I loved Pacific Rim, but it felt more like a Neon Genesis Evangelion film than a Kaiju movie.
This seems a very odd comparison. Could you expand a bit? Beyond maybe some hints in the visual design it seems like the fist-pumping, ra-ra humanity, affirmation of the power of determination and cooperation that was pacific rim could hardly be more removed from NGE.
Speaking of Pacific Rim, I'm with Del Toro. I'd watch a crossover flick where Gypsie Danger gets into a fist fight with the G-man Even just a short film for a TV special
I prefer the tone of Edwards's movie to Del Toro's for the character of Godzilla. As I mentioned, I think Edwards's movie is probably the best kaiju film Hollywood is capable of making given the current market.
LordofHats wrote: I fail to see why being made to appeal to a general audience is a bad thing.
I didn't argue that it was. I was arguing against the idea that this movie is more for diehard fans than the general audience.
I think the overblown and heavy-handed exposition certainly shows they were making concessions to the general audience, and it wasn't an audience they had much respect for. You just don't put in a bunch of long-winded descriptions of what you're very clearly showing in unsubtle ways unless you feel like you've got an obligation to water things down.
Manchu wrote: I prefer the tone of Edwards's movie to Del Toro's for the character of Godzilla.
I agree. Pacific Rim is a movie where the main character declares in the opening he feels like he can fight a hurricane and a win, by the end of the movie he does. That isn't remotely close to the right movie for Godzilla.
I loved Pacific Rim, but it felt more like a Neon Genesis Evangelion film than a Kaiju movie.
This seems a very odd comparison. Could you expand a bit? Beyond maybe some hints in the visual design it seems like the fist-pumping, ra-ra humanity, affirmation of the power of determination and cooperation that was pacific rim could hardly be more removed from NGE.
I was more or less referring to the bright visuals and very anime-style combat of the film than the story and themes. The NGE comparison was more or less because it was the first "giant robot anime" that popped into my head.
@Chongara: You mentioned that earlier, about the monsters feeding on radiation. I thought Dr. Graham's line to that effect was helpful because she was explaining the origins of the creatures as central to their ecology. I thought that was a bit more "authentic" to the kaiju genre than Captain Call Of Duty's tragic tale of terrible travels.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Darth Bob wrote: the bright visuals and very anime-style combat of the film
Yes good point, for example when gypsy danger suddenly has swords.
Manchu wrote: That movie could not settle on whether it was serious and realistic or knowingly farcical. The resulting compromise is that it felt unwittingly absurd.
Manchu wrote: I also think the Pacific Rim monsters (and robots) were pretty bland.
That movie was for people who really, really like giant robots fighting kaiju. I mean, for people who like that sort of thing so much they are willing and able to overlook a lot of characteristics less acceptable to the general audience.
Pacific Rim was certainly kaiju flavored (think marmite). Godzilla, far less so -- it's meant to appeal to a broader palette.
I like Giant robots fighting kaiju and Pacific rim was a terrible movie which was not actually for fans of the genre. I almost walked out when the 'sword' button happened. The tech, monsters, premise was fine, the movie was *BAD*. You want to talk about watering down a movie for mass market appeal? that was Pacific Rim. It simply fell flat at it. It was garbage on every level.
And the thing is, there was a lot of on-screen monsters and fighting. But it was correctly limited to not be pointlessly gratuitous and repetitive. It wasn't exactly going to be an MMA fight of two skilled combatants who were sparring in an interesting fight. it really was monsters flailing around. To dwell on it, would have ruined the movie and added nothing. The critical showdown was shown as well as the actually interesting and meaningful altercations.
If anything Godzilla was better fight scenes, better depictions of actual monsters interacting with the story and situation and was way more emotionally driven and invested. Even the MUTOs had character and purpose. This is a way better film for Kaiju fans than Pacific Rim ever was and in no way felt diluted.
Again, if you can't imagine how kaiju can be interesting except by limiting their screen time then it seems you are simply not that interested in kaiju.
Pacific Rim wasn't great. To call it diluted garbage, however, is inexcusable hyperbole.
Manchu wrote: Again, if you can't imagine how kaiju can be interesting except by limiting their screen time then it seems you are simply not that interested in kaiju.
Pacific Rim wasn't great. To call it diluted garbage, however, is inexcusable hyperbole.
No, there was nothing redeeming about that movie. They actually ruined what could have been great giant robot action by making them simply pointlessly irrelevant. There is a reason why we didn't punch our prey to death when we became the apex predator and a reason robots don't punch monsters to death. The fight scenes were actually pretty terrible which was accentuated with the 'touching the swinging ball desk toy'. Taking robots out of the fight before it even started was also a giant waste.
It was totally diluted for mass market appeal and it failed in being a great fan film and having mass appeal. It was a terrible story with bad premise, bad acting and terrible characters. They could have made a reasonable story and depicted it all better and had a real film, but they chose to make popcorn munching crap and make it a jokey parody of the genre opposed to a legitimate attempt at it.
Manchu wrote: That movie could not settle on whether it was serious and realistic or knowingly farcical. The resulting compromise is that it felt unwittingly absurd.
Manchu wrote: I also think the Pacific Rim monsters (and robots) were pretty bland.
That movie was for people who really, really like giant robots fighting kaiju. I mean, for people who like that sort of thing so much they are willing and able to overlook a lot of characteristics less acceptable to the general audience.
Pacific Rim was certainly kaiju flavored (think marmite). Godzilla, far less so -- it's meant to appeal to a broader palette.
I like Giant robots fighting kaiju and Pacific rim was a terrible movie which was not actually for fans of the genre. I almost walked out when the 'sword' button happened. The tech, monsters, premise was fine, the movie was *BAD*. You want to talk about watering down a movie for mass market appeal? that was Pacific Rim. It simply fell flat at it. It was garbage on every level.
And the thing is, there was a lot of on-screen monsters and fighting. But it was correctly limited to not be pointlessly gratuitous and repetitive. It wasn't exactly going to be an MMA fight of two skilled combatants who were sparring in an interesting fight. it really was monsters flailing around. To dwell on it, would have ruined the movie and added nothing. The critical showdown was shown as well as the actually interesting and meaningful altercations.
If anything Godzilla was better fight scenes, better depictions of actual monsters interacting with the story and situation and was way more emotionally driven and invested. Even the MUTOs had character and purpose. This is a way better film for Kaiju fans than Pacific Rim ever was and in no way felt diluted.
You are entitled to your oppinion even if it is wrong.
Manchu wrote: Again, if you can't imagine how kaiju can be interesting except by limiting their screen time then it seems you are simply not that interested in kaiju.
Or, you know, some people appreciate that sometimes less is more.
Manchu wrote: @Chongara: You mentioned that earlier, about the monsters feeding on radiation. I thought Dr. Graham's line to that effect was helpful because she was explaining the origins of the creatures as central to their ecology. I thought that was a bit more "authentic" to the kaiju genre than Captain Call Of Duty's tragic tale of terrible travels.
Certainly possible. My exposure to classic Kaiju films is limited, having only seen maybe 2 of the old Godzilla movies. However, I feel like for this movie we don't really need to be told their origins, there are fossilized remains of them deep underground. They take 15 years to hatch.They can send their mating call across thousands of miles of ocean and air. Godzilla swims for miles and miles giving 0-feths for the aircraft carriers around him, the greatest floating city-fortresses humanity has ever created. You don't need to tell me these are powerful primordial beasts, all that stuff showed me that about them. I don't need the doctor telling that they're powerful god-like entities we can't affect, the movie spends its entire running time driving that home with the events.
While I agree the main character was pretty dull and could have been done a lot better, I think him being a military man was a good call. In order to drive home that we are that small and powerless we need to follow events from the perspective of the kind of person we'd expect to be an extension of human power in the situation. I'd agree they failed to nail the execution on it, but conceptually he was the correct character to follow.
I appreciated that most of the sightings were from human perspective, either through watching TV or from their vantage point, up until the big rumble. It helped build the sense of vastness and futility when faced with such creatures. I'm also glad, for the most part, that it isn't a 'kaiju' film in the traditional sense; been there, seen that. Up to 20+ times.
@Chongara: You know one thing they didn't explain that I wondered about was
Spoiler:
what is up with Godzilla collapsing at the end? I saw the fight and everything but was he injured or just tired (all that swimming)? Is this something to do with his apparent reptilian qualities/metabolism?
I think him being a military man was a good call. In order to drive home that we are that small and powerless we need to follow events from the perspective of the kind of person we'd expect to be an extension of human power in the situation.
In that case, he should have been a scientist or an economist.
Darth Bob wrote: Or, you know, some people appreciate that sometimes less is more.
You're talking about a production that judged the already massively overgrown Godzilla as "not big enough." In this case, less is simply less.
It's not as if Godzilla's size hasn't changed sporadically throughout the years. I hardly doubt that his increase in size (which wasn't that much of an increase from his previous appearances, mind you) was indicative of a "he isn't big enough for general audiences" philosophy, but rather a stylistic choice by the director. Godzilla's limited screen time is very in-line with the original Godzilla film; a film the director specifically said he was using as a model for what this film would be like. In fact, if you watch 2014, the film's pacing is very similar to the 1954 film, though the story line is much different. With that in mind, and having seen the director's previous film, I would say that this film did exactly what Gareth Edwards set out to do.
what is up with Godzilla collapsing at the end? I saw the fight and everything but was he injured or just tired (all that swimming)? Is this something to do with his apparent reptilian qualities/metabolism?
Spoiler:
I'm pretty sure that had something to do with him getting stabbed and mauled by two enraged kaiju for the past 15 minutes. Also, given the fact that he's probably been dormant for a while, he might not have been used to so much physical exertion. Alternatively, you could say that it was a way for the director to fake out the audience and think "Awwwww Godzilla's dead?"
I've already explained how the 1954 movie does not set a precedent for the 2014 one in terms of hiding Godzilla. You can keep saying that but you will just keep being wrong.
Manchu wrote: @Chongara: You know one thing they didn't explain that I wondered about was
Spoiler:
what is up with Godzilla collapsing at the end? I saw the fight and everything but was he injured or just tired (all that swimming)? Is this something to do with his apparent reptilian qualities/metabolism?
Spoiler:
I just figured he was plain tuckered out after a long fight and using his breath weapon three times. That gak makes his body glow, and he doesn't pull it out until he's in a pretty desperate situation. That screams high-angry expenditure to me. Like dude totally overexerted himself.
In that case, he should have been a scientist or an economist.
. That makes a certain kind of sense I suppose, when you think about it. However, my first reaction when it comes to giant monsters probably wouldn't be "Holy crap. We need Janet Yellen" it's "FIRE ZE MISSILES!". I think it's really that initial reaction, not the more sensible one that the movie really needed to respond to.
If anything I'd say this movie is a sort of fusion of a traditional monster movie with Cloverfield. It abandons the shakey cam, which frees up the camera, but mostly keeps its human perspective focus through out the film. I can sort of by that Edward watched the 54 film, but I don't buy that it really fundamentally shaped the film.
In that case, he should have been a scientist or an economist.
Spoiler:
I can't help but come back to Joe being a much better candidate for the human focus of this film
@Chongara: Making Ford "Average" Brody a soldier really dodges the question of responsibility if the theme is actually about the futility of war and/or ecological humility. As I mentioned, Fords lack of interest in the kaiju mirrors the film makers' lack of interest and ultimately excuses the audience from the more uncomfortable themes of the genre.
Manchu wrote: I've already explained how the 1954 movie does not set a precedent for the 2014 one in terms of hiding Godzilla. You can keep saying that but you will just keep being wrong.
I actually missed your initial response on this subject because so many replies have been bouncing around. That being said, I don't think that your response takes into account that this movie isn't focused around just Godzilla. The original 1954 film only had Godzilla himself, so there was more room to give him screen time. In this film he shares the screen with two other monsters and an assortment of human characters. I won't make the argument that the human element was incredibly engaging and that it couldn't have been better; it definitely could have been better and I think the biggest thing that killed it was:
Spoiler:
Killing off Joe early in the film.
However, I think the assertion that more Godzilla would have made this movie better is blatantly wrong and unjustified. I just watched the original film before seeing the new film yesterday. While you could argue which Godzilla had a more powerful screen presence, the fact remains that neither had a lot of screen time proportional to the length of the film. That being said, I think both films do a good job balancing the human element and the Kaiju element. The thing is, and I can understand the frustration with this, in 1954 it was about 2/3 human 1/3 Godzilla. In 2014 it was 2/4 human, 1/4 MUTO. and 1/4 Godzilla. Half of the movie was still dedicated to Kaiju action, though I will concede that perhaps a smaller portion was dedicated to Godzilla himself than the original film (which I think is understandable considering there are two other monsters to make up for it). Still, I don't think that this is an inherent flaw in the film, but rather it is a new vision of the same template the original film created. This is quite the opposite of the template Del Toro seemed to follow when he made Pacific Rim, which seemed more in-line with the 80's and 90's films.
Manchu wrote: @Chongara: Making Joe "Average" Brody a soldier really dodges the question of responsibility if the theme is actually about the futility of war and/or ecological humility. As I mentioned, Joe's lack of interest in the kaiju mirrors the film makers' lack of interest and ultimately excuses the audience from the more uncomfortable themes of the genre.[spoiler]
I agree that they really missed some beats in that department. I still think a soldier was the correct choice for here, probably just not this soldier. I certainly wouldn't peg the futility of war as a theme for this movie, if that's integral to the Kaiju genre the statement this wasn't really a Kaiju film is probably a fair one.
Yes, there is a lot more of human this and that in Godzilla (1954) than there is of Godzilla trashing Japan. And yes, that is also true of Godzilla (2014). But that doesn't tell us anything because the human end of the story in the '54 film has a much stronger connection to the monster end than in the '14 film. In the original, the human stories turn around the theme that Godzilla himself initially stands for -- the inexplicable capacity to destroy at such an astounding scale. The relationship between Serizawa and Godzilla became a transformational ritual for Japanese moviegoers in the 50s, whereby war guilt was transubstantiated into wisdom and maturity of pacifism. By contrast, there is no relationship between Ford and Godzilla, despite Edwards pretending they do with parallel action scenes and eye contact. In the '54 movie, Godzilla haunts the entirety of the action because he is the spirit of what the human characters have and are experiencing. This is not even slightly true of the 2014 film.
