How many times is Godzilla going to be rebooted? 2014 edition

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjKO10hKtYw

More than anything else, I want to see how they mess up "giant lizard destroys city."

Why would they need to airdrop in soldiers to fight a giant lizard? You'd think it'd be preoccupied enough with destroying the city and eating trains and stuff that it wouldn't notice five or six lil' dudes sneaking up.

Anyway, I'm excited, because I love Godzilla. I loved "Monsters," too, which shows the director knows how to write for and direct, you know, actual people.

Could be alright.

Although until not five minutes ago I was convinced that Gareth Edwards was the guy who directed The Raid. Turns out that's Gareth Evans. I haven't seen Monsters.

"Monsters" is really good, imo. Totally not what you'd expect from a movie called "Monsters" that does have monsters in it.

My flatmate's claiming it's shit right this minute. I'll watch it and make my own mind up.

Is your flatmate 15? 'Cause yeah, I can imagine a kid picking out a movie called "Monsters" and hating it.

Haha, he's 34 but his taste in movies is similar to that of a 15 year old.

that film was really good iirc.

Godzilla after Cloverfield after 9-11

Interesting aesthetics in that trailer – godzilla moving about in smoke and darkness, actually hiding in it despite his size – some of the wreckage looked realistically done, I saw a plane being chucked around a runway and a train?

Bryan Cranston?

I suppose the challenge for a special effects disaster/monster film now is that everyone knows you can make millions of tanks/spaceships/missiles fly around the screen, we're all numb to any CGI spectacle that relies too much on scale and ignores details

dang this actualy looks good

i loved monsters.
open of my fave movies in the genre.

Attaching smoke and flares to your special ops guys before parachuting them into the city seems like a the ideal way to turn them into airborne Godzillasnacks to me.

Another entry in the dark, roiling, cgi clouds school of film-making.

Lotta imaginary airborne particulate matter in Hollywood these days.

Trailer does not get me excited. It looks like your standard Bruckheimer/Bay/Emmerich summer atrocity.

agree

Only the fact that the Monsters guy is doing it has me curious. At least Big G looks more like his classic self in this.

In some ways it was genius for Toho to eventually turn Godzilla into a semi good guy. That way he got to destroy cities while also destroying other giant monsters, yet survive to star in sequels. The roteness of modern takes on "giant monster destroys city" is not the destruction, per se, but waiting for the inevitable "aha, that's how we kill it!" moment. Which is hard to care about, considering it's preceded by watching said monster destroy things in awesome fashion. Might as well have a character declare "aha, that's how we kill it, and make the movie stop moving!"

What about that "she is just protecting her eggs" moment?

Trailer does not get me excited. It looks like your standard Bruckheimer/Bay/Emmerich summer atrocity.

― zanarkand bozo (abanana), Wednesday, December 11, 2013 7:01 AM (9 hours ago) Bookmark

disagree, not enough money shots of buildings being leveled or people narrowly outrunning the earth crumbling beneath them like they're on a universal studios ride; michael bay's HALO jumping military guys would be buff scowling badasses, instead the emphasis is on their fear and terror

I have to say, I started this thread with a certain level of dismissiveness, but now I'm kinda looking forward to it.

I'm on board

Godzilla always ruled because he was a role model for fat, pear-shaped schlubs everywhere. You can change the world while still being sluggish and having horrible breath.

Or maybe being so big you knock shit down just by turning around? I don't think Godzilla can see his feet, either.

And don't even get me started on this pudge monster:
http://www.wiredmomma.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/godzilla.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/slq3w3Sl.jpg

Does this Godzilla seem even more giant than previous Godzillas? And also, would a creature that size even be able to exist in an environment with Earth's gravity?

Monsters is a great, great movie. So I'm looking forward to this on that alone.

And also, would a creature that size even be able to exist in an environment with Earth's gravity?

