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Godzilla Cinematic Universe Thread


Unlucky Bastard

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Just now, Gistech said:

Bob Chipman? Isn't he The_MovieBob on Twitter?

 

Yep. I like his analytical essay-type retrospective reviews (ID4, The Avengers, Superman, Ghostbusters), however I can't understand why the hell he gave Ghostbusters 2016 such a glowering review. But he saw fuckin' ID:R for what it was, thank christ.

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I fail to see how KotM not being Godzilla 2014 is a negative. Whoever mourns over the lack of pathetically bland and vanilla human stories in the vein of 2014 deserves public ridicule. Imagine buying a ticket to a movie called "Godzilla", expecting the standard, run of the mill American war hero story mixed with the most uninteresting love couple ever. Ugh.

The worst thing you can do to a silly fun franchise like this is give it into the hands of a "visionary" and "artistic" director who constantly seems to stroke himself over how he's so clever not giving people what they expect (aka fucking Godzilla in a movie called "Godzilla").

Godzilla 2014 was probably the worst movie anyone could make after 1998 set the framework of what people want out of a Hollywood Godzilla.

If you want "vision" in a Godzilla movie, I suggest you stick to movies that you don't set yourself up to dissapointment for.

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13 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

I fail to see how KotM not being Godzilla 2014 is a negative. Whoever mourns over the lack of pathetically bland and vanilla human stories in the vein of 2014 deserves public ridicule. Imagine buying a ticket to a movie called "Godzilla", expecting the standard, run of the mill American war hero story mixed with the most uninteresting love couple ever. Ugh.

The worst thing you can do to a silly fun franchise like this is give it into the hands of a "visionary" and "artistic" director who constantly seems to stroke himself over how he's so clever not giving people what they expect (aka fucking Godzilla in a movie called "Godzilla").

Godzilla 2014 was probably the worst movie anyone could make after 1998 set the framework of what people want out of a Hollywood Godzilla.

If you want "vision" in a Godzilla movie, I suggest you stick to movies that you don't set yourself up to dissapointment for.

 

Gareth Edwards subverted expectations before it became cool.

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Just now, El Jefe said:

No, just the way he shot the film. It was a pretty healthy budget.

 

Yeah it was $160 million, but I wondered at the time whether there might have been more monster action if it was a $200 million budget, but he simply had to work with what he had.

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5 minutes ago, Stefancos said:

$160 is a big budget! Especially since the film didn't have a huge star cast.

 

They had to pay Cranston. 😉

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8 minutes ago, Hurmm said:

Personally I thought there were moments when it was too obvious the director deliberately wanted to cut away from a Godzilla fight, but it didn't really matter because he gave us a proper kickass showdown in the finale, replete with beautiful imagery. Even in the first 2/3 of the movie where there supposedly wasn't enough Godzilla, I wasn't left wanting because it still had a number of brilliantly mounted and executed sequences involving the MUTOs

 

Edwards has a strong visual eye and Godzilla had some Spielbergian touches in the staging of its scenes.

 

Unfortunately, unlike Spielberg, Edwards really isn't very good in making characters distinct or interesting.

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In the wake of the criticism the film is copping, I'm left thinking on one hand it's a fucking Godzilla movie, and on the other hand - it's a fucking Godzilla movie. If you're expecting a well-rounded, intelligent, character-driven experience you're in the wrong theatre. 

 

I don't know, perhaps it's something to do with the scale and separation of the humans from Godzilla. It's difficult to meet halfway to deliver a film that isn't plagued with poor characters, or not enough scenes of the monster fights.

 

I want to see a Godzilla film where there's no focus on the humans, it's a story about Godzilla making his way through the world and taking  down mutos and other monsters. 

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I dunno, I'm worried about this movie. I mean all Godzilla ever seems to do is run around in the nuddy. This is shameful. Why doesn't he put some clothes on?! Instead he's flashing his nudes at Norma Bates like a pervert!

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SPOILERS

 

Spoiler

 

Alright, to elaborate. It's no wonder critics hated this. It's a non-stop barrage of noise, spectacle and action, that it offers almost no space to breathe. If Gareth Edwards had written the rulebook on this franchise in 2014 for a more suspenseful and meditative experience, then Mike Dougherty took that and flushed it down Godzilla's giant loo inside his subterranean house. Don't doubt the power of fanbase demands! The criticisms hurled at Edwards' flick have pretty much been rectified here, almost at sensory overload levels. I can imagine Edwards watching this and thinking "No, no, no! It's all wrong! Slow this fucker down!" Be warned, this isn't the realistic and relatable, dark and disturbing approach of the 2014 film - it's a hyper stylised tesla coil on acid.