Moreover, Edwards hides Godzilla even while Godzilla is on screen. There is no precedent for this in the '54 film.
BTW, totally agree with your spoilered point above.
The first thing to understand, I think, is that this movies does not give a gak about the kaiju genre. The only part of that it is willing to have anything to do with, and indeed the part it claims to have a special relationship with, is the '54 film. The main point of that film is the transformation of the Japanese from cruel aggressors to wise pacifists -- from being guilty of heinous atrocity to being a paragon of moral maturity. The philosopher's stone in this case is the atom bomb. The 2014 film is superficially similar but doesn't have or even attempt anything so sweeping. The somber tone is belied by thematic hollowness; it offers us no insight into destruction or responsibility or even humility (eye contact with monster, semi-smiling smug Godzilla at end).
I just don't agree that screen time for the titular character was the issue in this film. I absolutely agree that the human element very much hurt this film and that a more integrated and symbolic plot between the humans and Kaiju would have made a much stronger film and made up for the lack of screen time for Godzilla. I think that, if we want to "fix" this film, it would be by altering the human story, not by increasing the amount of time Godzilla is front and center. I think his screen time is fine but the human story's relation to him is the problem.
TL;DR: The human story is the fundamental problem in this film.
By the way, here's some fun facts that show just how well a good human element can make up for a lack of screen time for the film's main element:
Dinosaur Screen Time in Jurassic Park: Around 15/127 minutes.
Xenomorph screen time in Alien: Around 4/117 minutes.
Xenomorph screen time in Aliens: Around 11/154 minutes.
Hannibal Lecter screen time in The Silence of the Lambs: 18/118 minutes.
Beetlejuice screen time in Beetlejuice: 17/92 minutes.
I'm also pretty sure the screen time for the shark in Jaws is comparably low, though I couldn't find the exact screen time.
I really don't think the Titanic comparison is very apt, Titanic is a sappy love story mixed with a disaster movie. The story isn't about the boat itself as it's not a character but rather a location, the story is about the characters on board and when they all die. I normally enjoy Cameron's films, but Titanic sucked (as did Avatar). It may have been a huge box office hit but I felt like I wanted nothing more than a bullet through my head for almost the entire stretch of the movie. Even when the ship was sinking it was like good lord just get over with it already. It has a very thin coating of action but it's not an action movie, it's a romance survival theme, where Godzilla is action/disaster/survival.
You do not need to constantly have the key plot device present in ever scene to make the movie work. If that were the case you'd have Jaws in every scene in that movie, or in Indianna Jones you'd have the Ark in every scene, or in Star Wars/Return of Jedi you'd have the Death Star in every scene. So I'm going to call BS on your claim that Godzilla needs to be constantly present in order to remain effective.
Yes he's a major character, but at the same time he's a major plot device and a background instrument which is a very different role the protagonist characters in other films.
I do think that some of the human characters could have been handled a bit better, but at the same time it's about standard fare for most other Godzilla films, let alone other kaiju movies. Most characters are very flat and one dimensional, most completely lack any substance beyond whatever their on screen job is, they approach everything with an overly zealous state "I may be an engineer... but I will be the an engineer to the death!" as they have absolutely nothing else defining about them. There's usually no sense of them being human or having any concern other than completing some work related mission they are obsessed about. That's part of why kaiju stuff is always in the b movie field, outside of the monsters themselves the human characters always just suck which is disappointing because they occupy much of the actual film time. But it's Godzilla, so it's not like you are watching it for Oscar winning drama.
The human side of things has problems, yes, but I don't propose fixing them by putting more Godzilla into this film called Godzilla. I propose that solution to the problem of this film called Godzilla having too little Godzilla in it.
@Paulson:
The Titanic is not just a location, it's the fabric of the world in which the characters exist, i.e., what makes them possible as characters. Godzilla serves much the same function in the 1954 film. Serizawa has an intense character arc about moral culpability that is only resolved in the shadow of Godzilla's symbolic power. Meanwhile in 2014, Ford barely has an arc much less a meaningful connection to Godzilla.
Also I'm going to call BS on you characterizing my argument as Godzilla needing to be constantly present.
Godzilla isn't the setting, he is a force that acts upon that world and causes destruction in his passing. He'd be more akin to the ice berg that hit the titanic, and the ice berg certainly wasn't shown drifting in every scene.
Been lurking and thought I'd google the term Kaiju to see what it actually means.
I was expecting some kind of size reference but apparently it just means "strange creature". It would be interesting to see some of the themes talked about in the original movies but with a smaller more realistically proportioned monster. I'm thinking maybe Super 8 size at biggest? Although that would probably get away from what a Kaiju film actually is.
My Navy friend from college telling me where he is in the movie:
"I was am extra when they filmed the day after Honolulu got demolished; out in front of the... redecorated Hilton.
When Ford is at the tent trying to find the little boy's parents, I am on the other side of the tent, about 12 feet away. At the last moment before the kids runs off, I am in the background, dressed as an Army soldier; however, you mostly just get a view of my helmet.
Immediately after that you get to see my face. Movie magic teleports me to the group of soldiers that runs by Ford; one guy jumps out and recruits him saying "We're all monster hunters now." I am in the front of the left file, so if you look to the left side of the screen as soon as that scene pops up, you get a complete view of my face and torso before I disappear stage left."
SF Traffic Sign Hacked To Warn Drivers Of ‘Godzilla Attack’ by Gregg Rosenblum
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) — A prankster is getting points for creativity after hacking an electronic traffic sign in San Francisco warning of a “Godzilla Attack.”
The sign was spotted on Van Ness Avenue Wednesday night, reading ‘Godzilla Attack – Turn Back.”
The mobile sign was supposed to be warning drivers about traffic delays during Sunday’s Bay to Breakers foot race.
The sign has since been fixed.
I loved the movie so much I want to see it again in 3d in only a few days of seeing it the first time.
This was also the first movie I've seen on release day in a very long time, and I'm impressed as to how Edwards handled the Mythos.
It felt very much like a Hesei era film with the same weight the 1954 film had, and I look forward to more additions to the Godzilla Mythos by Gareth.
I'd also like to see someone calculate the damage done by the Kaiju in the same manner as the damage estimates for Man of Steel and the Avengers.
I was a little worried about the MUTOs having the second billing rather than a Toho monster, but now the MUTOs are definitely on my top ten favorite Kaiju of all time list.
Pacific Rim was an awesome movie but it just doesn't even rate next to this one, and the 1998 film's sins are more or less completely washed away.
If I were to die today, I would say that I have lived a full life now that I have seen an excellent big budget handling of Godzilla.
Speaking personally having seen Godzilla this afternoon I liked it a lot. Sure the human element wasn't that great but a lot better than I expected (it is a Godzilla film after all I went in expecting wooden acting and a poor plot) and the basic human stuff was enough to make me sympathise with the characters. I would have liked a little bit more screen time for Godzilla and the MUTOs but the was they were teased throughout did keep me interested. The monster fights when the film got round to them were absolutely spectacular, when Godzilla had the upper hand he was absolutely brutal but the MUTOs weren't exactly gentle either. As for the monsters themselves the MUTOs were a bit cloverfieldy but I think it worked since they were basically giant insects. Godzilla was simply excellent though the film makers captured the essence of the character and updated him nicely.
Spoiler:
How about the atomic breath? That was easily the best version of the big G's iconic weapon I've seen, and it was certainly effective against the female muto.
So yeah I enjoyed it, it was definitely a Godzilla film and not a film about a giant iguana. If a sequel is made I would definitely like to see Godzilla taking on a monster from the original films though.
The MUTOs I was surprised by because they look like a cross between cloverfield monster and Gyaos. I can definitely agree with those who think the design of the monsters was a little lazy. Godzilla looked awesome, but I felt like the MUTOs were kind of just thrown together and then left alone.
LordofHats wrote: The MUTOs I was surprised by because they look like a cross between cloverfield monster and Gyaos. I can definitely agree with those who think the design of the monsters was a little lazy. Godzilla looked awesome, but I felt like the MUTOs were kind of just thrown together and then left alone.
Eh, I liked them.
I hope when this movie comes out on dvd someone cuts out all the humans.
Supposedly there were about 25 minutes of movie that were cut before the final version was made including a guest appearance by Takashi Shimura (I think that was the actor) from the original film. Maybe will get a directors cut that will make some of the things that made less sense make more sense?
My hope is that we get more sequels. I like Legendaries work overall with Pacific Rim and Godzilla and I'd like to see more. Hopefully they have the ability to improve the weak spots while keeping what was good.
A little more screen time from the monsters and better acting would have made this an even better film.
LordofHats wrote: Supposedly there were about 25 minutes of movie that were cut before the final version was made including a guest appearance by Takashi Shimura (I think that was the actor) from the original film. Maybe will get a directors cut that will make some of the things that made less sense make more sense?
My hope is that we get more sequels. I like Legendaries work overall with Pacific Rim and Godzilla and I'd like to see more. Hopefully they have the ability to improve the weak spots while keeping what was good.
A little more screen time from the monsters and better acting would have made this an even better film.
Many monster movies are ultimately about people more than they are about the monsters
That's not really a valid criticism to me. I've been watching Godzilla for 24 years. Seen every movie. People might have grown acustomed to the smash fests that are the Godzilla franchise, and I like those but they're not high cinema or quality films. They're us indulging out inner child with a 2 hour dose of devastation. It's not the kind of film that really has a message or anything meaningful to say. People might not like this film, but it was trying to be something better than that and I appreciate it.
Saw last night. Loved it! Plan to go again as I missed the first few minutes but it was that good where I will go again.
Wont give too much up but:
loved the 2-3 (that I cought) references to older Godzille monsters
loved the back to what we do best movie- Im godzilla a monster. you are monster too. Well you suck now Im gonna kick your butt.
1st movie since Star Wars II were the auidence clapped
While having some human element to the film it wasnt over powering like 1998
No lame AAH line like 'Godzilla's pregnant???'
Buy able plot lines
The one interesting actor dies after having almost no screentime.
I honestly wish I had walked in for the last 20 minutes and left again, it was a frustrating watch.
Same boat as you. I wish I could have fast forward through a lot of it. The human side didn't work so there was no tension really ever.
It was a big step up for summer blockbusters in that the action was much easier to comprehend and the sense of scale was always there.
But really, it was like cloverfield without any sense of perspective, you really don't give a crap about anyone in the movie and that's problem #1.
It could have been a lot worse, the special effects were amazing but I hate using that as a reason for calling any movie with 160 million dollar budget good.
They cut off a fight TWICE to show more stuff about humans, and never returned to the fight. If didn't know there was a big fight coming at the end I would've walked out of the place right after they pulled it the second time.
I know the Internet practically DEMANDS hyperbole, but really now.
Saw it, liked it a lot, could have definitely used more Godzilla time but in the end, I thought Godzilla looked great and when he finally busted out the breath weapon?
Awesome.
A couple of questions:
Spoiler:
1) Aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, aren't they?
2) So, Godzilla is the Apex Predator in the Kaiju world, and...that's all he's after?
3) Just what is Godzilla's overall role and motivation?
I hope it does well enough for a sequel - I feel that there would be a lot more Kaiju on Kaiju crime if we get one!
I know the Internet practically DEMANDS hyperbole, but really now.
Saw it, liked it a lot, could have definitely used more Godzilla time but in the end, I thought Godzilla looked great and when he finally busted out the breath weapon?
Awesome.
A couple of questions:
Spoiler:
1) Aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, aren't they?
2) So, Godzilla is the Apex Predator in the Kaiju world, and...that's all he's after?
3) Just what is Godzilla's overall role and motivation?
I hope it does well enough for a sequel - I feel that there would be a lot more Kaiju on Kaiju crime if we get one!
No hyperbole from me. Me and my girlfriend we're both fuming when they cut off after his scream.
1) Aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, aren't they?
Yes. It is bizarre when you think about it, as a nuclear missile probably isn't putting out much radiation compared to the reactors on carriers and nuclear subs.They could have had an awesome scene where the MUTOs attack a carrier group and rip a reactor right out of the carrier. Instead we get to follow Ford's cross country adventure @_@
2) So, Godzilla is the Apex Predator in the Kaiju world, and...that's all he's after?
The difference between the creatures to me seems to be that while they all thrive on radiation, the MUTO's might be hunting for more because they're breeding. Godzilla might be content to just hand out in the ocean and absorbed whatever ambient radiation comes by. I figured he went after the MUTO's because they were on his turf and he didn't appreciate it. Something as big as Godzilla with no rivals must have huge range.
3) Just what is Godzilla's overall role and motivation?
Monster smash
So far the box office looks promising. It's set to be in the same field as Spider Man 2 and Captain America.
Loved it, going to see it again tonight. I grew up watching Godzilla, seen every movie multiple times and I have to say I have very few complaints on the entire thing.
Like has been stated multiple times, the human characters didn't do much for me in way of caring what happened to them.
Spoiler:
Was a bit a annoyed about the one character that died because I thought they were in it for the movie which I think would have been better.
Loved Godzilla's look and didn't mind the MUTOs. Still not sure how I feel about the roar, someone pointed out that on a realistic level humans wouldn't be able to hear it properly but I was still hoping they'd work it out somehow.
Spoiler:
Can't tell you how ecstatically happy I was when I saw those spines start to glow in the dust cloud because I had given up hope he'd use his breath weapon. Also, did anyone else catch the MUTO's roar? I swear I heard an element of Anguirus's roar mixed in but I might have been fooling myself.
No matter what, I still loved it and I really do hope there's a sequel. I think I read on wiki or an interview that the director wants to do a sequel that uses the "Monster Island" element from Destroy All Monsters so I imagine we'd definitely see more Kaiju in that.
2) So, Godzilla is the Apex Predator in the Kaiju world, and...that's all he's after?
3) Just what is Godzilla's overall role and motivation?
I hope it does well enough for a sequel - I feel that there would be a lot more Kaiju on Kaiju crime if we get one!
Spoiler:
2) They implied that ancient earth was flooded by radiation, Kaijus which fed off radiation basically stabilized the planet for other species to take root. So there was probably a large rise of such creatures, then as food supplies fell, scarcity of food which resulted in a arms race and territory dispute. This would make the world of Godzilla like highlander, that there can be only one and to extend his own life, he would want as little threat to his territory as possible, and a monopoly on his own food supply which is radiation from the earth's core.
