Four lessons for humanity from Destroy All Monsters (1968) regarding the value of science over politics, being wary of dangerous individuals, the basic rights of our more-than-human neighbors, and manufactured consent for fascistic violence.

New to the mission? Start here: The Kaiju Papers Site Index

NOTE FROM THE FIELD OFFICE: We at the Field Office are eternally grateful to Dr. J. Pringle, DDS, MLIS, P. Geo, CFO for offering his time and expertise and for authoring this Field Report. We have much to learn from Dr. Pringle and we are looking forward to a fruitful working relationship. If members of the public would like to contribute to a Field Report, reach out to thekaijupapers@gmail.com!

ANOTHER NOTE FROM THE FIELD OFFICE: We are making zines! We are aiming to send them out by the end of next week. If you want one, send your mailing address to thekaijupapers@gmail.com. Also remember that being alive costs money (boo) so please consider supporting our mission here!

ANOTHER ANOTHER NOTE FROM THE FIELD OFFICE: You may have noticed out name change. We just found out about this, same as you. Read the memo from Mission HQ here.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION / / / 

This Field Report explores the lessons for humanity offered in Destroy All Monsters (1968). This is the culmination of all previous Showa Godzilla films of its time; a fourteen-year journey that started in 1954 with Godzilla. This film is also, regrettably, the final work done with all four “fathers” of Godzilla: Ishiro Honda, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Akira Ifukube, as at the time, Tsuburaya-san had started his own company and given the world the Ambassador of Light, meaning his effects work at Toho was limited and often included his proteges. Tsuburaya-san would also tragically pass away in 1970, making Destroy All Monsters the true end of an era for the Godzilla franchise at large. 

Because of this, the Chief of Mission reached out to the office of researcher and famed kaijuologist Dr. J. Pringle, DDS, MLIS, P. Geo, CFO, known for his seminal thesis work, The Kaiju Must Unite, in order to help the field office (who are incredibly swamped after the Egg controversy and need contracted assistance). Unfortunately, Dr. Pringle still requires every document to be faxed (who sends faxes in the big ‘26?), so while this heavily-researched field report is extensive, it did eat at a majority of the budget of our organization, due to the necessity of having to buy a fax machine in order to correspond with Dr. Pringle.

Destroy All Monsters? More like Destroy All Printers. Seriously. The faxing back and forth (and the dial-up noises of Dr. Pringle’s office) made us want to go Office Space on our devices.

KAIJU FIELD REPORT No. 11

• Date: May 22, 02026
• Location: The Remote Office of Dr. J. Pringle, DDS, MLIS, P. Geo, CFO
• Mission: Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026
• Artifacts Examined: 
  • Destroy All Monsters (1968)
  • Pages 131 - 141 Destroy All Monsters, Chapter One of Part One: Beast of Burden: 1954 to 1975 of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Carpenter, J., Odaka, M., & Tomiyama, S. (2025). Godzilla: The First 70 Years: The Official Illustrated History of the Japanese Productions. Abrams Books.
  • Pages 243 - 247 Destroy All Monsters, Chapter 22, Section 4 of Monsters or Bust of Ryfle, S., Godziszewski, E., Honda-Yun, Y., Scorsese M., Honda, R. Ishiro Honda: A Life In Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa. Wesleyan Publishing House.
• Rations Consumed: 1 triple dipper, 2 IPAs, and 4 mozzarella sticks
• Chief of Mission (AKA Dudley the Dog) Present? No, only Lord Chunko, The Wise, Esquire.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY NO. 1: Science, not politicians, will drive society forward.

Much of the research at The Godzilla Papers is done to see what kind of tomorrow we can usher in with the lessons we have learned from the Godzilla films. Destroy All Monsters is set in the far-future year of 1999 in a world where all nations cooperate, have a jointly-owned moon base, and scientists are making key decisions that will impact society at large - politicians are a thing of the past. This futuristic vision of peace by Director Ishiro Honda and writer Kaoru Mabuchi (credited as pen name Takeshi Kimura) shows us a world that is no longer stifled by countries being pitted against one another, rather, an entire global unit of cooperation driven purely by scientific advancement and the betterment of mankind. This culmination of the Godzilla series is an idealistic representation of all of the past themes in each Godzilla film coming to fruition, so it was wonderful for our research staff to see the culmination (and we hope to be there one day).

