Chalk me up in the disappointed-by-Shin-Godzilla crowd. I wasn’t expecting to see “Emergency Response Simulator”. I was also put off by the crazy lasers shooting out of everywhere effect—unfortunately crossed over from cool atomic flame breath to D&D magic missiles.
I did like how they intentionally collapsed giant buildings on him. That was cool.
Godzilla is kind of a double edged sword. On the one hand he’s a giant force of nature and is best when he lumbers about, plowing through buildings. On the other hand, he is so big and immovable that he looks kind of silly wrestling, jumping, or using his hands to grab stuff. But he really needs to interact more with his environment, so that he can fight a bit. If he isn’t allowed to do that he is basically a mountain and then needs his breath/I guess tail lasers to fend off minor threats and ranged enemies.
I thought the Edwards movie balanced this quite well.
Japan is also in the the Godzilla is a bad guy part of the cycle, where in the Edwards film we got a good guy Godzilla flick.
That’s very true. This was definitely “I’m gonna fuck your city up” Godzilla.
And Godzooooooooooooky!
Shudder.
I was overall disappointed in this. It’s too long, with the interesting premise of examining the government’s inability to respond to massive threats being sort of lost in a few too many conference room scenes. Also, there’s occasionally just nonsensical stuff like “we need some samples from the creature!” “The Americans took all of them!” what? How? That doesn’t even make any sense given America is depicted as specifically standing off and advising up until they dispatch the “Japanese-American” envoy to start dealing with the stand in Japanese protagonist (such as he was). Also, I thought I was watching the Japenese version with sub-titles but I got dubbing and I think something got lost with respect to the existing research America had as well as the mystery surrounding the missing (deceased) Scientist guy.
I was already disappointed in the creature design from the trailer and the movie didn’t do anything to change that. Pre godzilla googly eyed thing was really terrible though, because of the eyes. I thought there was going to be a bigger deal with the fluid/blood it was emitting. But they were emphasizing the radiation Godzilla was emitting later so maybe it was just that in action
The action was pretty good but with some problems. The effects were good but I thought it was odd that Godzilla spent the better part of one entire (and otherwise interesting) action sequence - the first time the SDF fully flexes it’s might - just standing there not doing anything. As for Godzilla’s new abilities. . . shooting ray out of tail was silly. The Breath alternating between fire and purple whatever seemed pointless. I loathed the extended jaw breath weapon effect. The purple itself was interesting as was the “anti air” capabilities the fins provided.. The destruction wrought on Japan/Tokoyo was well done and very real.
it works better if you view the entire movie as a satire of entire US - Japan relations. The movie accurately depicts the ineptitude of the Japanese govt when it comes to US relations.
Well you didn’t get to see all the salarymen cry in the theater when Shimbashi got leveled.
This is not the anime Godzilla that recently popped up on Netflix is it?
No, this is the first Toho live-action Godzilla since 2004’s Final Wars. They can’t do a sequel until 2020, unfortunately.
Incidentally I do not recommend the anime Godzilla (which is available on Netflix).
That’s disappointing. I was looking forward to watching it this weekend, although I didn’t really like the far future apocalyptic premise
Please do! I’m very curious to hear other opinions on it. Where as you and I differ some what in terms of how we like seeing Godzilla portrayed, my problems here weren’t really related to that. Rather, I got sick of the screaming angry protagonist (he hates Godzilla, I get it) and well no spoilers.
Thanks for the warning. I think I’ll watch the anime because, well, Godzilla.
Hey, I’m the same way. I’ll watch part 2 whenever it comes out, because again Godzilla.
The best part of the anime was the nap I took during it.
Yeah, it’s a very strong sleep-inducing medicine. Should have been named “Godzilla Exposition” or something.
You would think an anime Godzilla would be all about the rampaging and fighting. You guys are making it tough for me to set aside time for this one now, lol!