Godzilla Series: The Multiverse

Here you'll find the timelines of the various universes of the films. Unlike the monster entries, where I include information about a monster found in outside sources where it's relevant, these timelines are created strictly with information from the films themselves, with any outside information being used to clarify or elaborate what's seen in the films when it doesn't contradict anything. These timelines were put together and are being posted here because of my youtube videos about Godzilla continuity, of which I am currently editing the 2nd part, which will cover the VS series, and intend to redo the 1st part sometime in the future.

These timelines are grouped by continuity families, which in this circumstance refers to timelines that branch off from each other from the same anchoring event in time. This is a similar idea to what Transformers fans call continuity families, and the terminology is borrowed from them, but these timelines are more directly causally linked, in the most notable case with time travel directly changing things.

The 1954 Continuity Family

Prehistory
The Showa Timeline
The Millennium-1 Timeline
The Millennium-2 Timeline
The GMK Timeline
The GMMG Timeline

The VS Continuity Subfamily

Pre-Divergence
The VS-1 Timeline
The VS-2 Timeline
The VS-3 Timeline

Unconnected Continuities

The "Real" World
The Shin Timeline
The Anime Timeline

Godzilla Continuity Cladogram

While many other differences exist between the continuities of the films outside of the status of the various Godzillas, something I address in a secret segment, since this is the Godzilla series, our primary concern is with Godzilla, and with that criteria the multiverse branches out based on the following events:

1944: The 1954 continuity family actually has its first divergence point come not in 1955 with the two different sequels Godzilla Raids Again and Return of Godzilla, but 11 years earlier on Lagos Island. Here we are actually shown the reason that the second Godzilla never appeared in 1955, because the Godzillasaurus that became that Godzilla was teleported by time travelers into the Bering Sea before it could ever be exposed to the radiation from the Castle Bravo nuclear test. This directly ties the Lagos Island Godzillasaurus to both the 2nd and 3rd generation Godzilla, and also establishes that if Godzilla's timeline is consistent, and no time travelers interfere, we should expect to see him appear in 1955. However, none of the other 1954 continuity family timelines have this event, each of them having large gaps of time between the first and second appearances of Godzilla in their respective timelines. The solution to this is actually pretty simple: since we know that the Lagos Island Godzillasaurus was badly injured after being attacked by the US battleship, it isn't unreasonable to assume that it may have simply died, and in fact Miki in the film suggests as much, although we know in that film it survives. Therefore, the simplest assumption is that the timeline splits in three ways after February of 1944, and the Lagos Godzillasaurus either survives and recovers on the island, leading to the Showa Timeline when it appears as the 2nd Godzilla in 1955, it is teleported to the Bering Sea, leading to its mutation by a sunken nuclear sub in the late 1970's and appearance as the 2nd Godzilla in 1985, or it simply dies from its wounds, leading to the Millennium series timelines.

1954: Unsurprisingly, the events of 1954 are consistent across the entire 1954 continuity family... mostly. There are differences. The most glaring difference is in the Millennium-2 timeline, where we are shown the events of the original film being played out, but with the 1st generation Godzilla we know caused them in the other timelines replaced by the Millennium Godzilla. While this implies the Millennium Godzilla is the same individual as the 1st generation Godzilla, the only explanation of its backstory we ever get in the Millennium-1 timeline is that it is the 2nd Godzilla to appear after the 1st generation Godzilla, meaning those are definitely different individuals, and it shouldn't be the Lagos Island Godzillasaurus either, because their appearance and size is different despite being created, presumably, from the exact same nuclear test. The explanation for why the Millennium Godzilla is so different isn't given in any source related to the films it appears in, so we have to look elsewhere and do some fan theorizing to come up with our own explanations. My guess is based on 1. the web-series Godziban, where a Godzilla based on the Millennium one is the mother of the younger Godzillas, and 2. the fact that sexual dimorphism in dinosaurs tends to make females larger and more robust. Add to this the fact that we know a fully mutated female Godzilla must exist somewhere in the continuity family because the Solgell Island Godzilla was born a Godzilla and not a Godzillasaurus, and we have what I think is a pretty credible hypothesis. As to why it appeared in 1954 in place of the 1st generation Godzilla in one timeline, but later in the other? I have no idea. All I can speculate is that perhaps the Godzillasaurus that became the 1st generation Godzilla died instead of mutated, or that maybe it just so happened to be outside of the radius where it would have been mutated.

