Traditional Concepts
The most common aspect of a monster movie is the struggle between a human collective of protagonists against one or more monsters, who serve as the antagonistic force.
The monster is created by a folly of mankind - an experiment gone wrong, the effects of radiation or the destruction of habitat. Or usually the monster is from outer space, has been on Earth for a long time with no one ever seeing it, or released (or awakened) from a prison of some sort where is was being held.
The monster is usually a villain, but can be a metaphor of humankind's continuous destruction - giant monsters since the introduction of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms have for a time been considered a symbol of atomic warfare, for instance. On the contrary, Godzilla began in this fashion yet as time moved on his reputation quickly grew into that of a cultural icon to the Japanese, as much as Superman is a cultural symbol to America.
The attempts of the humans to destroy the monster would at first be the usage of an opposing military force - an attempt that would antagonize the monster even more and prove useless (a cliché associated with the genre). The Godzilla series utilized the concept of a superweapon built by Japanese scientists to suppress him or any of the monsters he fights.
Read more about this topic: Monster Movies
Famous quotes containing the words traditional and/or concepts:
“The invention of photography provided a radically new picture-making process—a process based not on synthesis but on selection. The difference was a basic one. Paintings were made—constructed from a storehouse of traditional schemes and skills and attitudes—but photographs, as the man on the street put, were taken.”
—Jean Szarkowski (b. 1925)
“During our twenties...we act toward the new adulthood the way sociologists tell us new waves of immigrants acted on becoming Americans: we adopt the host culture’s values in an exaggerated and rigid fashion until we can rethink them and make them our own. Our idea of what adults are and what we’re supposed to be is composed of outdated childhood concepts brought forward.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)