“Godzilla” ’s Gray Credo - The New Yorker

In this “Godzilla,” unlike in the original Japanese version, from 1954, the battle to save humanity from extinction ultimately depends on extreme and hard-won self-restraint. The first “Godzilla” set its warnings against nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. In the new story, the presumptuousness of harnessing the energy of matter is only the first in a range of other sins that add up to a misguided faith in human control over the course of nature.