io9
Now that the Cloverfield monster has won a place in the giant-monster canon, everybody wants to know how he'd do in a fight against Godzilla. The answer: he'd have a chance against the original 1954 Godzilla, but none whatsoever against the newer, twice-as-tall version. See how Cloverfieldy stacks up to other giant monsters in the crucial giantness department, after the jump. (Very minor spoilers only.)
Of course, height isn't everything. But it counts for a lot in monsterland. As Robert B. Parker writes in one of his Spenser novels, a tough tall person will always beat a tough short person in a fight. (He never learned Judo?) So here's our round-up of which giant monster is the tallest:
Ymir. The monster from Venus in 20 Million Miles To Earth, the Ray Harryhausen classic.
Height: Only about 4 meters. Bah.
The Blob. An extraterrestrial lump of flesh-eating goo that stalks Steve McQueen.
Height: It keeps getting bigger and bigger, so it's hard to say how tall it could have gotten. It gets big enough to engulf the Downington Diner, which is probably at least 10 meters tall.
King Kong. America's giant ape, whose only weakness is beauty.
Height: In the 1933 original, he's 50 feet (15 meters) tall. In the Peter Jackson version, he's shrunk to about 8 meters. In Godzilla vs. King Kong, he's suddenly upgraded to 46 meters, so the movie doesn't just consist of Godzilla wiping splatted ape off his foot.
Yongary. The South Korean version of Godzilla.
Height: 50 meters, according to a few sites.
Cloverfield monster. He's sort of a big ugly thingy with a weird head and evil parasites. Here's an animated gif of him dancing.
Height: These people claim he's about 60 meters. That might be a bit on the short side. He's able to whack some tall buildings. But he does take a swing at the Statue of Liberty, which is only 40 meters tall. So he can't be too much taller than it is, or it wouldn't even have been in his line of vision. Here's one fan's handy chart of how the Statue of Liberty, 1954-vintage Godzilla, and the world's tallest Buddha statue all measure up: 
Gamera. Evil giant armored turtle guy with fireballs and the power to fly at Mach 3.5.
Height: 80 meters.
Godzilla. Japan's uber-monster and star of a zillion movies.
Height: 100 meters, but it used to be 50.
King Ghidorah. Maybe Godzilla's biggest rival, an awesome three-headed space dragon with bat wings... often mind-controlled into fighting Godzilla and other daikaiju monsters.
Height: 150 meters, but he used to be just 100. Here he is towering over Godzilla. 
Kroll. Big octopus guy. Pretty much Doctor Who's only entry in the giant monster genre, from "The Power of Kroll." (Okay, there was that Loch Ness Monster, but he was puny.)
Height: His head alone is 250 meters high, according to this site. Here's a clip of him celebrating being the biggest giant monster:
Comments
This post makes me weep with joy. Especially learning that Buddha is bigger than everybody.
Kroll indeed! This site makes me do a sex wee and hop around with joy. Daily.
Buddha kicks ass!!!
Gamera isn't evil! He's a good monster (better than Godzilla) and referred to as the Children's Monster. See [en.wikipedia.org]
That right, bitches! Buddha will slap your asses straight to Nirvana!
@xoff:
Word! He's the guardian of earth, friend to all children!
Gamera is really neat!
He is made of Turtle meat!
Oh and I think Destroyah and Biollantine were even taller then 90's godzilla.
so is this kaiju only, or can we include the green lantern that was a planet?
@xoff: I know. Gamera = good. Remember when Monster X froze Gamera and those kids had to go inside Gamera's body and fight the little Monster X by themselves to rescue him? Man that was awesome.
@mitchel_stevens: I cannot believe Charlie left out Green Lantern, because I happen to know that she is a GIANT FAN of Green Lantern.
Um, who is the biggest sentient planet, Mogo or Ego?
Seriously, a fun article. Never knew Godzilla was so darn tall. I always remember his height being described as, "Out of the water, 40 stories high, he breathes fire, he stands in the sky..."
what about Kaiser Ghidorag from Final Wars? He TOWERED over Goji.
@Project Thanatos: Ghidorah*
Damn my kaiju sized hands and these tiny keyboards.
What about the cruiseship eating octopus in Deep Rising?
/now what?!
Well, I feel much better equipped for future drunken movie monster arguments. But has anyone made a chart comparing the different sizes of Godzilla himself in that God-awful remake? He dramatically changed heights from scene to scene, depending on where he needed to be. Christ, that movie was a hunk of shit...
Who can answer this: A giant, tall robot lands on Earth and its piston-like legs crush everything below. It has a square, black head and a dome and some antennae. What was the movie, and does this count as a monster?
@Jeff-Minor:
Chronos. Yes, I would say it counts
Oops: it's Kronos.
[www.imdb.com]
Gawd, that was fast. And I just found it too: Kronos. Finally, after all these years I can put a name to the Robot of my nightmares!
