The Horror of Nuclear Weapons

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Recommended: Dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima

The world trembled when America dropped the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The world trembled once again years later, but this time to the heavy steps of Godzilla. Along with him came his highly radioactive body leaving trails of radioactive residue. His main abilities were his plasma breath ray, immunity to normal weapons, and great strength. He was created for a horror movie that showed the effect of what worried the Japanese at the time- Nuclear weapons. In the movie, he represents pure evil, destroying everything in his path. He is, however, only a product of mankind, and cannot help that fact. What drew the great beast from the ocean depths? Godzilla was created by H-Bomb testing at Bikini Atoll, 1954. The director of the film was inspired after the radioactive fallout from the test scorched a Japanese fishing vessel, The Lucky Dragon, with deadly effects. They were supposedly in a "safe" zone. Many of its crew were seriously burned and despite intensive medical care, one man on the Lucky Dragon died from radiation sickness. In the Godzilla movie, originally named Gojira, the director ended the movie with a lesson that the American producer cut out. After the failure of conventional arms, a horrible but non-atomic weapon puts an end to Godzilla's wrath, and unlike the Americans and their H-bombs, the Japanese destroy the secret of their super-weapon, saving future generations. Why did they cut that out? Could it have anything to do with the biological weapons testing on Bikini Atoll?

At the end of World War II, the United States was granted control over 29 Atolls and five islands that compose the Marshall Islands. At that time, Harry S. Truman decided that the testing of nuclear weapons would be necessary "to de...

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A man named Kitamura sees Godzilla's message over the years as being very simple: "I think when you look back over time at the bad things that people do to each other, that countries do to each other, and that races do to each other you will see that they are pretty much unchanging. Although Godzilla gets his message across in a very strange way, by destroying everything in sight, basically what he is saying is don't hurt other people, don't do bad things.

"I think that people are basically very small beings, and it is because we are small beings that we fight amongst each other. I think, although Godzilla is something we created, in many ways he is much bigger than us. And by looking perhaps at us through his eyes he shows us that we are very small and the things that we are doing are very small." Godzilla is an excellent example of the horror of nuclear bombs.

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