I really liked (the first season of) Knights of Sidonia. The animation style took a bit of getting used to but I ultimately liked it more than I disliked it.
Manchu wrote: I really liked (the first season of) Knights of Sidonia. The animation style took a bit of getting used to but I ultimately liked it more than I disliked it.
My problem with the Sidonia animation and using it for this is the stuff doesn't really interact with each other. Lots of shooting at distant targets and dog fighting, but no real grappling or moving. That could work if it's just Godzilla leveling a city with the usual choppers and tanks shooting at him, but it would leave much to be desired if there's a Kaiju wrestling match.
Based on Gen Urobuchi's writing style, I fully expect Godzilla to be killed near the 3rd episode mark.
If Polygon would complete their animation at 30fps, then I would probably be okay with them doing this. Hell I'd be okay if any Japanese animation studio didn't cut frames from their CGI scenes.
The last summer of the 20th century. On that day, the human race realized that they were not the only ruler of the planet earth.
The emergence of gigantic monsters "kaiju" and the ultimate existence that even can destroy the kaijus, Godzilla. After half-century of the war against the kaijus, the human race repeatedly defeated and decided to escape from the earth. Then finally in the year 2048, only people who were chosen by the artificial intelligence under the control of the central government went on board the interstellar immigrant ship Aratrum and left for the "Cetus: Planet Tau e" which was 11.9 light years away from the earth. But the environmental condition difference between the earth and Tau e, which took 20 years to reach, was far exceeded the predicted value, and there was no way to survive for the human race.
A young man named Haruo is on board of the immigrant ship. His parents were killed by Godzilla right front of him when he was 4, since then, he has been thinking about only going back to the earth and killing Godzilla for 20 years. Since there is no hope for immigration to other planets, the "Return to the Earth" group including Haruo becomes the mainstream in the ship as its living condition is getting worse, then they decide to try the long distance hyperspace navigation.
However, 20,000 years have already passed when they finally arrive the earth, and it becomes a totally unknown world dominated by an ecosystem topped by Godzilla. Can the human race take the earth back, and the fate of Haruo will be...?
Polygon Pictures makes some good stuff. Check out BLAME! on Netflix right now if you would like a preview of the style you will see in Monster Planet. Plus, BLAME! is a pretty good movie in its own right.
It's pretty meh. The animation quality is low (especially for Big-G). Most of the movie is dull story setting dialogue, and when stuff finally starts happening the movie is already basically over. This feels more like someone had an idea for a 13 episode anime series that they then ended up turning into a movie.
This was "Part 1, Episode 1" - whatever that means.
So it was heavily burdened by exposition, in the absolute worst tradition of needlessly talky anime. The characters were uniformly boring despite being over the top, again, in the worst tradition of anime, And honestly I didn't really understand what happened, by the end.
On the bright side, I like the sci fi premise. Hope that the next episode ... or part, or whatever, is a little more ... or maybe a little less ... er, well, just better.
Resounding “meh” from me. I’ll put up with crappy animation if the story/characters/premise are good. I’ll put up with crappy story/characters if the art is fantastic. This had nothing. The only draw was the Big G, and he was poorly done and almost never on the screen.
I’d say I’m not going to watch “part 2” if it ever shows up, but I’m weak, and probably will anyway. But I shouldn’t.
There is a post credits scene if people missed it.
I seem to be largely allergic* to Anime as a medium. But I started watching this last night and found it really quite enjoyable. To the degree I may actually finish watching this one
*I see why others love it, but it's traditionally left me rather cold, when I should be amongst those loving it.
Was pretty disappointed but what I saw so far, to be honest.
I didn't like the characterization of Godzilla as a malicious force who is actively trying to eliminate humanity. I really prefer him as a moving natural disaster and occasional antihero. It felt really out of character
Spoiler:
when he shot down an escaping colony ship that threatened him in no way, for example.
There was very little decent action and an awful lot of dialogue. None of the characters were meaningfully fleshed out in terms of character development.
I'm really not into anime and only watched this as a Godzilla property, and this was very much an anime first and a Godzilla movie, like, 3rd, at best.
In some scenes I enjoyed the CGI-ish anime, but in others it really did seem very dark and muddled.
