That also isn't the point. An unrecognizable monster isn't scary. The fear comes from what we know of the animal inspiration.
I saw Godzilla
- Thread starter Lookingglassman
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That also isn't the point. An unrecognizable monster isn't scary. The fear comes from what we know of the animal inspiration.
I don't know. The xenomorph in Alien sure didn't look like anything recognizable or like any animal I know of (perhaps it might possibly look like some kind of giant bug I guess, but I think that's probably stretching things).
Although granted that's probably one of the rare exceptions, and most monsters and creatures have some basis in the animal kingdom.
In any case I thought the MUTO design in this Godzilla was pretty underwhelming, and am hoping they come up with something a bit cooler (and less predictably bug-like) for the sequel.
Although granted that's probably one of the rare exceptions, and most monsters and creatures have some basis in the animal kingdom.
In any case I thought the MUTO design in this Godzilla was pretty underwhelming, and am hoping they come up with something a bit cooler (and less predictably bug-like) for the sequel.
Question. In the beginning of the movie we do a short pan around young Ford's room and there is a poster on the wall. In the second I noticed it I thought it looked like it had a stylized version of the '98 Godzilla head on it. Did anyone else catch what it might have been?
I remember the poster but didn't really study it enough to really recall it. I just took at as a "Japanese movies about giant monsters exist in this world" sign.
I warned alot of my friends about it and they went anyway and now they are mad because they didn't listen to me and feel they wasted their money. I told them it was not very good. I didn't pay to watch an hour of the Breaking Bad guy and his drama. I paid to see Godzilla duke it out and just be Godzilla.
Well if they make a sequel I will be renting the DVD.
Well if they make a sequel I will be renting the DVD.
Uh-huh. Well, you're clearly in minority as it seems many have really enjoyed this movie.
It's worth pointing out that Godzilla had relatively little screen time in his debut movie in 1954. He had one big set piece, his extended attack on Tokyo, but he literally slept through most of the climax. Because he wasn't the star of the film, he was the catalyst for the film's allegorical commentary on the horrors of war and the ethical conundrums surrounding weapons of mass destruction.
The problem with the movie is that the human characters are dull. Cloverfield had the same problem. The characters became so annoying that you basically begged for the monster to come along and eat them. As for Godzilla, he was damn perfect in the movie but his presence made up 10% of the film (the Best 10% of the film). It seem like a rip off to watch 90% junk and 10% awesome.
Empire had a podcast with the director and they've got a feature listing 7 secrets that came up.
The poster is mentioned -
On the poster, in Japanese – because obviously we all know Japanese – the title of that film is “Let Them Fight”. If you look at the images, they are M.U.T.O.s and a nuclear reactor and the Golden Gate Bridge. The movie is represented on that poster.
The poster is mentioned -
On the poster, in Japanese – because obviously we all know Japanese – the title of that film is “Let Them Fight”. If you look at the images, they are M.U.T.O.s and a nuclear reactor and the Golden Gate Bridge. The movie is represented on that poster.
I missed Terry Chen but saw Mike Dopud.
I enjoyed the movie. Pretty much everything I could say has already been said. It really captured the spirit of the old movies, I didn't like the cutaway from the action in Hawaii either, and I liked that Godzilla was portrayed as more of a helper to mankind. I was also surprised that they hired Juliette Binoche and Bryan Cranston only to kill them off so quickly. When Ken Watanabe had him taken on the helicopter, I thought he was going to live.
I don't know if Mothra would be appropriate for a sequel since it feels like they covered that territory already with the MUTO.
According to IMDb, Dopud wasn't in the film. I guess you just thought you saw him, like I thought I saw Teryl Rothery. (I know -- a Vancouver production without Mike Dopud? Inconceivable! But he wasn't there. Staggeringly, neither was Roger Cross.)
Sort of a hybrid spirit, since it's combining the seriousness of the earlier and later movies (where Godzilla was usually a villain) with the heroic Godzilla of the later Showa era. But I guess maybe amalgamating elements from every era is a good way to relaunch the franchise.
I think they could've shown us a little more of the action, but I understand the value of only teasing us until the climax. The director was inspired partly by Jaws, I gather (hence the family name Brody), and in that movie we didn't get a clear look at the shark until the climax (because the animatronics didn't work so well, but that turned out to be very much in the film's favor suspense-wise).
As for Godzilla, I think I prefer it when he's a villain, or at least a sympathetic antagonist. Even when we need him to save us, his relationship with humanity shouldn't be too friendly. He should never be a helper to mankind, which implies a submissive role -- he should be acting for his own ends, which sometimes conveniently align with ours, but heaven help us if we get in his way. He's a force of nature. We may be able to tap a volcano to power our homes, but the volcano will have no allegiance to us and won't hesitate to bury those same homes in lava.
Except that Mothra has never been the villain, except when under alien mind control. Mothra has always been portrayed as a benevolent or at least neutral deity, meaning no harm to us unless we get in her way as she pursues her goals.
Indeed, that would be the main problem with using Mothra in a sequel -- if Godzilla's the hero, Mothra has no role to play unless she teams with Godzilla against a worse threat, say, King Ghidorah or Battra.
