Godzilla 2014: Rumors, Pix and filming
- Thread starter Gojira
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Then that eliminates every possibility I can think of. Sorry I can't be of more help.
I meant that you can have an antagonist who does things for some actual reason, not simply for the sake of needing them to be an antagonist.
New Image:
From this article: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/75238/new-godzilla-image-gets-close-and-personal#axzz2yVnNiZgr
Also, you may want to avoid the soundtrack listings, as there's a spoiler in one of the track names, apparently.
From this article: http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/75238/new-godzilla-image-gets-close-and-personal#axzz2yVnNiZgr
Also, you may want to avoid the soundtrack listings, as there's a spoiler in one of the track names, apparently.
Giant monsters and alien invaders have an irresistible attraction to landmarks.
I quite like the 98 movie. I enjoyed it when I saw it and thought it hung together pretty well.
I should, however, point out that I really can't stand any of the other Godzilla films and was happy to ignore them.
Godzilla films are as diverse in their approach as, say, Batman films. Sure, most of the films from the '60s and '70s were cheesy kid stuff, and a lot of the later films have been mediocre, but the 1954 original is one of the most powerful, thought-provoking, heart-wrenching monster movies ever made, especially when you realize that it's an allegory for the real-life devastation that its filmmakers and audience had all lived through less than a decade earlier. (Although I mean the original Japanese version, not the reworked, toned-down American version from 1955.)
So maybe you just haven't seen the right Godzilla films for your tastes yet.
I seem to remember Godzila in New York--and I don't mean the 1998 movie. There was a scene with the man in the suit next to Empire State that I seem to remember as taller.
Destroy all Monsters I think it was.
One of my favorite designs
http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/KingGoji
Looks like he was intended to look a little different at first:
http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Gallery:Godzilla_(1954_film)
To this day, the hand puppet still looks the most evil
http://godzilla.wikia.com/wiki/Gallery:Godzilla_(1954_film)?file=1367809554_da739b7d07.jpg
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Link fail.
Well, there's nothing that really lives up to the intensity and maturity of the original (except maybe the new film, if it lives up to its aspirations). But there are a few others that have some solemnity or intelligence to them. One of the most respected films is Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (aka GMK), which I discussed above and is perhaps the darkest and most assertively anti-war film since the original, though I felt there were aspects of it that went more for sensationalism or parody and made the tone inconsistent. Another classic is Mothra vs. Godzilla, the fourth Godzilla movie and the last one before he started to turn into a good guy (it was actually more of a Mothra movie guest-starring Godzilla as the villain); it's aimed more at younger audiences than the original was, but it's a lot less goofy than most of the other Showa-era films and is really very well-done. And I quite liked Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II from 1993, which had elements that could've been quite silly (like the introduction of a baby Godzillasaurus) but managed to be a fairly thoughtful film with musings about the folly of thinking we were more powerful than nature. But that one might not be so appealing for someone who isn't a fan of Godzilla films as a whole, because it's more an instance of doing fairly standard Godzilla stuff really well than something radically different.
It sounds as if my best bets would be Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack and Mothra vs. Godzilla (my wife says she likes that one too). I think I'd probably struggle with Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II but might give it a go.
Thanks Christopher !
Thanks Christopher !
Yeah, Mothra's a pretty good one, though definitely much more upbeat than the original Godzilla. Oddly, it's kind of a reworking of King Kong in a way, in that the greed of a Carl Denham-like showman-entrepreneur is what leads to the monster's attack on a pseudo-New York City.
I'd go with those too, though I do have a soft spot for Destroy All Monsters, Tokyo SOS and Destoroyah (China Syndrome Godzilla). Oh, and the crazy time-travelling aliens one
Unfortunately I haven't managed to find a copy of Destroy All Monsters on Netflix or at the library, but I've heard good things about it (relative to the goofy era in which it was made). I didn't much care for either of the Kiryu films, and Tokyo SOS was the lesser of the two, suffering from not keeping the cast of the former film.
I liked Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (which really should be transliterated as Destroyer, since that's clearly what the name is supposed to be and how it's actually pronounced in the dub). It was a nice tribute/sequel to the original film, and made a game attempt at having a message. The very ending was abrupt and confusing, though; I wouldn't have known what the last shot represented if I hadn't read an explanation beforehand.
The "crazy time-traveling aliens one" must be Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, the third Heisei-era film. I didn't like that one much at all. For one thing, the time travel was completely incoherent. Going back in time to prevent Godzilla's mutation succeeded, but when they got back to the present, everyone still remembered that Godzilla had just been rampaging until moments before?? For another, the Japanese soldiers looked hardly any older in the 1992 scenes than they did in the 1944 flashbacks, which was ridiculous. For another thing, it was weird that the film was treating Godzilla as a traditional protector of Japan that had to be gotten out of the way before the villains could attack, even though the previous two films had turned him back into a villain. But the most disturbing part was the sheer jingoism of the film, its glorification of WWII Japanese imperialism along with its suggestion that Japan was destined to become the dominant economic and political power on Earth. It couldn't be more opposite in ideology to GMK.
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/8576769/destroy_all_monsters/
It is the dubbed version though, but good quality and widescreen. Agree about G vs KG; I did say it was crazy.
It is the dubbed version though, but good quality and widescreen. Agree about G vs KG; I did say it was crazy.
Your viewing experience was different from mine. For me, the image quality was pretty bad, with a sort of "Venetian blinds" scan-line effect every time there was a fast movement or sudden change in the image, and the picture was out of sync with the audio (although that wasn't immediately obvious in a dubbed film). And it wasn't a browser issue, since it looked the same in Opera and Firefox.
Not a bad movie, though, as later Godzilla movies go. Superficial plot, but darker than usual for that point in the series. It contrasts with a lot of the earlier and later Godzilla films, though, in that it treated the kaiju as animals that could be controlled and managed by sufficiently sophisticated technology, whereas so many G-films have focused on the folly of believing that humans could contain the sheer power of nature (as represented by kaiju) and the devastation we bring down on ourselves when we try. The kaiju in DAM were tamer in comparison, both in-story and metatextually.