1. Then we'd only have 2 fight scenes at most and the movie would have been an hour long.
2. The director saved it for dark of night when it would look really frakking awesome!!
I saw Godzilla
- Thread starter Lookingglassman
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1. Then we'd only have 2 fight scenes at most and the movie would have been an hour long.
2. The director saved it for dark of night when it would look really frakking awesome!!
Agreed. The image of the fiery locomotive emerging from the fog was a really striking image. Especially in Imax 3D
You are definitely going to need a bigger boat...
I realized only recently that Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen, who play husband and wife in this movie, are the same actors playing Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in the next Avengers film.
Well, even before now, the Toho films break down into seven distinct continuities, all of which (except possibly Godzilla 2000) include the 1954 attack on Tokyo, but which often portray it, or Godzilla's origins, in distinct and incompatible ways. So it's not exactly a case of a timeline splitting, and more a case of multiple alternative realities that have certain characters, creatures, and events in common. Presumably Daisuke Serizawa is a part of all those prior realities (except maybe 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, since that one's ambiguous on whether the Oxygen Destroyer was ever used), so he could be a part of this one too.
I think it was handled just right. They gave us just enough to build anticipation, and then paid it off marvelously in the third act. Audiences today are just too impatient.
Actually that was pretty much the take of the original 1954 film -- that Godzilla was simply a surviving prehistoric creature living undiscovered in the depths, like the coelacanth, and that the Marshall Island nuclear tests had simply driven him from his normal feeding grounds, as well as turning him radioactive. It wasn't until 1991 that he was given the retconned origin of actually being mutated to giant size by nuclear irradiation.
And the allusion to the US and USSR both thinking Godzilla was the enemy reminds me of the plot of the 1984 Return of Godzilla, in which Godzilla's destruction of a Soviet nuclear sub is blamed on the US and almost precipitates nuclear war until the Japanese Prime Minister reveals the secret that Godzilla has returned.
Well, "Godzilla" and "Gojira" are really just different romanizations of the same syllables, the former using a scheme common in the 1950s and the latter using the scheme preferred today. Like Mao Tse-tung vs. Mao Zedong. And "Godzilla" is the official English spelling and pronunciation used even in the Toho films, whenever you see English signage or characters speaking English. (Although the romanization in the old scheme would've been "Godzila" -- I assume the second L was added for clarity or aesthetics, or perhaps because the name's derived partly from "gorilla.")
Just Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Object. Something can't be massively unidentified; either it's identified or it isn't. But the creatures were very massive.
Sort of a hybrid template, actually, since it has the seriousness of the early and later films where Godzilla was the villain, and yet it presents the big guy pretty unambiguously as the hero, to an extent we've hardly seen since the goofy kids' movies of the '60s and '70s. Honestly I found Godzilla a bit tame and unthreatening here, although there were moments where the visuals made him and the MUTOs intensely imposing and threatening, especially in 3D.
Agreed. At least they could've quoted it in the end titles, if nothing else.
Isn't that enough? Joe's become a conspiracy nut, as far as anyone could tell, and it sounded like this wasn't the first time he got himself arrested. Evidently Ford just got tired of dealing with his nonsense.
Yes, and also it helped keep the perspective on a human scale. That's something we haven't had that much of in a Godzilla film before (since of course the '98 film wasn't about the actual Godzilla) -- usually we cut to more of a monster-eye level for the big fights and they're somewhat detached from the human-level stuff, aside from the occasional cutaway. Here, we were seeing it all fully integrated, as if shot live. We were shown the Honolulu battle, we just saw it the way spectators on TV would be seeing it. It's the sort of verite quality that's favored in a lot of films today.
I imagine it takes a lot out of him, so it's a last-resort kind of thing. Besides, it was good that they saved it for the right moment. Seeing that blue light coming from inside the smoke, realizing what it meant, was one of the coolest moments in the film.
Hey, was anyone else playing "Spot the ubiquitous Vancouver actor" as they watched? Hey, there's Garry Chalk! There's Hiro Kanagawa! There's Ty Olsson! There's Brian Markinson! Even Jill Teed is here! The only one I missed was Terry Chen. I wish it hadn't been so obvious that the "Japan" scenes were filmed in Canada.