Additionally, in both the GMK and GMMG timelines, the skeleton of the 1st generation Godzilla was not vaporized for some reason, as we see happen in the original film. Now, according to supplementary materials, the GMK Godzilla is a 2nd individual, but this directly contradicts everything about the film itself, which tells us explicitly with its dialogue and themes that this is THE Godzilla coming back to haunt Japan through supernatural means, something confirmed at the end of the film when we see just how unkillable this monster actually is. It also actively makes the film worse because it throws away the entire thematic context of the film and makes all of the characters liars, and undoes the obvious authorial intent of the filmmakers. So, uh... no. The mechanism through which the bones survived in these timelines but not others is unknown, but perhaps there's a clue in the fact that both of these timelines feature the resurrected 1st generation Godzilla having a kind of supernatural aspect to them. While Kiryu was revived by creating cells from material found in the spinal column, he is essentially a clone and just an organic computer, and yet in both Kiryu films we see him remembering the events of his 1954 rampage, and thinking and acting on his own, making decisions that make no sense for a cyber-brain grown in a vat. So, perhaps there's some aspect of the bones being haunted?

1994: Perhaps the most interesting parallel among the 1954 continuity family isn't the Lagos Godzilla, but the children of the Godzillas. The Solgell one only exists in the Showa timeline for sure, but what about the Godzillasaurus egg on Adonoa Island? That wasn't laid by Godzillas, but ordinary, though fictional, animals, so the timing of it's laying isn't dependent on any mutation events. That said, we have no idea how long its been there, but we do know that Rodan was fully mutated when he's discovered, and we're told that the island was used as a dumping ground for nuclear waste, which is certainly how Rodan ended up like that. This may have something to do with the timing of the egg hatching, too. But we do see the egg hatch in 1994, and it isn't clear that anything in particular provoked it, although it was moved off of the island, but keep in mind that 1. if the egg had hatched on Adonoa it certainly would have become a mutant Godzilla just like the Rodan did, and 2. this is the same year that, in the Showa timeline, we see a new baby Godzilla without a clear explanation of where it came from. So it's possible that the Minilla we see in DAM is actually the same egg from Adonoa Island, but hatching under different circumstances. What's more, we know this Godzilla isn't the son of the Lagos Godzilla, but it might actually be the 1st generation Godzilla's son. Consider that in the GMMG timeline, the 2nd Godzilla isn't the Lagos one, and doesn't seem to be the Millennium one either. External sources say it's the original's son, which means that it must have been conceived prior to 1954, before any of the Godzillas were created, and the egg on Adonoa Island hatched not into a Godzilla, but a Godzillasaurus. Note also that the 2nd Godzilla of the GMMG timeline appears in 1999, five years after 1994, which in both the Showa and VS-3 timelines feature the appearance of a new baby Godzilla. And 5 years is a very good amount of time for a mutant dinosaur monster to grow to full size. The hypothesis, then, is that the DAM Minilla that appears in the 1994 of the Showa timeline, the baby Godzillasaurus/Little Godzilla from the 1994 of the VS-3 timeline, and the GMMG Godzilla from the 1999 of its timeline, are all the same individual hatched from the Adonoa egg under different sets of circumstances.

