is secretly an important turn for the series. It signals that the MonsterVerse is likely to continue to embrace the sillier aspects of the older kaiju films that they take inspiration from. Godzilla vs Kong is a good example of this. The film centers around characters literally traveling to the Hollow Earth, a secret upside-down world in the center of the earth where Kong’s species of giant apes fought a war with Godzillas. This is a pretty big departure from 2014’s Godzilla. Gareth Edwards’s film kicked off this universe with a realistic and grounded take on kaiju, but that’s not what’s come to define the MonsterVerse since then. Now the films fully indulge in the wilder aspects of the Godzilla film series, whether it be the Hollow Earth in this film or Atlantis in King of the Monsters.

Going the route of becoming progressively sillier is probably the right move for the MonsterVerse. Audiences primarily go to these movies to see massive monster fights, so making terms like atomic breath canon in Godzilla vs Kong is just another sign that the filmmakers are embracing all aspects of the old Godzilla movies, both the silly and the serious.

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