Probably not. As I vaguely recall from my biology and physics, if you double the size of something, its muscle strength squares, but its volume/mass cubes, so the muscles are no longer strong enough to support the body (this is why insects/spiders don't come in sizes bigger than they currently do--if they got much bigger their exoskeleton weighs more than their limbs can support). Given the vaguely humanoid sjhape of Godzilla, he'd be fucked.

But yeah, Monsters was wonderful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpc53FvcZ4c

hahaha

that trailer looks amazing up top. never saw the 1998 one. i'm guessing it wasn't much good?

You guess correct. It's not even bad in a fun way.

the way the 98 one bombed was wonderful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIu85WQTPRc

If you would have told me back in, say 2001, that we'd have another Godzilla reboot starring Malcolm's dad and the Olsen's twins kid sister...

this looks great.

Looks surprisingly good.

Like the use of Ligeti. Hoping this turns out to be a Rise of the Apes-style classy update.

Interest building....

Does Godzilla make airplanes fall out of the sky or something?

why does the statue of liberty look so fake

did you see the desert mountains in the background

i know it was going for a way different vibe, but i hope this can provide the monster-destroying-city action that Pacific Rim was woefully short on.

commercial's great, that's for sure. better to only hint at the monster (like with the rising ocean), or show it for a second or two.

30 years later, and the techniques used in jaws still hold true.

looks great. don't know why but remakes of franchise movies like this bother me so much less than remakes of stand alone films (point break ,oldboy etc)

I like they they've kept him tied (it seems) to the post-WW2 nuclear age.

I maybe have a false memory of vague spoilers that Kid Godzilla was in this -- was it a blink-and-you-miss it kind of thing?

There's a lil Godzilla we meet first, maybe that's it? Shin Godzilla kind of had a lil Godzilla, too, iirc.

My son and I watched Shin Godzilla last week - not at all what I was expecting, but it was a real joy. I think my son scratched his head a little at this one. He must have checked how much time was left in the move four or five times. I loved it but we both prefer Godzilla Minus One.

my brother and I kept joking that the UN was going to issue sanctions against Godzilla

I'm in the Heisei era now, Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla 2.

kinda loving the more bonkers each one gets.

how in the hell can they afford to rebuild so many power plants so frequently though

This movie reportedly about to hit $100 mil at the box office. Budget was $15 mil!

The director denies this: says it was closer to ten.

have now finished the Heisei era.

Godzilla v Destoroyah rulllllllllllled.

SpaceGodzilla was a complete cipher of a monster but I actually preferred that one to Godzilla v Mechagodzilla II, which was just completely all over the place nonsense.

taking a break for a bit. I've watched about 15 of these in the last month

xpost Either way, that's astounding. I saw somewhere that labor laws in Japan are pretty loose, and non unionized crews and other people on set are seriously overworked and underpaid, but even then, it's hard to wrap your head around those numbers and what's on screen. The FX in a movie like "The Marvels" look pretty unimpressive, imo, or at least they're not notable, but even at their best they don't look significantly better than this one. I think the same article I saw that mentioned labor laws complained that the "Minus One" FX sometimes looked kind of shoddy, but I never noticed anything particularly bad. In fact, I just saw a review (in Slate, iirc) that went out of its way to complement the tactile realism of Godzilla (the creature), and when I think back to the recent Hollywood Godzillas and Kongs, they sure are hell don't look 10x better/more expensive.

I have to admit, part of the expectation of a "back-to-basics" Godzilla was hoping for a dude in a rubber suit, and being a little disappointed with how generically slick it was, though maybe with such lax labor laws the guy would probably drown a few times while filming. Was the last hurrah for that sort of thing in the 80s?

even the 90s movies largely had rubber suits, and I think several of the ones into the 21st century.

ahh this is helpful!

https://www.inverse.com/entertainment/22234-special-effects-in-godzilla-movies-history

I guess Godzilla 2000 is the first to have a fully CGI Godzilla

I'm with the quote here - I know it was CGI but it didn't look it:

