Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

You realize you paid to see GODZILLA, right?

 Alpharius wrote:
You realize you paid to see GODZILLA, right?

I think that every time someone talks about the plot for the Transformers franchise, too. It's giant toys and their human friends, what do you expect?

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
You realize you paid to see GODZILLA, right?

I think that every time someone talks about the plot for the Transformers franchise, too. It's giant toys and their human friends, what do you expect?

A little plot consistency. I don't expect Charles Dickens but still. We should have a minimum standard

Big stompy monster smashing buildings and belching fire at people. What did you expect? Casablanca part 2?

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.

I just wanna see Bambi get smooshed.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
You realize you paid to see GODZILLA, right?

I think that every time someone talks about the plot for the Transformers franchise, too. It's giant toys and their human friends, what do you expect?

A little plot consistency. I don't expect Charles Dickens but still. We should have a minimum standard

I honestly don't see the inconsistency you claim. They're simplistic, sure, but outside of Revenge, the plots are fairly consistent.

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.

Excellent. I loved Man of Steel.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I just wanna see Bambi get smooshed.

Here you go, fether!

 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.

Here ya go:

http://tfwiki.net/wiki/Movie_timeline

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.


*It was me.

I'm seeing this tomorrow morning, can't wait.

 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.

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:,


So good, I'm probably going to go see it again tomorrow.

This is possibly the first time on Dakka Dakka that I have not clicked the "spoiler" button.

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.

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;



That was just wtf in its purest form.

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.

 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.

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.

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.

We didn't rename Godzilla.

 Manchu wrote:
We didn't rename Godzilla.

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

Diagree with your points about Ford.

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.