@Jeff-Minor:
My nerd-fu is strong.
@Annalee:
but damn it, what was the green lantern planet name? ego was the marvel planet-creature...
Mogo the G.L. Planet, still appearing monthly in DC Comics Green Lantern Corp!
Can't even start bringing comics into this discussion, though, or everything else would be a footnote. I mean, Red Ronin, all those Kirby monsters, etc etc.
@mitchel_stevens:
Mogo:
[en.wikipedia.org]
thanks
What about the giant "Satan" from the Dr. Who 2-parter from the new 2nd series?
He was pretty damned big.
@Seth L:
Damn you, Seth!
Now I'll have that MST3K song in my head all day!
And, of course, Galactus.
Is somebody making a comprehensive image of all giant monsters to scale like that Buddha diagram?? Like that starship comparison chart? I TOTALLY WANT THAT. Like as a poster even, or like The Usual Suspects.
CLOVERFILED SPOILER (Sort of):
Just saw CloverField yesterday and would agree that the colverfield monsters size seemed to change based on where he was. When filmed overhead by helicopters he was pretty big. When he was looking down on a certain someone and decided to have a taste he was considerably smaller. The individual should have been a tiny drop in his mouth rather than a bite worth chewing on.
Does anyone else agree?
That was supposed to be CLOVERFIELD not CLOVERFILED. Darn it for not being able to edit posts.
When Hiyata used the beta capsule to transform into UltraMan, he must have been at least 30 or 40 meters tall...he had some bad-ass monster-fighting skills too
...or colverfield. Apparently I have lost all abilities to spell monster names today.
@EracMan: Yeah, maybe one of Cloverfieldy's powers is changing his size....
@mik3cap: Maybe we should put that together.....
The final form of Destroyer was also pretty tall as well. I don't know if he was taller than Ghidorah, but he was pretty huge nonetheless. Kiryu/MechaGodzilla 3 also had some height on him as well.
God I love this site!
@smcallah: Damn you smcallah, you beat me to it...
@Belabras:
the cloud wasn't THAT big.
What about the monsters from Shadow of the Colossus (specifically the final one)? I'd like to see a definitive size comparison of many of these beasties in one place.
@Belabras: Galactus and Unicron:
@Szin: Biollante was also pretty tall (50% taller than Godzilla according to wikipedia).
@cde: err:
Lil Formers: Unicron vs Galactus vs Pluto
@Annalee: In my head, giant Buddhist statues always secretly have rockets.
@mik3cap: That would be rad.
It's not really sci-fi, but what about the Kraken (the one from Pirates of the Carribean or otherwise)?
Ohh, and just because Cloverfield took a swipe at the Statue of Liberty, doesn't mean anything about his height. He's a sea based creature, and as most sea based creatures, has no trouble jumping in and out of the water. So ol' CLove just did a dolphin/shark jump, swiped at the Statue at the apex of the jump and landed back in the ocean.
What about the monolith monsters from the 1950's giant-creature era? They were skyscraper height. On that note what about any of the giant creatures from the Universal movies in the 50's? We have a lot to choose from: ants, tarantulas, mantis, etc.
That monster in The Mist that strides over their car was pretty damn big. Big enough to send a little kid into shock. Di-zamn!
@cde: I feel like the Cloverfield monster would need motivation to attack the statue of liberty, without being scared. Being a similar (slightly larger or smaller) size to the statue gives it a reason to knock the head off - thinking it might be a threat. Also, when you think of how far it traveled, it might have needed to be rather large.
I feel like the theorized size of 250 feet tall, 500-750ish feet long makes sense to me.
I think people need to understand that Kaiju are monsters.. Galactus and Unicron CANNOT be take in consideration due to the fact they are INTELLIGENT/SENTIENT beings.
I think being a force of nature or of animal mind is a big definition of Kaiju. The reason some mechas can be considered Kaiju is due to their limited intelligence and/or limited human control.
BUDDHA SMASH PUNY MORTALS!!!
@KFowler (fmr startingaces): But the distance the head traveled can just as easily be kinetic energy given off by Clove being at top speed in the water, instead of just brute strength. Just because Clove is definitely durable doesn't mean he is just as offensively strong.
@Project Thanatos: Galactus, sure, but Unicron is about as truely sentient as a vulture. While both Galactus and Unicron can think past their hunger, Galactus does it for essentially benevolent reasons (Kick starting the next universe when this one dies) while Unicron is just about the nom nom nom that is planet devouring. If that doesn't describe mindless Monsterism, then I don't know what is.
I would love to see a massive comprehensive chart showing the relative sizes of the monsters like the starship chart mentioned earlier. Also, do comic/manga/video game monsters count? There are some damn big critters in video games (Serious Sam lava boss for one)And where does the Sarlac fit into this or the Dune Spice worms? Lets see some equal representation for subsurface critters!