The actual Godzilla animation didn't seem terrible, but it also seemed like he was essentially immobile, yet moving unseen. Instead of an immense living creature, he was more like a slowly sliding mountain that shot fire sometimes.
The design of the far-future human stuff was pretty good. I especially liked the wheeled, legged tanks. The armored space/environment suits were good.
I doubt I will bother watching any additional entries in this series.
Saw it earlier today and I quite liked it, despite not being a massive fan of the franchise. The opening bit of history was hilarious, as not one, but two alien races came to earth when the gak hit the fan and tried to help out, but ultimately failed.
The animation style used isn't all that different from previous projects done by the same studio, including Knights of Sidonia and the BLAME! movie.
I may be in minority here, but I'm looking forward to seeing how the rest of the trilogy pans out.
Which is weird because I got used to it years ago when Knights of Sidonia season 1 (which I really liked) came out on Netflix. Although I didn't like season 2, the animation style didn't bother me. I also really liked BLAME! and, like KoS, the cell-shaded computer-modeled animation was totally appropriate to the visual design of the setting.
The visual design of Monster Planet, however, was boring, which in turn made think of how Polygon's style is actually kind of lazy. Not that creating and animating all those computer models is easy or anything; just that it's kind of a gimmick. And when the underlying content is low quality, the gimmick seems a lot cheaper.
As a G-fan, I'll watch whatever G-content comes out. I just hope that the next installments offer something original rather than cribbing story from Attack on Titan and setting from Kinghts of Sidonia.
The next movie is going to feature Mechagodzilla, that should be fun.
The title is also promising: "The second film in the trilogy, titled Gojira: Kessen Kidō Zōshoku Toshi, (translations vary from Godzilla: Battle Mobile Breeding City to Godzilla: The City Mechanized for the Final Battle) is scheduled to be released in May 2018 and set to feature Mechagodzilla."
SO far I'm not impressed. Godzilla as an analogy for a massive destructive force is still present, but the
Spoiler:
1) Multiple godzillas. Really?
2) Three episodes of plot that put them right back where they started with no plot advancement
3) Godzilla has star trek style shields >.<
It all left me feeling like someone tape godzilla on top of a typical japanese hard science fiction show. Everything else kind works, but Godzilla doesn't.
yea the multiple godzillas was kind of odd and we never did figure out how a sigular creature bred flying creatures and a smaller godzilla? the action was so-so but was overall entertaining for the hour or so it took to watch. I'll probably watch the next installment when it comes out and I'm bored enough to throw it on.
didnt like knights of Sidonia, BLAME! was okay, this is mediocre as well.
As a Godzilla fanatic for years I tried to watch it the other night after reading this thread, and fell asleep before they ever got to Earth. Dozing off is not the best thing for a subtitled show....
AegisGrimm wrote: As a Godzilla fanatic for years I tried to watch it the other night after reading this thread, and fell asleep before they ever got to Earth. Dozing off is not the best thing for a subtitled show....
I'll sum up that part of the plot up for you:
We Failed.
Yep. Total Failure.
Let's go back to earth
Isn't Godzilla still there
We'll just shoot him. Surely noone tried that before, right?
I actually really enjoyed it, I guess I'm weird that way? Having only watched Dragonball before I've had pretty little exposure to anime, so I was pretty impressed by the animation and production quality. Thought it was much, much better than the Godzilla movie we got in 2014. Really looking forward to the next part!
Yes, I am pretty excited - as some of you know, Mothra is my favorite kaiju. And hoepfully she will inject some much-needed excitement into this sequel.
Rising from the depths of the planet is a new breed of monster, dubbed “Godzilla Earth.” Evolving for 20,000 years, the creature stands 300 meters high, weighs over 100,000 tons and wields such overwhelmingly destructive power that Haruo and company have no choice but to run for their lives. Coming to Haruo’s rescue, however, is Miana, a member of an aboriginal tribe called the Houtua. They are the first humanoid people the returnees have encountered. Could they descend from humans? “Our tribal god was destroyed by Godzilla. All that we have left are these eggs. Anyone who has tried to fight or resist him has been drowned in fire,” the tribespeople say to Haruo, who responds with: “This is our last hope of recovering our home.” Meanwhile, Bilusaludo commander, Galu-gu is elated to discover that the Houtua tribe’s arrowheads are made of a nanometal or a self-sustaining metal. It had been developed in the 21st century as an “anti-Godzilla” killer weapon deployed at their decisive battle fought at the foot of Mt. Fuji, but had been destroyed before it could be activated in the form of a “Mecha-Godzilla.” The nanometal was its base substance, and proof that the manufacturing plant can still be used.
