 Sixty years ago, the King of Monsters was born, and at some point, things got weird. I'm TC Sotic, and this is 90 seconds on the verge. This weekend, a new American reboot of Godzilla hits theaters. It's the beginning of a new era for the movie monster, who first appeared in a 1954 Japanese film from Toho Studios. While he's since become a kitsch figure, the original Godzilla was actually a serious film. A huge lizard-like beast brought about by nuclear radiation, he served as an allegory for nuclear fears in post-World War II Japan. There have been over 30 Godzilla films, and this one is the second American reboot. Now brace yourselves, and let's go back to 1998. Roland Emmerich's Godzilla reboot, starring Matthew Broderick, was so poorly received that Toho Studios officially renamed that creature Zilla, and later had the real Godzilla kill him off in 2004's Final Wars. But at least he got a Puff Daddy collaboration out of it. Godzilla has been played as both villain and savior, but by and large, humanity's presence is viewed as incidental to whoever he's fighting. Be it three-headed monsters, giant spiders, or even King Kong. So in an age when sci-fi and comic icons of yesteryear are getting gritty reboots, where does the American remake of Godzilla go? Not where you might think. Director Gareth Edwards avoids the barrage of battles you see in a Transformers or Pacific Rim, going for a more suspenseful approach that keeps Godzilla just out of sight for most of the movie. But when he does show up, he doesn't mess around. For more on Godzilla, check out The Verge. And coming up, a Herbie the Love Bug remake reimagines the car as a post-apocalyptic force of destruction. It's also now a Jetta.