3) Any threat to his safety, food supply or territory would justify him. This means any large creatures which could harm him need to GO. Anything which is going to compete for his food has got to GO. They also implied he is there to keep nature balanced. He may simply like how the earth is right now and would resist any other creature's attempt to change the planet via radioactivity outside what it is. So his personal wants and preferences simply seem to co-incide with most of the life on earth where the MUTOS and other Kaijus may be perfectly content with overwhelming radioactivity like the days of old.
As I watch the Godzilla marathon on chiller, almost every baddie is from outer space. Basically Kaijus could be the normal evolution of the universe and are a protospecies designed to clean up the natural radiation of environments to bring on 'the next round of species'. So that is why you would find space-born Kaijus who would be naturally drawn to earth as humanity screws around with nuclear weapons... Godzilla can't have that so he would be very motivated to protect himself, his food supply and his preference in maintaining his current eco system... And it just happens us humans have a vested interest in Godzilla maintaining his preferred eco-system cuz we live in it. While Humanity is always trying to get rid of Godzilla or contain him because we are not so cool with his city stomping tendencies, he is not usually interested in wiping us off the face of the planet (unless you subscribe to the WWII punishment angles) and without him, we would be screwed when the next space whatever shows up.
Yes, Aircraft carriers are nuclear powered. So are most modern subs. Nuclear reactors use a combination of U-235 & Pu-239 for generating power, weapons grade uranium is U-238 which is a refined material. Sort of like how cocaine is a synthesized version of coca, it has properties that only occur in the enriched version. U-235 generates a more controlled release of energy, U-238 is uncontrolled so it produces the big bangs. So in theory the mutos would probably be drawn to it over standard earth contained radiation or even more then what's used in power plants.
I was kind of scratching my head as to why Godzilla wouldn't go after the carrier, but he largely ignored it (and has also ignored subs in past films) I came away thinking that perhaps he isn't concerned with feeding on those sources and possibly hunts the Mutos for food, destroying human radiation sources would help remove the Mutos collection points so they can't over populate too quickly?
He also seems to largely ignore the nuclear weapons, outside of knowing it attracts the Mutos
Actually, I believe that reactors actually put out very little ambient radiation due to the large amount of shielding put in place. Warship reactors likely have extra ablative radiation shielding.
Thus, a monster who is attracted to radiation would likely detect very little radiation from the reactor of a nuclear reactor that hasn't been compromised.
But it is true that a nuclear warhead would give off very little radiation, and only in the immediate vicinity. You'd basically need to be next to it to detect anything substantial.
There's shielding, plus the Pu-239 aka carbon rods absorbs much of the reaction (turning it into Pu-240) The process generates lots of heat which boils the water and powers the steam turbines.
However there's also lots of shielding at a nuclear plant and waste disposal sites so their radiation signature would be very minimal as well, likely even less then what the ships would have.
It might have something to do with the rate at which the materials convert into energy, 235 is a controlled reaction so it could be like a slow release carb, 238 would be a fast release stimulant like sugar. (or cocaine)
Different creatures have different metabolisms. Some may conserve and rather a slow, steady feed in a hibernation-like state where others will aggressively consume and reproduce as fast as possible. It may simply be that Godzilla is not interested in rapid consumption and is content to stockpile it unlike the MUTOS. It does seem like Godzilla has room to grow and there must have been larger creatures at one time than him.
Spoiler:
I assume if Godzilla wanted to, he would have been able to consume the warhead much like the Mutos did and gain rapid power from it. I actually thought at one point they were gonna take that angle where the humans give the warhead to Godzilla to help him win.
That would also explain why Big-G fainted at the end of the film. He'd burned through his reserve and needed to rest for awhile (maybe sucking some rays from the sun) before he could move.
Godzilla usually poops out at some point, usually right about when he goes for the breath weapon. He's like Rocky he may get beat up and broken in the ring but he always gets back up for the final round to deliver the TKO.
Every time he falls and appears dead it does cause you to wonder is this it for the Big G?
The only time he actually dies he becomes Mecha Godzilla. (or was that the corpse of son of Godzilla? it's been so long I can't remember) Which is what I was thinking about during that scene, is he dead or are they setting up for Mecha Godzilla.
After recharging from the nearby nuke blast and some morning sun it was back to the ocean as usual.
Godzilla 2000 was basically showing how Godzilla is basically an infinitely fast self-regeneration, so I assume, any wound, however bad can be recovered from as long as he has energy left. Think Wolverine on batteries. The only true death would be a mortal wound and a total lack of energy. I assume simply lack of energy would just cause him to be dormant instead of dead...
I am kinda interested in seeing if this movie might re-focus a scientific consistency in the mythos. I think they can be off to a strong start as the new premise was pretty plausible (if you get over the suspense of disbelief of kaijus)
And where would Borenstein draw inspiration for this? From a surprising source.
“The same way Chris Nolan was so brilliantly able to create a Joker that felt of a piece in his dark and grounded reality,” Borenstein said on where he’d get inspiration for Mothra, or other classic characters, “whereas if you just watched the television series from the ’60s, the Batman shows, you would have said that was impossible. I think it’s possible.”
A lot to chew on... I think a Mothra sequel is a lock and the next logical step would be Mechagodzilla in the form of human reaction to a double encounter with Godzilla.
2) So, Godzilla is the Apex Predator in the Kaiju world, and...that's all he's after?
3) Just what is Godzilla's overall role and motivation?
I hope it does well enough for a sequel - I feel that there would be a lot more Kaiju on Kaiju crime if we get one!
Spoiler:
2) They implied that ancient earth was flooded by radiation, Kaijus which fed off radiation basically stabilized the planet for other species to take root. So there was probably a large rise of such creatures, then as food supplies fell, scarcity of food which resulted in a arms race and territory dispute. This would make the world of Godzilla like highlander, that there can be only one and to extend his own life, he would want as little threat to his territory as possible, and a monopoly on his own food supply which is radiation from the earth's core.
3) Any threat to his safety, food supply or territory would justify him. This means any large creatures which could harm him need to GO. Anything which is going to compete for his food has got to GO. They also implied he is there to keep nature balanced. He may simply like how the earth is right now and would resist any other creature's attempt to change the planet via radioactivity outside what it is. So his personal wants and preferences simply seem to co-incide with most of the life on earth where the MUTOS and other Kaijus may be perfectly content with overwhelming radioactivity like the days of old.
As I watch the Godzilla marathon on chiller, almost every baddie is from outer space. Basically Kaijus could be the normal evolution of the universe and are a protospecies designed to clean up the natural radiation of environments to bring on 'the next round of species'. So that is why you would find space-born Kaijus who would be naturally drawn to earth as humanity screws around with nuclear weapons... Godzilla can't have that so he would be very motivated to protect himself, his food supply and his preference in maintaining his current eco system... And it just happens us humans have a vested interest in Godzilla maintaining his preferred eco-system cuz we live in it. While Humanity is always trying to get rid of Godzilla or contain him because we are not so cool with his city stomping tendencies, he is not usually interested in wiping us off the face of the planet (unless you subscribe to the WWII punishment angles) and without him, we would be screwed when the next space whatever shows up.
I'm gonna agree with Soladrin on this one. The lead character, the Navy Lieutenant, was played by a seriously annoying actor. Seriously, it hurt to watch him every time he was on screen - which was most of the film. I also hated the way the afore mentioned Lieutenant just happens to find himself everywhere important (and I mean each and every single important location in the film) the way Ben Affleck and Josh Hartnett did in Pearl Harbor.
And I also didn't care much for...
Spoiler:
...this movie's inability to understand how time works. And I still don't understand why you'd transport a bomb on a train instead of a C5 Galaxy. Seriously, trains are slow. And apparently prone to giant monster attacks. And were there NO nuclear plants closer than San Francisco?
But all that disappeared whenever Godzilla was on the screen. I really like the way they made Godzilla this time out. He looked massive and seemed to literally weigh tons and tons and tons, unlike the Matthew Broderick version which nimbly ran up and down the streets of Manhattan and danced around buildings to avoid incoming missiles.
I think the MUTO heading for a reactor in Japan is a little silly. I guarantee there were reactors closer to the Philippines than that. Some crappy Chinese reactor bleeding far more radiation that is safe
Breotan wrote: I also hated the way the afore mentioned Lieutenant just happens to find himself everywhere important (and I mean each and every single important location in the film)
Yes, this was my biggest complaint. It felt very "forrest gump-ish" to me. I mean, obviously the protagonist generally needs to be involved in the majority of the movie but I don't feel they organically moved him from scene to scene.
Your other beef is legit, as well, i think.
Spoiler:
The bomb is carried by a helicopter to a train. The train goes, super slow, and crashes. It is then rescued by... a helicopter. Why not just fly it by helicopter the whole way?
Also, I had to derisively snicker when he mentions "be careful, it's delicate" in reference to the bomb... the same bomb that fell off a bridge on a train like 200 feet and remained wholly intact and undamaged. Yeah, pretty delicate.
They didn't want to risk the male Muto intercepting an aircraft carrying the nuke, especially when said Muto has a tendency to send a burst of EMP that would risk the plane and nuke to crash into the dirt. By using the train, they were able to avoid the male Muto (who's admittedly much more maneuverable and unpredictable given the fact that he flies) and reduce the fallout in the event that their transport system was disabled by an EMP.
Breotan wrote: I'm gonna agree with Soladrin on this one.
You might of had us at 'hello', but then you lost us right there...
Spoiler:
As for Godzilla being 'dead', I really do think it was more of a consequence of being wounded in the fight and having to use his breath weapon multiple times in the battle.
And then he was revived by the nuclear blast...maybe?
Breotan wrote: I'm gonna agree with Soladrin on this one.
You might of had us at 'hello', but then you lost us right there...
Spoiler:
As for Godzilla being 'dead', I really do think it was more of a consequence of being wounded in the fight and having to use his breath weapon multiple times in the battle.
And then he was revived by the nuclear blast...maybe?
I'd like to point out that in the Toho flicks, the first Godzilla did die. And the other ones had a second Godzilla.
The point of them using the train is that a train doesn't need electronics to function, only steam/coal/what-have-you. An EMP would be unable to stop it.
The thing that irritated me most about the train plan is the lack of support they had. I understand that close-support from 'choppers and the like isn't very feasible due to the EMP blasts, but god damn. Could they at least have had a couple eyes in the sky, drones and the like, keeping a constant 24/7 surveillance on it so that it doesn't lol-jump you? It's not like the military wasn't putting all their eggs in one basket with that plan or something...
One thing I was wondering. Would an EMP really cause F-22s to just fall out of the air like that? I don't think the engine requires electronics to function, steering would be offline for sure. But it wouldn't cause an immediate nose dive would it?
The point of them using the train is that a train doesn't need electronics to function, only steam/coal/what-have-you. An EMP would be unable to stop it.
The thing that irritated me most about the train plan is the lack of support they had. I understand that close-support from 'choppers and the like isn't very feasible due to the EMP blasts, but god damn. Could they at least have had a couple eyes in the sky, drones and the like, keeping a constant 24/7 surveillance on it so that it doesn't lol-jump you? It's not like the military wasn't putting all their eggs in one basket with that plan or something...
Spoiler:
I think their support was the burning wreckage floating downriver.
Grey Templar wrote: One thing I was wondering. Would an EMP really cause F-22s to just fall out of the air like that? I don't think the engine requires electronics to function, steering would be offline for sure. But it wouldn't cause an immediate nose dive would it?
Yeah, I believe without a jet engine, they would fall out of the sky like that. As soon as they lose enough speed, they have no lift and it is spiral to the round for you.
Gliders and prop planes can last longer without speed because they can glide, I think most jets are too heavy to glide so they need speed to keep the lift good enough to keep them up.
Let's talk favorite parts of the film....I have 3:
Spoiler:
1: Godzilla's first use of his breath weapon, especially the part where you see his tail spines glow, first at the tip of the tail and then move up his back towards his head.
2: The bitch slap of the male MUTO with his tail.
3: Godzilla grabbing the head and jaw of the female MUTO and pulling them apart. I was thinking "He's going to rip it's jaw off" but instead fed her his breath weapon like a mama bird feeding it's baby.
3: Godzilla grabbing the head and jaw of the female MUTO and pulling them apart. I was thinking "He's going to rip it's jaw off" but instead fed her his breath weapon like a mama bird feeding it's baby.
Yes, Aircraft carriers are nuclear powered. So are most modern subs. Nuclear reactors use a combination of U-235 & Pu-239 for generating power, weapons grade uranium is U-238 which is a refined material. Sort of like how cocaine is a synthesized version of coca, it has properties that only occur in the enriched version. U-235 generates a more controlled release of energy, U-238 is uncontrolled so it produces the big bangs. So in theory the mutos would probably be drawn to it over standard earth contained radiation or even more then what's used in power plants.
I was kind of scratching my head as to why Godzilla wouldn't go after the carrier, but he largely ignored it (and has also ignored subs in past films) I came away thinking that perhaps he isn't concerned with feeding on those sources and possibly hunts the Mutos for food, destroying human radiation sources would help remove the Mutos collection points so they can't over populate too quickly?
He also seems to largely ignore the nuclear weapons, outside of knowing it attracts the Mutos
Your knowledge of nuclear energy and cocaine seems a bit off. Luckily I am a fan of both and can help.
Only U-235 is fissle. U-238 is not. Naturally occurring Uranium is ~99.93% U-238, while nuclear fuel sources need to be enriched between 2-5% U-235 and nuclear weapons over 90%. Though U-238 is still highly toxic and slightly radioactive. Just another long term "Thank You" note to the children of Iraq from America.
You can stand feet away from a nuclear reactor and not have appreciable readings on your GM or PIC meter (you'll actually get a higher reading next to coal powered plant than a nuke plant due to the amounts of NORM in especially lignite coals) so it would make sense for Godzilla to ignore things like nuclear carriers. That is when they're not dumping radioactive waste at sea at least, they aren't going to have any appreciable radiation escaping to detect. I've stood 5 feet away from a spent fuel pool before and couldn't even get a chirp from my GM tube.
Also cocaine is merely extracted from coca leaves, not synthesized. The cocaine molecule is already inherent in the plant, unlike heroin, which takes natural morphine from the poppy and attaches 2 acetyl groups.
Breotan wrote: And were there NO nuclear plants closer than San Francisco?
