Godzilla, Japan's most popular post-war worst nightmare came into existence as a movie character in 1954. The giant monster became a pop culture icon in the fifties. Its popularity lasts till today. Godzilla is arguably one of Japan's most successful cultural exports, along with the manga and anime phenomena.

Godzilla: Final Wars marks the monster's 50-year anniversary in the movies. Kyle Cooper's title sequence pays tribute to the various incarnations of the monster over the years. His relentlessly fast-paced title sequence oozes destruction. Images of the Godzilla hurling bolts of electricity at Japan's metropoli and setting the world ablaze with its atomic breath. 

Cooper's title sequence opens with the image of a nuclear blast – a clear visual reference to Godzilla's metaphorical significance. The first Godzilla movie was released in 1954, less than a decade after the American bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII. The giant monster and its nuclear breath represented Japan's collective fear of the atomic bomb. The movie series carry an implicit warning against the use of weapons of mass destruction.

Main title designer Kyle Cooper has been credited as the man who single-handedly revitalized the main title sequence as an art form. His groundbreaking title sequence for Se7en (1995) changed the way we look and think about title design today and is arguably the most imitated main title ever made. The Se7en title sequence was hailed by New York Times Magazine as “One of the most important design innovations of the 1990s”.

more about Kyle Cooper

Full credits

Title designer
Kyle Cooper

Film director
Ryûhei Kitamura

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