"The nuclear metamorphosized giant monster genre was in its infancy when Godzilla was first born. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, the first movie to associate nuclear weapons with giant, destructive creatures, premiered a little over a year before in 1953. But unlike the monstrous ants in the similarly themed Them!, Godzilla and The Beast were monsters awakened, not created, by atomic testing. The distinction is small but indicative of broader international trends among genre films as the advent of satellite imagery, and the Second World War’s geographical exploration of necessity, shrank formerly undocumented parts of the globe."