Godzilla: King of the Monsters Director Reveals TOHO’s Surprising Mothra Rule

Legendary’s Monsterverse introduced a brand new version of TOHO’s famous Kaiju Godzilla in 2014, but the universe truly expanded with its major sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, that also debuted new versions of King Ghidorah, Rodan, and Mothra. One of the major aspects fans of the original franchises loved from the sequel was how much attention to detail it paid with bringing these Titans to life. Not only did it make sure to keep details of their designs in place, but their personalities and characters were brought over as well.

Director behind the film, Mike Dougherty, recently held a watch along of Godzilla: King of the Monsters with Nerdist and revealed a bunch of fun details behind the film to fans on Twitter. This also included the process for bringing a new version of Mothra to the screen. Dougherty revealed that TOHO actually had a no-kill rule.

As Dougherty explained about Mothra’s debut, the original idea was to have Mothra attack in its larvae state before TOHO revealed a rule in which Mothra couldn’t kill, “Originally, the larva was going to fling one of the soldiers against the wall until he fell to a splattery doom, but Toho was adamant that Mothra can’t kill anyone. It was a good note, and one I agreed with…”

Dougherty also explained why Mothra was introduced in the larvae state as well, and revealed there were plans in place to just skip to the adult form, “We could’ve started with Mothra in her adult form but I thought it was important to see her entire life cycle, from egg to larva to pupa to adult. She represents the constant cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth.”

There were even some extra details behind Mothra’s initial awakening, and explain why Mothra almost attacked, “In the script it was originally mentioned that this egg was over 10,000 years old, but Mothra’s cult has obviously died off since then. That’s why the larva is caught off guard when she emerges from the egg.”

But seeing as how Mothra eventually held her head high and helped Godzilla win the day at the end, it’s clear that not killing humans placed this Titan on a much different plane than the others. What did you think of Mothra in Godzilla: King of the Monsters? Which were your favorite Titan battle scenes in the big sequel? Do you think Mothra will be returning in the next film, Godzilla vs. Kong? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!