Godzilla Minus One is a beautiful and heart-rending movie about post-war Japan through the life of one man and his trauma and shame. And Godzilla is scary AF.
Godzilla, Kong, Gamera & Co.: The Kaiju Mega-Thread
- Thread starter Kai "the spy"
- Start date
Seeing Godzilla run like that in the trailer just doesn't seem right. He should be a lumbering dinosaur.
There was that time in Godzilla vs. Hedorah that he flew using his atomic breath as jet propulsion, and the oft-memed bit where he did a cheerful victory dance, but those were deep in the silliest stage of the Showa-era series. We seem to be reaching the equivalent of that with the Legendary movies, even as Monarch goes in a more serious direction on TV.
I assumed must of that was just because of the cumbersome suits in the old movies, so I don't have a problem with them taking advantage of the freedom of CGI to make him a bit more agile.
Except a creature that gigantic and massive should be anything but "agile." I mean, realistically, anything a fraction that big would be immobilized and crushed to death by its own weight like a beached whale, but even allowing for fantasy, you want to convey some sense of vastness and immense bulk. An apatosaurus running like a thoroughbred would look ridiculous.
Although this wouldn't be a first for the Godzilla franchise. In the second film, Godzilla Raids Again, the Godzilla/Anguirus fights were supposed to be shot in slow motion to make them seem huger, but they got sped up instead due to an error of some sort, and the director liked that sense of speed and kept it in the final movie, for reasons that bewilder me, since it works against the sense of scale.
If anything, I'd say you have it backward. "Cumbersome" or not, there's abundant precedent for stunt performers in kaiju suits moving in an agile and humanlike way (see any Ultraman episode), and at most they use slow motion to make them seem larger. With CGI, it's easier in principle to animate a character with a sense of mass and hugeness, as was done very well in the 2014 Godzilla. The shot here of Godzilla running alongside Kong like a hero shot from a buddy-cop movie just looked silly in comparison. It's not even about the speed; it just doesn't look like Godzilla in body language or silhouette.
I just rewatched Kong: Skull Island today, and I was struck again by how much better it is than the other MonsterVerse films. Not only does it have an excellent script with strong character work, but it's really well-directed with some very creative and visually striking shot compositions and editorial choices. It's too bad they haven't brought back the director.
I also recall K:SI having by far the best 3-D conversion of any movie I’ve seen. It actually felt like it had been shot stereoscopically. I don’t know why they haven’t at least brought Larry Fong back as DP for any of the others.
Which is unfortunately not something I can see on a library rental DVD.
I saw the 2014 Godzilla in 3D in the theater, and I was impressed by how much the 3D enhanced the impression of Godzilla's vastness, especially in that part on the railway bridge, IIRC, where Godzilla was looming over the soldiers. I don't remember if I saw K:SI in 3D.
'Godzilla Minus One' has had its US run extended until December 14th at Regal and AMC theaters.
At $11 million it is the highest grossing Japanese movie released in the US, and it has already made back its $15 million budget thanks to its worldwide release.
At $11 million it is the highest grossing Japanese movie released in the US, and it has already made back its $15 million budget thanks to its worldwide release.
Wow. That's, like, the catering budget of a Hollywood blockbuster these days. And yet they made a hit movie with it.
Or hilariously probably HALF of Robert Downey Jrs salary for one Marvel movie
Anybody finding Monarch well.. abit boring? The past stuff is interesting but the "current" crew are.. well boring.
After watching Minus 1 and seeing REALLY compelling characters.. writing on Monarch just seems ho hum like a meh Marvell TV show
After watching Minus 1 and seeing REALLY compelling characters.. writing on Monarch just seems ho hum like a meh Marvell TV show
The last two episodes have felt like they didn't have enough plot to fill them. I like the characters fine, but I'm not finding the search for Cate and Kentaro's search for their father particularly compelling. And Monarch as an organisation isn't really that interesting right now. They just don't seem to be very good at anything? Lee even pointed out in episode 5 how they had 60 years to prepare for Godzilla's arrival and (seemingly) did nothing. I hope we get some big reveals by the end of episode 6.
