Spoilers Godzilla vs. Kong release thread

As I've said before, the difference is that if a city is destroyed in a Godzilla movie, the title character is succeeding at his job, whereas if a city is destroyed in a Superman movie, the title character is failing at his job.

 

By the way, Adam Wingard is doing an AMA on the r/Godzilla right now:
https://www.reddit.com/r/GODZILLA/c...rd_director_of_godzilla_vs_kong_ama/?sort=new

 

20. Godzilla vs Kong
The fourth film in the Legendary Monsterverse, although it does stand alone. Sequel to Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Kong: Skull Island. Godzilla and Kong are on a collision course after the machinations of humans cause trouble. This was a good film, better than the predecessor films, in that there isn’t constant cutting away from the Kaiju battles. Some of the human motivations are obscure, but that is only a minor quibble. 8.35/10.

 

After giving the human plots some thought, I feel that the entire story with Madison and friends could have been dropped and the screentime given to Ren Serizawa to actually give him a reason for existing. The idea of Serizawa's son working to build and control an artificial Godzilla with the aim of killing the creature his father gave his life to save is fascinating, but never touched on once in the entire movie. To me, that's a more compelling story than a trio of impossibly lucky characters bumbling around a top-secret facility.

 

I wonder if he had a bigger role that was cut. It just seems kind of weird to introduce the character, but then not really acknowledge his relationship to his father, and not really do anything with him.

20?

 

https://news.yahoo.com/king-kong-tarzans-apes-appear-160000047.html

An interesting theory/observation about how the Hollow Earth apes that Kong is from may have become the Mangani. The gorilla/chimpanzee types from the TARZAN stories.

Edgar Rice Burroughs created Tarzan in 1913. In 1914 he came out with At the Earth's Core which dealt with a fictional hollow earth area called Pellucidar and during the course of the Tarzan later novels it is revealed the language of the 'apes' is actually from Pelludicar. Now obvously Burroughs didn't invent the hollow Earth idea. Jules Verne for one beat him there by 40 years and was pretty obviously an 'inspiration' if not copied for Burroughs ideas.

Tarzan like most (all?) of Burroughs works falls into public domain so would be interesting to see that angle explored.

One reason given for why the Tarzan apes are so much smaller than Kong is that it was the energy in the Hollow Earth that mutated them into enormous apes and perhaps where they settled in Africa their subsequent offspring did not turn into giant apes and the ones who were giant apes were not able to survive like Kong did. Perhaps some uniqueness of Skull Island.

 

That's an interesting idea.

 

The Asylum strikes again:

 

Finally saw the flick Sunday. I saw that it was still playing at our local theater, so I asked a co-worker (and friend0 if he thought it was worth taking the risk to see it. I should clarify I had the second of my two Pfizer Covid shots a month ago. Far from dissuading me, he replied, "I'll join you!" (Funny, but I didn't perceive him a Godzilla fan...until that text exchange.)

We met Thursday only to discover the movie house is closed 3 days of the week, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. "Fandango" led us to believe it was open every day. But the trip wasn't really wasted as we "chewed the fat" for nearly two hours. It was so great to finally converse with a bud face to face since over a year's passing in job isolation (working from home). BTW, yes, he too has been vaccinated.

So we agreed to try again Sunday, the first showing, 1:15 PM. That second attempt proved successful.

I have to agree with what several posters here have stated. That "Pitch Meeting" video nailed it on the proverbial head! Plot holes large enough for both Goji AND Kong to walk through...side by side! But the "clash of titans" is the draw of these films and in that, it succeeded! I'll likely purchase the DVD to complete my "Monsterverse" collection, but it's one which I definitely fast forward past the "human drama" to enjoy the "wrasslin' matches".

 

After 15 months closed cinemas over here are finally open again and since this was the only thing that demanded the big screen experience I saw it today. (And even though I'm one shot down, one to go I was kind of glad I picked an early screening with barely anyone else there.)

I enjoyed it as a spectacle but it was pretty clear to see the ways they changed it to try to make it more stand-alone. For example, if I hadn't read it beforehand I wouldn't have known that Shun Oguri's character is the son of Ken Watanabe's character from the previous films or that Mecha-Godzilla is possessed by Gidorah's spirit rather than just magically becoming alive.

Lance Reddick gets cut out almost completely despite being in the opening credits and Zhang Ziyi got cut entirely.

I'm also sure I say some photos of Millie Bobby Brown and Kaylee Hottle shooting scenes together but in the released version the two groups of characters don't even know each other exists let alone interact.

