Part of the problem with the general reaction to a Godzilla movie is that it would be some cheesy monster movie. But this one was meant to invoke the spirit of the original movie. I think had the script not been a serious one you not have had so many good actors in the movie.
I saw Godzilla
- Thread starter Lookingglassman
- Start date
Part of the problem with the general reaction to a Godzilla movie is that it would be some cheesy monster movie. But this one was meant to invoke the spirit of the original movie. I think had the script not been a serious one you not have had so many good actors in the movie.
^ I don't mind the serious tone per se, I just think if you're gonna make a serious movie, it should be about serious stuff (like the original Godzilla was) or at least have complex, interesting characters.
If your movie is mostly just about giant monsters hitting each other and one-dimensional characters spouting exposition, a colorful, fun tone (like in Pacific Rim) is probably going to work much better.
If your movie is mostly just about giant monsters hitting each other and one-dimensional characters spouting exposition, a colorful, fun tone (like in Pacific Rim) is probably going to work much better.
I do think the movie probably could have showed us more fights between the kaiju. I know some have pointed out the "Jaws Effect" of building suspense by NOT showing things but I'm not sure it applies here. Because in Jaws we never see the shark until the dramatic moment on the Orca when it finally shows up. Before then the only times the shark is around we either know it's there due to the music or because something is moving because of the shark. (The pier, a person, splashing water.)
The building of suspense there works.
In this movie I'm not so sure it does, it's more like what I said above, it's cock-teasing. Because it's not that we don't see Godzilla or the fights at all until the big battle because we *do* get to see them. We just don't get to see all of the fights.
All we really see of the fight in Las Vegas is literally on a TV tuned to the news. So it's not "building suspense" so much as it's just teasing us.
Which in some ways works but in others is kind-of lame and cheap (in a manner of keeping us entertained, not monetarily.) Did anyone in the audience really care if the main-guy got home to see his wife and kid?
Granted the movie doing nothing but fights probably would have been tedious in some manner (though, I think it worked for Pacific Rim) so a balance would need to be struck. I don't think this movie quite found the right balance. We should've either been shown nothing until the end, or shown some more of the interim fights before the big one at the end.
It's kinda mean to make us see snipets of a fight on a TV.
The building of suspense there works.
In this movie I'm not so sure it does, it's more like what I said above, it's cock-teasing. Because it's not that we don't see Godzilla or the fights at all until the big battle because we *do* get to see them. We just don't get to see all of the fights.
All we really see of the fight in Las Vegas is literally on a TV tuned to the news. So it's not "building suspense" so much as it's just teasing us.
Which in some ways works but in others is kind-of lame and cheap (in a manner of keeping us entertained, not monetarily.) Did anyone in the audience really care if the main-guy got home to see his wife and kid?
Granted the movie doing nothing but fights probably would have been tedious in some manner (though, I think it worked for Pacific Rim) so a balance would need to be struck. I don't think this movie quite found the right balance. We should've either been shown nothing until the end, or shown some more of the interim fights before the big one at the end.
It's kinda mean to make us see snipets of a fight on a TV.
The movie appears to be doing well enogh at the box office and they've already ordered a sequel. So despite the massive stigma about bag, cheap Godzilla movies people seems to get what the movie is about.
The movie paid for itself in one weekend. A sequel was guaranteed at that point.
Large parts of the movie were rather boring because you just couldn't care about the human characters. I couldn't even care about the obvious "gotta save the children" parts.
Dr. What's His Name (with the female sidekick) just stared most of the time, it seemed. Would the pocket watch from Hiroshima still be radioactive?
My son and I were a little disappointed by this movie, but I will always go to a BEM movie. Hoping for a King Ghidorah movie.
Dr. What's His Name (with the female sidekick) just stared most of the time, it seemed. Would the pocket watch from Hiroshima still be radioactive?
My son and I were a little disappointed by this movie, but I will always go to a BEM movie. Hoping for a King Ghidorah movie.
Only if it had been contaminated by radioactive fallout. Just being exposed to radiation doesn't make something radioactive (unless the radiation is intense enough to transmute some of its atoms into unstable isotopes). At least, not in real life. In Showa-era Godzilla canon, though, both Godzillas (the one killed in 1954 and the one active from 1955-1975) were made permanently radioactive by exposure to radiation. But the new movie seems to treat Godzilla's radioactivity as a naturally evolved trait.