I’ll watch it because... I’m sure I’ll find some reason. Probably not a good one. Wasn’t impressed with the first one, but I’m a sucker of punishment a/o Godzilla movies.
Godzilla has already killed a previous incarnation of Mothra in this timeline, apparently, but the Mothra worshippers of course have her eggs. So maybe she will appear pr maybe that will be a final installment reveal.
Manchu wrote: This animated Godzilla series has so many great ideas but the pacing of the narrative and the lame characters make it an absolute chore to watch.
Yeah and on the word that it's still bad I'll probably just skip it. I've got House M.D. on iTunes now so me thinks ima watch that
Manchu wrote: Be warned, I like it better but it is still pretty bad.
Yup. Better then the first one, but that’s not a high bar to clear. Only watch it if you are some combination of dedicated/drunk/masochistic/very bored. Idealy all four, but you might be able to glean some enjoyment out of it if you can hit three of them.
Its exactly what you would expect from anime. Long speaches about philosophy meant to sound deep but is actually just a way to monologue the themes at the audience because most japanese cinema lacks the subtlety to show not tell.
It's not bad. Yes, lots of mouthy jibba-jabba & Mechagodzilla is "kinda" here but not what you are expecting at all. So they totally blew it on that alone. Yeah, they drop hints about Mothra all over the place.
However, they really, really slow-played Gidorah for the next one. Confirmed that KG is an extra-terrestrial monster/origin at the very least
Gotta agree. Watched it, and it was just a resounding "meh". A bit too much anime and not quite enough Godzilla-ing. Suffered from something I see in a lot of anime - plot branches which are unnecessary to the actual plot/story. Just a ton of them.
Great animation, admittedly, but both films so far have been a bit of a let-down.
I will never watch another one of these again. I got up to the weird still image musical after the "fight" and after listening to WAY too much typical anime preachy speeches about philosophy and nonsense I am completely done. If they make a 4th and it's the greatest godzilla ever made I will still never watch it at all.
So um, like, What?
So, Godzilla just pops up no matter the planet if it's advanced enough and wrecks face, and Ghidorah eats him then?
Why didn't the exif just show up, use their ritual and end it at the beginning?
Well, I have watched all three instalment and I am generally speaking a casual fan of Godzilla. While the original concept was interesting and some of the animation was successful, I found the movie to be lacking in terms of visual and action, preventing it from being a good spectacle. It also failed at being at being a good soul-searching quest by being plagued by bad dialogue, poor voice acting and cardboard characters. Finally, it's overly verbose nature and heavy in exposition prevented it from being a more artistic endeavor. In spoiler, I detail more of these points with an injection of bad humor and genuine emotion, the thing these movies lacked the most in my opinion.
Spoiler:
These movies were, in my opinion, quintessentially edgy as **** and not in a good way. Seriously if an angsty edgelord was to reincarnate in a movie series, it would look and feel like that. Maybe this is an effect of culture clash, but I have rarely seen a series of movie so "by the number" and so consistently trying to be deep and edgy, but only sounding twice more vapid.
The premise, while interesting was completly wasted by its execution. The idea of a bunch of human exploring a Earth that is no longer their own while trying to defeat a giant invicible monster would have been nice if the characters did any actual exploring and if they had the good grace of showing something worth looking at. Seriously, how can you make a mysterious and dangerous looking jungle look so bland. Ever thought about establishing the environment?
