Is it me or does it look like Godzilla has EMP powers or something with all the aircraft just falling out of the sky?
I was curious about that too.
Wonder if maybe that's what his "breath weapon" now does ?
Maybe. It could be a side effect too. It would be a nice explanation of why the military doesn't obliterate him with air strikes, nothing flying can get to him (kind of the Battle LA metric when their skimmers just blew anything that got close out of the air.)
Looks good and has some good actors in it. Also looks very very serious.
This is looking very good. I like the idea that nuke tests in the Pacific were actually attempts to kill it. Makes us seem a lot less like evil geniuses, with the whole "we found paradise! Let's bomb it!" thing.
Is it me or does it look like Godzilla has EMP powers or something with all the aircraft just falling out of the sky?
The impression I got was that Godzilla must have thought someone wanted to play "go fetch" with him, so he caught the planes, and then threw them back for a second round. Can you imagine him thumping the ground with his tail like an excited puppy?
What what? There are other monsters in the film. In the licensed materials that have been showing up, they are called mutos. For example, look at that wierd bug leg thing at 2:06.
As I understand it there are specifically (two) NEW monsters in the film, I suppose there is technically room for more monsters (which wouldn't be 'new'), but in any case, there are at least three Kaiju (Godzilla included) in this film.
Toho owns the rights to American Godzilla/GINO. They put the character into Godzilla: Final Wars, declared the character(but not the movie itself as far as I know) part of the Japanese Godzilla universe/canon, and changed the name to Zilla.
There are a number of flying creatures in the canon, so I assume it's one of them knocking out the planes. Giving Godzilla something to fight other than the military is a fundamental improvement from the last one.
I liked the teaser trailer more. This one -- with Bryan Cranston's crazy-guy-with-a-theory ranting straight out of central casting -- has me a little less enthused. Just getting a bit of a Jerry Bruckheimer vibe from this one.
Also, why do they have to use that buzz-whump sound int eh trailers! It is like the modern version of the Wilhelm scream. It has just become a sound editors joke or something.
Manchu wrote: For example, Frazz, Zilla also appeared in the Toho picture "Final Wars" alongside of the Real G.
I think I actually saw that on youtube (blocked here). it was like an inside joke where the Big G took him out without breaking a sweat (I think with a little of the old Frazzled's Bad Breath ray).
Easy E wrote: Also, why do they have to use that buzz-whump sound int eh trailers! It is like the modern version of the Wilhelm scream. It has just become a sound editors joke or something.
I barely noticed it at first, they kinda blended it with Big G's trademark Skreonk.
gorgon wrote: This one -- with Bryan Cranston's crazy-guy-with-a-theory ranting straight out of central casting -- has me a little less enthused.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that's turned off by the rant that was leaving teeth marks on everything.
I take it that they're featuring that rant just because Cranston is kinda hot right now coming off Breaking Bad.
But it has me wondering if he's playing the disgraced scientist with a theory, who tries desperately to get the government/military to listen to him, only to be rebuffed until things look really dire. Then he'll pull out his brilliant instant win button and save the day.
I worry that there'll be a family, with some kind of estrangement going on somewhere (dad to kid, mom to dad, etc.). Figure the dad is laid back and cool but somewhat irresponsible, while the mom is responsible but too uptight. The kid will thrill us by narrowly avoiding death a couple times. A dog could feature here too. The crisis will bring the family together (Dad becoming more responsible and Mom learning to roll with things), and teach us all about something vaguely ecological at the end, but not really.
gorgon wrote: This one -- with Bryan Cranston's crazy-guy-with-a-theory ranting straight out of central casting -- has me a little less enthused.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that's turned off by the rant that was leaving teeth marks on everything.
I take it that they're featuring that rant just because Cranston is kinda hot right now coming off Breaking Bad.
But it has me wondering if he's playing the disgraced scientist with a theory, who tries desperately to get the government/military to listen to him, only to be rebuffed until things look really dire. Then he'll pull out his brilliant instant win button and save the day.
I worry that there'll be a family, with some kind of estrangement going on somewhere (dad to kid, mom to dad, etc.). Figure the dad is laid back and cool but somewhat irresponsible, while the mom is responsible but too uptight. The kid will thrill us by narrowly avoiding death a couple times. A dog could feature here too. The crisis will bring the family together (Dad becoming more responsible and Mom learning to roll with things), and teach us all about something vaguely ecological at the end, but not really.
Perhaps I'm being too negative.
Well, they DID feature him looking afraid/worried and reaching out to someone behind a closing security door.
Also, thank you for pointing out where I'd seen that guy before. I've never watched(or even had a want to watch) Breaking Bad, so he's not very identifiable to me.
Is it just me or do you think there is another monster in this? The spindly almost insect like leg that smashes down in the trailer as well as those glowing things that look like egg pods.
Medium of Death wrote: Is it just me or do you think there is another monster in this? The spindly almost insect like leg that smashes down in the trailer as well as those glowing things that look like egg pods.
Its been notd there are two other rubber suit boys. I think you may have spotted one or both.
I'm not really that familiar with the Godzilla films but did the original have a prominent anti Nuclear War vibe to it? It looks like this one might have that as well as climate change undertones.
It's interesting that the trailer says they were trying to kill it in the 50's (presumably Godzilla?) so I wonder where it has been hiding or where they hid it. Although it does look insanely large so I doubt they'd be able to hide it anywhere (Government base or some-such.)
I think you proceed from a false assumption. Haggis has protected your country from invasion for three centuries. However, with the pending break with the Scots, the Haggis Launchers will be taken down as part of the new DMZ treaty. You're as helpless as the rest of us against the sushi eating greatness that is Gojiro!
Frazzled wrote: I think you proceed from a false assumption. Haggis has protected your country from invasion for three centuries. However, with the pending break with the Scots, the Haggis Launchers will be taken down as part of the new DMZ treaty. You're as helpless as the rest of us against the sushi eating greatness that is Gojiro!
We've still got Ireland and Wales as a buffer zone.
Toho owns the rights to American Godzilla/GINO. They put the character into Godzilla: Final Wars, declared the character(but not the movie itself as far as I know) part of the Japanese Godzilla universe/canon, and changed the name to Zilla.
In addition, it's not a Godzillasaurus.
For what it's worth, Zilla itself is actually a pretty cool monster (and the animated series was nothing short of awesome). The only problems were that her movie sucked (mostly due to the decision to turn the focus into another Roland Emmerich disaster movie with an incredibly hatable cast, instead of an actual monster movie) and she wasn't actually Godzilla.
For what it's worth, Zilla itself is actually a pretty cool monster (and the animated series was nothing short of awesome). The only problems were that her movie sucked (mostly due to the decision to turn the focus into another Roland Emmerich disaster movie with an incredibly hatable cast, instead of an actual monster movie) and she wasn't actually Godzilla.
Cartoon Zilla isn't bad. A giant mutated iguana is actually a pretty cool premise for a kaiju and they even gave her a breath weapon for Final Wars. The problem, as you stated, is that they tried to make it Godzilla.
And that they tried to make Bueller an action movie star.
YES, albeit in quite a specific sense. I think the '54 film is ultimately about Japanese redemption through martyrdom. By the end of the movie, Godzilla is less a symbol of nuclear weapons and more a symbol of nuclear victimhood. Godzilla also might symbolize the consequences of pre-1945 Japanese aggression come home to roost but, again, by the end of the film, the destruction of Tokyo and death of so many (i.e., the result of WW2) plays out as expiatory sacrifice, purifying the Japanese and giving them a unique moral clarity that crystalizes in show-stealing supporting character Serizawa's self-"immolation" to deny the world a fictional Japanese-invented super weapon that is, rather than Godzilla, the real stand-in for nuclear weapons.
The original Godzilla film is almost a religious ritual, a story-rite that transforms guilt and violence into innocence and pacificism. I would classify it as "spontaneous propaganda," in that it is nationalist propaganda that sprung up from popular culture rather than being disseminated by the government.
So yeah, the original movie is anti-nuclear but it is really more accurate to think of it as pro-Japanese (i.e., nationaistic).
It's difficult to imagine this (2014) movie being something similar but for the US.
YES, albeit in quite a specific sense. I think the '54 film is ultimately about Japanese redemption through martyrdom. By the end of the movie, Godzilla is less a symbol of nuclear weapons and more a symbol of nuclear victimhood. Godzilla also might symbolize the consequences of pre-1945 Japanese aggression come home to roost but, again, by the end of the film, the destruction of Tokyo and death of so many (i.e., the result of WW2) plays out as expiatory sacrifice, purifying the Japanese and giving them a unique moral clarity that crystalizes in show-stealing supporting character Serizawa's self-"immolation" to deny the world a fictional Japanese-invented super weapon that is, rather than Godzilla, the real stand-in for nuclear weapons.