There is only one currently active nuclear power station in California: Diablo Canyon Power Plant in Avila Beach, CA
It's about a three and a half hour drive away. I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't know if that is closer or further away in relation to your concern.
I'm quite surprised by how much more people expected from this movie. I am a gigantic fan of Godzilla, and I loved it. This was never gonna be Schindler's List with kaiju, guys.
I was hoping for less plot holes and more monster fights. I'm disappointed they did more or less nothing with Cranston or Watanabe. It's watchable, but I wouldn't say it's good.
Breotan wrote: And were there NO nuclear plants closer than San Francisco?
There is only one currently active nuclear power station in California: Diablo Canyon Power Plant in Avila Beach, CA
It's about a three and a half hour drive away. I haven't seen the movie yet so I don't know if that is closer or further away in relation to your concern.
Watched it on Friday, was pretty disappointed. I liked the sense of scale, and I felt like they did a good job showing just how impossibly large and heavy Godzilla is which was a nice realistic touch. I hated just about everything else. Cranston died too early, he was the only character I actually cared about. The protagonist... bleh. Ken Watanabe, who I really like, looked perpetually confused for the entire film.
The actual monster fighting? Aside from the breath attack and tail slap, it was pretty damn boring. The fighting felt pretty static. I feel like Pacific Rim did a much better job with the actual fights, and they didn't obnoxiously cut away to human characters in the middle of said fights. Twice.
I watched it on Thor's Day. Aside from the rare monster fight scenes it seemed like any other derivative third string miscellaneous disaster movie. Fairly nonsensical plot driven by mediocre performances. The Godzilla stuff was solid, he looked and acted good. I would have preferred a less altruistic Godzilla personally - I feel like people should have been at least irrelevant to him in the pursuit of his prey instead of actively working to preserve human life - specifically the ducking under of warships and torpedo dodging.
And the idea of people who are responsible for the transport of a Minuteman just being like " Oh, you're EOD? From a totally different branch of the service? Sure dude, jump on this mission with us because ... the entire idea of the way that the military works is now not a thing because giant monsters."
And then when you spend 20-30 minutes setting up why you can't deliver a nuke by helicopter because of the dangers of EMP and you need a train, and then the train gets f'd and the next scene is a helicopter delivering that nuke... that is just bad storytelling.
Oh, and Pacific Rim is trash compared to this. Utter trash.
I like Giant robots fighting kaiju and Pacific rim was a terrible movie which was not actually for fans of the genre. I almost walked out when the 'sword' button happened. The tech, monsters, premise was fine, the movie was *BAD*. You want to talk about watering down a movie for mass market appeal? that was Pacific Rim. It simply fell flat at it. It was garbage on every level.
And the thing is, there was a lot of on-screen monsters and fighting. But it was correctly limited to not be pointlessly gratuitous and repetitive. It wasn't exactly going to be an MMA fight of two skilled combatants who were sparring in an interesting fight. it really was monsters flailing around. To dwell on it, would have ruined the movie and added nothing. The critical showdown was shown as well as the actually interesting and meaningful altercations.
If anything Godzilla was better fight scenes, better depictions of actual monsters interacting with the story and situation and was way more emotionally driven and invested. Even the MUTOs had character and purpose. This is a way better film for Kaiju fans than Pacific Rim ever was and in no way felt diluted.
No, there was nothing redeeming about that movie. They actually ruined what could have been great giant robot action by making them simply pointlessly irrelevant. There is a reason why we didn't punch our prey to death when we became the apex predator and a reason robots don't punch monsters to death. The fight scenes were actually pretty terrible which was accentuated with the 'touching the swinging ball desk toy'. Taking robots out of the fight before it even started was also a giant waste.
It was totally diluted for mass market appeal and it failed in being a great fan film and having mass appeal. It was a terrible story with bad premise, bad acting and terrible characters. They could have made a reasonable story and depicted it all better and had a real film, but they chose to make popcorn munching crap and make it a jokey parody of the genre opposed to a legitimate attempt at it.
I could not disagree more. Argue all you want, Pacific Rim had a tight, cohesive and simple without being entirely stupid plot. Godzilla had a lot of nonsensical garbage. Pacific Rim had probably the best cinematography for monster fights ever, and the best 3d (as in adding to scenes without distracting) that I've seen. Admittedly I saw Godzilla in 2d, but I doubt it improved on Pacific Rim in any reasonable way. Yeah. Categorically disagree on basically all of your points. Pacific Rim is one of my favorite movies of this century and Godzilla is utterly forgettable.
LordofHats wrote: Many monster movies are ultimately about people more than they are about the monsters
That's not really a valid criticism to me. I've been watching Godzilla for 24 years. Seen every movie. People might have grown acustomed to the smash fests that are the Godzilla franchise, and I like those but they're not high cinema or quality films. They're us indulging out inner child with a 2 hour dose of devastation. It's not the kind of film that really has a message or anything meaningful to say. People might not like this film, but it was trying to be something better than that and I appreciate it.
Why is it better to make a Godzilla movie that tries to be a drama? Aren't there enough damn movies about the human condition and human relationships? The one thing that made this film different from all the other films that came out this year is Godzilla, and the film makers decided to minimize his presence to make the movie stand out?
Now, I didn't hate the film. In fact I loved every second that Godzilla or his immediate effects were on the screen. But, Jesus, would you sit through an hour of a film with protagonists investigating a murder mystery when the film is titled "The Butler Did It"? One of my friends described this film as a Bryan Cranston feature followed by a Godzilla short.
I'm sure someone somewhere has made a porno film with all kinds of thematic layers and depths, too, but he'd be out of a job if the boogie scenes only filled 10 minutes of it.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AegisGrimm wrote: I'm quite surprised by how much more people expected from this movie. I am a gigantic fan of Godzilla, and I loved it. This was never gonna be Schindler's List with kaiju, guys.
Break out the cham-pagan ladies and gents. Just as Big G crushed some over sized bugs, he's managed to crush the box office to come in at $93 million This gives him a bigger opening week than Spider Man 2 and a comparable opening to Captain America. EDIT: Worldwide box office is nearly $200 million. And the film hasn't even opened in Japan yet.
I think we can safely assume we'll be seeing a sequel.
It seems the word is already in. The Sequel has the green light. Garth states he will be onboard and plans to use the same restraint he used in this film in the sequel. Hopefully that doesn't mean the exactly same level of restraint. A little more monsters would not have hurt this film at all. Hopefully he can do in the next one with human characters what he did in Monsters.
Oh, and Pacific Rim is trash compared to this. Utter trash.
I like Giant robots fighting kaiju and Pacific rim was a terrible movie which was not actually for fans of the genre. I almost walked out when the 'sword' button happened. The tech, monsters, premise was fine, the movie was *BAD*. You want to talk about watering down a movie for mass market appeal? that was Pacific Rim. It simply fell flat at it. It was garbage on every level.
And the thing is, there was a lot of on-screen monsters and fighting. But it was correctly limited to not be pointlessly gratuitous and repetitive. It wasn't exactly going to be an MMA fight of two skilled combatants who were sparring in an interesting fight. it really was monsters flailing around. To dwell on it, would have ruined the movie and added nothing. The critical showdown was shown as well as the actually interesting and meaningful altercations.
If anything Godzilla was better fight scenes, better depictions of actual monsters interacting with the story and situation and was way more emotionally driven and invested. Even the MUTOs had character and purpose. This is a way better film for Kaiju fans than Pacific Rim ever was and in no way felt diluted.
No, there was nothing redeeming about that movie. They actually ruined what could have been great giant robot action by making them simply pointlessly irrelevant. There is a reason why we didn't punch our prey to death when we became the apex predator and a reason robots don't punch monsters to death. The fight scenes were actually pretty terrible which was accentuated with the 'touching the swinging ball desk toy'. Taking robots out of the fight before it even started was also a giant waste.
It was totally diluted for mass market appeal and it failed in being a great fan film and having mass appeal. It was a terrible story with bad premise, bad acting and terrible characters. They could have made a reasonable story and depicted it all better and had a real film, but they chose to make popcorn munching crap and make it a jokey parody of the genre opposed to a legitimate attempt at it.
I could not disagree more. Argue all you want, Pacific Rim had a tight, cohesive and simple without being entirely stupid plot. Godzilla had a lot of nonsensical garbage. Pacific Rim had probably the best cinematography for monster fights ever, and the best 3d (as in adding to scenes without distracting) that I've seen. Admittedly I saw Godzilla in 2d, but I doubt it improved on Pacific Rim in any reasonable way. Yeah. Categorically disagree on basically all of your points. Pacific Rim is one of my favorite movies of this century and Godzilla is utterly forgettable.
Wasn't Pacific Rim the movie where every fight ended with a Deus Ex Machina and half the plot points fell to the sideline after the first forty minutes?
Nevermind that ending...... That god awful ending.....
Pacific Rim was about as horrible as horrible could be. next time lets not have 12 year olds write the plot. It was sssooooooooooooo stupid it wasn't funny (and the stupidity actually didn't have to do with the essential plot of giant robots vs. giant monsters).
Wasn't Pacific Rim the movie where every fight ended with a Deus Ex Machina and half the plot points fell to the sideline after the first forty minutes?
Nevermind that ending...... That god awful ending.....
Nope. The only kill in the movie that could be considered a Deus-Ex machina was the one against Otachi with the swords, since nothing had established them previously. Every other kill was either done conventionally or with devices that had been well established previously at that point, such as the giant nuke they'd be talking about for half the movie. This is out of 6 main plot kills, and 2 that occur mostly off screen. However the swords thing was something of a genre convention. If you couldn't get on board with that you probably just weren't the movie's intended audience.
Wasn't Pacific Rim the movie where every fight ended with a Deus Ex Machina and half the plot points fell to the sideline after the first forty minutes?
Nevermind that ending...... That god awful ending.....
Nope. The only kill in the movie that could be considered a Deus-Ex machina was the one against Otachi with the swords, since nothing had established them previously. Every other kill was either done conventionally or with devices that had been well established previously at that point, such as the giant nuke they'd be talking about for half the movie. This is out of 6 main plot kills, and 2 that occur mostly off screen. However the swords thing was something of a genre convention. If you couldn't get on board with that you probably just weren't the movie's intended audience.
Heavy spoilers incoming, ye be warned........
Spoiler:
Hey guys, we are planning on going on a super important mission where fou- .... two! of our giant mech suits are VERY important! Let's get in a fist fight, sustain heavy damage, and expend a ton of energy/ammo firing our weapons, instead of pulling out a sword that can cut it in half very easily! That's bound to work, right?
Nevermind that the love plot was contrived as all hell, the guy-who-became-one-with-the-kaiju plot point tripped over itself twenty times in the last half of the movie, the fact that the main character was able to do all that crap in the end to detonate the Jeager without oxygen and a wounded arm..... The Class 5 Kaiju showing up, and then just hanging out while patiently waiting its turn.....
Pacific Rim was a very, very poor attempt at mainstreamization of kaiju movies.....
I noticed a couple of things on the second watch. The Ford/Gozilla parallels are more numerous than I caught the first time. There is way more MUTO screentime than Godzilla screentime, which is a problem because (1) the movie is called Godzilla and has the responsibility of establishing his new American incarnation and (2) I really don't give a gak about the MUTOs. And I have no idea why I am supposed to root for Godzilla rather than the MUTOs other than I have only heard of/care about Godzilla. If anything, the MUTOs have better and more sympathetic characterization. Think of it this way, replace the long-legged MUTOs with a mated pair of gazelle and Godzilla with a Nile crocodile.
The movie reminds me of Star Trek Into Darkness (a.k.a., Wrath of Khan Jr.) in that it relies on the original IP to do the reboot's work. For example, J.J. Abrams expected us to believe that Kirk and Spock were friends because ... you know, Shatner and Nimoy played a believable, compelling friendship despite their very different personalities. But all Abrams showed us was them being at odds until suddenly Spock (who did not shed a tear when his mom and most of his species died when Vulcan is destroyed) is weeping and screaming over Kirk's death. Similarly, Edwards just assumes the audience will relate to Godzilla because, well, he's Godzilla! Right?
Wrong. He might be Godzilla. It's Edwards responsibility to prove it. The look went a long way, of course. And there is something very samurai-like about Godzilla's defiant bearing in combat. But why should I root for him, other than the reasons filmmakers other than Edwards have established? Why, other than the sappy cue in the score, am I supposed to feel bad when Godzilla falls (not once, but twice)? Why should I feel like cheering when Godzilla gets up and smugly strides back into the sea? I didn't find answers for these questions either time I watched the film.
But that doesn't mean I couldn't draw up a hypothesis. I think Edwards tries to create a parallel between Ford and Godzilla to characterize Godzilla. We're supposed develop sympathy for Godzilla -- and antipathy for the MUTOs -- through Ford. This is why we see so much of the MUTOs: to associate them, rather than Godzilla, with the threat to Ford's family and by proxy all humanity. This is also why we don't see much of Godzilla. Edwards doesn't just tease us by hiding the monsters. He also teases us by replacing Godzilla with Ford as the MUTOs' foil. In this way, the audience gets increasingly frustrated by Ford's inability to do anything about the MUTOs so that when Godzilla starts slapping them around, we want to cheer for Godzilla.
This also works in reverse to really emphasize the point. Notice it is when Godzilla is getting beaten up by both MUTOs at the same time that Ford finally gets to hurt them. He not only indirectly attacks the MUTOs but also potentially saves Godzilla's life by doing so. And then, when mamma MUTO looks set to get her revenge on Ford, that's when the big Godzilla moment arrives: atomic breath! It's not the single coolest moment of the movie for nothing. This is the moment to which Edwards spent every preceding minute building up with the Ford/Godzilla connection. This connection, previously distant and perhaps coincidental, is then made explicit by the their eye contact during Godzilla's first fall and finally confirmed by their simultaneous fall after the mamma MUTO's death.
If this was 1995, Ford (played by Will Smith) would have said "we did it, big guy" before passing out.
I think it is true that much of the film relies on past associations, much like *ahem* Space Seed Jr., and from a purely analytical standpoint that is a problem. On the other hand, probably 90% of the audience doesn't appear to have cared and were rooting for him. I suppose the better question would be why did Into Darkness fail in this regard whereas Godzilla seems to have succeeded in tapping into those past associations? I think some of it may be in how Edwards used Spielberg as inspiration, and talked about it in some interview, and followed the template more of Jaws and Close Encounters than other Kaiju films. Pacific Rim was an homage to those films but Godzilla was more set on being a western look at the character, though done with consideration. This is opposed to the 1998 version which didn't seem to much care about older films or associations at all and seemed more interested in taking swipes at Siskel and Ebert.
