Escape to the Movies: Godzilla - Breaking Kaiju
- Thread starter MovieBob
- Start date
Dammit Bob, what you described with Ken Watanabe's character having history with Godzilla sounds WAY better than what I learned about this movie today! I had no idea there were other M.U.T.O.'s (oh what the hell, I'm calling' 'em Kaiju) for Godzilla to fight. Every trailer and commercial for it I watched implied it would be Godzilla vs. humans, with Bryan Cranston running around and yelling (or "acting!"). Godzilla vs. other monsters sounded freakin' SWEET if they were just up front about it.
Sidenote: I had a good chuckle at the dig at Breaking Bad, since all the hype around it kind of turned me off of it even more. I didn't have to see a single episode to get what that one episode of American Dad! was using as references fro jokes.
Alaso: am I the only one kind of squicked out by how the two actors playing husband and wife in Godzilla will play twin brother and sister in Avengers: Age of Ultron?
Sidenote: I had a good chuckle at the dig at Breaking Bad, since all the hype around it kind of turned me off of it even more. I didn't have to see a single episode to get what that one episode of American Dad! was using as references fro jokes.
Alaso: am I the only one kind of squicked out by how the two actors playing husband and wife in Godzilla will play twin brother and sister in Avengers: Age of Ultron?
So I wonder if it's true that that made a whole lot of cuts to the Japanese/science part of the movie to go the 'all American route', maybe enough that they could have edited the movie to be about that and make the soldier+wife&child into minor characters? If that was a case, then considering how important the international movie market is these days it's a shame they couldn't have made two cuts of the film, one American the other international.
...Though maybe that wouldn't haven been allowed. One shouldn't forget, that Hollywood cuts deals with the US military. The military provides the movie production with all the authentic military hardware they need in exchange for having a say in story and editing decisions. Now it's not that nefarious, and if you don't want to work with the army you don't have to, you just don't get access to their toys (and these days I'm sure CGI helps a lot there). I just wonder though if this is why the image of the glorified US soldier is so prevalent in movies.
...Though maybe that wouldn't haven been allowed. One shouldn't forget, that Hollywood cuts deals with the US military. The military provides the movie production with all the authentic military hardware they need in exchange for having a say in story and editing decisions. Now it's not that nefarious, and if you don't want to work with the army you don't have to, you just don't get access to their toys (and these days I'm sure CGI helps a lot there). I just wonder though if this is why the image of the glorified US soldier is so prevalent in movies.
...So, wait, does MovieBob not like Breaking Bad or something? Eh, whatever. When I thought how MovieBob could complain about human characters when pretty much every Godzilla movie has boring/annoying human characters to drive the story and build up to Godzilla, I was hoping he'd address the hypocrisy... which thankfully he did. Yeah, you might want to try and improve on some of the Godzilla franchise's shortcomings if you're actually going to do a big-budget movie like this, and by that, I DON'T mean messing with the DNA of the franchise so much like the last American Godzilla movie.
Huh, I don't think Godzilla Final Wars was serious; the thing had aliens, mutants, every single monster except for the godzilla clones like biolitthe or space godzilla. As for the Pacific Rim thing, I saw traces of Rei in Mako and some decent framework for the action. Also build up is good but I get bored easily so I need good character moments: they could have had Watanabe talking with the American forces and some tense scense between the military and him. We get development and tension all while building up to the epic fightAlmack said:
Transformer syndrome, the title character(s) play second fiddle to boring humans.
Its funny when the movie is named after "the thing," you'd expect them to show off "the thing."
Its funny when the movie is named after "the thing," you'd expect them to show off "the thing."
Only in Bob's mind basically he's getting more up himself and it's been especially prevelant in recent weeks. He's entitled to his opinion but I wish he'd review the damn film and not try to bear grudges on films or now other critics instead of giving his opinion. It's why I listen to Bob for 5 minutes every week and I listen to this man.Andrew Siribohdi said:
For 2 hours because whilst both have strong opinions which I don't always agree with the old school critic tries to review the damn film without any baggage.
Seriously Bob I want to listen about the film that stuff is good but I don't care that you disagree with other critics or you need to take another dig at Spider-Man (this years whipping boy it seams after Man of Steel, Green Lantern and oh I loose track).
I was seriously underwhelmed by this movie. Cut out the white bread family stuff, and let's have the monsters fight in daylight next time, pretty please. My advice: Wait till it runs on TV.
So, wait for it to come out on Netflix and then just skip to the last half hour or so? Unfortunate but oh well. Maybe there will be a sequel that uses Ken Wantanabe's character more (that's just me guessing since I don't know if his character survives the film).
Cranston is under-used? I can live with that, I mean I've loved him in just about everything I've seen him in, but I grew up with Malcolm in the Middle, so he always gets bonus points for nostalgia from me whenever I see him. But whatever bonus points I'd give this movie by pure virtue of the fact that it has Godzilla in it goes out the window if Godzilla isn't actually in it.
