No doubt like many of you, I recently watched the monster blockbuster of the summer, Godzilla. This lizard must really be something special to stand the test of cinematic time from the 1950s to today—he may even have more action films under his belt than fight-bot star Tom Cruise.
But entertaining as the film is, it’s hard not to scoff a bit at the rampant poetic license the screenwriters take with science (I mean claiming that radiation can be a food source? OK sorry, no more spoilers). And because eviscerating plot holes can be almost as fun as watching actual movies, let’s do a little investigation of the utterly impossible anatomy of the ancient reptilian so dear to our hearts. (And I’m not even going to get into the whole fire-breathing angle, because that’s just silly.)
Godzilla’s Ever-Increasing Size
Since his post-World War II inception, Godzilla has gotten a little big for his britches, growing 200 feet and putting on more than 150,000 tons in his movie incarnations. In the most recent Godzilla film, the scaly creature is 30 stories tall with the weight of a cruise ship.
Exciting as it is to imagine such a behemoth, physics dictates that Godzilla would perish in short order at this massive size: He would overheat, his organs would implode and he’d need an IV of lard to ingest enough calories.
Godzilla’s Obesity Problem
We don’t want to fat-shame the ancient beast, but a formula developed by paleontologists estimates he’s up to a solid 164,000 tons, which far surpasses the theoretical weight limit for land animals (among other things, oxygen intake, surface forces and, you know, gravity get in the way). The recently-discovered Titanosaur may represent the upper limit on dinosaur size, at likely no more than 100 tons—and even this was distributed on four limbs. Poor bipedal Godzilla doesn’t stand a chance of lumbering around on those chubby thighs.
Wolverine Skeleton
The pressure on Godzilla’s bones would require his skeleton to be outrageously strong—about twice as resistant as titanium alloys. And he would need a tensile strength 20 times stronger than normal bone can offer, which amounts to the same extreme pressure found deep within the earth’s dense lithosphere. And his cartilage? It would need to be about 12 times stronger than humans,’ lest his knees explode like so many summer-time water balloons. So either he exhibits the same supernatural skeletal resiliency of X-men’s Wolverine, or Godzilla’s milk-synthesizing ability is really on point.
Tough as Nails Hide
Apparently Godzilla’s exterior is robust enough to withstand all military munitions, and that takes some serious explaining. Scientists conjecture his reptilian exterior would have to be embedded with bony deposits that act as a sort of chain mail all over his body, with extra large protruding ones from his back and tail to vent excess heat. Even then, color me skeptical that bazookas leave nary a mark on the dino-creation.
So there you have it, the science-be-damned anatomy of our favorite skyscraper-knocking monster. And these things presumably reproduce—can you imagine a pregnant version? Godzilla-ette better hope there’s support hose in her size.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