 

It's also interesting how bit by bit, this movie cynically jettisons some hold-over elements of the 2014 flick by killing off Sally Hawkins' character in the most gratuitously throwaway manner possible, probably to make way for Ziyi Zhang to fill in for her role as a surprising connection to Mothra! And Ken Watanabe gets a touchingly dignified exit. Oh and about Zhang, there's a crude scripting/editing goof in this where it seems she's in two different parts of the world simultaneously, forgetting to explain she's a goddamned set of twins! It took me a while for that one to hit me, and the movie brushed over it so fast, almost everyone will miss it.

 

The Russell family is the core human story and I found it slightly more compelling than the army guy in the first movie. Much like the plot, the family drama is as thin as a waffer, but at least they have charisma and an active role to play in the story. The big complaint I've heard is their story is brushed over in the final act, but I disagree! Vera Farmiga had time to stew over her big mistakes, defy the insidious Charles Dance, rescue her missing daughter and work with her estranged husband. In the middle of the monster action, it somehow all works. And since Kyle Chandler and Millie Bobby Brown will return in Godzilla vs Kong, maybe there's more to their story that Mike Dougherty wants to tell?

 

Well, fook, how'd I take so long to get to the real friggin star of the film? Godzilla himself is nothing short of spectacular - a paragon of strength, power and mystique. A leviathan of benevolence. Instead of being just a force of nature, Dougherty has deepened his personality where we see his reactions to his fellow titans with greater clarity. One of my favourite moments is when he rises from the ocean after receiving a power boost from Ken Watanabe's self-sacrifice and he looks down to inspect the humans standing in awe on top of a submarine. It reminded me of the 1998 Saturday morning cartoon Godzilla: The Series where he was just short of being a cute and cuddly guard dog. Seeing him standing triumphant at the very end, at the height of his power, made me kinda giddy. There was an interesting exchange where one character says "glad he's on our side", and Zhang replies "for now" - a Godzilla vs Kong set up no doubt, where possibly his motivations will be questioned, and Kong will be summoned to bring him down a notch? The stuff between Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan made me think maybe Dougherty is secretly a fan of the YouTube show MonsterIslandBuddies. And Ghidorah? Well it's funny to think that although he's the Big Bad, I was more fearful of Charles Dance, who features in the post-credits scene inspecting one of Ghidorah's severed heads - so they're bringing Ghidorah back in Godzilla vs Kong?! That's exciting!!

 

So how do we assess its performance among the elite media profethunalth who've had their knives out for it? I think there was no way to impress them. Its script is on a level that transcends their narrowly preconceived criteria of what this sort of film should be rather than what it is. The things that tickle their dicks are conspicuously absent in KotM. It has no pretense. It has no satire. It has no subtext. What you see is what you get. It might very well be one of the shallowest movies ever made with its morning kiddie cartoon script, and it revels in it, claiming to be nothing else other than a love letter to a character that's sparked the imaginations of children worldwide for 65 years. It's almost like the Die Another Day of Godzilla movies. It feels less like a remake of the older Japanese films and more like an adaptation of the NES game Godzilla: Monster of Monsters or the Super Famicom game Godzilla: Kaiju Daikessan. Someone on Twitter said it's the 21st century answer to Independence Day - we might have to wait for the hype to settle before that can be inscribed.

 

But fucking* hell, I loved it.

 

 

 

*by the way, I think this must have been the first Godzilla film where someone says "fuck"!

 

 

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Having "serious" critics review Godzilla is like having a Michelin inspector rate the Italian pizza place around the corner. It's utterly off the point.

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Glad you liked it, The Original, although your evaluation is very different from mine. As I said earlier, I'm confident this will please the fanbase.

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One thing I forgot to mention was

 

Spoiler

...how surprisingly violent this movie was! The part where Charles Dance raids a Monarch base concludes with him shooting some poor scientist in the head, execution style. Odd that the rest of the film suggests a kids' film, but it shoehorns these sorts of moments.

 

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14 hours ago, Arpy said:

If you're expecting a well-rounded, intelligent, character-driven experience you're in the wrong theatre. 

 

I wouldn't know about character-driven, but the Gareth Edwards film was at least internally consistent and reasonably serious in its approach to giant monsters.