The original Godzilla film is almost a religious ritual, a story-rite that transforms guilt and violence into innocence and pacificism. I would classify it as "spontaneous propaganda," in that it is nationalist propaganda that sprung up from popular culture rather than being disseminated by the government.
It's difficult to imagine this (2014) movie being something similar but for the US.
I'd suggest anyone with the interest for the symbolism behind the original buy the Criterion Collection version, the book that comes with it is very good(if short) reading about the meanings behind the two differing versions(Japanese and US) of the original film.
Got an analysis video here of the second trailer. I am actually interested in the film, looks like it could be great. Its just that the trailers are trying to make it into a horror film, and that rather silly quote "its going to send us back to the stone age", umm no it isn't, its just knocking a few buildings down! People forget its just a creature in the end, a large one yes, but its not its fault it exists, nor that our cities are in the way of its wanderings lol.
On a serious note though, I like the design of godzilla in this, and the chance that there's more "monsters" is pretty interesting! I like the idea that they are tying together the older films too.
Actually, Glaiceana, Godzilla is an intelligent being that knows exactly what he does. It's not random wanderings and attacks, he does it with purpose.
But is that a common thing throughout all the forms he has been shown in? I remember watching the animated series when I was a kid, pretty sure he was somewhat intelligent in that, but I figured more films went with a slightly more realistic approach in that he is just a creature, and not literally hunting humans down to kill them.
Glaiceana wrote: But is that a common thing throughout all the forms he has been shown in? I remember watching the animated series when I was a kid, pretty sure he was somewhat intelligent in that, but I figured more films went with a slightly more realistic approach in that he is just a creature, and not literally hunting humans down to kill them.
Only the American film had that. The Japanese films always(or vast majority, it's been a while seen I've seen some of the late 50's, earliest 60's films) portrayed him as intelligent, even going so far as having him converse with the other monsters of Monster Island. It's also a plot point in many as he's Japan's protector kaiju.
YES, albeit in quite a specific sense. I think the '54 film is ultimately about Japanese redemption through martyrdom. By the end of the movie, Godzilla is less a symbol of nuclear weapons and more a symbol of nuclear victimhood. Godzilla also might symbolize the consequences of pre-1945 Japanese aggression come home to roost but, again, by the end of the film, the destruction of Tokyo and death of so many (i.e., the result of WW2) plays out as expiatory sacrifice, purifying the Japanese and giving them a unique moral clarity that crystalizes in show-stealing supporting character Serizawa's self-"immolation" to deny the world a fictional Japanese-invented super weapon that is, rather than Godzilla, the real stand-in for nuclear weapons.
The original Godzilla film is almost a religious ritual, a story-rite that transforms guilt and violence into innocence and pacificism. I would classify it as "spontaneous propaganda," in that it is nationalist propaganda that sprung up from popular culture rather than being disseminated by the government.
So yeah, the original movie is anti-nuclear but it is really more accurate to think of it as pro-Japanese (i.e., nationaistic).
It's difficult to imagine this (2014) movie being something similar but for the US.
My spine tingled reading that, bravo and well said.
Actually, Glaiceana, Godzilla is an intelligent being that knows exactly what he does. It's not random wanderings and attacks, he does it with purpose.
This, I think the perception that Godzilla was just a hapless animal came from poor translations of the original films as well as the American attempts at remakes, etc. Godzilla is anything but.
There is a good amount of debate over on the official site about Godzilla's new height. I tend to think the 150 m estimate is a bit too tall and that the poster has to be an exaggeration.
Godzilla moveis over the years have addressed more then just nuclear issues. There was at least one sludge monster (Hedorah) with a very strong/preachy anti-pollution vibe to the movie. The over-arching theme in Godzilla movies is man living in harmony with nature. Also, don’t trust aliens from Planet X, listen to the twin tiny chicks, and other important life lessons.
Can someone from the military explain this. Why would they send soldiers in(What I assume) is a halo jump, just waht looks to be a small handfull, against a fire breathing dragon? What will that small group do?
hotsauceman1 wrote: Can someone from the military explain this. Why would they send soldiers in(What I assume) is a halo jump, just waht looks to be a small handfull, against a fire breathing dragon? What will that small group do?
I can only assume they have a special rule letting them use melta bombs vs MCs in CC.
1. pararescue, look for survivors, as in VIP/HVT types that need to be extracted.
2. somehow convince Godzilla to swallow a small portable nuke so they can blow him up from the inside out
3. recon and observe godzilla to try and determine a weakness, etc. up close
Matt: The monster was designed by a man named Neville Page who’s a creature designer. He’s just amazing. I would go into his office and he had these computers and he would sketch on them, and on his wall he had all of these little photographs. They covered the entire wall and from afar you looked at it and you thought, oh, that looks interesting, you’d see little bits of red, and as you got closer you suddenly wanted to turn away because actually what they were, were photographs of intestines, photographs of eyeballs and body parts. I referred to it affectionately as his Wall of Terror. The idea was that the creature would have some kind of evolutionary biological basis. It wouldn’t just be random things coming out of its arm or some weird thing. There are actually things that he designed that are part of the monster that we never got to use. He had these feeding tubes which were just wild - he would come up with these crazy ideas that were just amazing and very creepy. Within the course of the movie, we could only reveal certain aspects of it, so that never got released. That was really fun and what was important to me was, again, thinking about things being based in a kind of reality. In the movie we’ll never know where this creature comes from because we have a limited point of view. We’re going to go through this experience with these people who don’t have the knowledge that someone from another perspective would have - they’re just trying to survive. We need to start describing the things that they are seeing. I can only understand that really from, I would say, an emotional point of view.
So the secret that we had was that the monster was a baby. Having just been born it was going through separation anxiety and had no idea where its mother was and was freaking out and was in a completely foreign place, didn’t understand a thing and that that would be sending it into a kind of infantile rage. Which was very frightening, but the thing that was also frightening to me was the idea that not only was it going through an infantile rage but, because it was suffering from this separation anxiety, it was spooked. It was really afraid. And as the military started shooting at it, I started thinking, like if you were attacked by a swarm of bees for the first time, it wouldn’t necessarily kill you but you’d be terrified, you’d be like, "What are these things doing?!" And for me there’s nothing scarier than thinking of something that big that’s spooked. Like if you’re at the circus and suddenly the elephants are spooked, you don’t want to be anywhere near that, you’ll be crushed. And so that just became a way to again find an approach to giving an emotional or a grounded point of view to something that was completely outrageous. I mean a giant monster is absurd, but you have to find a way to make it real. And part of it was the stuff that Neville was doing, and then the secret that it was a baby. When we were talking about that I said, "Well, can’t we communicate something in the eyes?" So he started showing us like the look that horses have when they have that spooked look, and all of that was to convey that kind of feeling. So those are sort of the sources of it. We also really loved the idea that the creature in contrast to other creatures you might have seen was sort of a pale, white and again because it’s a baby, it’s just been born and it has this ugly translucence to its skin.
A lot of people have compared the movie because of the Handicam style to Blair Witch. And the thing about Blair Witch is that they used that style very smartly to create suspense that will never be paid off because they can’t afford to pay it off. And the fun of this movie was knowing that we would be able to use this style to create suspense but that we were also doing these tremendous visual effects so that it would pay off, that you would get to see all that stuff. At the end of the day in the movie, you get to see everything, you see the monster, you actually have intimate contact with the monster, and you also get to see grand scale destruction, none of which would have been possible if we had no money. Another series of movies that affected that kind of thing was how it was so brilliantly done in Jaws or in Alien where you don’t see the shark right away, you don’t see the creature in Alien right away. And what that ends up doing is that it creates an engagement with the viewer’s imagination.
We had a terrific soundtrack the guys from Skywalker Sound did for us and the idea from the beginning was to try to come up with sounds that would conjure up images, and a kind of anticipation that would go into your subconscious and get into your primal fear and all of that is about withholding. You don’t immediately show people in a concrete way what something is because then it becomes containable, so the idea is to hold off on that kind of stuff so that the viewer’s mind can start to do the work.
They also go into it a bit in the tie-in comics/manga, etc.
Medium of Death wrote: I hated the Cloverfield monster, just looks ridiculous for something that's meant to live at the bottom of the ocean.
Dude, it's kaiju, they're not supposed to make sense in context with their origins. Space Godzilla is G-cells that fell into a black hole and turned into a crystalline life form. Biollante is a clone generated from G-cell, rose, and human DNA.