The biggest killer in this series are the characters, uniformally terrible. The main character is some sort of psychotic maniac who I would describe as "what if a male teenage hearthrobe had a brain transplant with Captain Ahab". He is an unbearable character who seem to be stuck between range-filled and moppy. He completely fails at feeling human or remotely sympathetic. It took him four hours or so to get killed in a stupid way and it was about 3 hours and a half too late. The female lead is absolutly terrible seem to display the level of confidence, the intellectual and emotional maturity of a 14 years old, let alone that of an adult woman and a trained soldier. If she didn't sounded like an absolute child it would have helped, but I suppose someone needed to let some place for their favorite kinks. I have hope that, one day, Japanese will finally create more then three or four bearable female character.
Godzilla feels immobile and small even he is supposed to be at its biggest. Every move seems to take him an eternity and his skin looks like rock with poor definition. Combat against him, which seems to last for hours, consist of people screaming at him, explosion while he just remain immobile and sometime makes a very slow roar animation. Speaking of roars, Godzilla roars less then the humans and seems less noisy and nobody gets any sort of power-up. I mean, if you are to scream and scowl like that all the time, I expect you to either explode in pure energy at some point or suffer from terrible constipation problems and in the end the immobility of Godzilla seems to no big problem as he can destroy thing without moving! Exciting!
The animation isn't terrible, tought people's body look stiff. Everything is grey washed and feels lifeless. It's sometime hard to tell one character from the other. The ship visual seems to be the most interesting thing in the series and those two alien races that are basicall human with fancier hair style and a few inches more are very poorly developped. The moment something seem to finally happen to them, they are gone. Earth's environment seems to be extremely poor, hesitating between wasteland and greyish jungle with no animals in it (or barely any). During the first episode, those wyvern creature causes all sort of problems and challenges, but seem to be completly gone afterward. We don't see any other monster beside them. Why?
The entire subplot of the twin girls and the humans seems useless since they bring nothing to the story except quasi nudity at some point and a completely useless damsel in distress that doesn't seem to get rescued on screen. Then again, if you remove the repeated shot of tanks and aircrafts shooting and people screaming and the overly long exposition. You could probably condense the material for those three movie in a single 2 hour long movie.
The entire series dialogue pass from terrible exposition, people screaming at a giant monster in an attempt to look badass in a very 1990's Predator movie style and finishes with a grandiose moment of pseudo nihilistic philosophy on the fact that thing dies, but it rambles on and on and on and on. I imagine I was supposed to care and be anxious about the fate of our hero's soul, but clearly, I was just waiting to see when the "power of love/friendship/having sex with the wierd twin probably minor girl/duty to humanity" was going to bring the hero to defeat the religious villain and save Earth (and Godzilla). The ending, in all its edgy vibe and philosophical monologue on death and destruction doesn't even rise to have the guts to actually end with the complete destruction of humanity by Godzilla. Then, maybe, they could have claimed to be one of those rare movie in which, at the end, all humans are dead because they were rage-filled monsters who cannot grow beyond their angst. Edgy enough to talk for hours about fate, civilisation and humanity dooming themselves and hopelesness, but not enough to actually break this little taboo.
hotsauceman1 wrote: So um, like, What?
So, Godzilla just pops up no matter the planet if it's advanced enough and wrecks face, and Ghidorah eats him then?
Why didn't the exif just show up, use their ritual and end it at the beginning?
I think Godzilla fits the paradigm on Earth, but other kaiju appear on other planets (hence Ghidora.)
I think perhaps they needed to fatten him up (evolve) for the ritual, perhaps humanity bailing on the planet stunted his growth?
Not that any of that matters, it sucked pretty hard, I started to drift off during the opening monologue and spent most of the running time doing anything but watch the movie. Which is a shame, because I kinda liked the first two.
So first off, for the third time, what a stinking heap of garbage!
I nodded off twice. Talk talk talk — and all of it was complete nonsense. I watched with subtitles on just to see if one translation explained this endless stream of edgelord philosophizing any better than the other. Nope.
Godzilla’s, ahem, “battle” against King Ghidorah was pathetic. Ghidorah looked pathetic. Mothra was ... just a psychic vision? that Polygon did not bother to actually design/animate.
The series has some interesting ideas and themes but they afe so swamped, and eventually completely deadened, by the most feeble if cruelly ceaseless attempts at overintellectualizing them that the writers apparently forgot that audiences like characterization and plot and story, instead of just three movie-length exposition dumps.
