Godzilla: 17 Easter Eggs, References & Fan Nods You Need To See

6. The Spielberg Influences

Edwards has been very forthcoming about the influence of Steven Spielberg's film-making, with the most obvious, and most openly expressed by Edwards coming from Jaws. Not only are the central family called Brody, but there are similarities in Joe Brody's initial story:

"For a while there was this idea that Bryan Cranston's character had this dilemma about shutting the power plant down, but he had a lot of pressure on him to not do that. Some of that got lost in the development of the screenplay. But we always said he's like Brody in Jaws, so we always referred to him like that. Eventually Max Borenstein went, 'Aw, f*ck it, I'm going to call him Brody.'"

Jaws was also a reference point for how to build atmosphere and tension, as Edwards took cues from Spielberg's work on that monster flick and Jurassic Park and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind - as well as Alien - to draw out the drama of his own monster film:

"Something they all have in common is that slow-burn build, where the audience is drip fed the imagery to get them on tenterhooks. I thought that style of filmmaking was really effective. It stayed with me the whole time I grew up, and those films stand the test of time."

There's also a more obvious reference in the film, as a familiar looking plastic dinosaur head appears in the climactic battle for a moment, which looks suspiciously like the Spinosaurus from Jurassic Park 3.