And really, the bulk of the instantaneous damage done by an atomic bomb is the result of the surrounding atmosphere, the fireball, blast wave, and shock wave created in the atmosphere by the sudden burst of immense heat. According to the prequel comic (the relevant pages of which can be seen here), the young Ishiro Serizawa and his father were in Hiroshima when the bomb fell and they survived, although the buildings they were in were reduced to rubble. So presumably they were someplace moderately far from the epicenter, where most of the damage was from the blast/shock waves.
The watch might have been protected from the subsequent fallout if it had been kept in a pocket. Or if the material only got on its surface, it could've been decontaminated.
So they expect us to believe Dr. Serizawa was already alive in 1945? Even though Ken Watanabe wasn't even born until 1959? Huh.
Isn't that pretty much the case until the final battle?
I dunno, it was cool to see that classic Godzilla-movie side-view shot of the monsters facing off amid the skyscrapers.
I'm not sure I like this. I think I'd rather see one say once every 10 years or so? Could they go to the well too much?
..are we going to have to see something like "Monster Island" now? Do they bring in Monster X?
I saw Pacific Rim. I didn't enjoy it that much. I thought many of the fight scenes had too much going on and I still don't know what that damn think is supposed to look like as a whole. Not slamming it per se, I wasn't expecting much more, but I think they could have "slowed it down" a little. (..and where was that sword the entire movie?
)I agree completely. That's what I wanted to see. I personally loved the news clips early in the movie too.
I would kill to see them bring in Monster X!
I'm hoping in the sequel (to both Godzilla and Pacific Rim) we get to see one of these monster battles in the actual daylight, and not in the rain or smoke or murky darkness yet again.
Even if the CG isn't quite there yet (which is apparent in the final Godzilla scene), it'd still be a nice change of pace from what we've been getting.
Even if the CG isn't quite there yet (which is apparent in the final Godzilla scene), it'd still be a nice change of pace from what we've been getting.
There are a few rare moments in sci-fi cinema that will make me well up:
...the endings of E.T. and CE3K (I guess that's Spielberg for you)
...Han and Leia's final scene in ESB (I guess that's the music cue)
...Godzilla returning to the sea in any of the films. Loved it in this one, though I did miss the Ifukube theme. Looking forward to the next one, with hopefully more humour, colour range and fewer dark/night scenes
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...the endings of E.T. and CE3K (I guess that's Spielberg for you)
...Han and Leia's final scene in ESB (I guess that's the music cue)
...Godzilla returning to the sea in any of the films. Loved it in this one, though I did miss the Ifukube theme. Looking forward to the next one, with hopefully more humour, colour range and fewer dark/night scenes
.
We've been using CGI for creature effects for a little over 20 years and using rain/darkness to hide the flaws in these effects. (Jurassic Park.) I think given what we see CGI can do and how much of it anymore doesn't occur shrouded in darkness or rain, I suspect they can do daylight kaiju fights with CGI.
I resented the fact that E.T. brought tears to my eyes, because I thought it was a totally stupid and absurd story and I didn't believe in the characters or the situation enough to give a damn about them. It was purely Spielberg's directorial technique and John Williams's music that drew a totally unearned emotional response from me, and I was offended at being so blatantly manipulated. Though that's a testament to Spielberg's skills as a director, that he could take such a dreadful and shallow script and create the illusion that it was worth crying over.
I'd never seen ET and when I met my future wife in 1988 she took me to a Sunday afternoon 'repeat' showing at the cinema. I'd not really thought much about Spielberg before - I liked Duel, Jaws and Raiders and didn't like CE3K at all. He was just another movie maker to me.
To say I disliked ET would be an understatement. I loathed it from the cloyingly sweet bowl haircut portrayal of American childhood to the vile ET creature and his 'cute' appeal. The filmmakers attempted manipulation was crass and obvious. As I told her when we came out - I'd have improved it : boy finds creature in garden shed and beats it to death with a spade. 'The End'.
I must admit, I've approached Spielberg with caution ever since - he's made the odd film I liked, but there's been a lot that reminded me of what I hated about ET too.
I'm glad I'm not on my own regarding ET - people look at you as some sort of monster for criticising it...
I probably haven't see ET in almost 20 or 25 years, can't say I've ever really been to appealed to seeing it. My memory of it is that it's just very... Spielberg.
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