Shin Godzilla: This film is a complete reboot of the series with no connections to the 1954 continuity family... for the most part. However, there are two things that stand out: 1. Godzilla's species is never described in a public paper, its existence being kept classified by the US DOE under the code name "Godzilla," but when we see it in its earlier forms... it sure the hell looks like an extremely mutated Godzillasaurus, and 2. Goro Maki is the name of two other characters in the Showa timeline and VS continuity subfamily, respectively. Now, these are all clearly different characters, with the name repeats being a simple mythology nod, but there are some interesting connections between them. While the Son of Godzilla character's name is spelled different in Japanese, that is, he has a different family name, the Shin and VS characters are the same. The actors who protrayed the Shin and Showa versions were born about 10 years apart, and so are in the same generation, from the interwar period, but the Return of Godzilla character is at the right age to be the son of either of the others. It could be possible that the Shin Godzilla Goro Maki is an alternate universe version of the Showa character, and that the Return of Godzilla character is the son of an unseen version of the character from the VS continuity subfamily. Or, it could be that all three characters exist in all three timelines, with the VS Goro existing in a timeline where the Shin Goro's wife never died, and the Showa Goro being from a different family altogether. Of course, these are all interesting possible connections, but none of it is diagnostic, and the intent of the film is to be a full reboot. However, if you wanted to connect the Shin timeline to the 1954 continuity family, all you really have to do is have the Lagos Godzillasaurus die from its wounds - if it's ever encounted by the US military at all - and have the Odo one not be present during the Castle Bravo test, and instead feed off radioactive waste.

Anime Trilogy: The continuity of these movies is weird because, while Godzilla is fully rebooted and is now part plant, none of the other monsters are. In fact, from what we see of Kamacuras, Dogora, Dagahra, and Orga in the movies, they seem to be literally the same creatures as their counterparts in earlier films, and the prequel novels bear this out as well. Having said this, of course, the timing of their apperances is totally different, and we know from the GMMG timeline that changing Godzilla's timeline doesn't somehow invalidate all the non-Godzilla monster appearances, especially when certain monsters - like Mothra and Ghidorah - also have consistent identities and timelines across the various continuities. So something is definitely very different here, and the sheer amount of changes from earlier continuities is so different we really can't separate these films by one or two simple changes, so we really do have to count it separately. For what it's worth, though, Godzilla Earth is said to have been created by a process of horizontal gene transfer, or HGT, between multiple different organisms, including plants and animals, and in fact Biollante is considered just a subspecies of Godzilla in the prequel novels. Given the consistency with all the other monsters in the series, and the fact that even if he is part plant, he still looks... well, like Godzilla, it's pretty simple to conclude that part of the chimeric genetic makeup of Godzilla includes Godzillasaurus, and he may even be a Godzillasaurus as a base that incorporated the genes from other organisms. Personally, this is the only explanation I can really wrap my head around, because, if you weren't aware, HGT is something that takes effect over EXTREMELY long periods of time, like, even from standard evolutionary time scales of millions of years, HGT is an extremely long and protracted process compared to that. Eukaryotes didn't evolve overnight, and they sure as hell didn't evolve in less than 100 years between the bomb and the appearance of Godzilla Earth. Therefore, the best I can make sense of it is that this Godzilla's creation wasn't happenstance, but rather directed by the mana/Gaia/whatever behind the creation of Mothra and Battra. This makes the interpretation of his individual name very direct, Godzilla here is a creature chosen by the Earth itself to destroy human civilization. This isn't all poetry with no evidence either, the films and prequel novels both enforce the idea that Godzilla will never let us go, he is actively hunting us in an attempt to make us completely extinct. More than that, in Project Mechagodzilla he somehow intuits the arrival of Gorath like 10 years before it shows up, and takes the place of Battra in defending the Earth from it. And I don't mean "takes the place of the VS-3 Battra," I mean he straight up kills the ANIME timeline Battra and takes ITS place. So, in the end, the anime timeline is both far more closely connected to the 1954 continuity family, but also very distant from it. However, unlike Shin Godzilla, we can't really interpret it as being totally unconnected because the other monsters are all the same, but again, the combined differences are so numerous that it clearly sits outside of the 1954 continuity family.