| Title | Qt3 Movie Podcast: Godzilla: King of the Monsters |
| Author | Tom Chick |
| Posted in | Movie podcasts |
| When | June 10, 2019 |
Godzilla stumbles at the box office and gets trounced by critics. But what do Quarter to Three podcasters think? You might be surprised..
Kelly is correct about Godzilla showing up before Ghidora can kill Vera Farmiga. Sorry Tom.
Realistically she still dies when Godzilla goes nuclear though, but I’m sure the screenwriters of Godzilla: King of the Monsters can find a way!
You can tell that Ziyi Zhang is playing her own twin because the one at the waterfall has long hair. She’s credited as playing two characters as well, though they have different last names. Apparently one or both of them got married at some point. The backstories here are full and rich.
Also, the middle Ghidorah head was obviously the Moe Howard of the group. That’s the one that kept snapping at the others and assisted the regrowing head by removing that weird membrane. Remember how that head grew tongue-first? That ruled.
I think Whitford arbitrarily says “Moe, Larry, Curly” at one point (you know, for kids), and he’s not even talking about Monster Zero. Speaking of, this thing had 10 writers.
I love that you brought this up in your email and all three of us were all, “Huh?”
Yeah. We’re totally qualified.
-xtien
“Is it just me, or has he been working out?”
He does say that, but it is in reference to Ghidorah, apparently. I don’t remember it despite seeing this thing twice. The novelization (!) confirms it, though.
If we’re gonna pick on the writing, then I’ve got to mention the dumbest line in the film.
“My God.”
“…zilla.”
Gloriously dumb, I believe you mean.
Basically Bradley Whitford’s character was the only human in the movie I particularly enjoyed. (I guess Ken Watanabe was OK.)
The only human I enjoyed in the movie was the pilot who ejected into Rodan’s mouth. That was quite good.
Ah ha, I knew she died! That’s just Script Writing 101. If you indirectly murder millions of people, cause catastrophic property damage that will lead to a global economic collapse, and cozy up to an eco-terrorist villain like Charles Dance, the only way you can redeem yourself is by dying in a Noble Sacrifice.
But does this mean I owe @Kelly_Wand $5 or does he owe me $5? I forget the particulars of the bet. We might have each broken even.
-Tom
What about Soldier Who May or May Not Have Saved a Random Kid From Getting Sucked Up Into the Sky?
-Tom
I didn’t understand his motivation.
I think I owe you 5, and myself another 5.
No. Pilot man gets the thumbs up because he inadvertently made sure I never had to listen to him speak, but for the rest of the cast my reaction was uniformly:
When the first thing one’s mom mentions in an email was how bad the dialog in Godzilla was…
For what it’s worth, I think that Shin Godzilla is more post-Fukushima than post-9/11, although director Hideaki Anno has quite a long pedigree when it comes to imagining the responses of over-militarized bureaucracies to apocalypse-level threats (see Gunbuster and the many Evangelion titles).
Hey Guys, thank you for mentioning my mail! :-)
To clarify, I meant to say that i can understand why traditional movie critics are panning the film for the flat human characters, since that is what we usually relate to. I had no problem whatsoever with the movie being about huge monsters all the time, that was the best part!
Awesome podcast.
Thank you for clarifying, @Second_Sunrise. Sometimes when I read the emails I don’t get the details quite right in my note grid, and thus when I feather them in I twist things a bit in the flow of conversation. I always–and I mean this sincerely–appreciate it when somebody comes into the thread and gives us a clarification. It enhances the conversation after-the-fact and I think that is important.
Thank you for writing in to the podcast. I hope you’ll do so more in the future when you get the chance.
-xtien
“So this plan is what we call a long-shot, right?”
I took our 14 year old to see it. She had never seen a Godzilla movie. And she liked it well enough but commented that it was cheesy. “Deep dish” was her phrase. She did tear up when Mothra got toasted."
So now I’m going to inflict War of the Gargantuas on her, heh, heh.
I got a kick out of one of the protesters early in the film marching with a sign that read “Destroy All Monsters.”
My main question, if they included benevolent kaijū, where was
Because Gamera was competing with Toho’s monster line-up instead of being a part of that?
Saw this with my 5 year old last night. He liked “Lava Godzilla”. I liked the big action scenes, it was a Toho production, slightly Westernized and with great special effects. They even had the old Godzilla music near the end when Godzilla appeared at the phalanx of the human forces.
Could it have been better? Maybe. But they did pack a decent amount of kaiju action in. And Fenway got toasted! Also Rodan was pretty cool. I would like to have seen that big Mastodon looking thing in action. All around pretty fun, I thought. The very end with the other monsters bowing down to Godzilla was beyond cheezy for me, but perfect for the 5 year old.
Was it better than the first one? The first one was more “force of nature” and I liked the Muto fights. This one was scaled up, and had Charles “The Golden Child” Dance in it. I think I’d watch it again.
And I just ordered this big boy to set up in the study. 24" tall, almost 4 feet long snout to tail.
https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/7720