Yeah, these movies are an incredibly bad exposition of anime, when right alongside it I (re)discovered 5 "seasons" of Fullmetal Alchemist, and just plain gave up on Godzilla: Boring Speeches to binge watch that, and this is coming from a massive Godzilla fan.
Almost all anime has that exposition garbage. Its a cultural thing. Japan doesnt understand show dont tell. This latest installment is particularly bad with it. But full metal alchemist also has it. They all do.
I hated that whole fething neo luddite BS message. After several good years that sort of gak killed battlestar galactica in the last half hour of the series and i'm tired of the whole "technology is bad! "meme. Feth that gak....
Azreal13 wrote: I'm not sure that it's going to come as a shock to those who watch a lot of anime if that's the style.
If the degree of exposition is too egregious for somebody who's a fan of the genre and understands the foibles, then it's got to be exceptionally bad.
Exposition is important in any science-fiction or fantasy univers. You need a certain degree of it for the world to make sense (most very popular Anime falls in either category as far as I know). I think the biggest issue of these movies is the fact they combine the tradition of many Godzilla movies of having human characters narrate everything that's going on and comment on all of Godzilla action, plus the lengthy exposition of all science-fiction setting, plus all the exposition of all stories with an extensive "it happened a long time ago" and finally another dose of pseudo-philosophy hammered on top of it.
Azreal13 wrote: I'm not sure that it's going to come as a shock to those who watch a lot of anime if that's the style.
If the degree of exposition is too egregious for somebody who's a fan of the genre and understands the foibles, then it's got to be exceptionally bad.
Exposition is important in any science-fiction or fantasy univers. You need a certain degree of it for the world to make sense (most very popular Anime falls in either category as far as I know).
Disagree. Alien is a sci fi movie with no exposition speeches. Its just regular conversation the characters would have. Show dont tell.
There is also no exposition in Warlock. Any "exposition" is done in regular conversation when one character is answering questions the other character would legitimately have under the circumstances. Why would he want fat from an unbaptised child? Flight potion.
Besides the opening crawls, the sw original trilogy (science fantasy) doesn't stop the movie dead in its tracks to exposition at you. You know what the force can do because they show us what the force can do. Any further information we get is a natural aspect of following a character who is also learning it.
I watched the first two and thought they were terrible (only reason I kept watching was it was basically background noise while doing other stuff).
I'm not a fan of the genre though. Never understood what people love about anime so much. I just watched it because I wanted to see monsters smash smash.
Oh, Another thing, This series I think somehow beats all of Star trek for the amount of Techno-babble in it.
Like, my God, when Ghidorah was "attacking" the ship and that lady was spouting all that it was too hard to follow.
Jesus was that annoying.
Not only that, Godzila has no sense of scale in this movie.
Oh yeah, the technobabble I found distracting when they just smooshed words together as if it'd sound like something meaningful (maybe that was just the dubbing though, sometimes stuff gets lost in translation).
I think Lance makes a great point that Japanese productions very often tell rather than show, something considered clunky at best by anglophonic audiences. One wonders if it is a matter of budgetary constraints. Or maybe the Japanese enjoy being lectured in their entertainment. Or perhaps the excessive wordiness imparts a sense of gravity to the action (such that it is) for them?
That said, this trilogy is particularly egregious even by the standards of anime. It’s so dull. And the boring, somestimes downright stupid, visual design of the series just reinforces how dull all the constant talking is.
Manchu wrote: I think Lance makes a great point that Japanese productions very often tell rather than show, something considered clunky at best by anglophonic audiences. One wonders if it is a matter of budgetary constraints. Or maybe the Japanese enjoy being lectured in their entertainment. Or perhaps the excessive wordiness imparts a sense of gravity to the action (such that it is) for them?
That said, this trilogy is particularly egregious even by the standards of anime. It’s so dull. And the boring, somestimes downright stupid, visual design of the series just reinforces how dull all the constant talking is.
Is it Japanese films in general or more anime specifically? I imagine the cost of making an anime increases the more is visually happening, whereas a scene of a couple of people talking for 5 minutes making minor gestures while otherwise standing/sitting still doesn’t require much artwork to be generated.