Big G himself is a dinosaur that survived to modern era and got "upgraded" from nuclear weapons to at least 3x his normal size, regenerative cells, and a second brain in his rump. You do that to anything in reality, the only upgrade they get is radiation poisoning and cancer.
It's actually where the second brain idea in Pacific Rim came from. Big G is so massive, he requires a second brain in the area where his spine and hips meet to coordinate his movements. It's like this whole thing from 93's Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II. Godzilla's an endless gold mine of plot devices and Mcguffins. Need regeneration to save someone that medicine can't? Oh look, Godzilla has G-Cells which regenerate! Let's harvest some!
Also, Kaiju can breathe in space or something. Just like Batman.
The second brain thing actually comes from real dinosaurs, it was once believed (perhaps erroneously) that some species of dinosaurs (Stegasaurus and Sauropods n particular) had a second brain in their hip region to control the function of their hind legs, tails, rear ends, etc.
hotsauceman1 wrote: Can someone from the military explain this. Why would they send soldiers in(What I assume) is a halo jump, just waht looks to be a small handfull, against a fire breathing dragon? What will that small group do?
I can only assume they have a special rule letting them use melta bombs vs MCs in CC.
Kilkrazy wrote:It's standard tactical protocol to assault giant nuclear mutant killer lizards with HALO jumps.
Because the military is always preparing to fight the last war.
It looks like Godzilla might be killed in this one in a similar fashion to the '54 film, given the trailer shows humans exploring giant bones. Which in turn begs the question, does that set up a Kiryu-style Mechagodzilla for the sequel???
I'm being honest here, I just actually went through the pain of watch godzilla: Final wars. It physically hurt me to watch such badly designed monsters. I don't think I will ever understand why people like monsters designed around being suits.
"Godzilla" is not a label to be attached to any shape or style of giant-sized monster. He is a particular character. Evoking Godzilla is not supposed to be a matter of verisimilitude for the lowest common denominator audience member but rather a pointing to a specific complex of themes, ideas, feelings, and reflections. Zilla failed all around in that respect. I agree with whoever posted that Zilla's design was okay up to the point of pretending she was Godzilla.
Better is a relative term. I think the best Godzilla designs are the ones that feature a guy inside of a suit personally, but I like it old school like that.
And of course the name matters when it is attached. Emmerich & Co. were designing Godzilla not some novel American kaiju. But Zilla is definitely not Godzilla. As a design for Godzilla, which is what it in fact was, Zilla is a really terrible design. As a design for, say, a monster in a movie like Pacific Rim, yeah okay fine, I suppose. To me, the Zilla design is still pretty forgettable. I also think the Pacific Rim monsters (and robots) were pretty bland.
It's pretty simple. Design is a matter of purpose. If the purpose is to design Godzilla ... which is what Emmerich's team was supposed to be doing ... then the Zilla design is no good because it does not evoke Godzilla. Unfortunately, they did this on purpose -- which kind of points to how out of touch they were with the franchise.
Soladrin wrote: This is what godzilla evokes for me, giant dumb ass monster with nothing special going for it except low budget quality.
Sure, and what that boils down to is that you don't like Godzilla. So in effect you seem to also be saying "I like Zilla because I don't like Godzilla." And that makes sense to me because I don't like Zilla because I like Godzilla. The point is, I guess, that Zilla was never Godzilla no matter what Emmerich and TriStar said or did.
This is the most anticipated movie for me this year. I can't wait.
As for the HALO jump, I assume it has something to do with the planes falling out of the sky, like aircraft or technology can't get close to Godzilla. Maybe they're using the flairs to mark him for something, like a low tech laser pointer? I have no idea. We'll have to watch the film. But back when I was in Iraq we'd just use the laser designators against kaiju, but the Iraqi kaiju were only 35 meters tall and didn't have breath weapons so they didn't make it into the news too often.
The Godzilla suit from Godzilla 2000 is my favorite.
I've never had the chance to see a Godzilla movie in the theater, so I am excited for that reason if no other. My daughter and I have watched the original (one of my favorites) and Final War (her favorite) many times together on the couch. We both sing the BOC song at the top of our lungs when it plays while we are driving.
CptJake wrote: I've never had the chance to see a Godzilla movie in the theater, so I am excited for that reason if no other. My daughter and I have watched the original (one of my favorites) and Final War (her favorite) many times together on the couch. We both sing the BOC song at the top of our lungs when it plays while we are driving.
We are both looking forward to seeing this one.
I forget which one it was (Godzilla 2000?) that I dragged -all- my friends to see in the theater. I had sucked it up and went to watch pretty much anything they collectively wanted to go see as a group, including some real stinkers. So when the Godzilla was on the big screen, I cashed in my “You owe me, I’ve never dragged you to a movie before, this is the time” card.
Giant monster movies gain a lot from the big screen and HQ movie sound systems.
Not that all my friends necessarily appreciated the art that is a fine Godzilla movie, but I was dragged to movies like Batman and Robin, so I feel no remorse.
The "Zilla" design.
"Hey, Godzilla's like a dinosaur, right?"
"Yeah."
"Jurassic Park made a lot of money."
"Yeah! They had those raptors, right?"
"Sure did. You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Godzilla's going to be a giant raptor!"
CptJake wrote: I've never had the chance to see a Godzilla movie in the theater
I've only seen one - the bad one with Mathew Broderick. The only part of the movie that got any reaction at all was when they showed the skyline of Manhattan, captioned as "THE CITY THAT NEVER SLEEPS" - since this was a midnight show in Times Square that was to be expected.
Alpharius wrote: Enough Liefeld talk - he's pretty much gone from any sort of anything these days - let's leave him there!
Well, I really just meant any over-sleek 90's style comic book art with the super square jaw and jagged spikes, except for Jim Lee. Everyone knows 90's Jim Lee couldn't draw a woman without making her Asian.
Anyway, I kind of look forward to Brian Cranston (2014), but I really hope that Godzilla supporting character gets to steal the show.
Aside from the fact that it isn't really Godzilla, yeah, it isn't a horrible Kaiju movie.
It just isn't really a 'Godzilla' movie.
Apparently, there's enough evidence in the American Godzilla movie of 1998 to suggest that this is a case of 'mistaken identity', and that there was a different Kaiju known to the Japanese as Gojira...
G2000's purple crystal dorsal plates are a bit much for me. My favorite take on G is from 1991's Godzilla v. King Ghidorah. My favorite Kaiju overall is probably Mothra.
I have to admit, I hated Mothra as a kid, and I could in no way see how Mothra and her attendant caterpillars and mini twin fairies could have a snowball's chance of even thinking about defeating Godzilla.
Lately, I have been thinking of something Jun Fukuda once said about Godzilla: "Godzilla doesn't have emotions; he is an emotion." To me, this explains why Godzilla has such enduring appeal in Japan, the US, and in many other countries. Godzilla is the word for a certain feeling that we experience but we don't have another word for it. For me, the same is true of Mothra. Except whereas with Godzilla it's a feeling of unbridled, determined power, with Mothra the feeling is more about the spiritual responsibility of peacefulness.
Mothra is probably the first kaiju to be depicted as being self-aware and having a deep inner life. We know this thanks to her shojibin, who can translate for her. Over the course of the decades, Mothra has shown herself to be the most stalwart kaiju protector of earth, to have courage (unlike Godzilla, for example), and to show wisdom. In other words, she not only has a pretty complex personality but her character traits are also quite admirable.
One of the actors in the '54 movie, I cannot remember who, explained that in Japan at the time, there was the feeling that the Japanese had fought the war "with their whole spirit" (I guess this is like saying "with all our heart") but that they still lost because the US had superior technology. But Godzilla fights with his whole spirit and modern technology doesn't phase him at all. It's an interesting thing to think about what Japanese audiences must have felt watching this movie in 1954.
I saw a picture of Gezora from Space Amoeba in a book a long time ago. That image has stayed with me for a long time as one of my favorite Kaiju. However, I haven't seen his movie and I heard he is pretty obscure.
Manchu wrote: One of the actors in the '54 movie, I cannot remember who, explained that in Japan at the time, there was the feeling that the Japanese had fought the war "with their whole spirit" (I guess this is like saying "with all our heart") but that they still lost because the US had superior technology. But Godzilla fights with his whole spirit and modern technology doesn't phase him at all. It's an interesting thing to think about what Japanese audiences must have felt watching this movie in 1954.
Aye, this is something I've always admired about Japanese literature and cinema, its full of subtle symbolism and allegory and non-verbal communication of concepts, ideas, events, etc. completely unlike anything I have seen in the West. I'm not saying that we're not capable of something like that or that we don't do things like that, it just doesn't seem as common.