 

There are also behind-the-scenes photos of Skarsgard filming in a rocky shore location with a crashed HEAV in the background. Since it doesn't seem like it could fit anywhere in the theatrical version of the movie, I'm assuming it was part of a plot point abandoned in reshoots. I still need to get hold of the novelization at some point. My understanding is that it adds a lot more to Ren Serizawa as well as lore about the ancient war between the Kongs and the Gojiras.

 

Well, I finally watched it. I really wanted to see it on the big screen, but by the time I was fully vaccinated and past the two-week window, the film was mostly gone. And then AMC revoked its mask requirement.

But now I finally buckled down and watched it at home. And wow, this was a weird film. Certainly not quite what I expected.

Obviously, this is foremost a monster film so science goes right out the window anyways and I was fine with that in the previous films. But I hadn't expect it to go full Jules Verne on us. I know the whole idea of Hollow Earth was introduced in the last film, but I preferred it as an unseen mechanism for Godzilla's fast traveling around the world. Not that what we got was bad or anything and I actually enjoyed the weirdness of the gravity (even if it made no scientific sense). It just felt like such a weird detour from the main action. I get why happened in relation to Kong's story, but those sequences felt like they were part of entirely different film.

As much fun as the fights between Godzilla and Kong were, and later with Mechagodzilla thrown in, the highlight of the film for me was everything with Jia. I particularly loved how the scenes that opened from her perspective were muted in order to replicate her deafness. Those moments with her communication Kong were the only parts with any kind of heart or nuance. Yeah, I know, it's a monster movie and I shouldn't be expecting more of that, but after awhile, the fights got a bit boring and repetitive. Especially since I couldn't watch it on the big screen.

In fact, the only thing I really got out of the fights were my commiserations for the Navy fleet and the Hong Kong buildings. Having visited Hong Kong four times during my time in the Navy, I have my favorite buildings, so it was hard to watch them get destroyed during all of the fighting. Almost as bad as watching the aircraft carrier and cruisers getting torn apart like they were nothing.

Even though I adore Millie Bobby Brown and I really enjoyed her side adventure antics with Brian Tyree Henry, her whole plotline seemed pretty superfluous, as oppose to her role in the previous film. I was happy that she returned but it's a shame that she didn't really get much to do this time around. Likewise, it's a shame Zhang Ziyi also didn't return as well as Joe Morton's Houston Brooks, whose casting in that role seemed like an obvious set-up for this film and then...nothing.

Overall, an enjoyable film that I might have had a more visceral attachment to if I had gotten to see it on the big screen. I liked it about as much as the 2014 film but not nearly as much as I loved Skull Island and King of the Monsters.

 

A Hollow Earth is more Edgar Rice Burroughs than Jules Verne (who was strictly a hard science fiction writer by the standards of his day). There's also precedent for it in the Godzilla franchise, or there almost was: https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Bride_of_Godzilla?

 

Yeah, that bugged the hell out of me, too. Why do that? Jia can still be an orphan without wiping out her entire civilization (although the orphan angle is also a bit weird, too, but I won't dig into that since it's a dumb monster movie...).

Speaking as both as someone who studied physics in college and served in the Navy, it was very hard for me not to critique that whole situation. That and how the split aircraft carrier sunk so quickly in the ocean...

Fair enough. I didn't think of Burroughs until I saw him mentioned in this thread. I've never read any of his books, so he's not in the forefront of my mind (but then I haven't read Journey to the Center of the Earth either...). I also didn't know there was (almost) precedence. My Godzila lore knowledge is pretty lacking.

 

Ohh, that's right, Verne did Journey to the Center. Stupid of me to forget that. Yeah, Burroughs was probably inspired by him.

Well, that unmade movie is very obscure.

 

I first heard of that proposal watching "Monster Island Buddies" and assumed he was gently trolling his audience. Then I checked the links he provided and realized "Buddy" was not pranking us. It seriously was considered! That prompted me to stage and render a polygon based scene (using Poser) posted it online.

A few months later "Dangerville", another YouTube channel also addressed the topic and among the images presented was...my render! I don't recall ever getting any kind of e-mail stating Dangerville wanted use it, but, no, I was not upset. After all, it was "fan art" of an entertainment property using digital "assets" from several sources. I was quite flattered and had a hearty laugh!

Here's the "Dangerville" clip in question.

 

Looks like I finally watched film just in time for this:

 

Watched it finally, on the big screen. I liked the parts where Godzilla and Kong fought. This is pretty much a Showa era monster movie. Trying to explain the how and why of what happens in the movie is a pointless exercise. It was fun, I can't think of much more to say than that.

For a sequel I would love to see Godzilla and Kong team up again to take down other monsters. They are a good tag team. I think doing stand alone movies after this amazing clash would be difficult because where do you go after having the two greatest monsters fight each other?