I did an IMDb check when I got home yesterday to make sure and "Godzilla" did appear in his filmography but it seems to have been taken down. Then I found this post that lists all the players and his name appears under 'Stunt Players'. I saw him on one of the ships in a helmet and military garb. They zoomed in on his face looking at something. I think it was when Godzilla was just approaching San Fransisco, moved under the ship he was on and displaced enough water to nearly capsize two other ships nearby.
He's supposed to have gills either side of his neck, so he wouldn't need to surface for air. It's mentioned in one of the earlier drafts of the script that leaked, which Warner weren't happy with at all. Also, the Muto's EMP apparently weakens Godzilla's atomic breath too, which isn't a bad way of explaining why they'd have such an ability way back in the Permian Age.
Thank you. I don't seem to remember gills ever mentioned on godzilla (or any of the other monsters for that matter) evr before.
I'm not a G nut like I am a Trek nut, but...
I saw that same scene and thought it might be him, but they do a a quick cut and back to "him" and the actor looks different when he's not screaming. I think it was just a similar looking guy.
He had a line in the movie, I think that would change his credit from "stunt player".
True, but even if we didn't see the entire shark, Spielberg at least followed through on showing us the entire action sequence, and didn't cut away the second the shark attacked to Brody's wife and son watching TV at home.
It's one thing to withhold showing a character to build suspense, and it's another to withhold showing that character fighting someone. To me that was just... strange. And annoying. Especially considering it was such a major and dramatic event in the story.
I agree that part could've been better paced. I wouldn't have minded cutting away from the spectacle to the human reactions if they'd done more with the human reactions -- if they'd shown people's fear and shock, the impact on everyday life to discover that there are giants among us, the ripple effect that footage would've sent through society. That would've made it worth cutting away because there would've been a real impact. Instead we just got a few seconds of Elizabeth Olson staring wide-eyed.
I saw it today and thought it was a well-made, technically proficient movie with many good moments and sequences. But it was also often very boring.
Probably the biggest problem for me is that the movie takes itself far too seriously. There is next to no humor in it, and it never develops a sense of fun. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as the original 1954 "Gojira" was also a pretty serious affair, but that movie actually had something serious to say about the nuclear destruction of Japan in WWII and the morality of weapons of mass destruction. This new Godzilla sort of nods its head at Fukushima and environmental disasters, but doesn't really seem to have an opinion about those things. So in the end, it's just a fairly slight movie about giant monsters smashing stuff, and as such probably shouldn't be so afraid to have a bit of fun. Oh, and maybe use some colors other than grey and brown?
I will say that I really liked the monsters and thought the monster fights were very impressive, but there are plenty of scenes that don't feature any monsters at all, and I never developed any real interest in the paper-thin human characters.
Many of the film's actors are very good, but they're either not in the movie much (Cranston, Olsen), or barely in the movie at all (Binoche, Hawkins, Watanabe, Strathairn), which means most of the film rests solely on the bulky shoulders of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who might as well be a cardboard cut-out. I've liked Taylor-Johnson in other things, but his character here is completely forgettable and he doesn't elevate the material in any way.
I'm realizing now that I sound like I didn't like the movie at all, which isn't exactly true. As mentioned before, I really liked almost all of the monster stuff, and I appreciated the way the movie gradually revealed more and more of them, usually showing them from the human characters' point of view rather than going for the "money shot."
And most of all, I'm glad that they weren't ashamed to make a real Godzilla movie (for better or worse), unlike the 1998 Emmerich version or some other recent franchise reboots. Maybe they'll have some fun in the sequel?
Probably the biggest problem for me is that the movie takes itself far too seriously. There is next to no humor in it, and it never develops a sense of fun. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as the original 1954 "Gojira" was also a pretty serious affair, but that movie actually had something serious to say about the nuclear destruction of Japan in WWII and the morality of weapons of mass destruction. This new Godzilla sort of nods its head at Fukushima and environmental disasters, but doesn't really seem to have an opinion about those things. So in the end, it's just a fairly slight movie about giant monsters smashing stuff, and as such probably shouldn't be so afraid to have a bit of fun. Oh, and maybe use some colors other than grey and brown?
I will say that I really liked the monsters and thought the monster fights were very impressive, but there are plenty of scenes that don't feature any monsters at all, and I never developed any real interest in the paper-thin human characters.
Many of the film's actors are very good, but they're either not in the movie much (Cranston, Olsen), or barely in the movie at all (Binoche, Hawkins, Watanabe, Strathairn), which means most of the film rests solely on the bulky shoulders of Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who might as well be a cardboard cut-out. I've liked Taylor-Johnson in other things, but his character here is completely forgettable and he doesn't elevate the material in any way.
I'm realizing now that I sound like I didn't like the movie at all, which isn't exactly true. As mentioned before, I really liked almost all of the monster stuff, and I appreciated the way the movie gradually revealed more and more of them, usually showing them from the human characters' point of view rather than going for the "money shot."
And most of all, I'm glad that they weren't ashamed to make a real Godzilla movie (for better or worse), unlike the 1998 Emmerich version or some other recent franchise reboots. Maybe they'll have some fun in the sequel?
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