But it's still necessarily CGI, which is what's great about this film's effects: Yamazaki and his team are using the latitude of computer animation to push their Godzilla to do things that no stuntman in a rubber suit could have possibly down, constrained as they all were by physics, but they also very carefully make sure that it always looks like a stuntman in a suit. As Godzilla thrashes its way through the Ginza district, in the film's big landbound setpiece (this Godzilla is primarily an aquatic animal), the flexibility and full-body vitality of its movements are like nothing else in this franchise, but it's never weightless. It's the very best kind of popcorn movie magic.

yeah they did a really good job with it. I'm usually put off by big computer monsters in blockbusters but he was dynamic and terrifying. lots of great open water scenes too which I loved.

ok I lied about the break. taking it after finally finishing Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah - Monsters All Out Attack.

think that puts me at 18....only half or so, but most of them watched in a month's time so give me credit.

My buddy wanted to see this again, so I saw it again. Held up! And while it was a smaller theatre, it was packed.

So I guess they are re-releasing this for a week in black & white for some reason. Has anyone ever preferred the B&W versions of movies, when they do this? "Fury Road," "The Mist," what else? Soderbergh made that B&W silent version of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," I guess that was a cool novelty, but mostly I prefer the original color versions of these gimmicks.

Really want to see this, so does my son, but we've had a hard time lining up a screening that works for us.

They also did a black and white version of Logan.

I massively prefer the b&w mist

That might be one where I slightly prefer the black and white version, but I didn't have a big problem with the color version.

Okay so I've seen the new Monsterverse one and SIIIIIIGH

My happily spoiler filled rant follows!

* First, an immediate breaking point for a lot of you: GODZILLA IS BARELY IN THIS. Maybe 15% of screentime or so? A more accurate title is _KONG (feat Godzilla): SOME BULLSHIT_
* Said ape's personal problems are the core of the movie and the first plot point involves whether his dental insurance plan covers tooth replacements. (I am only slightly kidding.) And indeed, a good chunk of his whole arc can best be called 'divorced/widowed/old dude hangs around with a young punk who he teaches the ways of goodness to as part of setting him straight given the bad crowd he's fallen into.' Imagine _Gran Torino_, but without the Torino, and only in ape noises. You will feel your mind melt into mush.
* The most 'I guess I didn't expect that' moment is when a typical-these-days sloooow motion goodie vs baddie personal clash moment is ridiculously interrupted. But it's still not that great.
* The implied body count in the film if you count all the various buildings smashed to bits across the globe is likely in the hundreds of thousands. To say that none of this has the slightest hint of resonance and overwhelming, shocking loss in comparison to something like, I dunno, let me pick something at random, _Godzilla Minus One_ maybe, is to understate. (I grant this is feature not bug with so many of the movies and this new one is long in the works and etc. etc. but...ya know?)
* KINDA speaking of which, a quick sequence in which three bridges are smashed in succession with people on them, well, they couldn't plan for that being all too resonant this week, but having a famed Muslim-majority city get violently trashed...well...ANYWAY MOVING ON.
* The Golden Earring "Twilight Zone" sync, I did like that, I haven't heard that in a while and I always liked that song, and it probably helped it was during the most visually interesting and weird part of the film. The Kiss, Foreigner and Badfinger drops, eh.
* At one point Kong and Godzilla shout at each other across the entire length of the Mediterranean and then one gets to the other five minutes later. Somehow, it is all very unimpressive and uninteresting!
* Various actors are on screen and they do act. I have nothing to say about any of them. (Except Rachel House, who always rules, but is given little to do except run around a headquarters and say things urgently, but awesome glasses, though.)
* Look, the end fight is okay enough, I guess. But that's faint praise.
* This is such a dumbass, haphazard 'franchise.' Even though it wasn't perfect or anything, I have to give a certain credit to Matt Fraction and crew for using the _Monarch_ series to try and retcon the previous four films into a vaguely consistent story instead of one that stumbles from situation to situation at best. But this new film doesn't help things any and probably just makes it all worse again.
* There is no easter egg or anything after the end credits. Just go home. Better yet, don't go.