This optimistic futurism goes even further, with every single kaiju that appears in the film having been placed on Monsterland, a new utopia where the monsters can live in peace, food is abundant, and they are far away from civilization. Humanity has to enact protective measures such as stun gasses to keep them at bay, but gone are the days of military force and maser tanks; a more peaceful method has been developed to coexist with the kaiju. It is here that the core message of the film is presented: We are driven forward not by war, not by politics, but by discovery, peaceful interaction, and trusting in our scientists, rather than discrediting them with baseless claims of anti-intellectualism.

Director Ishiro Honda remarked upon the scientific backing of Destroy All Monsters, stating in a studio newsletter translated by Steve Ryfle & Ed Godzisewski:

“[The science] in Destroy All Monsters… was all thought up by the staff. Those who work on these films take pains to establish grounds for truth or possibility… [We] search through science books, visit labs and factories of electronics makers, gather facts and opinions.” 

NOTE: The team behind Mission Kaiju_Love_Care_Futures_02026 believes in a future in which the academic sciences are honored but not placed in a hierarchy above traditional ways of knowing and learning about the world. We believe in (and love) science. We are also acutely aware of the white supremacist violence that has put quantitative, “provable” research on a pedestal above lived experience and ancestral wisdom, not to mention the violence that has occurred in the name of scientific discovery.

LESSON FOR HUMANITY NO. 2: Be wary of dangerous and nefarious individuals, even in “safe” spaces. 

The villains of the film, the alien Kilaaks, undoubtedly evoke past extraterrestrial threats seen in the Godzilla/Toho Tokusatsu franchise thus far - most notably the Xiliens from Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) and the dastardly, dying-to-repopulate Mysterians from The Mysterians (1957). These Kilaaks take the form of, to our surprise at TGP, ordinary looking spacepeople who don’t outright state their agenda, but merely want to perform a hostile takeover of the entire world. Their malicious intentions are mostly known and out in the open in the form of their leader, but their most effective forms of attack are from within, as many members of the UN, our main protagonists, and even the kaiju of Earth are under their mind control due to special frequencies planted on them (one of which even just being earrings), meaning that even our safest spaces can be infiltrated by those who seek to do us harm if we aren’t proactive and careful.

Some of our favorite ways to be proactive and careful without shutting ourselves off from the world include:

• Have values alignment conversations up front. Ask: what futures are YOU trying to build?
• When embarking on collaboration, co-create community agreements, as outlined in adrienne maree brown’s Holding Change. 
• As adrienne maree brown teaches us, move at the speed of trust! Acknowledge that it might take a while to build trust or to identify values misalignment.
• When people show you who they are, believe them! 

LESSON FOR HUMANITY NO. 3: Even our more-than-human neighbors deserve to have autonomy and rights.

Although it may seem like we have finally achieved peace with nature (the kaiju) itself, this has resulted in the gigantic monsters of Earth all being confined to a small colony island in the form of Monsterland. To keep these creatures at bay, we gas them, put up forcefields, and take other preventative measures. The Kilaaks, as mentioned above, take control of Godzilla and co., forcing them to destroy major countries that have nuclear arsenal against their wills. It is that reason that we must reiterate, especially after Invasion of Astro-Monster, that even animals & creatures that inhabit this planet deserve to have autonomy and have basic rights. They are not ours to control, nor should we attempt to confine them to small, restrictive spaces. The saving grace of Monsterland is that the kaiju are there for further understanding and scientific discovery so that we can co-exist with them one day, rather than it being an island of torture.