Ahtman wrote: Which reminds me, the Gamecube four player fighting game, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters!, was an awesome party game.
I haven't played the Gamecube one, but I love the hell out of the Wii game.
Biollante is broken as feth in the mode where you win by having the most points for destroying as much as possible, though. Her longest reach in the game coupled with a 360 attack and four limbs just wrecks buildings too quickly to compete with.
From what I gather, "we" have been holding Kaiju prisoner, and one or more has escaped causing all kinds of carnage, so now we're "releasing" Godzilla to fight these other Kaiju as our last hope?
From what I gather, "we" have been holding Kaiju prisoner, and one or more has escaped causing all kinds of carnage, so now we're "releasing" Godzilla to fight these other Kaiju as our last hope?
Or something like that, I think... maybe.
Sounds similar to Final Wars. I know in that case the other Kaiju were not held prisoner by us, but we do release Godzilla to thrash them. My daughter and I LOVE that movie.
I put in a request a work for the day off so I can see this twice if it doesn't suck.
This is the most excited I've been for a movie in a while. And, truthfully, this is kind of an amazing summer for movies, isn't it? Godzilla, Captain America, Days of Future Past, Neighbors (i love Rose Byrne), Maleficient, A Million Ways To Die In The West, Edge of Tommorow, 22 Jump Street, How To Train Your Dragon 2, Dawn of the Planet of the melon-fething Apes, Guardians of the Galaxy, Interstellar, Hot Tub Time Machine 2, and so on. As someone who will go to the theater weekly if the offering is good enough, I am quite excited.
Nick Ellingworth wrote: That is definitely not Rodan unless they're gone for a really radical redesign.
They've given Godzilla a bit of a redesign as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if any other familiar faces that show up get one as well.
I'm hoping this is nice and meaty as a movie. The biggest problem I had seeing Pacific Rim was I walked out feeling like I didn't see enough action. I don't want that feeling again from my beloved Godzilla.
Nick Ellingworth wrote: That is definitely not Rodan unless they're gone for a really radical redesign.
They've given Godzilla a bit of a redesign as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if any other familiar faces that show up get one as well.
I'm hoping this is nice and meaty as a movie. The biggest problem I had seeing Pacific Rim was I walked out feeling like I didn't see enough action. I don't want that feeling again from my beloved Godzilla.
That's a fair point, and a real concern here.
There are a lot of 'ACTING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS' actors in this movie...
Nick Ellingworth wrote: That is definitely not Rodan unless they're gone for a really radical redesign.
They've given Godzilla a bit of a redesign as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if any other familiar faces that show up get one as well.
I'm hoping this is nice and meaty as a movie. The biggest problem I had seeing Pacific Rim was I walked out feeling like I didn't see enough action. I don't want that feeling again from my beloved Godzilla.
That's a fair point, and a real concern here.
There are a lot of 'ACTING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS' actors in this movie...
And hopefully their screen time comes to an abrupt end when a giant foot turns them to goo.
Nick Ellingworth wrote: That is definitely not Rodan unless they're gone for a really radical redesign.
They've given Godzilla a bit of a redesign as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if any other familiar faces that show up get one as well.
I'm hoping this is nice and meaty as a movie. The biggest problem I had seeing Pacific Rim was I walked out feeling like I didn't see enough action. I don't want that feeling again from my beloved Godzilla.
That's a fair point, and a real concern here.
There are a lot of 'ACTING IS SERIOUS BUSINESS' actors in this movie...
Not all the Godzilla films were campy and goofy, especially the original, so there is precedent for such a thing.
There where alot of links to the first ones, names and so much. What if this is a sequal to the originnal? Like America captured godzilla after the oxygen destroyer?
I swear if he doesn't breathe fire in this one I am going to hunt down the director and writer and punch them in the throat. Or give them a stern lecture. Probably the latter.
Ahtman wrote: I swear if he doesn't breathe fire in this one I am going to hunt down the director and writer and punch them in the throat. Or give them a stern lecture. Probably the latter.
Alpharius wrote: I'm almost positive he'll have his 'radioactive breath' in this one.
I think that's one of the defining things about 'Godzilla', and one of the more egregious omissions the last time around...
he did have a "breath attack" last time, but he only used it twice and it was more of a "heat ray" sort of deal which exploded the cars he breathed on. you can see a shimmer when he does it.
apologies for the horrendous quality, but you can see the shimmer when he breaths, and the cars exploding from the heat
Last time around I thought "Godzilla" just yelled really loudly and blew an already existing fire around, as sort of a lame 'homage' to the real Godzilla's breath weapon?
I'm not seeing it, Blackhoof. Pause it at 6 seconds(while GINO is starting to crouch), those cars are already on fire.
It seems more that Zilla/GINO exhales something flammable than uses heat breath. The only shimmer I see is coming from the rapidly expanding fire, not the mouth.
Alpharius wrote:Last time around I thought "Godzilla" just yelled really loudly and blew an already existing fire around, as sort of a lame 'homage' to the real Godzilla's breath weapon?
Platuan4th wrote:I'm not seeing it, Blackhoof. Pause it at 6 seconds(while GINO is starting to crouch), those cars are already on fire.
It seems more that Zilla/GINO exhales something flammable than uses heat breath. The only shimmer I see is coming from the rapidly expanding fire, not the mouth.
Right!
This time I'm pretty sure he's got a 'proper' Atomic Breath Weapon!
The movie thus far has been getting pretty good reviews so I'm happily optimistic Anytime a studio has the confidence to pre-screen their film its usually a decent sign.
LordofHats wrote: The movie thus far has been getting pretty good reviews so I'm happily optimistic Anytime a studio has the confidence to pre-screen their film its usually a decent sign.
That really varies, depending on how restricted the pre-screening is. It wouldn't be the first time that a film only allowed 'critics' who've agreed to give positive reviews in early.
Not to say I'm expecting them to have done this. From the cast we have, and the trailers we've seen, it'd be pretty hard to mess this one up.
Fafnir wrote: That really varies, depending on how restricted the pre-screening is. It wouldn't be the first time that a film only allowed 'critics' who've agreed to give positive reviews in early.
I'm really getting at the noticable difference between movies that are prescreened and ones that aren't. Ones that aren't can pretty much always be pegged as ones even the people who made the film don't think is very good.
LordofHats wrote: The movie thus far has been getting pretty good reviews so I'm happily optimistic Anytime a studio has the confidence to pre-screen their film its usually a decent sign.
That really varies, depending on how restricted the pre-screening is. It wouldn't be the first time that a film only allowed 'critics' who've agreed to give positive reviews in early.
Not to say I'm expecting them to have done this. From the cast we have, and the trailers we've seen, it'd be pretty hard to mess this one up.
It doesn't appear that the studio has been 'cherry picking' the pre-release reviews at all.
It has been getting, happily enough, a lot of "B" ratings!
I convinced The Wife to come home a little early tomorrow so she can get The Boy off of the school bus, freeing me to go catch a matinee and not worry about having to rush home.
Just saw it, the film's okay overall but seriously slowed. We're talking Supermassive Levels of Plot hole. Transformers 2 had less plot holes and a classis popcorn flick like ID4 makes this look like the screenwriter was in a chemically induced coma.
I'd put it on a par with Man of Steel, both have their moments (i'd argue MoS had more) but a bit too stoopid.
No i expected a movie on a par with other Popcorn Flicks in the logic department, like for example ID4. Having seen both recently ID4 had less basic plot holes than Godzilla. Yes you could quibble about how Jeff Goldbloom got a virus from a Mac onto an Alien ship or other technical nonsense about f16's or whatever but you can suspend your disbelief. You think to yourself, well if they've retrofitted the ship enough that Will Smith can fly it, then heck, sure, why wouldn't Jeff be able to plug in his Mac?
If you like Giant monster movies, at all costs, you'll like this. If you like visual effects and great visuals overall, at all cost, you'll like this. However if you're after a really great Sci-fi/disaster film, like ID4, i can't imagine you'll feel satisfied.
Taken together, the three movies present a wildly inconsistent narrative. The second movie contradicts the plot of the first, and the third contradicts the plot of the first two. And save the first film which in my book was a sold 7/10, internally the plots of the other two are filled with wtf moments of logical absurdities.
Perkustin wrote: Just saw it, the film's okay overall but seriously slowed. We're talking Supermassive Levels of Plot hole. Transformers 2 had less plot holes and a classis popcorn flick like ID4 makes this look like the screenwriter was in a chemically induced coma.
I'd put it on a par with Man of Steel, both have their moments (i'd argue MoS had more) but a bit too stoopid.
