Gojira

Of all the mid twentieth century sci-fi movies warning about the dangers of nuclear weapons, Gojira is probably the most obvious.  Of course, coming out of Japan not long after world war two, the film has a closer relationship with nuclear power than any other film prior or after.  Gojira is a giant mutated sea lizard that only exists because of nuclear weapons testing.  When it destroys the city and kills all those people, it's symbolic of the destructive capabilities of nuclear weapons, of which that Japan knew very well.  One interesting part of the film is the archaeologist who argues that Gojira should not be killed, but rather preserved and studied.  This might have been a way for the film to argue that nuclear technology can have it's benefits other than weapons and death.  It's likely that at the time, this was an unpopular opinion in Japan, if it was even talked about at all.  Ultimately, the majority decided against keeping Gojira in one piece and killed it.  The archaeologist eventually decided that this would be the better option after all and voted to kill it as well.  At the end of the film, he wonders whether or not all the other nuclear weapons tests taking place throughout the world will create other monsters like gojira. This is the main message of the movie, that nuclear weapons can only lead to death and other unfortunate consequences.  Seeing this movie after the Fukushima crisis makes it seem like an ironic prediction.  Maybe if the archaeologist got his way and they studied Gojira instead of vaporizing him, maybe they would have figured out technology to make better plants.  Compared to movies with similar themes, like Them!,  Gojira is definitely more pessimistic.  The ants never killed as many people or were as destructive as Gojira.  While Them makes nuclear technology out to be an inconvenience and something that can be dangerous to a smaller population of people, Gojira is a movie that warns about nuclear power having the capability to destroy the whole world.  If any country other than Japan produced this movie, it would seem less authentic, which is maybe why Gojira's message comes across as a genuine warning