I was watching another (not anime) Japanese film the other day and was pondering why they were bothering to say things that were obvious from context, but at the same time it didn’t really interrupt anything compared to anime where it does seem to really slow things down.
Manchu wrote: I think Lance makes a great point that Japanese productions very often tell rather than show, something considered clunky at best by anglophonic audiences. One wonders if it is a matter of budgetary constraints. Or maybe the Japanese enjoy being lectured in their entertainment. Or perhaps the excessive wordiness imparts a sense of gravity to the action (such that it is) for them?
That said, this trilogy is particularly egregious even by the standards of anime. It’s so dull. And the boring, somestimes downright stupid, visual design of the series just reinforces how dull all the constant talking is.
Is it Japanese films in general or more anime specifically? I imagine the cost of making an anime increases the more is visually happening, whereas a scene of a couple of people talking for 5 minutes making minor gestures while otherwise standing/sitting still doesn’t require much artwork to be generated.
I was watching another (not anime) Japanese film the other day and was pondering why they were bothering to say things that were obvious from context, but at the same time it didn’t really interrupt anything compared to anime where it does seem to really slow things down.
You'll find it in live action films as well, though to a lesser degree. It is super common in anime, manga, and light novels as well though. Works generated over there tend to be very expositional, especially when they delve deep into trying to explaining magic, technology, and other such things.
The original Fate/Stay Night visual novel is something like 5,000,000 words long, and fans often jokes that 1/2 of it is long info dumps explaining in-universe physics.
I have seen it in live action as well. It IS worse in anime but I can't think of any live action Japanese cinema that doesn't have it. Thats why I think it's cultural.
The only examples I can think of that don't have it in anime are generally considered to be the best of the best of anime and stand head and shoulders above the rest.
1) Studio Ghibli. They have the best track record for both story telling and animation. They have a higher frame rate with their images resulting in smoother animations and no exposition. Nobody stops in the middle of a car ride to start asking questions that are just the theme of the movie disguised as what is supposed to be deep intellectual introspectives but is actually just exposition because the audience must be too dumb to understand what the feth is happening. (I'm looking at you Ghost in the Shell)
2) Akira. Basically the first anime to ditch the low frame rate and do some actual animation. Also has little to no exposition. Any exposition that does happen is generally the psychic kids asking each other questions. Important not just because it mostly holds up today, but because it was ground breaking when it was done.
3) Cowboy Bebop. It's been a long while so I could be wrong. This one has the generally bad animation of the vast majority of anime, but it has generally great story telling with none of animes exposition nonsense.
Anime is absolutely notorious for over-talkiness. A lot of the ones I’ve recently seen, it’s practically non-stop. And there is an associated problem, which I also noticed in this latest Godzilla anime: it is often pretty ambiguous whether the chatterbox charcters constantly spewing their stream of consciousness lines are speaking aloud or just endlessly monologing interiorially. This is further exacerbated by having characters, usually pseudo-magical girls, that speak little or never. In the present case, the Mothra twins occupy that role.
I think anime has a tendency to try and beat the audience over the head with it's point, just to be sure they get it. The entire ending arcs of Naruto were so dragged out in themselves, constantly pulling out some new twist to continue the action. Throw in the mountains of flashbacks, exposition explaining motives and mechanics, and "this is what I think" stuff and the whole show just dragged so damn much.
Some series are worse than others. Naruto got pretty bad at times. Bleach suffered from it exceptionally imo, especially when someone would spend upwards of 3 episodes to explain how their super power worked. Samurai Champloo at times could have used more exposition to explain exactly what was going on imo. I knock the final episode of Fate/Apocrypha a bit for failing to explain anything necessary to actually understand the ending of the series. It's utterly baffling if you haven't read the novels.
Literally, the best parts of a Godzilla movie fit into "show, don't tell".
To me, a Godzilla movie is not watching Godzilla slowly and glacially move into threat range of babbling heroes. It's about them scrambling as he is wrecking stuff.
But there's not a lot of building-wrecking to be had in a barren wasteland in the future, I guess. Regardless of the original, a Godzilla movie is about him fighting other giant monsters, which is a giant failure of two of the three anime movies so far. (I'm not counting him "fighting" a city.)