Part Jaws and part Alexander Nevsky…
Gojira wasn’t really just a kaiju here…but a Shinigami of sorts…a tulpa….put down not with an oxygen destroyer…but largely destroyed by nitrogen…the bends.
I rank this up there with THE THING as a monster movie.
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Godzilla -1 is absolutely amazing.
A fantastic character piece, with trauma, dread, tension and clear relatable stakes. Some of the POV shots are just stunning.
A fantastic character piece, with trauma, dread, tension and clear relatable stakes. Some of the POV shots are just stunning.
I loved when Godzilla was coming up behind the minesweeper boat.
Well, I finally decided to sign up with AppleTV to watch Monarch, and when I tried to register, I discovered that I already had an Apple account that I had no memory of ever opening. On reflection, my best guess was that it was an old QuickTime account that I haven't used in years.
Anyone else having subtitle issues? The first episode had subtitles for the Japanese dialogue in the scene on the fishing boat, but after a while, I realized I was seeing these long scenes in Japanese or Kazakh without any subtitles, and when I turned the English subtitles on, lo and behold, there were the translation subtitles along with them. I had to go back and rewatch the scenes to see what was being said.
Anyway, it's okay so far, though I'm guessing the scenes in Kentaro's apartment were not filmed in Tokyo like the exteriors, since that didn't look like the apartment buildings I see in Japanese TV -- it had an interior hallway with wooden doors instead of an exterior walkway with metal doors. And the apartment looked way too big for a single-family dwelling in densely populated Tokyo.
Also, I'm not quite clear on where the opening scene with Bill Randa on Skull Island could fit within the events of Kong: Skull Island, which I rewatched last week. I kinda wish I hadn't already returned the library DVD, so I could go back and check. It doesn't help that John Goodman looks noticeably older and more gaunt than he did six years ago. (Also weird that the actor playing his younger self doesn't look or sound anything like him.)
Meanwhile, rewatching Godzilla '14 and watching this within a couple of days of each other means I got a double dose of annoyance at the Golden Gate Bridge scene, where Godzilla tears through both support cables yet the bridge deck miraculously remains level and rigid except where he broke through it. Why do Hollywood filmmakers never understand how a suspension bridge works? Do they think the "suspension" part is just random syllables?
Anyone else having subtitle issues? The first episode had subtitles for the Japanese dialogue in the scene on the fishing boat, but after a while, I realized I was seeing these long scenes in Japanese or Kazakh without any subtitles, and when I turned the English subtitles on, lo and behold, there were the translation subtitles along with them. I had to go back and rewatch the scenes to see what was being said.
Anyway, it's okay so far, though I'm guessing the scenes in Kentaro's apartment were not filmed in Tokyo like the exteriors, since that didn't look like the apartment buildings I see in Japanese TV -- it had an interior hallway with wooden doors instead of an exterior walkway with metal doors. And the apartment looked way too big for a single-family dwelling in densely populated Tokyo.
Also, I'm not quite clear on where the opening scene with Bill Randa on Skull Island could fit within the events of Kong: Skull Island, which I rewatched last week. I kinda wish I hadn't already returned the library DVD, so I could go back and check. It doesn't help that John Goodman looks noticeably older and more gaunt than he did six years ago. (Also weird that the actor playing his younger self doesn't look or sound anything like him.)
Meanwhile, rewatching Godzilla '14 and watching this within a couple of days of each other means I got a double dose of annoyance at the Golden Gate Bridge scene, where Godzilla tears through both support cables yet the bridge deck miraculously remains level and rigid except where he broke through it. Why do Hollywood filmmakers never understand how a suspension bridge works? Do they think the "suspension" part is just random syllables?