LordofHats wrote: Taken together, the three movies present a wildly inconsistent narrative. The second movie contradicts the plot of the first, and the third contradicts the plot of the first two. And save the first film which in my book was a sold 7/10, internally the plots of the other two are filled with wtf moments of logical absurdities.
In short, if you read the comics that take place between each movie, it makes more sense(not complete sense, but more).
Also, if you take out the whole of Revenge aside from Megatron's resurrection, the first two fit together just fine(Megs wants the Cube to enslave humanity and take over Earth, that's explicit in the film), it's Revenge that's the monkey wrench. It's easier to assume Megatron never thought the Fallen's plan would be carried out so soon.
Just got back from watching Godzilla with the wife, and I thought it was freaking awesome. Had a great mix of focus on the monsters and the humans both.
The last American-made Godzilla movie can now officially go straight to Hell. No argument can be made as to why a Godzilla movie shouldn't have been made like this one. Especially since they included his breath attack, and when it finally happened, it was glorious.
I concur with Aegis. Solid 8/10 for me. This movie has the one thing Pacific Rim was really lacking; solid pacing. Pacific Rim just came at you and dragged you along. This film is more slow and deliberate, coaxing you along as you watch waiting for the explosion of giant awesomeness. PR also blew most of its momentum about 2/3 of the way through the picture, but Godzilla manages to hang onto it for the entire ride.
My only complaints are that I kind of wish there'd been a little more monster related violence and the human element of the story was pretty bland. Even by Kaiju movie standards it just lacked any emotional weight on screen. I feel like it kind of dragged the movie back a little bit.
Especially since they included his breath attack, and when it finally happened, it was glorious.
That entire moment was one giant middle finger to 1997 And the last part. Oh my gosh the entire theater was cheering.
AegisGrimm wrote: Just got back from watching Godzilla with the wife, and I thought it was freaking awesome. Had a great mix of focus on the monsters and the humans both.
Agreed. Everyone that we saw it with really liked it, and I think someone cheered* when he was breathing fire. I liked how they built up to the final confrontation without really hiding things, but never quite showing them.
Perkustin wrote: No i expected a movie on a par with other Popcorn Flicks in the logic department, like for example ID4. Having seen both recently ID4 had less basic plot holes than Godzilla. Yes you could quibble about how Jeff Goldbloom got a virus from a Mac onto an Alien ship or other technical nonsense about f16's or whatever but you can suspend your disbelief. You think to yourself, well if they've retrofitted the ship enough that Will Smith can fly it, then heck, sure, why wouldn't Jeff be able to plug in his Mac?
They're still there whether you feel you can ignore them or not.
The big stompy creature stuff was fantastic. The humans, not so much . You have to be patient, but the awesomeness definitely happens . Glad I saw it... my very first Godzilla movie, actually!
Just saw it. I enjoyed it a lot. As always I'll need to let settle a bit before my final feelings sink in, but it was good.
Spoiler:
It's odd. So much of what I liked about the movie my party hated, or at least thought was stupid/poorly executed.
I really enjoyed that they showed restraint with the monsters. I also liked that they showed the destruction up close. They let you see monsters but not for long, but lingered on the destruction they caused. I like that they actually showed people being dead, you don't usually see that in big destructo films. They did a good job of showing destruction from a very human scale. I thought this made the final payoff with the big fight have some real impact. Godzilla's fatality at the end just blew me away, when that's a stunt they might have pulled in 15minutes on in another movie.
They seemed to want more stompy-stompy. "It was cool when the monsters were fighting, but everything else sucked".
I also enjoy how clearly and thoroughly it dis-empowered the human characters. At every turn what they do has little to no real impact on events, though not for lack of trying.. I remember one of my buddies saying "The whole thing with the father didn't do anything, you could have cut it out entirely and nothing would have changed and it was a 1/4th of the movie". That's kinda the point though, right? It's not like we can show the personal impact of being entirely devoid of agency in the middle of the action, we needed his frustration and the ultimate irrelevance of all his efforts to give the framing for the later failures of more active characters.
They also said it seemed like somebody was trying to make it a military drama/army porn movie... which I didn't really see at all. You don't make the all that modern hardware so utterly impotent if that's what you're going for.
I also really enjoyed how they managed to make you root for godzilla, without trying to make you feel sorry for him, or make it seem like he had some odd higher agenda.
I'm wondering how split opinions will be as more people see it. Then again maybe I'm crazy. Everyone loved Cpt. America 2 and I almost fell asleep during that one...
This was the big budget kaiju movie that I've been waiting for ever since I saw the original Godzilla (which is still the best IMO). But OMG it was awesome. Giant monsters, military guns, and nuclear weapons.
The breath weapon:,
Spoiler:
here's some feth you right in the mouth!
So good, I'm probably going to go see it again tomorrow.
I thought the human stuff was mostly good, at least in terms of acting. It just didn't connect very well to the monster stuff.
Now the monster stuff ...
The sense of scale seemed off. These huge monsters are sneaking up on and/or past the humans and each other (and the audience) again and again. Huh? Maybe the point was to communicate that the human eye and mind are not calibrated for the size of these things? Instead, it felt like an irritating camera man was pointing his lens in the wrong direction too often. The monsters also pay way too much attention to individual humans, showing clear but fake-feeling intelligence because their semi-sentience is so hyper-selective (ignore millions, make eye contact with principal cast members) as to be clearly scripted. The monsters were too aloof to be characters but not animalistic enough to be forces of nature.
My impression is, the creative impulse driving the film makers was NOT an interest in or understanding of kaiju. But everyone knows big monsters fight around and through skyscrapers, so they had them do that. And that was very serviceable stuff, with flashes of real brilliance. I kept thinking during the film, why not show more of that? But it hit me that if the kaiju aren't really what the film makers are interested in, well, they probably don't have enough ideas to do more good shots. Someone probably said, "we can't show them too much or they won't be interesting." Which is exactly the sort of thing someone not interested in kaiju would say. Can you imagine James Cameron saying, "let's not show the Titanic too much because then it won't be as impressive"?
It's tempting to give this movie a pass by saying the franchise hasn't achieved emotional transcendence since 1954. That may be true BUT I tend to think the Japanese have done more heartfelt if also more modest work even considering or perhaps because of their far more limited budgets. No, I'm not going to complain about the typical Hollywood overproduction. Rather, the issue is, even with less talented actors, weaker scripts, and a fraction of the money, the Heisei and Millenium series Godzilla movies fairly exude deep understanding and authentic love of kaiju. I think that's why those movies, awkward and silly as they certainly are, have such devoted fans across many different cultures.
Ultimately, this is probably the best Godzilla movie that could be made right now in the USA. But that's at least as much a testament to the limitations of our popular culture as to its strengths.
I also enjoy how clearly and thoroughly it dis-empowered the human characters. At every turn what they do have little to no real impact on events, though not for lack of trying.
And thus they missed the point. The film is about how nature is not in our control, using Godzilla and the monsters as a vessel for embodying the unstoppable force that is nature.
Now I think that this theme came off either as hamfisted at times and not really clear at others, hence my complaint that the human side of the story lacked power, not in the sense that the humans are powerful, but in the sense that I don't think it got it's point across very well.
@Machu, I'd actually disagree Machu. This is the most thematically powerful Godzilla film since Godzilla vs Biolante imo. WHile it weirded me too at first when people could somehow miss that Godzilla was right there, it fits the point of the film. You can't see nature coming. It doesn't give a damn about you. You're just an ant under it's giant foot. In the end, I forgave most of the 'wtf' moments in the film as fitting the theme and purpose.
The only bits I didn't forgive were some of the human stupidity;
Spoiler:
We have a plan to kill the monsters, and it involves a nuke. Now these monsters are attracted to radiation so we're going to transport our bait right past one- Wait that's stupid. It'll just grab the bait before we're ready oh look that's exactly what happened.
Manchu wrote: I did not ever get the impression that was the theme of this film until Ken Watanabe had a line saying it was. And then i was like, whatever Ken.
Same. They needed to stress how powerless Ford was to really do anything, but they botched it. They had him bounce between a man who realizes he had no power and the scrappy underdog we all know will win in the end. They shouldn't have needed Ken, as awesome as he is on screen everytime I see him, to tell us what was going on.
Honestly, I never got the impression that anything he did affected anything. Which was confusing because I kept wondering why we had to see so much of him. And when the film started to make explicit parallels between him and Godzilla, I just got more confused.
I think I was confused because the film makers were confused. They thought this was a movie about Whitey McProtagonist rather than Godzilla. Or was I mistaken that a movie called "Godzilla" was about Godzilla?
