LogFAQs > #974779125

So I'm looking into the movie more, and I can't find anything that states that it's in the same continuity as Shin Godzilla. Rather, I think it's a "follow-up" in the sense that it's trying to follow in Shin's footsteps and apply the same grandiosity to a new setting - in this case, post-war Japan.

As far as I can tell, none of the cast or crew of Shin Godzilla are carrying over. The company handling Minus One, Robot Productions, are the same company that have handled Yamazaki's other movies like Dragon Quest: Your Story. The sources I'm seeing aren't making any connection between Shin and this movie, just talking about how how the war left Japan at "zero" and Godzilla is leaving them at "minus one". The marketing through-line to me is selling Godzilla as a terrible threat ala Shin, not hyping up its connection to Shin Godzilla in any way.

Furthermore, this is slated to be the fifth movie in the franchise's Reiwa era - an era that was started by Shin Godzilla, but where the other three movies are those Netflix anime sci-fi movies set in space.

So yeah, as someone who loved Shin Godzilla and was excited specifically for the pedigree of that movie's development team (not just Hideaki Anno, but Shirou Sagisu and Shinji Higuchi), I'm gonna stay skeptical of this movie. Godzilla has had great movies, and it's had shitty movies. This could be the Pacific Rim: Uprising to Shin's Pacific Rim, which is my worry considering the pedigree of the director, crew and VFX studio, or it could be a surprisingly great Godzilla flick that delivers on all fronts in spite of preconceived notions. I hope it's good - I'll watch it if it ends up being good - but I'm taking this with a bucketful of salt until then.

Edit: for anyone who's interested in what the Shin Godzilla crew have been up to lately, they made a Shin Ultraman movie in 2022 and they're making a Shin Kamen Rider movie that's set to release this year. Each of those movies seek to reconstruct the classic elements of those franchises, so don't expect a masterful suspense-horror flick like Shin Godzilla - Shin Ultraman is apparently pretty wacky in places - but if you're looking for really well-made homage movies that really recapture what the franchise means to a lot of fans, try out the Shin Japan Heroes Universe.