Thank you for your service.

The advantage of a monthly Alamo pass that pays for itself pretty quickly is that I don't feel like I've shelled out for this thing.

ugh that sounds like more of the same from the 2014 Evans and 2019 Dougherty movies.

cosigning josh thank you for yr service it sounds dire

how hard is it to make a fucking monster movie ABOUT THE GODDAMN MONSTERS

Especially after Minus One got it done.

I do still hold Gareth Evans personally responsible for this infernal trend

It's never too late to blame Zack Snyder for everything being in slo-mo as well.

I'd put that more down to The Matrix (in terms of popularising it over the brim)

Wonder why del Toro wasted so much time with Pacific Rim, let alone Frankenstein and Pinocchio, when he probably could have made a really awesome (American) Godzilla.

wtf Pacific Rim was great

I thought it was fine and saw it once.

I don't recall it bringing anything to the table that would not have been brought by Godzilla.

i saw it MANY times so i think i am qualified to disagree with “it was fine” :D

Many!!! Hats off.

I recall Charlie from Sunny In Philadelphia getting swallowed by a monster? Also, robots controlled by stair masters, something like that.

Seen Pacific Rim maybe three times it's as fun as Del Toro Giant Mechs vs Kaiju could be. I like the flawed yet effective-above-its-weight Edwards-directed Godzilla also though.

Edwards has a gift for big imagery that often only shows in moments, but they last. Whoever thought up the paratroop drop silhouette moment, whether himself or someone else, had the best brainwave.

Godzilla Minus One still isn't streaming and has left theaters; and no streaming date in the forseeable future. I read somewhere the rumor is that there is some IP contract that is keeping it off because of this new shitshow movie.

Would watch the hell out of a Godzilla vs Big Man Japan franchise flick, otherwise it's a no from me I'm afraid

yeah Mr Veg was telling me it was some weird deal
with Showa & Paramount where if Showa releases the movie theatrically Paramount won’t show it on streaming for x amount of time, like a year?

idk i may have the details all wrong

Showa meaning Toho? (I mean, Toho is happy to take Warner Bros/Legendary money!)

ugh yes toho sry

I watched the new one with my 14yo Godzilla suoerfan son. My expectations were near zero, so to that end it surpassed my expectations and was perfectly entertaining, albeit with a low bar. But all of Ned’s comments above are spot on too.

Even with the threadbare connections from movie to movie, I just don’t think this franchise can sustain multi-film narrative arc. By now the majority of the film takes place in the fictional Hollow Earth realm, and the human characters are on more or less friendly terms with the titular monsters. There’s just no TERROR. And yeah like Ned said, when the action does take place in recognizable cities, the carnage is so cartoonish it’s totally devoid of any sense of what ought to be inconceivable tragedy.

Minus One on Netflix!

https://gizmodo.com/godzilla-minus-one-netflix-streaming-1851513563

And we have fancy release coming in September:

https://godzilla.com/products/godzilla-minus-one-blu-ray-deluxe-japan-collectors-edition

Annnnd here we go

https://gizmodo.com/takashi-yamazaki-godzilla-minus-one-sequel-new-movie-toho-2000519226

weeee

Pretty lame of them to denigrate the legacy of Godzilla with a sequel.

last week was 70 years since the first film

and has been downhill all the way

Minus One is back in US cinemas for anniversary reasons this week

Caught the theatrical rerelease of Minus One they're doing to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Big Guy. (They're also showing it in the Minus Color variation; while I caught both versions in the original runs but won't be able to do Minus Color in theater this time I fear.) While I happily have the fancy-as-hell box that came out which I linked a few posts back, this was the first time I'd rewatched it since the original Minus Color run, and it really does hold up so well. (This time around it struck me how remarkable the music was in the final sequences, that's pure Howard Shore LOTR level stuff.) Also the bonus stuff for this release included the VFX promo reel they submitted for Academy consideration and new interview snippets with Takashi Yamazaki and Kiyoko Shibuya about the whole experience, so catch it if you can.