Now I think that this theme came off either as hamfisted at times and not really clear at others, hence my complaint that the human side of the story lacked power, not in the sense that the humans are powerful, but in the sense that I don't think it got it's point across very well.
Hamfisted I'll give you, in fact the movie was probably doing too much spoon feeding in general.
Spoiler:
Like you don't have to tell me they're feeding on radiation with pointless exposition, I can see they're doing it. Like really clearly you're establishing it fine with the way you're making the creatures behave. Show some respect for my intelligence would ya?
That said I wouldn't really say it's unclear, not only is too hamfisted to be clear but they're really do run with it very consistently.
Spoiler:
The moment you have the father so incredulously and angrily denying what happened to him & his wife could not be a natural disaster while still showing he has very real inklings it's something akin to a creature down there is when the theme hit home for me. He focuses his anger on the humans and the fact they're hiding things, because that's the kind of problem that is within his power to cope with. He knows he's up against a force of nature but refuses to accept it, because it would so obviously be beyond him. That's what I got from it anyway.
They thought this was a movie about Whitey McProtagonist rather than Godzilla. Or was I mistaken that movie called "Godzilla" was about Godzilla?
See I always thought it fitting we renamed Gojira Godzilla. In literary terms, nature and god might as well be the same thing. Neither are in our power. They're beyond us no matter how hard we try to understand them. They're bigger than us. It makes Godzilla's name rather fitting even though the movie isn't explicitly about the giant lizard, but the idea that we are not as powerful as we pretend we are. There is something bigger than us out there and we are helpless against it. Que crossover battle between Godzilla and Cthulu
Spoiler:
The moment you have the father so incredulously and angrily denying what happened to him & his wife could not be a natural disaster while still showing has very real inklings it's something akin to a creature down there. He focuses his anger on the humans and the fact they're hiding things, because that's the kind of threat that is within his power to cope with. He knows he's up against a force of nature but refuses to accept it, because it would so obviously be beyond him. That's what I got from it anyway.
I hadn't considered that but I like it.
For me the conflict is that I was never convinced that Ford, the main human part of the narrative, ever realized the point himself. His story was a typical man fights nature and wins story in most ways, and this doesn't mesh with what the rest of the film seems to be saying. It was a conflict in tone and style.
Given that his name in Japanese is a mix of the words 'gorilla' and 'whale' putting God in his name has to me always been a welcome if unintentional thing
Him realizing the theme of the movie in which he is a character is irrelevant. As a character, he's only supposed to help convey the theme. If the theme is "humans are powerless before nature" then his total lack of relevance to the actions of the monsters is a big check in the convey theme column.
Manchu wrote: Him realizing the theme of the movie in which he is a character is irrelevant. As a character, he's only supposed to help convey the theme. If the theme is "humans are powerless before nature" then his total lack of relevance to the actions of the monsters is a big check in the convey theme column.
Maybe it's just years of watching underdog movies where the underdog wins spoiling it for me. I'm not talking about exactly what he does, but rather the films portrayal of him. To me the handling of his narrative conflicts with the theme of powerlessness because it seems to want to encourage us to root for him to win and never pulls the rug out from under us even when it tries.
Not sure how to say it really It's the tone of the narrative, not the events of it that feel conflicted to me. The scenes all feel straight out of another film and jammed into this one where they feel like they don't fit in as well as they should.
For me the conflict is that I was never convinced that Ford, the main human part of the narrative, ever realized the point himself. His story was a typical man fights nature and wins story in most ways, and this doesn't mesh with what the rest of the film seems to be saying. It was a conflict in tone and style.
Spoiler:
He doesn't win though. He doesn't do much of anything. He burns the eggs I guess, but they would have died anyway absent their food source. He doesn't even do his job as bomb diffuser, a job they're talking about long before it ever actually becomes relevant. "I don't drop bombs dad, I stop them". Except he didn't stop jack. This seemed to be a complaint in my party "He was a bomb diffusing expert that didn't diffuse any bombs!" they exclaimed annoyed. It's like no, the circumstances aren't even going to give you that. The thing you're an expert at? The thing you do, your job, one of the big parts of your identity? Even that can and will be irrelevant in the face of things bigger than you. It does this without making it a point of despair though or making it seem like human efforts lack meaning.
It... worked for me. Like I said though, I'm kind of an odd duck.
No the more I think about it the more I think I'm just kind of spoiled from years to typical American movie magic. Ford did all the things an action hero typically does and achieved nothing and my head is confusing that with another sense and confusing itself.
EDIT: Like my head knows he fails all around by my previous experiences are invoking a different set of emotions and mixing the two up I guess.
The original Godzilla focuses on destructive power of the atomic age, this film also follows suit. Each of the main characters has a personal loss due to the presence of atomic/nuclear power.
Also in each of the movies the humans are powerless to defeat it. Despite all their intellect and advanced technology they cannot control the power that was unleashed by the atomic age. Godzilla is a symbol of that power and destruction brought by nuclear weapons and mans inner nature to destroy himself, it's not about trying to control nature like Jurassic park (although it's easy to draw the nature connection).
The military always fights Godzilla in a pointless battle, much like a force using swords and spear cannot defeat an army with guns, but an army with guns cannot defeat the atomic threat, it can only delay it.
It's a Pandora's box, ultimately nothing can stop the atomic age, it consumes until there's nothing left and man is powerless to stop it.
In the older films Mothra is the representation of nature unbound and protection of life, Godzilla he's a destroyer and king of monsters, the monsters being reflections of the human condition (anger and war).
LordofHats wrote: The scenes all feel straight out of another film and jammed into this one where they feel like they don't fit in as well as they should.
I can agree with that. But my explanation, again, is that the film makers just weren't inspired by the kaiju. I think this is very clear in the visual design of the mutos, for example. It is also clear in Ford's ... um, it's not an arc. His "story," I guess.
Each of the main characters has a personal loss due to the presence of atomic/nuclear power.
I feel that is way overselling it.
Spoiler:
Joe and Ford lost the same person. Dr. Serizawa's loss is confined to a nearly throwaway and totally prefunctory reference to the 1954 film via Hiroshima. Indeed, even his name is a throwaway reference to the original film.
Even with a pin in that balloon, I agree that there is a critique of nuclear power here. And it comes off as not especially relevant even given Fukishima. Again, we have a basic and typical misunderstanding of kaiju. "They stand for nuclear power." Nope. Even if that was correct, I don't get how it's supposed to grab audiences in 2014.
Really I saw the radiation bits in the film as merely homage/acknowledgement of Godzilla's origin in the 1954 film, or possibly as a way of keeping this iteration connected to the large Godzilla mythos. Really it would be a little odd to go to a Godzilla movie and hear nothing about radiation or atomic power.
But they definitely redefined that aspect in this movie. Godzilla was not a beast born of the atomic bomb in this film, but rather a primordial power. An ancient force far older than us and that fits in with the themes on the power of nature in this new film.
The wife is the most obvious as she's killed when the reactor goes, but it's also a symbolic slow death of her husband. The loss consumes him and becomes his obsession which ultimately consumes his entire being. He died the day of the reactor explosion but like a victim of radiation poisoning he suffers in prolonged agony until he perishes. Because of the father's obsession with the destruction of the plant he is also lost to his son long before he actually dies.
That's reflected on when they return to the house which shows the last day that the family was alive, and like the mothers body being left to rot, so too was the corpse of that home.
like a victim of radiation poisoning he suffers in prolonged agony
A creative but very tenuous reading.
Spoiler:
Joe's obsession is not a sickness. The sick one is Ford, who has become repressed and detached to the point that his wife has to remind him that his father is part of their family. Joe is presented as vital and in-touch. He's not wasting away, but burning for the truth. This is why Ford has a sense of shame and regret when he admits to Serizawa and Graham that he did not listen to his dad.
Maybe the entire bomb plot of the film could be seen as a reaction to the original Godzilla film? We saw the atomic bomb and started to think ourselves so powerful as to be the rising masters of the universe. In this film, the bomb is our greatest weapon. The height of our ability to destroy and defend ourselves. And it doesn't work. If anything, our mastery of the atom has allowed Godzilla and the Mutos to return and threaten us. Nuclear power is not a height of human achievement, but merely another power we toy with. A force of nature we delude ourselves into believing we control. A dangerous one that could destroy us.
That kind of manages to fuse the themes of this film to the 1954 film creating a direct line in the symbols and themes for both iterations of the Big G. EDIT: While the 54 film focused on the power of the atom unleashed, this one focuses on something bigger. The human arrogance of believing its power could ever be ours to unleash?
