The old kotm nuke debate

[miguelnuva]

I'm just looking at the context of the two movies in question, not the larger series. In GvKG, Godzilla becomes the new threat and makes for Tokyo. It's implied that he's going to destroy Japan as effectively as the Futurians would have, until Emi gets rid of him. What happens in later movies is irrelevant because the filmmakers hadn't planned any of that out yet.

In KOTM, nothing negative comes of the nukes. Serizawa's death was ultimately caused by the Oxygen Destroyer, when you get right down to it.

As far as the nuke in KOTM, there were some consequences. Godzilla was going to die from the nuke ("He's going to explode like an Atom bomb") if it weren't for Mothra's scales allowing him to unleash his energy in a faster more controlled manner. So not only did Serizawa had die, Mothra had to die as well. Plus the stakes were Godzilla could potentially die, which would still doom mankind to Ghidorah.

The nuke is definitely portrayed as a double edged sword and the movie is not subtle about it either.
Even at the beginning of the film, Serizawa says with disdain in his voice "it was our Atomic tests that awoke Godzilla".

The movie looks like Godzilla's last pluse was the explosion everyone was worried about considering how much stronger it was and it knocked Godzilla out of his Bruning state and on the ground.