“Fourteen Years Later, a French Director Completely Renounces One of His Highly Anticipated Superhero Films” Godzilla’s larger-than-life legacy Few creatures in pop culture command attention like Godzilla. From its origins as a metaphor for nuclear destruction to later roles as both destroyer and protector, Godzilla became a global emblem of awe and dread. Filmmakers imagined spectacular feats and impossible scale, but does that grandeur withstand scientific scrutiny? Astrophysicists weigh in On the October 28, 2025 episode of StarTalk, Neil deGrasse Tyson and Charles Liu laid out why this cinematic icon could not exist in reality. Their case relies on fundamental physics and biology. Films may invoke radioactive mutations or exotic energy sources to justify Godzilla’s size, but that does not answer the basic question: could anything that big survive? Liu highlighted the consequences of scaling up a body. Double the height and the volume, hence the mass, increases eightfold, while cross-sectional strength of bones and muscles increases only fourfold. The result is simple and fatal: even extraordinarily strong tissue would be inadequate to support such extreme mass. The problem of scale Biology imposes strict limits on maximum size. The mathematical framework of scaling laws shows that as size increases, the demand on support structures rises faster than their ability to carry load. For Godzilla, the weight-to-strength ratio becomes untenable. Even with hypothetical super-bones, the body would collapse under its own bulk. A hypothetical Godzilla, often pegged around 200,000 tons, would be vastly heavier than the largest known dinosaurs, including the giant Patagotitan. Sauropods evolved specialized skeletons, air-filled bones, and efficient postures to manage weight; movies typically hand-wave Godzilla’s biology with “radioactivity” rather than a workable anatomy. Earth’s largest animals, like the blue whale, rely on water buoyancy to counteract gravity and support their mass. Movement compounds the problem. Accelerating such immense mass would demand prohibitive energy, causing rapid, unsustainable exhaustion. The agility seen in battles and city-stomping scenes would be physically impossible. Dinosaurs vs. monsters Real giants like Patagotitan and even Tyrannosaurus rex were finely tuned to their size. Long counterbalancing tails, columnar limbs, and energy-efficient gaits kept stresses within biological limits. By contrast, Godzilla’s upright, humanoid stance and combat maneuvers violate those principles of balance and load distribution. As for radiation-driven growth, the science is unforgiving. Ionizing radiation damages DNA and tissues; rather than enhancing physiology, intense exposure would destroy cells faster than they could be repaired, undermining any claim of radioactive growth as a survival mechanism. Source: https://3dvf.com/en/an-astrophysicist-debunks-the-myth-of-science-fictions-most-famous-monster-impossible-to-exist-according-to-the-laws-of-physics/