I think you're onto something in pointing out that nukes are the go-to "only way to be sure" option. The Japanese one-upped nukes from the beginning of the franchise, however, with the oxygen destroyer. The 1954 film thus becomes a meditation on Japan's allegedly unique maturity regarding mass destruction. Well, the US also has a unique maturity, or at least experience if you like, regarding mass destruction. Someone who really appreciated and understood the '54 film might have explored that angle in this picture.
Instead, we got a movie with no insight on destruction or responsibility. The consequence is Godzilla seems out of place in a movie with his name for the title. It's not that they crammed Ford's story into Godzilla's movie. It's that Godzilla accidentally wandered onto the set of Ford's movie so the studio just went with it and changed the marketing direction.
Automatically Appended Next Post: To be perfectly clear, here is what I suspect actually happened:
The studios got $160 M together for a Godzilla movie and the film makers agreed to do it but then shot a bizarre version of the Odyssey with pasted-on references to the 1954 Godzilla film.
So, forgive me if this is stupid...is Godzilla actually a Kaiju? I'd never even heard the term until Pacific Rim. I realize I lose nerd points for this question.
Godzilla is a daikaiju (giant monster), but yes, the Godzilla movies have been in the genre of kaiju eiga (monster movie) for a long, long time.
Pacific Rim just massively exposed western audiences to the name by specifically calling them kaiju by that term in the movie. Lots of times. Then beating you over the head with it if you didn't get it the first dozen times.
Ok. So, as somebody who only saw the old Godzilla movies a long ass time ago, is Godzilla from another dimension, like the ones in PR? Or a genetic anomaly caused by radiation on earth? Or some other, third thing?
timetowaste85 wrote: Ok. So, as somebody who only saw the old Godzilla movies a long ass time ago, is Godzilla from another dimension, like the ones in PR? Or a genetic anomaly caused by radiation on earth? Or some other, third thing?
Godzilla is a byproduct of atomic weapon testing - the movie first appeared in Japan in the mid 50's, so it was sort of an analogy for nuclear weapons and how they're an uncontrollable force.
I can remember really liking that comic book as a kid (I was in single digits when it came out!), but damn, that's a crappy looking Godzilla, and damn, those are some dumb stories!
It's the actors. They're all stone faced. The only person who seems to walk onto the set and realize "omg we are so screwed" is Joe, who promptly dies after realizing these. Everyone else seemingly realizes they're in a movie and is just going through the motions. There's no sense of dread or terror from any of the main stars about what's happening. At most they seem surprised or in the case of Ken creepily fascinated. Ford has less emotional depth in this film than anyone, seemingly just going 'huh, well here we are' every moment.
Compare this for example to Liam in Taken. He manages to portray a man who is both angry, terrified, and cold blooded all at the same time, and its what really made that movie work. The human side of the story in Godzilla doesn't work, because the actors feel like dolls reading lines of a script and then posing for a commemorative photo shoot.
It sets the human side of the story off kilter and kind of causes the whole thing to splinter.
The studios got $160 M together for a Godzilla movie and the film makers agreed to do it but then shot a bizarre version of the Odyssey with pasted-on references to the 1954 Godzilla film.
I got a good sense that the people behind the film had a passion for what they were doing but the execution, as in so many movies, was off. It's a sad trend in films. The people with the passion often botch the execution, the people with the execution have no passion :(
LordofHats, regarding your last point, I would say thats a symptom of the film industry and the desire to make money. The execution is botched because they have to temper the passion with mass market appeal, resulting in a half-assed movie that attempts to have its cake and eat it too. When the execution is successful but the passion isn't there, its generally because the filmmaker is smart enough to know he can't have his cake and eat it to, and so he 'sells out' and compromises, etc. in order to produce a decent film, but loses the passion for it because it isn't the film he wanted to make, just the film he had to make.
Passion is not the question. The question is, what is the film's take on Godzilla. Despite a lot of lip-service praise in the script, the film doesn't quite seem to know what to do with him.
As for the performances:
Spoiler:
While Cranston's character is alive, there might as well be no one else in the film. His acting is the real Godzilla of this movie in terms of dominating our attention.
Watanabe managed to look somewhere between confused and disgusted for every second in front of the camera. It's like he's just heard super offensive joke and can't quite believe it. Or just had a stroke and it left a weird, gross taste in his mouth.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson was so generically Action White Man that one wonders if he was developed by EA. He, David Strathaim, and everyone else playing a soldier (excepting Victor Rasuk) was a Call of Duty robot.
Elizabeth Olsen did a good job being worried in a lot of different shades but unfortunately didn't get to do much else after her good wife scene.
IMO the show stealer was Sally Hawkins. Her look and energy stand out in a film with too many super safe casting choices. She lends Watanabe's performance a lot of credibility, managing to evoke a whole career's worth of care and worry as his assistant and student.
Still have to agree with reviews that the slower pacing made Godzilla's first reveal especially cool, when they pan all the way up from his feet and screams into the screen.
I got every thing I wanted from this movie. I left and immediately turned to my wife and said, "Well, Pacific Rim just got beat to hell." She agreed.
timetowaste85 wrote: Ok. So, as somebody who only saw the old Godzilla movies a long ass time ago, is Godzilla from another dimension, like the ones in PR? Or a genetic anomaly caused by radiation on earth? Or some other, third thing?
Godzilla is a byproduct of atomic weapon testing - the movie first appeared in Japan in the mid 50's, so it was sort of an analogy for nuclear weapons and how they're an uncontrollable force.
The (much better IMHO) origin and science behind Godzilla from this movie. (major monster spoilers)
Spoiler:
In this movie, Godzilla (and the MUTOS which is basically going to be every monster which is not Godzilla) were primordial beasts which lived on earth long ago when there was a lot more natural radioactivity. They survive of radioactivity and absorb it up, and make the planet habitable to other species. Because they directly compete for food, there is great incentive for all of these creatures to kill each other on sight. Godzilla is the Apex predator on planet earth.
When the natural levels of radioactivity went down, the creatures all went to the bottom of the ocean to feed off the natural radioactivity of the earths core where they basically were dormant. Due to nuclear subs diving deep in the pacific, we basically brought perfect, refined food sources down into the ocean and awakened Godzilla. All of the nuclear tests and such after WW2 was the government trying to kill Godzilla and he basically 'went away'.
They found an insect-like spore which is like Godzilla (the MUTOS which is an acronym for some gak) which decided to begin feeding on the modern nuclear world. The male attacked Japan and fed on a reactor for 15 years. The Female was thought to be dead and her spore was put in the US nuclear waste dump. Both of them got big and fat and ready to reproduce by the thousands.
Male MUTO in Japan called out "Hey, where my Bitches at?" and the Female in the US was like "Awww yeah, come make some babies!" so they started heading towards each other. Godzilla, hearing all this was like "Awww feth no, not on my damn planet." and basically went to hunt them down.
So during all this, 'humans happened' and one japanese dude looking like he gak his pants always saying "Godzilla must fight". Humans did more damage than Godzilla who was surprisingly kind to both ships and city terrain when he was just walking about. He showed very little direct animosity towards man. Godzilla fights them, is a bad ass, beats their asses but gets overwhelmed... and the tiny human which you identify with is going through his own 'I want to give up' struggles... and he frames Godzillas own 'human will to fight' who comes back and wins.
At the end, Godzilla takes a nap then gets up and shuffles out to sea, assuming he is going back to the ocean floor to suck the earths core until next week's atomic monster donkey-cave shows up.
One note: the human destroying the eggs was critical. If Godzilla had actually lost, there would have been nothing preventing the mutos from finding another source of food. I am not convinced the eggs would have simply died as these atomic beasts seem to go dormant not die from lack of food. While it was all moot because Godzilla beat their asses, if he hadn't killed the eggs, they could have deathblowed Godzilla... So there was a small spark of "Tiny Human saves godzilla" which made the whole irrelevant human story arc which framed the destruction relevant. So I actually liked it.
I like this origin better, and it even Retcons nicely the original origins without ruining it. We *ASSUMED* we made him... we were wrong
Oh, and Pacific Rim is trash compared to this. Utter trash.
Chongara wrote: Just saw it. I enjoyed it a lot. As always I'll need to let settle a bit before my final feelings sink in, but it was good.
Spoiler:
It's odd. So much of what I liked about the movie my party hated, or at least thought was stupid/poorly executed.
I really enjoyed that they showed restraint with the monsters. I also liked that they showed the destruction up close. They let you see monsters but not for long, but lingered on the destruction they caused. I like that they actually showed people being dead, you don't usually see that in big destructo films. They did a good job of showing destruction from a very human scale. I thought this made the final payoff with the big fight have some real impact. Godzilla's fatality at the end just blew me away, when that's a stunt they might have pulled in 15minutes on in another movie.