Almost missed it, because I was in the middle of a yawn.
Sure was! I was really hoping for Lexa Doig & Roger Cross to show up.
That was my initial thought as well but I have to say, he's growing on me.
Such a TREMENDOUS improvment, I'm pretty happy.
I thought I saw Teryl Rothery too, but she's not in the credits, so it was probably someone else.
While the movie wasn't at all what I was expecting, I came out extremely satisfied. My only exposure to the movie was the trailers/marketing campaign, which didn't touch upon the MUTOs or the heroic nature of Godzilla's appearance. I also didn't expect to get misty-eyed so early in the film when Brody has to say goodbye to his wife during the reactor incident. Getting such amazing actors for relatively minor roles really elevated those scant few moments and made me feel and believe in them and their relationship.
I'm not sure why, but the sight of Godzilla swimming with the US Navy really spoke to my inner 10-year-old and the restraint in showing him in a full-out brawl until the final battle was very effective. I loved Godzilla's look, which felt entirely faithful to the original, right on down to his lumbering shuffle. The MUTO's design felt a little bit like the Cloverfield monster but I really dug the hard-carapace look, the burning eye 'streaks' and the squared-off head/beak.
I watched quite a bit of the old Toho Godzilla films in my youth and this movie did a fantastic job of creating a modern and hard-edged take on the heroic Godzilla theme. I'm looking forward to more entries like this one.
I'm not sure why, but the sight of Godzilla swimming with the US Navy really spoke to my inner 10-year-old and the restraint in showing him in a full-out brawl until the final battle was very effective. I loved Godzilla's look, which felt entirely faithful to the original, right on down to his lumbering shuffle. The MUTO's design felt a little bit like the Cloverfield monster but I really dug the hard-carapace look, the burning eye 'streaks' and the squared-off head/beak.
I watched quite a bit of the old Toho Godzilla films in my youth and this movie did a fantastic job of creating a modern and hard-edged take on the heroic Godzilla theme. I'm looking forward to more entries like this one.
Wow. Impressive review Chris.
On your last statement about "breathing"... that caught my eye as well. I'm not really sure G needs to breath... didn't seem so as he swam across the Pacific.
Enjoyed the read.
Nice!
I had assumed that the male fertilized the eggs she was carrying, which (thankfully) the movie didn't show.
Yeah, the arms were very Cloverfield-ish, the heads & mandibles were reminiscent of the Warrior Bugs in Starship Troopers, and the "burning eye streaks" reminded me of the Shadows from Babylon 5 (the spidery ones that accompanied Morden wherever he went).
Saw the movie with my best friend this past Saturday night, and we're both students of the Toho movies (and we were also captives in the theatre for the 1998 butchering of the character)
That being said, we both absolutely loved it! It had all the hallmarks of the Toho movies (who made Godzilla movies at a pretty steady clip, some of which were on the Chiller network this past Saturday also!), but added some American style to the way the movie was made. The combination was done well, IMO.
When Godzilla was charging up to breathe the ray the first time, I just had this feeling of excitement like I was watching the original movies on TV when I was little! In fact, the whole movie made me feel that way!
One Easter egg I loved: when Ford and Joe go back to their house in the quarantine zone, Ford looks at an aquarium type of tank. The label on it looks to be masking tape put over another name tag, which together spelled out "MOTHRA"...
That being said, we both absolutely loved it! It had all the hallmarks of the Toho movies (who made Godzilla movies at a pretty steady clip, some of which were on the Chiller network this past Saturday also!), but added some American style to the way the movie was made. The combination was done well, IMO.
When Godzilla was charging up to breathe the ray the first time, I just had this feeling of excitement like I was watching the original movies on TV when I was little! In fact, the whole movie made me feel that way!
One Easter egg I loved: when Ford and Joe go back to their house in the quarantine zone, Ford looks at an aquarium type of tank. The label on it looks to be masking tape put over another name tag, which together spelled out "MOTHRA"...
Well, we'd also have to consider that Godzilla himself is a mishmash of various real world creatures, including bears, alligators, and Tyrannosaurs, among others. And that's a 60 year old design. Mixing up monsters and designs could in and of itself also be original.
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