LordofHats wrote: It seems the word is already in. The Sequel has the green light. Garth states he will be onboard and plans to use the same restraint he used in this film in the sequel. Hopefully that doesn't mean the exactly same level of restraint. A little more monsters would not have hurt this film at all. Hopefully he can do in the next one with human characters what he did in Monsters.
Awww yeah. I'm stoked. I'd like to see more actual monster combat in a second movie. I liked it a lot but there were some flaws.
I doubt the general audience knows much about Godzilla one way or the other, other than he's a giant dragon monster and the film is named after him. The reason Edwards succeeded where Abrams failed is because Edwards did not just rely on the audience knowing/feeling something about the franchise before walking in. As I mentioned above, 90% of the movie is an elaborate ruse to prime the audience to root for Godzilla for reasons completely unconnected to Godzilla.
Even in the past Godzilla movies, Humanity as a whole was still against him. He still killed thousands of people and destroyed a ton of crap. But when something *else* showed up, it was usually something with malicious intent, or instinctual intent which was worse off for humanity.
In the past, most INSECT-Like godzilla adversaries were bad for humans because they threatened to multiply and scourge the planet. That is painfully obvious really quickly even to us humans and can get out of control really fast.
In this movie, we have had past interactions with Godzilla, and while he is capable of massive destruction, he has reacted more like a wild animal where "if we don't mess with him, he won't mess with us'. The MUTOs showed tendencies which were larger worry to mankind, especially with the reproduction angle.
Imagine being in the woods, trapped under a tree, and you are set upon by a well-fed bear and two hungry wolves. A bear may feel like killing you possibly, the wolves which are starving will 100% kill you. The creatures begin to fight. Who do you hope wins? It is very possible the bear will kill the wolves and simply go on his way, or he may also kill you. But at least there was a chance with the bear of you surviving.
Seemed pretty clear that we were choosing between two dangerous outcomes in a helpless situation. Rooting for Godzilla over the MUTOS for our own survival was all we could do in the face of forces which we could do nothing about. Just happened to turn out to be the correct decision, Godzilla could have very easily burned down all of san fran as his victory celebration. (as he has done in other godzilla movies)
The most insect-like of all kaiju, and indeed probably the best-known kaiju after Godzilla, is Mothra. And she's known for her qualities of goodness, mercy, and as a defender.
Spoiler:
The MUTOs are characterized as tender to one another and protective of their young. Even if you ignore this humanizing characterization, they are only doing the natural thing: eating and rutting. Godzilla by contrast is shown as a relentless killer. Unlike an animal, he does not kill to eat. We are told he is "restoring balance" but that is never explained and ends up being another empty nothing uttered by the serially useless token Japanese guy. The only real idea we have as to why Godzilla is such a bastard to these poor MUTO animals is that at some stage in their life cycle they are parasites to other kaiju, possibly including Godzilla's species.
Manchu wrote: The most insect-like of all kaiju, and indeed probably the best-known kaiju after Godzilla, is Mothra. And she's known for her qualities of goodness, mercy, and as a defender.
Yeah but she was supposed to be a phoneix-like character who didn't reproduce per se but was reborn over and over. If Godzilla was 'balance of nature' then Mothra was 'Kaiju police' as she kept the balance between fighting Kaijus when needed.
The MUTOs reminded me most of Megaguirus which is when they basically were a swarm and then combined into a large creature. They were basically aggressive, and should Godzilla fail to beat them, would have instantly wiped out earth via mass reproduction. The risk was not the MUTOS themselves, but the fact they were capable and intent on reproducing by the thousands. Again, while the MUTOS may have been reasonable creatures... their interests were more at odds with humanities interests than Godzilla's were. We were better off with a single murder-lizard than a thousand nice loving hungry bugs. That plot point was quickly conveyed... This is why you must root for Godzilla over MUTOS.
You seem to be really talking about r/K-selection theory, rather than insects.
Spoiler:
In real life, r-selection animals breed lots of young but have little or nothing to do with them. They also tend to be small-bodied. While Mamma MUTO lays lots of eggs, she's clearly a doting parent and nearly as big as Godzilla. The movie clearly wants to have its cake and eat it, too, with r/K-selection.
You're right, we are led to believe that the the threat is having a swarm of MUTOs born. But the logic of the movie itself belies this point: First, we know at least one part of their life cycle requires a kaiju host. Assuming mom and dad can't be the host, that leaves Godzilla and that's probably not enough real estate for hundreds or thousands of them. Second, there is not enough radiation food on modern earth to support so many of them. Godzilla is either a bastard or just an animal robotically following outdated instincts. Same goes for Ford.
nkelsch wrote: their interests were more at odds with humanities interests than Godzilla's were
Actually, we have no sense of what Godzilla's interests are.
Spoiler:
We have the semi-religious opinions of the dumbass Japanese guy who seems to know nothing about kaiju even though he spent his life studying the topic. But his balance theory is pretty clearly wrong or at least has zero basis in evidence. If we judge Godzilla by whether he or the MUTOs are ultimately better for humanity then Godzilla becomes a symbol reinforcing the arrogance of humanity, the idea that human's are the measuring stick, which is not only contrary to the franchise generally, the point of kaiju generally, and the 1954 film specifically but also to the 2014 script, where Watanabe explicitly critiques human arrogance.
Manchu wrote: You seem to be really talking about r/K-selection theory, rather than insects.
Spoiler:
In real life, r-selection animals breed lots of young but have little or nothing to do with them. They also tend to be small-bodied. While Mamma MUTO lays lots of eggs, she's clearly a doting parent and nearly as big as Godzilla. The movie clearly wants to have its cake and eat it, too, with r/K-selection.
You're right, we are led to believe that the the threat is having a swarm of MUTOs born. But the logic of the movie itself belies this point: First, we know at least one part of their life cycle requires a kaiju host. Assuming mom and dad can't be the host, that leaves Godzilla and that's probably not enough real estate for hundreds or thousands of them. Second, there is not enough radiation food on modern earth to support so many of them. Godzilla is either a bastard or just an animal robotically following outdated instincts. Same goes for Ford.
nkelsch wrote: their interests were more at odds with humanities interests than Godzilla's were
Actually, we have no sense of what Godzilla's interests are.
Spoiler:
We have the semi-religious opinions of the dumbass Japanese guy who seems to know nothing about kaiju even though he spent his life studying the topic. But his balance theory is pretty clearly wrong or at least has zero basis in evidence. If we judge Godzilla by whether he or the MUTOs are ultimately better for humanity then Godzilla becomes a symbol reinforcing the arrogance of humanity, the idea that human's are the measuring stick, which is not only contrary to the franchise generally, the point of kaiju generally, and the 1954 film specifically but also to the 2014 script, where Watanabe explicitly critiques human arrogance.
We have a pair of creatures which will aggressively feed on nuclear material and reproduce by the thousands, and we have a creature which has been generally passive and ambivalent towards our existence for 50+ years and is not directly going out of its way to attack us.
I am sure right after this movie, Humanity will be back to 'ok, how do we kill godzilla' but at the moment, the issue was solving the MUTOs which were aggressively attacking aspects of human civilization and going to reproduce to wipe us out. Even in the old movies, "let's murder godzilla" was the core position of every movie, but we accept his help when something worse happens.
Ahtman wrote: Aren't there animals that are fiercely territorial and will attack others that it feels threaten its territory? You know, besides humans.
IIRC, Rhinos and hippos are... aren't they? I know that I read somewhere that there are more humans attacked in Africa by hippos than by lions.
As I mentioned, we don't actually know that the MUTOs reproduce by the thousands or, even if we assume they do in the natural course of their lifecycles, whether they can successfully manage it on modern earth. The movie sends mixed messages about this and I tend to think, given the care taken with other aspects of the movie, this ambiguity is intended.
When he decides to kill the eggs, Ford is acting on an assumption that is fueled by his frustration, disgust, and fear. This may be understandable but is it forgivable? We might say that Ford, and humanity generally in this movie, are acting a lot more on instinct than from a rational perspective. Even the scientists can apparently only give us their feelings on the subject. When Graham is asked for alternative plans, which we might guess she's spent years working on, she can only storm out of the room. Serizawa just gawks his way through the film, occasionally offering unhelpful Yodaisms while doing nothing.
To the extent that humans actually do anything in this film, it is by acting like animals. And yes, that includes being really dumb. For example, they shoot missiles at the Golden Gate bridge while it is full of civilian (mostly children) refugees. And as I have discussed, the only significant action any human takes regarding the MUTOs is Ford killing the babies (the babies), an act bookended by clear signs that the MUTOs have intelligence and feeling, making Ford's act horrific to anyone able to think more than purely animalistic thoughts.
Humans are presnted as ignorant, arrogant, and monstrous in this film -- but not critically.
In this way, Godzilla ends up not as a symbol of man's smallness or a reminder of his responsibility but as a reaffirmation of his conceited, animal-like recklessness.
Ahtman wrote: Aren't there animals that are fiercely territorial and will attack others that it feels threaten its territory? You know, besides humans.
nkelsch wrote: I think we can all agree that the true 'monster' has always been MAN.
Yes, and that was certainly the criticism of humanity in the 1954 film. The 2014 film doesn't seem to criticize this, however.
Spoiler:
Instead of killing Godzilla and at the same time destroying a terrible human-made weapon, as the real Dr. Serizawa does in 1954, this Godzilla walks off to cheers and G.I. Joe the protagonist (literally as per the film's own visual language) easily reunites with mom and son.
As for me, I wondered if all those people hanging around Sleepy G (including our scientists) got incidentally killed when he woke up. It is completely in-character with the rest of the film that we don't find out.
WHY does Dr. Serizawa believe that Godzilla is a force for Balance?
This is a seriously good question. I think there is a comic book about it. I don't think that excuses the movie, however. Just saying, if you want to know the take a look at this.
WHY does Dr. Serizawa believe that Godzilla is a force for Balance?
This is a seriously good question. I think there is a comic book about it. I don't think that excuses the movie, however. Just saying, if you want to know the take a look at this.
Spoiler:
SUPPOSEDLY (the plot of the comic), when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Dr. Serizawa was a baby, and his Father was not directly in the blast but in the effected area where everything was destroyed. The Blast apparently Summoned a Kaiju which Godzilla instantly put down, hence saving Dr. Serizawa as a baby with his father being the sole witness to the fight. That is when everyone started to try to hunt down and kill Godzilla, and they thought they did. They didn't realize that Godzilla had confronted and destroyed a threat at the time.
So Dr. Serizawa was raised knowing Godzilla saved his life and has spent a lifetime studying him, hence his religious-like faith in him.
Or so says that prequel comic written by the scriptwriter. They could have spend literally 5 minutes on a flashback when he talked about the watch and added some depth to the movie.
Alpharius wrote: Even though I'm happy with this one, and enjoyed it, I want a bit....more...the next time around!
More of some things, less of others.
Putting aside the thematic hollowness of this movie, I can't imagine the sequel trading on NOT seeing Godzilla.
Dr. Graham is the only character I'd care to see in a sequel although I would guess Dr. Serizawa is as obligatory in a sequel as in this one. I really, really hope G.I. Joe doesn't get to be in it.
Pacific Rim was a very, very poor attempt at mainstreamization of kaiju movies.....
Or the greatest Giant Robot movie in 30 years! I can see how it would be a pretty disappointing kaiju movie, but those guys were only there to get punched in the face. That was a glorious pure mecha movie.
I'll see Godzilla when it comes out on amazon. I'm still too burned from Iguanazilla.
Not at all. A terrible movie cannot be made not terrible by special effects alone. Best in 30 years? bleh. Real Steel crushes Pacific Rim in recent Mecha movies and shows what a flop and tragedy Pacific Rim was and what it 'could have been'. A real plot, real acting and not being a total sellout mess could have redeemed the special effects and mecha designs of Pacific rim. What could have been a great movie was smothered in just raw feces-quality in every other aspect.
I saw this last night and was pleasantly surprised.
Personally I don't understand the complaints that there wasn't enough monster on monster fighting. I thought the amount was perfect, and keeping each sequence only a couple of minutes long meant they didn't get boring. Long overblown action sequences can ruin films.
I much preferred this to the extremely bloated and overrated Pacific Rim. But then again I liked Cloverfield so what do I know?
I think godzilla was more looking at the amount of carnage these things create from a more human perspective instead of overblown monster fighting scenes. A lot of the plot holes were silly.
Spoiler:
[sp]I thought there was 24 hour survellience on Yucca Mt disposal in case of domestic terrorism, also, The Yucca Mt facility has seismic sensors as well, in case of earthquake. Why did the MUTO tremors not trip it? The nuclear bomb blowing within sight of San Fran? Erm, even with blast size dialed down, it'd still cause a tidal surge, Finally, why the heck didn't the EOD just remove the radioactive core from the nuke and thus cause only a conventional explosion[spoiler]{/spoiler]
I much rather seeing godzilla from a human's eye view (Terrifying) than to see him from a godlike view where you lose all sense of emotion.
I enjoyed the movie. Sure, there were things to nitpick but overall I had a good time.
I'm glad the filmaker's gave the MUTO an EMP effect to explain why we wouldn;t just shoot them to death with cruise missiles. However, I don;t think they really knew how EMP effects worked.
AS an a side, aren't military grade hardware hardened against EMPs? We've know about it for sometime.
It is also not clear why a bazillion-year-old animal would evolve the capacity to emit such powerful EMPs, especially considering they do not seem to effect its predator.
The EMP thing is I suppose just another conceit. There is the nuclear bomb connection, sure, but one wonders if the monsters would be nearly as threatening if they could not turn off our machines.
Not at all. A terrible movie cannot be made not terrible by special effects alone. Best in 30 years? bleh. Real Steel crushes Pacific Rim in recent Mecha movies and shows what a flop and tragedy Pacific Rim was and what it 'could have been'. A real plot, real acting and not being a total sellout mess could have redeemed the special effects and mecha designs of Pacific rim. What could have been a great movie was smothered in just raw feces-quality in every other aspect.
The story was better and the characters were more interesting then anyone in Godzilla. And the CGI was better and there was a lot more of it.