They seemed to want more stompy-stompy. "It was cool when the monsters were fighting, but everything else sucked".
I also enjoy how clearly and thoroughly it dis-empowered the human characters. At every turn what they do has little to no real impact on events, though not for lack of trying.. I remember one of my buddies saying "The whole thing with the father didn't do anything, you could have cut it out entirely and nothing would have changed and it was a 1/4th of the movie". That's kinda the point though, right? It's not like we can show the personal impact of being entirely devoid of agency in the middle of the action, we needed his frustration and the ultimate irrelevance of all his efforts to give the framing for the later failures of more active characters.
They also said it seemed like somebody was trying to make it a military drama/army porn movie... which I didn't really see at all. You don't make the all that modern hardware so utterly impotent if that's what you're going for.
I also really enjoyed how they managed to make you root for godzilla, without trying to make you feel sorry for him, or make it seem like he had some odd higher agenda.
I'm wondering how split opinions will be as more people see it. Then again maybe I'm crazy. Everyone loved Cpt. America 2 and I almost fell asleep during that one...
Yeah, I had some issues with the humans too, like your friends. But I totally agree with your take on the monsters, that was really well done
3D IMAX was amazing. The sound was also done up to a new level. It looked like it was actually filmed for 3D not just he sloppy afterthought you normally get.
Oh, I enjoyed the Godzilla parts of the movie called Godzilla. I would gladly recommend this movie to the layman. (The true fan will see it at least once anyhow.)
Just a minute -- Zilla? Absolutely not. If that person called the King of Monsters ... ugggh *spits* ... Zilla, then he's no friend of yours or anyone.
I think the critics are spot on at around 75%. It's a good popcorn movie that is a little too slow for a little too long but with a few flashes of greatness and an action payoff to mostly make up for it.
Manchu wrote: I think the critics are spot on at around 75%. It's a good popcorn movie that is a little too slow for a little too long but with a few flashes of greatness and an action payoff to mostly make up for it.
Sounds like a two shot of So Co movie. Not a problem!
Not that it doesn’t have flaws and rough spots. And the few times you need a little extra suspension of disbelief. But frankly I’m so pissed at Hollywood at the moment I’m glad they didn’t completely screw this one up.
As a hugh fan of Kaiju cinema from a very early eage, I definitely got the feeling while watching this that it is one of those films that is going to appeal more to diehard Kaiju fans than it will to the average moviegoer. While it is a solid action blockbuster on its own, it really shines in how well it captures the spirit and essence of classic Kaiju cinema. The lack of Godzilla having actual screen time is good, I think, and should not have been unexpected for several reasons. First, if you saw Edwards' last film, Monsters, you should have seen that coming. Second, we knew this was being heavily inspired by the 1954 film, which also had very little screen time for the titular character.
My thoughts?
As a Kaiju film, or a giant monster movie, this is an easy 9/10. A brilliant film that exemplifies Kaiju cinema with a big budget, tons of fan service, and fantastic visual effects. As a film in the general sense of the word, I give it a solid 7/10. It's a great film that did what it intended to do.
Also, I'll be the first to say that the hype and overabundance of trailers in the latter months leading up to the film did a disservice to the film.
The thing about critics is that its very clear that what they look for in a movie is not the same thing the rest of us look for. Case and point; Monsters. The guy who wrote it also wrote Godzilla and it seems kind of clear.
Critics loved Monsters, because it was artsy with vision. Audiences (self included) did not like Monsters because it ended up not being the movie they wanted. Reading the reviews of the film on Rotten tomato it becomes very clear that critics and film audiences are very different animals that just happen to overlap a lot.
@chaos, I'd agree to that. The souless production of big budget movies seems to suck the life out of good people.
Darth Bob wrote: it really shines in how well it captures the spirit and essence of classic Kaiju cinema
I don't think you could be more wrong about that. Godzilla is way, way too elusive in this movie. As I mentioned before, James Cameron did not only show us a little bit of the Titanic. That film lives up to its name. This one, not so much.
This film was certainly made for general moviegoers. Pacific Rim is a better example of a movie for kaiju fans, even at the expense of the general audience.
Manchu wrote: Pacific Rim is a better example of a movie for kaiju fans, even at the expense of the general audience.
Nothing about Pacific Rim can be considered an example of a 'better' movie when compared to pretty much everything... It was all around terrible at the expense of every audience.
I don't really think that's a bad thing. While I liked Pacific Rim's fist bunching action, that film had no sense of pacing or hanging onto tension. After the first big fight it felt like the climax had passed and the film just dragged along for another half hour of cheesy dialogue.
Putting the monster front and center might be what we've come to expect from low grade monster flicks, but they were clearly trying for something better than that in this film. Hollywood should be encouraged to take risks and we should be happy they attempted something different in this movie (for whatever reason they chose to do so), even if it didn't quite live up to everything we wanted.
Darth Bob wrote: it really shines in how well it captures the spirit and essence of classic Kaiju cinema
I don't think you could be more wrong about that. Godzilla is way, way too elusive in this movie. As I mentioned before, James Cameron did not only show us a little bit of the Titanic. That film lives up to its name. This one, not so much.
This film was certainly made for general moviegoers. Pacific Rim is a better example of a movie for kaiju fans, even at the expense of the general audience.
Totally disagree. If you watch the original 1954 film, Godzilla's screen time is very minimal and in that film, he didn't additionally share the screen with a pair of other monsters. This film chose to emphasize the human element of Godzilla in the same way that the original film did. Pacific Rim was, perhaps, more representative of the Kaiju films of the 80's and 90's, but this film brought Godzilla back to his minimalist roots. It also struck me as more akin to the Gamera films of the 2000's. This film absolutely lived up to its name, and I really don't understand the relevance of comparing this film to Titanic; especially since the Titanic itself is a central setting and location within the story and not a character within the overarching plot.
I loved Pacific Rim, but it felt more like a Neon Genesis Evangelion film than a Kaiju movie.
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.
Shoot, why didn't I think of seeing this in 3D? And I had the option right there! In hindsight, it probably lent itself to 3D very well (at least, for the key scenes ).
I fail to see why being made to appeal to a general audience is a bad thing. I know we mock mainstreaming of films as dumbing things down, but having broad appeal in itself doesn't strike me as much of a criticism.
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 don't really get the realism comment about Pacific Rim when I think of realism in a movie context I think of stuff Like The Bicycle Thief, The Wrestler and Salaam Bombay not Pacific Rim.
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 don't really get the realism comment about Pacific Rim when I think of realism in a movie context I think of stuff Like The Bicycle Thief, The Wrestler and Salaam Bombay not Pacific Rim.
Yeah, never understand that comment either..
I went to pacific rim to see big mechs punch big monsters, I got what I wanted in spades.
Darth Bob wrote: If you watch the original 1954 film, Godzilla's screen time is very minimal and in that film
Incorrect. Godzilla had plenty of screen time in the '54 film. What's more, when he was on, he was on, dominating the screen, unlike Edwards's preference to tease and tease to build up to a bare few minutes of prime fighting. Yes, the original movie also had a lot of human stuff going on -- difference being that the human stories in the '54 movie had to do with the thematic presence of Godzilla (primo example - Serizawa's angst over the oxygen destroyer). In this movie, the main character has no interest in Godzilla at all. He just wants to get back to wife and junior. Ford's disinterest in Godzilla seems reflective of the film makers' perspective. Same thing goes for 2014 Serizawa (Watanabe) -- he projects utter confusion in response to the idea of Godzilla with his near-constant "whaaaa?" expression. Another nice mirror image of the film makers, that.
Darth Bob wrote: I really don't understand the relevance of comparing this film to Titanic
Clearly. The relevance is that no one who is interested in kaiju would argue that showing more of them than Godzilla (2014) did is a bad thing. James Cameron was clearly fascinated as an artist with the Titanic. Did seeing it in such extraordinary and loving detail make the movie less effective? And yet that is the argument being implicitly made by the film makers with Godzilla.
Darth Bob wrote: especially since the Titanic itself a central setting and location within the story and not a character within the overarching plot
If you think the ship was just a set, I submit you don't understand the movie. That's like saying Godzilla is just a special effect.
Cheesecat wrote: I don't really get the realism comment about Pacific Rim
Realism as in an appeal to reality. For example, the attempt to explain kaiju biology is an appeal to realism. It's a stylistic choice. Pacific Rim never settled on snubbing reality or appealing to it.
Soladrin wrote: I went to pacific rim to see big mechs punch big monsters
And some people go to the movies for pop corn. Or air conditioning.
