So WHAT were you expecting really? A treatise on the human condition through the eyes of a paraplegic?
Funny you should mention the human condition, given what
Christopher has said:
Bradbury loved writing about dinosaurs. The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms was named after a story of his (later renamed "The Foghorn"). He was approached to do a rewrite on the screenplay, and when he pointed out that one of its scenes had similarities to his story, the filmmakers bought the rights to the story, used its title, and gave him story credit for the film. So one could say that Bradbury was one of the indirect inspirations for the Godzilla franchise.
I remember that story. It's beautiful and evocative, using a silly, fantastical idea (a surviving dinosaur from deep in the ocean depths) to make a comment about the universality of loneliness as a part of the experience of consciousness. What I
don't remember in that story is devastated cities, untold agonizing fatalities, gruff yet honorable
murican! military types, and Bayformers-esque battles.
Somehow I doubt there'll be much of Bradbury's spirit in this joint. More's the pity, especially for all the youngsters out there, who aren't exposed to writers like Bradbury by their parents and teachers as I was. (In other words, I'd love for my confirmation bias to be proven wrong here.)
Anyway, the original Godzilla is a fine work of science fiction. The science is totally fanciful, but the film is a powerful allegory about important themes, a symbolic protest of the devastation wrought on Japan by American nuclear weapons -- not only the aftermath of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which is powerfully evoked in the scenes following up on Godzilla's rampage, but the deaths caused by the ongoing nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands and the fallout that descended on Japan as a result.
Sure, that's pop culture 101. But the last wartime use of a nuke was... Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Is there any reason to believe this flick will have anything to say? Or will it be another soulless remake a la
Red Dawn '12, copying and pasting an old concept while losing any of the original's originality and adding nothing in its place?
Look, I like stupid movies as well as anyone. I loved
Battle: LA, in part because one could plausibly argue that, if only on a subconscious level, it was an attempt on the filmmakers' part to imagine what being in the thick of recent urban combat from other parts of the world might be like on our own home streets, albeit with a fantastical level. (Numerous reviews didn't call it "
Black Hawk Down with aliens" for nothing.) So I'm not saying "let's never have stupid," but not all stupid is created equal, as anyone who's seen a Bayformers knows.
