Godzilla Minus One: How a Giant Lizard Almost Made Me Cry (and Taught Me How to Write)

5 Storytelling Lessons from a Japanese Godzilla Film

I used to tell my students about the one great benefit of being a screenwriter.

Unlike, say, dentists or accountants, our “research” involves the consumption of snacks (or in my case, Calbee’s prawn crackers), while watching vampires and werewolves battling it out, or fast and furious car crashes or monsters destroying cities, on screen.

Take “Godzilla Minus One,” for example.

The special effects were dazzling, and the city-stomping scenes were delightfully vintage kaiju.

But what truly blew me away?

The surprisingly deep character study hidden beneath all that radioactive rubble.

Here are five storytelling lessons I learnt after watching the movie.

Lesson One: Character Comes First in Any Genre Flick

Rookie writers often get hung up on the cool explosions and forget about, you know, actual characters.

They churn out one-dimensional heroes who could be replaced by a cardboard cutout labelled “Generic Action Dude.”