Godzilla, Kong, Gamera & Co.: The Kaiju Mega-Thread

Discussion in 'Science Fiction & Fantasy' started by Kai "the spy", Nov 3, 2021.

  1. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    But, hell even in the Japanese Godzilla films have you ever really cared for the Human side of the stories in the majority of them?
     
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  2. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I liked Miki in the Heisei movies
     
  3. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Oh, I missed that.
    That must be why I missed it, it seems kind of ambiguous to me, I could be right after it, but really with the way it's worded it could be any point after. That was the big world changing event in this universe, so I could see it being used as the reference point, even if it's set after Godzilla vs Kong.
     
  4. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    In the best ones, yes. It's unambitious to choose "the majority" as one's target, given Sturgeon's Law.


    I don't think it's ambiguous at all. It's "following" the battle in San Francisco, not any of the later ones, and it mentions "the shocking new reality" of monsters, which doesn't make sense a decade later in GvK. Think about it -- we're two years into COVID now, and it's still changing our lives, but do you find it shocking or new anymore? And that's only two years.
     
  5. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I thought she was about as interesting as a plank of wood.
     
  6. captainkirk

    captainkirk Commodore Commodore

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    What this show needs is the return of Captain Gordon from Final Wars.
     
  7. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Do we know if Legendary has plans for any more Monsterverse movies or will the show be it for the foreseeable future?
     
  8. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Nothing for sure, but I gather GvK did well enough that more movies are likely (even though GvK was by far the worst, dumbest movie in the series).
     
  9. captainkirk

    captainkirk Commodore Commodore

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    The Deadline article I believe says that Toho has licensed Godzilla to them for more movies. It is also known that an idea for another Kong movie is being considered.

    I think it’s also time for a movie starring another titan. Maybe a Rodan movie.
     
  10. publiusr

    publiusr Admiral Admiral

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    No…except for Charles Dance’s character.

    I’d pay to hear him read a phone book
     
  11. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    I think there are several Godzilla movies with entertaining and even great human drama in them. Most of the Ishiro Honda-directed Showa movies had great characters, Return of Godzilla (Japanese version, the US-edit is just bad) and Godzilla vs. Biollante, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, several of the Millennium-era movies had at least engaging characters, and Shin Godzilla was just fantastic. I also liked the characters in the Singular Point (and a good thing, too, considering how little kaiju action is in that one).
     
  12. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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  13. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I love that they're filming in Tokyo, it's always nice when the non-Japanese Godzilla or Godzilla adjacent productions include Japan in their stories.
     
  14. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    "Always?" As far as I know, the first act of the 2014 film is the only time that's happened in a live-action production before now, although the "Japan" scenes there were filmed in Vancouver with a bunch of familiar Vancouver actors, so they weren't very convincing.
     
  15. JD

    JD Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I thought there was at least one or two scenes in Japan in the Matthew Broderick movie too?
     
  16. Saul

    Saul Vice Admiral Admiral

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    It seems optimistic to schedule filming in Japan since the country is closed to non residents and it seems it's going to be that way until the start of 2023.

    As for the series itself I'm not all that interested in a human drama series unless there is going to be some monster action involved.
     
  17. thribs

    thribs Vice Admiral Admiral

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    There will be. I can’t imagine a show based on the Godzilla franchise won’t have any Kaiju action.
     
  18. Kai "the spy"

    Kai "the spy" Admiral Admiral

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    There was the attack on a Japanese fishing trawler at the beginning, and then Jean Reno interrogating the old Japanese guy who survived that attack, but the first scene took place at sea and the latter scene took place in Tahiti. No scenes actually set in Japan.

    Though, as for American Godzilla productions, there also were the comics and animated shows, as well as a couple of novels. It wasn't limited to the movies. Also, "adjacent" could also include films like the Pacific Rim movies, depending on your definition.
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Yes, but American depictions of Japan (and Japanese depictions of America) tend to be inaccurate, caricatured, exoticized, and inauthentic. So I'm reluctant to count American cartoons or prose works set in Japan as actually "including Japan." To me, inclusion means involving actual people from the culture in the creative process. It always disappointed me that the 2014 film didn't actually film in Japan or cast native Japanese actors to make its Japan scenes authentic. I hope the new series will do that.

    I think the first MonsterVerse comic, Godzilla: Awakening, did a decent job with its depiction of Japan, but not a flawless one. The lead character, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, was a bit too quick to forgive Americans for it and join Monarch. And there's a page showing Mt. Fuji remaining essentially unaltered over 250 million years of geological and evolutionary change, even though Fuji-san is an active volcano only a few hundred thousand years old. It also shows the Hiroshima atomic blast being visible from Mt. Fuji, when they’re actually about 700 km apart. As for Godzilla: Aftershock, a G:KotM prequel, it also makes a decent attempt at depicting Japan, and like its predecessor, it gives its main monster a Japanese name, but it consistently misspells Jishin-Mushi (Earthquake Beetle) as Jinshin-Mushi, which is irritating.
     
  20. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Money talks. A movie production has a good chance of getting an exception if the wheels are greased.