Fair enough, saying CGI is better is a bit of a over generalized statement. What my point with that was is, because there was so much more of it, more environments too, it left a way better impact on me. Also, Godzilla suffers greatly from the curse of BROWN. Apart from glowy godzilla and glowy MUTO's, that movie had 2 colours.
[sp]I thought there was 24 hour survellience on Yucca Mt disposal in case of domestic terrorism, also, The Yucca Mt facility has seismic sensors as well, in case of earthquake. Why did the MUTO tremors not trip it? The nuclear bomb blowing within sight of San Fran? Erm, even with blast size dialed down, it'd still cause a tidal surge, Finally, why the heck didn't the EOD just remove the radioactive core from the nuke and thus cause only a conventional explosion[spoiler]{/spoiler]
Spoiler:
That isn't a plot hole, that is a narrative conceit. If you don't know any of those things outside the film you would not know about them. Now if the film had mentioned them and then ignored them it would be a plot hole, but as it is you are taking outside information and applying it. Films almost always take liberties with reality. Go watch a movie about/around aircraft with a pilot, about the law with a lawyer, or bout medicine with a doctor/nurse and you will get an earful about how it doesn't match up to reality.
The whole point of the nuke was to be an absurdly powerful explosion that they were should would attract and kill the creatures. Removing the nuclear element removes any reason for it. As to why they didn't later it was said at lest twice that the casing was messed up and they couldn't get into immediately. They had time initially to crack it but were on the run to avoid being stomped, then on the boat he didn't have the tools of the time. The flash is a visual cue that the bomb went off, but since we are shown that no one was killed by the blast and fallout apparently wasn't a concern we are lead to believe it far enough away not to wipe out the city, which it sure seemed like it was.
Maybe not the blast, but the fallout from a modern nuke that close would have still exposed hundreds of thousands of people to very high levels of radiation. No way is just a minute by ferry boat off the Golden Gate Bridge outside the safe zone.
Bit of having your cake and eating it, too. Visually and thematically, the film posed as sober and realistic. But all of these conceits cut against that grain. For example, I hear lots of praise about the film meditating on the destruction (contrary to, for example, Man of Steel). And yet
Spoiler:
when Godzilla gets up at the end, when we know there are tons of people around him (including principal cast members), we are given no indication of the ensuing destruction and death.
This is just the most egregious example. Oh I get it, this is where I'm supposed to say "well it's just a Godzilla movie."
Maybe not the blast, but the fallout from a modern nuke that close would have still exposed hundreds of thousands of people to very high levels of radiation. No way is just a minute by ferry boat off the Golden Gate Bridge outside the safe zone.
Nope, the Captain said we don't have to worry about that. So forget it and "meditate on the reality of destruction" unlike that awful, callous Man of Steel.
Godzilla 1985 did the whole thematic thing better. The new Godzilla really was an hour and a half of near-filler with one very exciting monster fight.
Speaking of having your cake and eating it, too, did they really think it would be a good idea to take the tone, pacing and screentime from 1954 and then apply it to a 1960's-style "Godzilla vs _________" plot? He's an unstoppable force of nature, destruction unleashed, who avoids harming children and saves the world? Huh?
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Godzilla 1985 did the whole thematic thing better. The new Godzilla really was an hour and a half of near-filler with one very exciting monster fight.
Speaking of having your cake and eating it, too, did they really think it would be a good idea to take the tone, pacing and screentime from 1954 and then apply it to a 1960's-style "Godzilla vs _________" plot? He's an unstoppable force of nature, destruction unleashed, who avoids harming children and saves the world? Huh?
Also he's an alpha predator that never eats anything.
He eats the radiation from the Earth, and doesn't want to share it with other creatures like the MUTO, which threaten his nap time absorbing the radioactive nom noms.
While he was the main character, I didn't feel like he alone saved anything, barring the one scene where he set the eggs on fire. For the most part it was a group effort. I imagine they showed military because most civilians don't have access to aircraft carriers and fighter planes.
Alpharius wrote: I think that the assumption is that Godzilla literally cannot rest while other Kaiju are active.
The film asserts an ecological explanation:
Spoiler:
The MUTOs are shown to be parasites of endoskeletal kaiju (like Godzilla) during an early phase of their life cycle. By definition, parasites harm their hosts. In that sense, the MUTOs actually prey on Godzilla. Godzilla preemtively protects himself by trying to prevent the MUTOs from reproducing. He is activated by their mating calls.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: He's an unstoppable force of nature, destruction unleashed, who avoids harming children and saves the world? Huh?
That's a pretty awesome point. For example
Spoiler:
recall the little girl in Hawaii who notices the tide going out as Godzilla approaches. She and her family manage to run into a building with huge class windows while 30-40 feet of water, roiling with cars and trucks, surges down the street. The cut implies they are safe.
Contrast that with All Out Monster Attack (2001), where the hospitalized girl sighs in relief as Godzilla stomps off only to be killed when his tail whips around and smashes the building.
A movie about the real horrors of violence and destruction would be better without an impossibly large reptilian sea monster.
Nice one. I guess the idea is, he is a predator in the (non-technical) sense that he kills other organisms that compete for the same resources as him.
Ahtman wrote: he MUTO, which threaten his nap time absorbing the radioactive nom noms
How do you mean, threaten?
Spoiler:
Closest I could figure is parasitical infestation.
I have no idea, just reiterating what was presented. They call him an alpha predator but if anything they seem to posit that Godzilla is some sort of Gaia white blood cell.
Nevelon wrote: To be fair, Godzilla has elements of both going on.
Agreed in terms of the overall franchise. The world this movie attempts to depict is hard materialist, however, which leaves the scientists looking foolish. But that's par for the course for them.
Spoiler:
They spend 15 years studying two MUTOs. They learn basically nothing about the cocooned one and think the other one is effectively dead. Furthermore, what has Monarch been doing for 60 years? When Godzilla shows up, they have no worthwhile recommendations. Science is immediately suborned to the military, which we can hardly complain about given science has no ideas -- except of course the military has no ideas either. But they have to look like they have an idea, the only one they are ever allowed to have in movies, which is "get the bombs," and our scientists protest but on ideological and/or spiritual grounds rather than scientific ones.
In fact, the only thing useful a scientist says in this film sounds suspiciously like a lie.
Spoiler:
When Ford asks Dr. Graham why Monarch did not kill the MUTO in Japan, she says they were afraid its death would create a radioactive disaster. She does not give any explanation as to why that would be the case and the audience has no reason to believe Monarch would dispose of such a rare and valuable specimen.
Interestingly, the film does not seem to critique science or scientists. If anything, Watanabe's Serizawa is portrayed as something of a prophet and moral compass. But upon closer examination, he's totally superfluous except as a mirror for the filmmakers' and audience's flummoxed credulity.
Nevelon wrote: [/spoiler]In fact, the only thing useful a scientist says in this film sounds suspiciously like a lie.
Spoiler:
When Ford asks Dr. Graham why Monarch did not kill the MUTO in Japan, she says they were afraid its death would create a radioactive disaster. She does not give any explanation as to why that would be the case and the audience has no reason to believe Monarch would dispose of such a rare and valuable specimen.
Interestingly, the film does not seem to critique science or scientists. If anything, Watanabe's Serizawa is portrayed as something of a prophet and moral compass. But upon closer examination, he's totally superfluous except as a mirror for the filmmakers' and audience's flummoxed credulity.
Spoiler:
You mean, why were they worried about killing the MUTO in Japan, when they explained in the same scene that it was absorbing all the radiation leaking from the entire ruined plant, and made it easy to allow the viewer to assume that killing it would release all of it? The MUTO containing the radiation in it's body was the only reason that the disaster scene was "clean" for humans.
Fair enough, saying CGI is better is a bit of a over generalized statement. What my point with that was is, because there was so much more of it, more environments too, it left a way better impact on me. Also, Godzilla suffers greatly from the curse of BROWN. Apart from glowy godzilla and glowy MUTO's, that movie had 2 colours.
I've figured it out. A mummy Mothra and a Daddy Rodan had a special hug!
You mean, why were they worried about killing the MUTO in Japan, when they explained in the same scene that it was absorbing all the radiation leaking from the entire ruined plant, and made it easy to allow the viewer to assume that killing it would release all of it? The MUTO containing the radiation in it's body was the only reason that the disaster scene was "clean" for humans.
Spoiler:
Eating means converting something into something else. If I were to kill a bug, it would not release all the energy it consumed over the course of its life. Also note she did not say they refused to kill it because they wanted to clean up the site.
Alpha predators often drive off or kill anything that they see a threat to their dominance, it's not just about eating. Lions routinely go after a wide number of animals in their domain to kill not only them but their offspring so that they can prevent other predators from competing with future generations of their pride. Similar behavior has been seen with killer whales and dolphins who go after sharks in their area.
BobtheInquisitor wrote: Also, everyone in SF will die from Firefighter's Lung in a few years, anyway.
I also thought that when watching that scene. Don't worry, guys, Christie Todd Whitman said there's no problem.
The death count is going to be insane... and no one to 'sue' either. So one would hope 'humanity' would come together and be thankful to be alive... Realistically, Sanfransico would need to be closed for a decade to take down and clean out all the damaged buildings and deal with all the issues before they can even bother rebuilding.
But we all know that ain't how it is gonna go down. Humans are dicks and we are terrible to each other.
Been reading this thread, but I seem to have taken away that Mothra is "good"...
Also, thank you Ouze for your amazing Dakka Bingo thing which I have only just discovered! No longer do I need to keep track of dakka bingo with my feeble mind. Truly, we live in a time of kings.
Medium of Death wrote: Been reading this thread, but I seem to have taken away that Mothra is "good"...
Also, thank you Ouze for your amazing Dakka Bingo thing which I have only just discovered! No longer do I need to keep track of dakka bingo with my feeble mind. Truly, we live in a time of kings.
Historically, Mothra has been the 'closest' to actually defeating Godzilla.
Mothra has had psychic powers and can communicate with humans via controlling a human and having them speak which has allowed intent to be communicated to the human race.
Also, Mothra seems, to rely on being 'reborn' which means you get the larvae, cocoon then Moth mode over and over again, and can 'go away' when back in the egg which makes her pretty convenient to put back in her place, much how Godzilla just goes to the bottom of the ocean.
Another big rival is Rodan, which can be multiples like MUTO...
This assumes they bother with regurgitating classics and don't just make new ones like MUTO.
If you look closely when the father and son return to their old home, you can see a fish tank with a broken cocoon in it. The name on the tank is "mothra".
hotsauceman1 wrote: Maybe I should end my moratorium on seeing movies alone. None of my friends want too see it with me
Seeing movies alone is the best way to see them.
I saw Godzilla in IMAX 3D alone on Monday and I quite enjoyed. A few things:
Spoiler:
As a former resident of Las Vegas, I was happy to see the MUTO carve a path of destruction through that city. Though it did bother me that everyone in the move pronounced Nevada incorrectly... it isn't Nev-ah-duh people!.
There were plot stupidities and the film definitely suffers from everything-happens-to-the-main-character cliche but I can overlook that.
I also enjoyed the buildup instead of starting out with Godzilla everywhere. That being said, I didn't care about the main character though... at all. I would have much preferred Brian Cranston to have taken his place. Oh well.
Not bad enough that I won't go to the sequel, but not good enough that I'mma buy it on DVD.
Godzilla was awesome, and I did like the build up instead of "RAAAAAH GODZILLA!", along with the fight scene, but the main character was poorly written, the radiation fallout was non existent, and the fact that the Japanese guy felt absolutely token......
Because it would need to be are rated. Then teens can't get in. And with Lovecraft being public domain, studios can't get a accurate measurement of audiences, which is bad for them
Grey Templar wrote: How does it being Public Domain make it difficult to get an accurate measurement of audience?
Its still a thing with a following, which can be measured.
That doesn't mean they think it is a marketable thing, or at least not marketable to a large enough crowd to justify its budget*. People have tried to get a Lovecraft movie off for years to varying success, usually just smaller budget horror films like Dagon or the silent throwback The Call of Cthulhu. Del Toro has been trying to do At the Mountains of Madness for years, and was working on that before it fell through (again) and he went to Pacific Rim. You can always watch John Carpenter's In the Mouth Of Madness.
*I'm not saying that is true, I'm saying a bean counter somewhere is saying that is true.
from a movie review that I found in an Amazon email wrote: It turns out that Godzilla is the Earth’s protector, created to bring “balance” whenever other scary, giant monsters turn up and ruin vacation spots like Hawaii and Vegas. Godzilla emotes far more believably than the human cast, although Watanabe deserves credit for delivering the film’s best line (“Let them fight,” in answer to the U.S. military’s convoluted plan to knock out all three monsters at once).
Snark aside, this is nevertheless a blast with high tension throughout--and when the monster fights do happen, the audience would be wise to clear their throats of any excess popcorn. There are cheer-worthy moments when Godzilla comes to the rescue, and the scope of destruction is immense and impressively managed.
Be advised that this film features more of the destruction that the monsters cause than the monsters themselves. This is a classic Godzilla approach, as the Kaiju retain their terror and mystique without overexposure. And when he is given ample screen time, Godzilla is a wonder to behold; his new film is best viewed on as big of a screen as possible and with eyes open wide.
As to Mothra being a good guy ... er, gal, that seems to be a central aspect of her character. It's hard to imagine how she or the shobijn could fit into the super seroiusness tone of contemporary Hollywood movies. The comparison between her and Caesar Romero's Joker is inapt. Between Romero and Ledger, there was Nicholson (who is arguably scarier than Ledger). There's no step like that for Mothra. I have a feeling Hollywood would just butcher her.
Manchu wrote: As to Mothra being a good guy ... er, gal, that seems to be a central aspect of her character. It's hard to imagine how she or the shobijn could fit into the super seroiusness tone of contemporary Hollywood movies. The comparison between her and Caesar Romero's Joker is inapt. Between Romero and Ledger, there was Nicholson (who is arguably scarier than Ledger). There's no step like that for Mothra. I have a feeling Hollywood would just butcher her.
There is being a 'good guy' and then there is being a 'good for her' guy. Perfect balance at the hands of mind control may be a perfect society and protect mother earth but would be seen as a terrible thing for humanity. I could see a malevolent creature of balance saying 'humanity has done too much' and trying to take over everything via her telepathy. Even causing political strife to help humans self annihilate or something. One can be pursuing a path of 'good' while being at odds with humanity, cuz humanity sucks in general.
paulson games wrote: Maybe Godzilla is just a baller and killing is his thing, doesn't need a reason outside being an ice cold killa-zilla.
