Godzilla Minus One ending is one of the most surprising mainly because of how low the budget of this movie is. Godzilla Minus One cost somewhere between $10 million and $15 million. With a budget this small the VFX of this movie is impressive. But what’s more intriguing is the way this movie ends. With a budget this small you cannot expect a future but this movie does have a future.
At the end of this movie, Noriko who was previously presumed dead somehow miraculously survived Godzilla’s wrath. She’s recovering on a hospital bed. As the scene ends, the camera zooms in to Noriko’s neck revealing a black mark on her neck. This is Godzilla’s G-cells as per the director Takashi Yamazaki.
Godzilla Minus One released in Japan on November 1, 2023. It was released in North America a month later and it took six months for this movie to release on May 3, 2024 on Amazon Prime.
Table of Contents
Godzilla Minus One Ending Scene – Black Mark on Noriko’s Neck Explained
Noriko is the love interest of the protagonist KÅichi Shikishima, a former kamikaze pilot. When Godzilla wreaks havoc in Ginza, she pushes Shikishima to safety while sacrifing herself to the shockwaves. She is presumed dead only to be revealed as recovering at the end of Godzilla Minus One.
The camera then pans in to Noriko’s neck revealing a black mark which signifies that she has been infected with Godzilla’s G-cells. The concept of Godzilla’s G-cells were first introduced in 1989 in Godzilla vs Biollante.
G-cells can turn any human into a sentient being. This means that anything that Noriko hears or sees will also be known to Godzilla. Noriko is now Godzilla’s eyes and ears. However, this also means that Noriko might not live for very long as the G-cells are now partly responsible for her well being.
How was Noriko infected with Godzilla’s G-cells?
After Godzilla’s attack on Ginza, the movie specifically mentions “shards” of Godzilla littering the area. In another scene, you can also see pieces of Godzilla’s skin falling off right after it used its atomic breath. Given Noriko’s proximity to Godzilla when she was hit by the shockwave, it’s fairly likely that she came in contact with one of these shards which infected her.
How was Godzilla defeated in Godzilla Minus One Ending?
Godzilla was defeated due to the clever plan hatched by the former scientist and weapons technician Kenji Noda. He suggested two plans:
Plan A for defeating Godzilla
- Lure Godzilla into the bay near Tokyo
- Surrounding him with Freon Tanks and rupturing them
- Doing so, the salt water beneath him would aerate
- Godzilla would sink quickly 1500 metres below sea level
- The intense pressure there would crush him
Plan B for defeating Godzilla
After hearing Noda’s plan, Shikishima wasn’t convinced that this would kill Godzilla and hence he didn’t want to be a part of the team to defeat Godzilla. But that’s exactly when Noda told him that there was a plan B. If the intense pressure below sea level failed to do it’s part then:
- Highly-pressurized balloons would be inflated underneath Godzilla
- This would cause him to ascend quickly back to the surface
- Explosive decompression would cause Godzilla to die
When the moment of battle came, Plan A was effective but it wasn’t enough to kill Godzilla. Hence, Plan B came into effect. But Godzilla tore through the balloons while rising up around 800 metres below the sea level. Godzilla then took its time to come up reducing the effect of explosive decompression. When he was above the sea level, Noda and his team could see the damage on Godzilla’s skin due to their plans but it wasn’t enough to kill him.
Godzilla begins to charge up his heat ray but just before he could aim it somewhere Shikishima uses this opportunity to fly his plane, which is loaded with extra explosives, into Godzilla’s mouth. This destroys his head and the heat ray overloads his atomic breath, which results in his entire body disintegrating into the sea.
Note, that Godzilla died mainly because of his own heat rays didn’t have a way of coming out. If Shikishima had flown into Godzilla’s mouth when he wasn’t about to throw the heat rays, Godzilla would have been able to regenerate within a few hours.
Godzilla Minus One Ending teases Godzilla’s future
Just after the camera pans into Noriko’s neck to show the black mark, the next scene is both intriguing and surprising. Godzilla was presumed dead and his flesh sunk into the sea. The last scene reveals Godzilla’s chunk of flesh regenerating.
Assuming that the Godzilla that attacks Tokyo in this movie is technically dead. But the last scene still leaves 2 major questions that leaves Godzilla’s future in question :
- If Godzilla’s flesh continues to regenerate, could it completely recreate Godzilla’s full form?
- Would the regenerated Godzilla have his memories or would it be a new creature entirely?