The review seems fair, as always, but I'm skeptical about going to the theater to see this now. I'm a big enough Godzilla fan to get into the idea of a movie about Godzilla just showing up to trash some monsters and metropolitan areas, but I was kind of hoping for something that was more of a throw-back to the original Gojira.
I've been debating on seeing this or Neighbors, and while this is more of a big-screen kind of film, I'm getting the impression that Neighbors will be more worth my money.
The review seems fair, as always, but I'm skeptical about going to the theater to see this now. I'm a big enough Godzilla fan to get into the idea of a movie about Godzilla just showing up to trash some monsters and metropolitan areas, but I was kind of hoping for something that was more of a throw-back to the original Gojira.
I've been debating on seeing this or Neighbors, and while this is more of a big-screen kind of film, I'm getting the impression that Neighbors will be more worth my money.
I still think it will be the most disappointing 8-12 minutes of your life.tmande2nd said:
Also, how come they didn't use any of Godzilla's iconic music?
This is a big dumb monster movie, the parts with the monster you have fun watching them wreck stuff and the parts with the people you have fun laughing a how dumb they are, how bad the movies fact checkers are, or just laughing a the WTF was the point of that scenes. And Godzilla is not fighting for the humans he barely even realizes that they exist he just kills to make sure he stays the top of the food chain.
Bob just hates everything.*this is sarcasm for those who don't get the joke*
We have people that think they can out run steam from a breached nuclear reactor down a mile long tunnel, the door the prevents reactor leaks from contaminating everything is activated by a manual switch, steam from a reactor leak does not seem to burn peoples skin, the MUTO not only absorbs the radiation from the old reactor but all the background radiation and the Nuclear scientist does not say 'wtf how is there no background radiation', scientists that study the MUTO think that wires and electricity can stop a giant monster that eats radiation, the soldier boy gets stuck with a generic Asian kid the audience groans thinking that he will have to sped the next 30 mins trying to get the kid back to his parents but 5 mins later the kid wanders off and finds his parents, scientist that study the MUTO think a good place to store a giant creature that eats radiation is with a lot of radioactive waste, the writers think that there is radioactive waste stored in the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, the military does not bother to find out what room it was stored in so has to check every room, the military does not notice that half the mountain is gone and the MUTO has already left, they forget that Godzilla barely notice them and are surprised when he destroys several of their ships while hardly noticing them, they has no idea how big the nuclear weapons they tested Bikini Atoll were, they think that dropping a slightly larger warhead will kill them instead of feeding them, they ask the expert if the nukes will work the expert says no they continue with the plan anyway, they do not know that the US has lots of Nukes all over the place and they do not need to ship Minuteman missile to the California coast by train along the same path a the MUTO is taking, they replace the detonators in the nukes with clock work detonators, a soldier fall on his face and nearly to his death while walking on a train bridge, this just keeps going the humans are mostly laughable dumb and the monsters barely realize that they exist, unless they have some nice radioactive something or other to eat. At the end after Godzilla has won the fight he takes a nap in the middle city and when he wakes up and lumbers off into the ocean the humans proclaim him "Godzilla King of Monsters. Saviour of the city?"
Undoubtedly there will be a sequel to this, especially if it makes a ton.
Haven't seen it yet but i work at a cinema and it's been SOOOOOO busy. So yeh, Hopefully more of Godzilla will be shown in a sequel if they make one.
Also wouldn't him siding with humans be a nice little nod to that cartoon in the 80's? where monsters would attack and a kid called him using a....watch? or am i thinking of something completely different?
Haven't seen it yet but i work at a cinema and it's been SOOOOOO busy. So yeh, Hopefully more of Godzilla will be shown in a sequel if they make one.
Also wouldn't him siding with humans be a nice little nod to that cartoon in the 80's? where monsters would attack and a kid called him using a....watch? or am i thinking of something completely different?
I don't know if it's just because I've watched one too many movies, but nowadays I just can't stand the "Soldier guy/family" pandering, I know most movies have the US as their main demographic but it's just so dull.
Almost exactly like how every movie that has a "foreign" term feels like explaining it every time they mention it cuz 'merica.
I happened to watch 47 ronin a few days ago and every time they said something like "Ronin" or "Seppukku" they added the meaning right after it and I couldn't keep myself from thinking "OH COME ON! they can't actually be THAT stupid", which was even worse since they explained "Ronin" right at the beginning.
Almost exactly like how every movie that has a "foreign" term feels like explaining it every time they mention it cuz 'merica.
I happened to watch 47 ronin a few days ago and every time they said something like "Ronin" or "Seppukku" they added the meaning right after it and I couldn't keep myself from thinking "OH COME ON! they can't actually be THAT stupid", which was even worse since they explained "Ronin" right at the beginning.