Other monsters roll up in his hood without proper respect and he's gotta show them just how OG he is really is.
(Image of rapping Godzilla hanging his micro Uzi out the window of a chump chort and dusting a mob of monsters is now in my head)
Thread win.
While writing that, I had this playing in the back of my mind, with an image of Godzilla cruising in a low rider sporting a bandanna and a flannel buttoned at the neck.
While writing that, I had this playing in the back of my mind, Godzilla cruising in a low rider sporting a bandanna and a flannel buttoned at the neck.
Just saw it, it was pretty sweet, some problems with it. Like how children where way to much of the focus, The main as a kid, The Kid on a train, the Mains Son and the little girl.
I also loved Muto, it looked very modern, compared to the older design of zilla.
One big problem, It is obvious that muto can sense radiation along way away, it going for the reactor. Why did they move the bomb by train? Did they not put two and two together that it would come for the bomb?
hotsauceman1 wrote: Just saw it, it was pretty sweet, some problems with it. Like how children where way to much of the focus, The main as a kid, The Kid on a train, the Mains Son and the little girl.
Have you ever actually seen a godzilla movie? They are all full of 'little kids' with pointless focusing on little kids. When a Kaiju comes to earth it is always a little kid who discovers it or some crap.
I also loved Muto, it looked very modern, compared to the older design of zilla.
One big problem, It is obvious that muto can sense radiation along way away, it going for the reactor. Why did they move the bomb by train? Did they not put two and two together that it would come for the bomb?
Because when it gets close, an EMP bubble it has won't shut down a train. There is no other way to move it which won't be hit by the EMP. They were literally relying on the hope that the MUTO wouldn't notice until they were ready since they had no other alternative.
They seem to know the extent of the MUTO's EMP bubble (as per the nifty 3D diagram in the movie) ... so why not fly a plane around it? One also wonders how the MUTO managed to sneak up on the train. In this movie, humans are super bad at keeping track of giant monsters.
Because when it gets close, an EMP bubble it has won't shut down a train. There is no other way to move it which won't be hit by the EMP. They were literally relying on the hope that the MUTO wouldn't notice until they were ready since they had no other alternative.
And why would EMP not shut down a modern train and all the gadgets which run modern rail lines?
You can see the damn thing from outside of its EMP range. If nothing else, you could get guys to use fires and smoke signals to keep track of it. It's a problem with the film -- making the monsters scary by making the people dumb.
I'd also add that I don't think male MUTO could fly faster then any small cargo plane... Considering how fast biological flight is at it's top speed (360km/h for a peregrine falcon in a dive).
Yeah, the whole nuke Idea was bad. Why where they so sure to nuke it from the beggining anyway? No ICBMs that arent nukes? No plans dropping a few incindiary devices?
No, the US does not have ICBMs that are not nukes. Russia and China have pretty clearly nixed that idea (we called the concept Prompt Global Strike and according to the various nuke treaties a conventional warhead on an ICBM = bound by treaty anyway).
They explained in the movie they felt a nuke was the only way to deliver a big enough blast to ensure destruction of the critters. I guess they felt conventional explosives and incendiaries were not up to the task.
Makes you wonder if MUTOs punch and kick with a force greater than our most powerful weapons. If not, then the MUTOs never actually posed a threat to Godzilla in their melee.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Yeah, the whole nuke Idea was bad. Why where they so sure to nuke it from the beggining anyway? No ICBMs that arent nukes?
You used a specific phrase - ICBM - that CaptainJake already explained away, but I think your core idea is sound even if you used a bad example. We certainly have plenty of conventional ordnance we could have dropped on them. I imagine we could have used Patriots against the flying one, or Tomahawks on the ground, and hell, even if it emits that EMP field continuously - which I don't think it did - there were plenty of times when it was more or less stationary enough that we could have rocked it with unguided shells from offshore.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Yeah, the whole nuke Idea was bad. Why where they so sure to nuke it from the beggining anyway? No ICBMs that arent nukes? No plans dropping a few incindiary devices?
Heck, they could have flown some b-52s above the EMP bubble and (instead of dropping HALO jumping dudes) unloaded a several tons of high-explosives while the MUTO hiked across the Nevada desert.
Manchu wrote: They seem to know the extent of the MUTO's EMP bubble (as per the nifty 3D diagram in the movie) ... so why not fly a plane around it? One also wonders how the MUTO managed to sneak up on the train. In this movie, humans are super bad at keeping track of giant monsters.
That was another thing that I despised about the movie; Godzilla and Co. were like 100 meter tall Ninjas. IIRC there were four scenes where you suddenly had a GIANT MONSTER right on top of you.
Spoiler:
The ending Kiss of Death scene, for instance. Female MUTO is there, the main character is there, SUDDENLY GODZILLA. You would think you would hear them stomping around quite a bit.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Yeah, the whole nuke Idea was bad. Why where they so sure to nuke it from the beggining anyway? No ICBMs that arent nukes? No plans dropping a few incindiary devices?
Heck, they could have flown some b-52s above the EMP bubble and (instead of dropping HALO jumping dudes) unloaded a several tons of high-explosives while the MUTO hiked across the Nevada desert.
Opening credits
“Wow, Horrible things are happening, what do we do?”
<sensible, logical things, taking about 15 minutes to pull off>
“Yup, that works”
End credits
Now the credits are getting longer and longer these days, but you do need some movie to put between them. Real life and practical things don’t get along very well in Hollywood.
That was another thing that I despised about the movie; Godzilla and Co. were like 100 meter tall Ninjas. IIRC there were four scenes where you suddenly had a GIANT MONSTER right on top of you.
I blame the dust clouds that obscured about 85% of the movie. Could have used less of those.
Godzilla Banks on Nostalgia, Keeps Other Monsters From Having Babies
Ryan Britt
It’s not exactly The Blair Witch Project, but the new Godzilla is initially a little hesitant to give you a full, proper ogle at its titular monster. There he is on a TV. There he is out of the corner of someone’s eye. Wait, I think I saw part of him from the window of this air-train taking the protagonist to a flight I’m sure won’t get delayed because of Godzilla. Wait, is Godzilla late to his own movie? Fortunately, when you do see the big G in all his tall swinging, blue-fire-breathing action, you can’t help but think to yourself “Whoo-hoo! You show em’ Godzilla!” Actually, maybe I said that out loud.
But who are these other creatures he’s battling and is this movie really positing Godzilla as global monster-buster?
Spoilers for Godzilla ahead
As aficionados of Godzilla are aware, the thematic nature of this monster is different depending on which Godzilla movie you’re watching. Here are the two most popular options for what any given Godzilla movie is all about:
A.) Godzilla is a monster who stomps and destroys us and we feel guilty about it.
B.) Godzilla is a monster who fights other monsters and prevents us (kind of) from being destroyed and we still feel guilty about it.
This new Godzilla remake splits the difference and makes him one thing toward the start, and something else in the middle and the end, but is fairly light on the guilt trips.
There’s several human, non-Godzilla-centric conflicts in the movie, but the primary one that concerns G. Zilla is this: a couple of other giant monsters called MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Object) want to mate and start breeding more MUTOs. Godzilla’s appearance then, is described by Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe) as possibly “restoring balance to nature,” and Godzilla is characterized as an “alpha predator.” Effectively, the job of the Big G is really just acting as birth control for other monsters. Cutely, these two MUTO’s nuzzle each other when they meet up, but faster than you can say “Godzilla,” Godzilla is on the scene to monster-block their love fest. And though this premise sounds ridiculous, for the purposes of having post-hibernation prehistoric monsters fight with each other, it’s a fairly reasonable conceit and also succeeds in softly vilifying the MUTOs while putting Godzilla in a more heroic light. Is it creepy that Godzilla is so anti-sex? A little.
Even though there’s a slow burn on getting a good look at Godzilla himself (bizarrely, I’m fairly sure the MUTOs have more screen time), the scenes he is in are great. The fights between Godzilla and these creatures are totally exciting, and (refreshingly) not overly long. The moment when Godzilla’s signature blue lightning activates is thrilling, and Godzilla’s defeat of the final MUTO by snapping its jaws open serves as a kind of reverse homage to King Kong’s 1933 defeat of the T-rex on Skull Island. It’s terrifying and badass. (Even in a spoiler review, I can’t and won’t ruin the best and most hardcore part about this scene.) And while I wished there was one more Godzilla vs. Other Monster scene, the fights we got here were satisfying, fresh, and familiar at the same time.
But what about the human characters, and their metaphysical debates about super weapons and the danger of believing we can control nature? This time we’ve got Bryan Cranston as crazed and sad scientist Joe Brody and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as his Navy bomb-deactivating son named Ford. Plot convenience is often a force of nature in a big disaster movie like this, and here is no exception since hunky Ford’s wife Elle (Elizabeth Olsen) works not in advertising nor at a Planet Fitness, but instead is a nurse who is helping with all the monster-fallout victims. The movie stops short of giving us an uncle who just happens to work in giant-net-casting-monster-trap business.*
*This joke was stolen over wine and whiskey with writer and fellow Godzilla-fan, Jim Shepard.
The scientist characters in the film either die early (Cranston’s Joe is dead about 45 minutes in) or play fourth fiddle to the other characters, most of whom are in the military. (Godzilla himself is probably second fiddle to the MUTOs). I loved Ken Watanabe as this film’s version of classic Godzilla character Dr. Serizawa, though he sadly didn’t rock an eyepatch. I similarly adored Sally Hawkins as his science partner Dr. Vivienne Graham, and yet neither have as much screentime as Taylor-Johnson’s Ford Brody and his military machinations. This Godzilla differs from other Godzillas in a very specific way: it feels like a war movie. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this, as the original concept behind the Godzilla movies deals specifically with nuclear weapons and the militaries using them, but the classic 1954 film actually features way more civilians than this one does.
I’m not saying there’s anything incorrect with focusing on members of the military as the visible human heroes of a movie like this, but I did find the militarization of this film jarring and somewhat arbitrary. It’s not jingoistic at all, but I guess I wished that the scientists (whether engineers like Cranston or paleontologists like Watanabe) played more of an instrumental part in the movie. To put it another way: if the new Jurassic Park film—Jurassic World— features mostly military dino-hunters and not scientists talking about the ethics of extinction, it will feel a little off in comparison to the original 1993 film. I suppose the militarization of a Godzilla film is realistic, and if you’re going to try and make a Godzilla movie feel realistic, this one does a fairly good job.
The film concludes with the fictional news outlets declaring Godzilla “the king of monsters,” and trumpeting him as the savior of San Francisco, but really it feels more like a western, one in which Godzilla declares “there’s only one sheriff in this monster town,” and then proves it. And so, as Godzilla descends back into the sea, no one tries to kill him, or shake their fist at all the damage they’re going to have to repair, or how they feel ripped off that Bryan Cranston wasn’t in the movie a little bit more. Instead, if you’re a regular audience member, you’re probably cheering. Has the movie manipulated you into those cheers with some heavy nostalgia and lighthearted monster action? Yes. Should you care or be offended? Probably not. As long as you don’t think too hard about Godzilla’s own family, or if there was a monster that tried to prevent his birth, you’ll be fine.
Personally, I’d rather live in world with Godzilla movies than without them, so for now, I guess I’m happy enough that this movie did something that, bizarrely, felt risky: they let the monster survive. And because I saw so little of this new version of him, I’m glad Godzilla lived to stomp and make that amazing noise of his, another day.
Also, when they where planning, I just dont get why they thought carrying it by train was a good idea.
Another thing, did anyone else find when the mutos first meet eatchother to be kinda cut, with them nuzzling eatchother and putting the nuke to the eggs? It was kinda adorble.
Also, where they sentient? They seemed pretty smart
hotsauceman1 wrote: Also, when they where planning, I just dont get why they thought carrying it by train was a good idea.
Another thing, did anyone else find when the mutos first meet eatchother to be kinda cut, with them nuzzling eatchother and putting the nuke to the eggs? It was kinda adorble.
Also, where they sentient? They seemed pretty smart
I thought they were absolutely adorable. I was like 'awww, he is giving her a present' to my girlfriend and she agreed with me. I wanted to jump into the screen and give them all a hug and some flowers.
It was out of print for a while with the hardcovers going for way too much but it just got published in paperback. It's really a lovely book and easy to get a copy for now, unlike for example David Kalat's excellent book on the franchise.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I was 6 when it came out and saw it in theatres. It holds a special place in my heart, I love the 98 movie.
I'm with many when I say don't call the 1998 movie "Godzilla" and everything is OK!
The biggest Irony? Toho requested he look the way he did, they wanted him to look different from our godzilla so they could add him to the godzilla canon. They even approved the design saying they loved it.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Toho requested he look the way he did, they wanted him to look different from our godzilla so they could add him to the godzilla canon. They even approved the design saying they loved it.
No, that's not quite what happened. IIRC, the model was packed off by Emmerich to Japan. Toho was prepared to give minor criticisms since they were not paying the bills. When they saw that Emmerich's monster was so radically different, there was no applicable minor criticism. Therefore, they did the polite thing.
Like I said, Toho could not tell the TriStar team to scrap everything and do it their way. Yes, they approved the design. That does not mean they asked for it or loved it.
Huh, looks lime emmirich gave the order for fast and agile.
Still, I never understood that hatred for the design itself, yeah, it isnt godzilla, but he looks awesome.
That's the trouble. When you tell someone that a thing is X when it clearly is not X, they tend to find it irritating. This is the point I was getting about with nkelsch's idea about an evil, mind-controlling version of Mothra for the sequel to Godzilla 2014. It's not that a mind-controlling kaiju is a bad idea. Just don't try to tell me it's Mothra.
Whats wrong with reimaginings? What if mothra is just like godzilla, an old protector, but she is concerned that the world is being destroyed by man? So she mind controls high up officials while going after oil platforms and other such things?
"Reimagining" is a marketing term. It tends to mean, capitalize on the existing value of IP without any consideration for what made it valuable in the first place. It is bad because it diminishes the value of the IP. Godzilla 1998 is a great example of what's wrong with reimagining.