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3 hours ago, The Original said:

*by the way, I think this must have been the first Godzilla film where someone says "fuck"!

 

Read the lips of the cop in New York in Final Wars. They had to overdub his dialogue as he's clearly saying "Five fucking minutes, five fucking seconds, it doesn't fucking matter because I'm gonna fuck you up!"

 

So... it technically isn't :P

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24 minutes ago, Arpy said:

Sometimes I find this sentiment more agreeable, particularly towards films aimed at children. However, films do operate by using a familiar set of codes and conventions - principles upon which we can and should be able to critique any film.

A good children's film isn't talking down to their audience, it's taking a mature topic and allowing that audience to work out those topics for themselves in an honest way. We can be honest about what Godzilla King of the Monsters is, recognizing it's a film about a gigantic lizard, but why can't we seriously critique it like every other film? Does it get a pass for being trashy, loud, obnoxious or about dinosaurs fighting one another? Do we cast criticism aside for this being a Godzilla film? Surely it has plots, characters, themes as does any other genre?

 

Sure, but it seems like most of the criticisms hurled at KotM are just petty potshots written in the usual rah-rah of bitchy film critic purple prose, measuring it against a set of standards they reserve for certain films they tend to rate higher. It just feels like they bashed this one out of spite. If they were being intellectually honest, they'd acknowledge what the film was intended to be, and assess whether it succeeded in that endeavour.

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1 minute ago, The Original said:

"One Will Fall". Ha sounds like marketing BS, since the post-credits scene hints at something bigger.

 

Well, they did say that they intend on there being a definitive victor in this film. Though suspecting how things are likely to go, they'll smack each other around a bit, one will 'win', only for a bigger threat to emerge and the pair have to team up to stop it.

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The reviews I've been reading have just been saying it's not much fun, which I would hope is the least one could expect from a picture like this.

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Just now, The Original said:

Anyone else notice they junked the updated Godzilla roar from 2014 in favour of the classic roar?

 

They didn't throw it out. You can still hear it underneath the classic roars, but there are moments where you can hear the 2014 roar on its own. There was one use of the 1954 roar that I recall as well.

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2 hours ago, Chen G. said:

 

I wouldn't know about character-driven, but the Gareth Edwards film was at least internally consistent and reasonably serious in its approach to giant monsters.

 

Why does a film about giant freaking monsters need to be "reasonably serious"?

I swear somewhere in the early 2000s, a Hollywood decree must have been signed that reads "We solemnly swear that no matter what subject we choose for our films, we will make sure to remind the audience that they cannot take any of it as lighthearted fun, but as an exploration of the guilt and self-depravation any human being is demanded to feel!"

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Many of the old Godzilla movies had good stories, so it's not really fair to those films to say we shouldn't expect a good one. KotM is thin on story, although you could say it's rather "plotty", but it gets the job done.

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34 minutes ago, gkgyver said:

Why does a film about giant freaking monsters need to be "reasonably serious"?

 

It doesn't "need" to be (even though I personally like it that way, but never mind).

 

It just worked for 2014's Godzilla, is all I said.

 

And contrary to what people will tell you, that approach is not a 2000s thing. It just peaked at that time, after two decades of gradual maturation.

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Watch it last night.

Love it.

 

You will love this if you are Godzilla series fans.

It is basically traditional 60's-90'sGodzilla movie, but the special effect is upgraded to modern level.

 

And so many traditional material being used in it! You'll have to be very familiar with the old Godzilla film to recognize them.

 

As for the plot, many review say that it is weak, but I don't agree.

I've seen more silly or even ridicuous plots in past Godzilla movies. But this one is not one of them.

In fact, it is far better than the 14.

The people, main character in 14 are meaningless. But now we can see people push the plot.

 

The villain's is not that bad. They are just doing the same thing as Valentine (Kingsman), Thanos or the guy in Inferno (Dan Brown's novel).

If you accept the villain's plan from above movies (I mean plot in movie, but not killing 50% people), this Godzilla's villain's plan is fine in the film.

 

In the end, you can see how the direct and the team love Godzilla series.

It is one of the best Godzilla film in the series.

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Did anyone else get the impression from the trailers that this was going to be an ET/Bumblebee type story since MBB was so prominent and they hinted that she'd have some kind of friendly connection to Godzilla? Because if so, all that is absent!

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How dare they not include the scenes where Maddie is trying to radio Monarch and Emma saying that Godzilla must be set free to save the world!

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