I have a feeling that this movie is going to become absolutely hated due the misleading ad campaign alone. The movie they were selling looked a lot more interesting than the one Bob is talking about here.
I knew this was looking too good to be true.
I knew this was looking too good to be true.
Unfortunately most of this is fluid since the cannon keeps changing across 4 reboots 5 if you count the failed 98 attempt, which I don't. And usually details like Diet are completely ignored.tdylan said:
In the Godzilla 1985 set it was established that he eats the same things the MUTO do. Radiation, which is why he kept attacking Japan. In the 50's Japan was the closest spot from the Ocean to detect radiation from our A-Bomb's from WWII. New Mexico was much further inland so fit well with the explanation. Then in the 85 set Japan had the largest concentration of nuclear reactors, and made a good reason for him to home in on them. Kinda like a shark that is attacked to radiation. Don't ask why they do it, but that is the reason Sharks eat Submarine radio equipment. Until WWII the only accessible hot spots of radiation were underground, and at the bottom of the ocean. It has only ever been painted as an assumption that he was asleep of millions of years. He could easily have been feeding on underwater volcanos that are fueled by uranium deposits [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Uranium-Resources/Geology-of-Uranium-Deposits/].
Now if you accept that he eats radiation it's simple to explain why he hadn't been doing much since 1954. They had been feeding him a steady diet of nukes from our underwater attempts at killing him. (revealed by the trailer so not a spoiler). Most of this movie is based off of a 15 year cover up of the MUTO, but how do you do that unless you have experience at covering up Godzilla for the last 50 years which the nuke "tests" were coverups for nuke attacks against him. All the Tsunamis, Earth Quakes, and Hurricanes are mostly Godzilla Cover-ups, or whatever you choose to believe. Since in 2014 they're using government coverup as a plot device you're left with not knowing what is true and isn't true about the past.
In the case of attacking the muto it's similar to the Wolf and the Coyote. The most Scientist have been able to figure out is that the Wolf will make a kill and the pack will feast. The pack will then leave the rest and start to move on. If the coyote comes anywhere near that dead abandoned feast and is spotted by the Wolves they will hunt it down, and brutally murder it. If the wolves were still feeding it would make sense, but the coyote's stay away as long as they see the wolves nearby, and it's only when the Wolves abandon the food that it becomes a problem since the coyotes then think it's safe to come in. They'll even leave the mutilated coyote out easy for any other coyote's to spot. Kinda like putting a head on a pike as a warning to any others that come by. It's weird irrational human like behavior. They'll then just go back to their normal patrol pattern. Godzilla just happens to be big enough to consider most of the Earth as his territory.
He knows were they're at because he hunts radiation like a shark, and they're eating stuff that he considers food he's not interested in eating at the moment if ever. Doesn't matter to him that he might not eat it right now like the Wolf pack that's abandoned a carcass and moved on to better things. It's his, it's in his territory, it's food that's his that he'll never eat, and if any other monster gets near it he'll hunt them down and murder them as an example. We're more like ants that are just in the way. Assuming that Godzilla is "helping" is classic human assumptions in a godzilla film. Best Godzilla ending ever is a little girls saying "He Loves Us" followed by him in the middle of the city starting to burn it down to the ground in a circle leaving nothing left. Not even the little girl saying "He Loves Us" survives.
My main problem is how does this conspiracy actually work. Size and scale are the usual weakness of any conspiracy, but if you're accepting the 1954 origin you're not left with much else to explain why the world at large is ignorant of giant monsters.
Man, Bob, you've really gotten me on a downer with your review. I was so looking forward to this, I think for essentially the same reasons you were - 21st century kaiju fights on the big screen FTW - but without having yet seen the movie I can already absolutely appreciate your criticisms.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson; I don't know what it is about him but, even having (I think - he's just so unremarkable - a bit like *cough* Andrew Garfield) only seen him in the Kick Ass movies, I just don't think he's a good actor. I definitely wouldn't count myself as particularly knowledgable about what actually makes a good actor and as such I rarely make such declarations. I too am now somewhat worried about Avengers 2. Oh man I can't believe Ultron has both 'TJ' and Elizabeth Olsen.
Aaron Taylor-Johnson; I don't know what it is about him but, even having (I think - he's just so unremarkable - a bit like *cough* Andrew Garfield) only seen him in the Kick Ass movies, I just don't think he's a good actor. I definitely wouldn't count myself as particularly knowledgable about what actually makes a good actor and as such I rarely make such declarations. I too am now somewhat worried about Avengers 2. Oh man I can't believe Ultron has both 'TJ' and Elizabeth Olsen.
Awesome. About a year from now when this is on several movie channels or on demand, I'll just catch this one from about the 3/4's point and go from there. In the mean time it sounds like I have to dig out my copy of Final Wars...or shop for something different like Vs Biolante...