As to Mothra: she is the guardian monster. (Godzilla and all the others are more or less ambiguous overall or straight-up evil like Gigan.) More specifically, what makes Mothra interesting is that she is clearly good from a human perspective. This is the point of the Shobijin. Unlike Godzilla and other kaiju, who are vast and unknowable, Mothra has ambassadors -- and in the weirdest way. One of the most striking things about kaiju is obviously their size. But the Shobijin are tiny ladies, much smaller than humans. (To them, humans are kaiju-sized.) What a contrast! In other words, Mothra obviously understands and respects the human scale (and smaller!) perspective. The human characters in Mothra movies can easily be judged by how they treat the Shobijin.
This is why a mind-controlling tyrant Mothra would suck.
It's alright to have changes in reimaginings but if you start to change things that are integral or iconic to the source material then you're probably missing what made the source material appealing in the first place.
I think you are trying to understand the film too literally. Instead, try to understand that the movie is not concerned about realism. Nelson's heartless enslavement of the Shobijin, the murders he commits to do it, his selfish assertion that his personal fortune trumps thousands of lives is one image. Mothra's attacks on Tokyo and New York are another image. In the monster fantasy genre, these images balance each other. That's because the audience knows Nelson stands for the worst aspects of humanity. Mothra stands for divine judgment. Now other kaiju have been interpreted this way as well. What makes Mothra stand out is that she hears our prayers, as it were, and is merciful.
Going back, it seems while mothra is good, she will feth things up in the the name of good.
Besides, what is wrong with a reimagining where mothra is still good, but going about it all wrong?
Also.....Off on a tangeant what could that skeleton could have been? It looked snake like. Any monsters that could fit the bill?
hotsauceman1 wrote: Going back, it seems while mothra is good, she will feth things up in the the name of good.
The original Mothra film is really interesting because it creates a twist on the kaiju genre. At first, nothing seems too out of the ordinary despite the tiny ladies. The tiny ladies seem to just be monster bait. The audience quickly understands that Mothra will pursue the Shobijin. The resulting destruction, however, is ambiguous. Is Mothra consciously punishing humans for kidnapping the Shobijin or just looking for them and incidentally making a terrible mess of city blocks because of her enormous size? It is unclear. Even the Shobijin's warning is ambiguous -- they beg to be freed because good people as well as bad will be caught up in the devastation of Mothra's pursuit. They do not threaten their captor with punishment, however.
So far, this is not too different from the original Godzilla movie, where the characters variously interpret Godzilla as the punishment for their social guilt or just an animal. But there is a huge difference between Godzilla (1954) and Mothra (1961) in that the former film closes with the killing of Godzilla while the latter film has a happy ending with Mothra flying away. That is, Godzilla ends in the ashes of a war. Mothra ends with an affirmation of peace. But that's not even the real twist. What's really interesting about Mothra is that the humans trying to return the Shobijin manage to communicate with her. That is, not through the Shobijin's telepathy but through visual symbols. In other words, Mothra is a being of sentience -- capable of compassion and forgiveness.
Once you realize that, the whole film takes on a different light watching it a second time. You realize that we see Mothra "grow up" over the course of the movie. Maybe baby Mothra, like a human baby, was more animalistic, simply following its instinct. Maybe her attack was a toddler's temper tantrum. What then is the sign of her finally maturing? When she learns to be merciful and restrained. This is further confirmed in later films, where the ultimate expression of Mothra's moral maturity is her willingness to sacrifice her own life for humanity.
I have written a lot more on Dakka about Mothra in case you are interested.
Spoiler:
Manchu wrote: Looking back over 60 years of Godzilla movies, one might assume the franchise always had a sort of inevitable quality. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Although the first Godzilla film was a big success, its immediate sequel Godzilla Raids Again (1955) failed to establish a firm basis for what would become the Godzilla franchise -- and this despite employing for the first time that magic formula of pitting Godzilla against another kaiju (in that case, Anguirus).
What happened? Audiences were certainly not already tired of kaiju. The 1956 re-release of RKO's King Kong did big business around the world. Toho Studios achieved further success with Rodan in 1956 and Varan in 1958. And Mothra first appeared in her own eponymous feature in 1961, seven years after Godzilla's own first appearance and six years since Godzilla had at that point last appeared on the big screen.
I think the problem was Anguirus. Whatever interesting facets he might later develop, Anguirus originally had no other purpose than to lose a fight with Godzilla. He even had the same back story as Godzilla, effectively making him "Godzilla except not as good." In other words, Anguirus was just "supporting cast" when what Toho really needed was a "guest star" crossover battle. It finally came together in 1962 with the smash hit King Kong v. Godzilla. And the very next Godzilla film? Mothra v. Godzilla in 1964. Starting with the Mothra crossover, Toho would release a Godzilla picture every year but one for the next decade.
In a way, it's no surprise that King Kong launched the Godzilla franchise. He had been a global superstar since 1933, after all. By contrast, Mothra was a nobody. And yet it was her fight with Godzilla that really cemented the franchise. Why? Simply put, because she was so interesting. Unlike Godzilla or Anguirus, who basically just came out of nowhere, Mothra is situated in a relatively dense narrative. She is the protector goddess of an ancient race of deminiutive humans who live on a strange island amid mutated flora and fauna. Also unlike Godzilla, we are aware of Mothra's rich inner life thanks to her Shobijin worshipers. Her essential benevolence is apparent from the start, in contrast to greedy, oppressive human antagonists.
Godzilla, meanwhile, is a much more ambiguous character in 1964. In Mothra v. Godzilla, he just sort of shows up without much preamble and starts kicking the gak out of Japan per usual. This happens right after the human bad guys get busy trying to exploit the hapless Shobijin, giving the impression that Godzilla is punishing humanity for its myriad faults. Mothra, on the other hand, favors humanity's capacity for goodness and comes to the aid of Japan in driving off Godzilla although she is ultimately overwhelmed by his raw power.
Keep in mind that Mothra was not the first kaiju killed by Godzilla. He had already baked Anguirus in the ruins of Osaka Castle nine years earlier. But that titanic first kaiju v. kaiju battle resolved basically nothing about the movie's plot. It was just kind of something that was also happening while the main issue was Godzilla attacking Japan again. Mothra's death is completely different: she dies defending the people from Godzilla. Her death scene is full of pathos precisely because she is a character rather than a monstrous prop like poor Anguirus. Indeed, her last act is to put her wing over her egg.
Her death scene of course paves the way for another iconic aspect of Mothra: the theme of resurrection. Although Mothra did not die in her own 1961 film, Christian imagery plays a very large role. Mothra's own symbol is a kind of cross and in the movie the protagonists, after seeing a heavenly backlit cross on a church steeple, decide to attract Mothra by painting a giant cross on a runway and ringing church bells at 3PM, which as it happens is traditionally believed to be the hour of Christ's death. The good guy humans reunite Mothra with the Shobijin, whereupon Mothra leaves and the world is saved, showing that the key to peace is compassion and goodness. Similarly, in the 1964 film, Mothra sacrifices her own life to help humanity.
All of this is kind of surprising considering she's a big bug. I don't think people usually associate insects with benevolence and love. Design-wise, Godzilla and most other kaiju are a lot more obvious. Of course a giant dinosaur would tear up buildings and smash stuff. But why would a giant insect care about protecting human beings? It's a very weird idea and weird is good when you're making kaiju films.
These factors don't just make Mothra herself an interesting character as far as kaiju go. Her character is also a great foil for Godzilla and makes him, and by association his whole world, more interesting. I think Mothra is a big part of why this franchise has lasted so long -- and why it got started in the first place.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Huh, looks lime emmirich gave the order for fast and agile.
Still, I never understood that hatred for the design itself, yeah, it isnt godzilla, but he looks awesome.
No, he looks 90's to the max, dude. Like a Liefeld drawing of a velociraptor. The 90's were all about the massive square jaws and chin.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Huh, looks lime emmirich gave the order for fast and agile.
Still, I never understood that hatred for the design itself, yeah, it isnt godzilla, but he looks awesome.
No, he looks 90's to the max, dude. Like a Liefeld drawing of a velociraptor. The 90's were all about the massive square jaws and chin.
I'm with hotsauce here. I will go as far as saying that I preferred the 98' movie over this one except for the one fight at the end in the new one. (mainly because I have a mancrush on Jean Reno) But I actually love the 98 design. I don't care if it's godzilla or not (I will never watch the old movies, dudes in suits lost their alure around the time I stopped watching the original power rangers). I'll be honest, even in the newest form, I still think Godzilla himself looks pretty dumb and hell, in this movie, most of his behaviour reminded me of a gorilla, snorting included.
Soladrin wrote: You know what, I'm gonna rewatch pacific rim so I can see a more awesome Kaiju movie.
If all you wanted was a movie about kaiju fights, you missed the point of Godzilla.
Unless, like me, he grew up on alllllllllll the 20+ Godzilla movies where kaiju fights were the point. Godzilla VS Monster Zero is still the best in the franchise.
Oh, and I want to own Pacific Rim. I don't even want to see Godzilla 2014 again until it's been edited down to a good 20 minutes. Sometimes a fun dumb movie is easier to watch and rewatch and enjoy than a muddled mess of a 'serious' movie.
Bromsy gets an exalt. Hotsauceman, explain yourself.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
hotsauceman1 wrote: I have a question, what do you guys think godzilla would look like if they didnt do a man in a suit?
The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, upon which he was loosely based. Did you know they had stop motion back then?
The 98 Godzilla could have been a cool Kaiju, but I will never, ever get over his Image Comics Square Jaw, and the fact that his lower jaw and chin are thicker than his upper jaw and cranium.
As for the movie itself... It would have been a lot more enjoyable for me if my expectations had not been preset by naming it Godzilla. I recall that the human scenes were much more light-hearted and Independence Day-ish than the current movie's.
They wanted to do stop[ motion originally, but was cost prohibitive, so they went with the big suit. It wasn't their first choice or an important aesthetic decision, it was economic.
The issue bears a bit more explanation in order to avoid reading history backwards. So-called "suitmation" developed a very poor reputation in the US by the late 1960s thanks to the declining quality of imported kaiju films, which was itself a consequence of the collapse of the Japanese film industry. In 1954, however, Toho was able and willing to take a huge financial risk on Godzilla. Indeed, Godzilla was the most expensive movie ever produced in Japan at that point. Its special effects were cutting edge and earned the Japanese film industry global respect.
Godzilla's appearance was therefore not the result of penny-pinching. The problem with using stop-motion animation was less cost than time. Special effects director Eiji Tsubaraya estimated it would take seven years to film all of the effects called for by the script using stop-motion animation. This is a testament to the grand scope of the film's ambition. The filmmakers decided on suitmation because Tsubaraya's team had the talent and experience to live up to said ambition.
Manchu wrote: The issue bears a bit more explanation in order to avoid reading history backwards. So-called "suitmation" developed a very poor reputation in the US by the late 1960s thanks to the declining quality of imported kaiju films, which was itself a consequence of the collapse of the Japanese film industry. In 1954, however, Toho was able and willing to take a huge financial risk on Godzilla. Indeed, Godzilla was the most expensive movie ever produced in Japan at that point. Its special effects were cutting edge and earned the Japanese film industry global respect.
Godzilla's appearance was therefore not the result of penny-pinching. The problem with using stop-motion animation was less cost than time. Special effects director Eiji Tsubaraya estimated it would take seven years to film all of the effects called for by the script using stop-motion animation. This is a testament to the grand scope of the film's ambition. The filmmakers decided on suitmation because Tsubaraya's team had the talent and experience to live up to said ambition.
and if they had access to cgi, go drill a would look radically different
Honestly, I'd rather have King Ghidorah in the sequel, perhaps Mothra could be an ally, but I'd like King Ghidorah brought back to his roots as a destroyer of worlds, devouring a world's radioactive heating until it becomes geologically dead, rapidly resulting in the death of it's biosphere (something that is believed to have happened to mars according to some theories I've read on it's geological history) while the civilization native to the world impotently tries to resist the King of Terror's onslaught.
And have a scene where the military hits King Ghidorah with the biggest nukes they have, only for it to not only do nothing; but only succeed in empowering Ghidorah further.
Kain wrote: Honestly, I'd rather have King Ghidorah in the sequel, perhaps Mothra could be an ally, but I'd like King Ghidorah brought back to his roots as a destroyer of worlds, devouring a world's radioactive heating until it becomes geologically dead, rapidly resulting in the death of it's biosphere (something that is believed to have happened to mars according to some theories I've read on it's geological history) while the civilization native to the world impotently tries to resist the King of Terror's onslaught.
And have a scene where the military hits King Ghidorah with the biggest nukes they have, only for it to not only do nothing; but only succeed in empowering Ghidorah further.
I stilll say Godzilla Vs. Tyrant mothra But really, if they did to modern Mothra, Scrap the Fairies. They would not fit with the tone of the movie at all.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I stilll say Godzilla Vs. Tyrant mothra
But really, if they did to modern Mothra, Scrap the Fairies. They would not fit with the tone of the movie at all.
Now it just seems as if you're trying to bait Manchu.
hotsauceman1 wrote: I stilll say Godzilla Vs. Tyrant mothra
But really, if they did to modern Mothra, Scrap the Fairies. They would not fit with the tone of the movie at all.
Now it just seems as if you're trying to bait Manchu.
You're not, are you?
No, I do honestly think that having Mothra be a guardian like Godzilla but going all about it all wrong is a good idea. It could have a redemption part of it where she sacrifices herself for something she put into motion(Like a Nuclear Apocalypse). She could be controlling Govt officials while going after tankers.
Or have Larval Mothra be the bad guy, not knowing what she is doing is a good idea.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
BlaxicanX wrote: feth all the suggestions made in this thread for a sequel.
It's time for Gypsy Danger to make a crossover in this bitch.
It has been a decade since the last one. On one hand, Toho does not want to and cannot afford to be seen as competing with Legendary/Warner Bros./Universal over the IP. On the other hand, we won't get a sequel until 2017 given Edwards's SW commitment. I think the most logical thing would be a spin-off in a related but significantly different medium, like direct-to-video animation in the vein of Animatrix or Gotham Knight. You could use the design sensibilities of the Edwards film to inspire "non-canonical," as it were, animated episodes showing off the new Godzilla fighting redux versions of monsters certainly not in contention for the big screen trilogy (e.g., King Caesar). With Warner Bros. involved, I daresay this is pretty likely as well as reasonable.
Even just a short film for a TV special 