Ryfle and Godzisewski offer some commentary on the nature of Monsterland in the film:

“The protagonists happily wave goodbye to the creatures, but in hindsight, the scene feels unintentionally somber. Godzilla and adopted son, Minilla, and all the rest, are confined to a tiny island, all powerful giant creatures now rendered unthreatening and small. Ifukube’s music has driven the film’s many high points with animated marches and a titanic battle opus of monster themes. But in these final moments, as the monsters appear to bid farewell to the camera, the composer offers a parting lament.” - Page 140, The First 70 Years

Film critic Chieo Yoshida added insight to this feeling, stating in a review for Kinema Junpo:

“They put all of their star monsters together, including ones I thought were already dead. At the end, the Kilaaks are defeated and the monsters go back to Monsterland… But why do the humans keep the monsters there? As far as I can tell, it’s not just for preserving endangered monsters. It looks like they’re raising them as weapons.” - Pages 246 - 247, Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film  

“...raising them as weapons.” As Egg often says: “woof.” What might our shared futures look and feel like if we did not insist on exploiting other living beings for profit and war? We imagine that our colleagues at the Arts Department have some ideas.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

LESSON FOR HUMANITY NO. 4: Fascism will use mass communication to turn humanity against itself. We must understand how this is done and what can be done about it.

In Destroy All Monsters, the Kilaaks utilize massive radio frequencies that are hidden across the globe to mind control the human & kaiju population alike, to get them to turn against one another and begin infighting. 

Fascism utilizes fearmongering and strong propaganda to turn people against one another in order to rise to and maintain power. In the age of social media, manosphere content, and paid influencers, we have seen an uptick in how right-wing entities co-opt mass communication in order to steer narratives, ditching traditional means of propaganda for a more sly, forced, and all-encompassing way to initiate conflict and squash dissent. In Bodies Under Siege: How the far-right attack on reproductive rights went global, Siân Norris argues: 

… another tactic [for fascistic beliefs to reach the mainstream] is to create a conduit that filters extremist ideology through a respectable front: a middle man who can bring the fascist thought architecture into the corridors of power. Here. it can be transformed from conspiracy theories and violence into government policy. - Page 73

In the case of our current present, the “respectable front” is a many-headed Hydra: the manosphere and trad-wives, Project 2025’s leveraging of every social system in our country (and in some cases, other countries) to push fascistic ideology: from the public education system to the tax code to strategically placing ICE in airports and deputizing other departments in the violent repression and oppression of brown, Black, and Indigenous folks regardless of immigration status … the list goes on. Members of the public can track the progress of Project 2025 here. 

A “respectable front” serves Empire’s project in manufacturing consent. In 1922, philosopher Walter Lippman coined the term “manufactured consent.” He argued that:

“...in a democracy, consensus for policy, especially drastic policies like war, could not be left to the unreliable and emotional public. Instead, it had to be manufactured by a specialized class of experts who could interpret events and guide public feeling using “necessary illusions.”   - Explaining History Podcast: Manufacturing ConsentL The Architectures of Wartime Propaganda

States—and the U.S. Empire specifically—manufacture public consent for war crimes, genocide, and for stripping entire groups of people of their basic human rights. In the U.S. alone, we think of the government’s ongoing genocide of native peoples, “internment” of Japanese folks in the 1940s, the forced sterilization of Puerto Rican women, Jim Crow, ICE’s violence, the increasing oppression of trans people, and the U.S. support of Israel in its genocidal war to steal Palestinian land. 

We must also note that the “respectable front” has been here all along. The United States is founded on a violent, white supremacist ideology. This is not new. That said, we believe resistance is crucial. We can build more just and equitable futures now, in the present. For more on this, see Lesson No. 4 in Field Report No. 5: Be More Stubborn. Be Emotional. Be Blatant. Risk Everything.

We wonder what our shared futures might be like without manufactured consent—futures where we have the time, nuance, and regulated nervous systems to think and act for ourselves. Futures where we can explore our shared humanity and get curious about any knee-jerk, xenophobic reactions … another question for the Arts Department, we suppose. 

We are feeling somber yet hopeful about coexistence. We are also thinking about framing: who are the real monsters in Destroy All Monsters?

Yours in Science

Dr. J. Pringle, DDS, MLIS, P. Geo, CFO

/ / / END OF TRANSMISSION