What Is Shin Godzilla's 5th Form - And Why Is It So Terrifying?

"Shin Godzilla" stands tall as one of the original kaiju's greatest movies ever. Though the massive international success of the subsequent "Godzilla Minus One" may have stolen its thunder a bit, "Shin Godzilla" is a totally different beast — a send-up of ineffectual political bureaucracy loaded with dark comedy, but also featuring one of the most truly horrifying versions of Godzilla ever put to screen.

Less a radioactive lizard and more an eldritch monstrosity of true cosmic terror, the Godzilla of "Shin" morphs multiple times throughout the film, starting as an unsettling, unsightly amphibian crawling on its belly and eventually working its way up to a fully upright creature with massive spines and the most deadly heat ray ever seen in the franchise. The monster's four forms show a clear escalation in power and size, but the film also teases a fifth form that would have come about had the human characters failed in their mission to freeze Godzilla solid. This strange fifth form — very distinct from the others — is teased in the final moments of the movie, though no sequel was ever made to capitalize on them.

The shot in question shows the tip of Godzilla's frozen tail, out of which you can see the bodies of various human-sized Godzilla creatures sprouting off. The implication is that the monster would have started shedding an unknown quantity of these smaller, Xenomorph-esque creatures, which in turn surely would have caused a whole new kind of chaos. But what exactly are these tiny Godzillas? Let's take a closer look.

The five forms of Godzilla seen in "Shin Godzilla" — the crawling amphibian, lizard-like biped, bloated upright form, full upright form, and the tiny tail creatures — may not be all. The movie ends before we see anything else, but given that the kaiju's nature seems to demand constant metamorphosis, it's reasonable to assume that the fifth form would have given way to a sixth, and so on.

Outside of "Shin," Godzilla typically isn't the kind of kaiju who changes shape all that much. We see younger versions of his species in older films, like Manilla and Godzilla Junior, but that's really just seeing juvenile stages of development. "Godzilla Minus One" shows Godzilla both before and after his exposure to nuclear radiation, with his earlier form being much smaller, similar in scale to a large dinosaur.

In the 2017 animated film "Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters" and its sequels, we see a couple of different Godzillas of various sizes. The largest, known as Godzilla Earth, is over 300-meters tall and possesses even greater power than other iterations of the kaiju. Like in "Shin Godzilla," Godzilla Earth is constantly evolving, but his cellular expansion mostly just makes him larger, rather than fundamentally changing his shape. And of course, in any discussion of Godzilla's forms, we have to acknowledge different canons, like the original American Godzilla, the MonsterVerse version, and Space Godzilla.

Out of all the different varieties of Godzilla from across the franchise, the tiny creatures seen at the end of "Shin" are certainly the most unique. In a way, that also makes them the most unsettling. The creatures appear almost skeletal, with lanky bodies, sleek skulls, and spines and tails similar to Godzilla's own. Would they have stayed human-sized, or continued growing to make an army of giant monsters? The film leaves things unclear.

Director Hideaki Anno's other work has played with the idea of human monsters, most famously in the seminal mecha anime series "Neon Genesis Evangelion." Thematically, there's a lot there, though "Shin" doesn't linger on the human 'zillas long enough for us to really take away much. The film is largely about the inhumanity of bureaucratic systems in the face of major crises, and there's definitely something interesting about the monster's final form resembling us.

The film's art book features concept drawings of some additional forms, including one that appears to be a giant female creature of some kind. That fits with the idea of Godzilla spawning many smaller "children," and it's in line with Hideaki Anno's previous work. These ideas were ultimately discarded, it would seem, but they add to the idea of the "Shin" Godzilla being less an animal and more a supernatural being of pure chaos.

As curious as the fifth form of "Shin Godzilla" is, some fans took issue with such a drastic departure from series history. Not only was the idea of a humanoid Godzilla creature completely new (and a lot more surreal than the franchise typically is), but some felt that it didn't make sense given what else is shown about the monster. Fans online have expressed feelings that this kind of transformation shifts Godzilla into a totally different genre, as cosmic horror on a more human scale loses the markers of typical kaiju films. For these reasons, it's unlikely that we'll see such a divergent take on the big guy any time soon.

For the most part, though, the fan base has embraced "Shin Godzilla." It's one of the most critically acclaimed entries in the franchise's long, long history, and its blend of eldritch horror and dark comedy makes it stand out as a unique installment. It's also worth noting that while some believe that the movie strays too far from its predecessors, the transformations of "Shin Godzilla" draw heavily from previous films in the series.

Though Godzilla himself has never looked quite as baffling as he does in "Shin Godzilla," previous films in the franchise have featured monsters with similar designs. This was especially true in the Heisei era during the 1980s and '90s.

Fans who saw 1995's "Godzilla vs. Destoroyah" before watching "Shin" likely made a quick connection between the older film's villain kaiju and Godzilla in the 2016 film. Like the monster in "Shin Godzilla," Destoroyah originates as a deep-sea creature that undergoes several transformations over the course of the movie, including one featuring a large number of smaller monsters, and a mammoth, Lovecraftian final form. Sound familiar? You could also make the comparison to Biollante from 1989's "Godzilla vs. Biollante," a plant monster of eldritch design that evolves over the course of the movie.

Toho went back to basics with "Godzilla Minus One" in terms of design, and because that film is also fantastic, it may signal the direction the franchise will be taking in the near future. A "Godzilla Minus One" sequel of some sort is already in the works, but the sheer strangeness of "Shin Godzilla" is unmatched, and its unique contributions to the series have made it one of Godzilla's most celebrated appearances.