Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters *SPOILER* Thread

[Dai]

Yes it did strike me as likely that the Exif are behind the appearance of the giant monsters on various worlds. It can't be a coincidence that Metphies is only one letter away from being an anagram of Mephisto. I'm useless at anagrams, and even I spotted that one. My guess for how the alien sub-plots will play out is:

Spoiler Below:

The tribal humans Haruo encounters probably worship Mechagodzilla as an idol. With their help, he gets it operational, but it 'malfunctions' and skips past the Godzilla-fighting part of its mission, straight onto the human exterminating part. With their original intentions outed, I suspect the surviving Bilusaludo will want to stop Mechagodzilla (since there aren't enough of them left to start a new civilisation on their own), but the Exif will use this moment as an opportunity to turn humanity against the Bilusaludo, offering their own 'deal with the devil', which will come back to bite Haruo in movie 3.

[jellydonut25]

so another godzilla with a personality of a wood stump eh

Wood stumps have more personality.

[lhb412]

My guess for how the alien sub-plots will play out is:

Spoiler Below:

The tribal humans Haruo encounters probably worship Mechagodzilla as an idol.

Spoiler Below:

Oh, if it's true that the plot is a bit of an intentional Planet of the Apes riff then that would be quite appropriate!

[Gentleman]

Definitely underwhelmed. The only thing that got interesting was when the "real" Godzilla broke through. Apart from that, it was background noise. Only one question, whose answer I might have missed. Did the ship in the movie hold the only human remnants left? Because at one point they had a crew of four thousand, this after a "nosedive" in their numbers early on. I'm guessing it held around ten thousand upon liftoff? Were they the only ones left on Earth at the time, are there other ships still out there in space and they the only ones the story focused on?

[tbeasley]

I liked it... It’s Part 1 of 3 so there’s a lot of world building to get out of the way first. It reimagines elements from previous Toho films in really cool, smart ways. It's very much an elaborate Humanity vs Godzilla story like Shin was, only transplanted to a more futuristic sci-fi setting, not having to worry about special effects and making good use of the animation.

About Godzilla's character - the film doesn't even reveal what his true motives are so I don't see how you can totally go after that yet. I thought they did a good at depicting how MASSIVE he is, especially the larger Godzilla at the end. He feels like a true juggernaut.

[Henry88]

so another godzilla with a personality of a wood stump eh

Wood stumps have more personality.

toho has been dropping the ball on there godzilla movies as of late.

[klen7]

i really love both G'14 and Shin-G. I'm glad Toho isn't doing the Ultramanesque science team for each movie like they did for most of the millennium series

I am not sure how I feel about this entry yet. The more I think about it the more I like the implications surrounding the aliens - but maybe a lot of what I am liking about the movie is my own fan theories more so than what was actually on the screen. So even if the film has grown on me, I wonder if i would have given it a second thought if it hadn't had Godzilla in it.

[franzilla]

It was really, really bad. Knew I wasn't getting a lot of Godzilla action going but I was still shocked at how much of a mess this was. What a waste of resources.

[daikaijusaurus]

Just saw this last night with my wife. My feelings towards it are probably the same as most, that it was good but not great. The intro got me really intrigued, up until the part where the aliens showed up, which seemed like it was just dropped in without much thought. Did this story really need aliens? I feel even without the aliens the movie would've been almost exactly the same.

The characters were okay. I am however getting tired of characters who have a vendetta against Godzilla after he killed their parents, or brother or best friend or dog or cat or whatever. Why these kind characters keep on showing up in Godzilla movies is beyond me. Heck even Gamera had a couple lol.

The music was good, but got a little annoying during the battle with the first Godzilla. Similar to Shin Godzilla when this really annoying rock piece kept on showing up throughout the movie. Why oh why do they do this?? Lol

Godzilla himself was really good, especially the Pappa Godzilla at to the end. I just wish we had more of him.

Lastly, why the heck was this movie named Planet of the Monsters?? Besides Godzilla and the forgettable flying creatures, what other monsters were there? Yeah I know there were monsters very briefly in the intro, but does that even count?

[O.Supreme]

The music was good, but got a little annoying during the battle with the first Godzilla. Similar to Shin Godzilla when this really annoying rock piece kept on showing up throughout the movie. Why oh why do they do this?? Lol

are you talking about the NGE theme? I'm by far no fan of the overrated series, but many people actually enjoyed that music bit...

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[Dai]

The characters were okay. I am however getting tired of characters who have a vendetta against Godzilla after he killed their parents, or brother or best friend or dog or cat or whatever. Why these kind characters keep on showing up in Godzilla movies is beyond me. Heck even Gamera had a couple lol.

I agree that it's uninspired, but I guess there's only so many reasons why someone would run towards a giant monster instead of away from it. There's the scientist who wants to study it, the reporter who wants to get the scoop, the soldier who's just doing his job (sir), and the avenger who will absolutely never forgive you, Godzilla-a-a-a-a!! Shin was one of the few cases that played with this by having a politician put himself on the front line, but that was essentially a remix of the soldier-doing-his-job archetype. Outside of those basic archetypes, you have to move into the realm of parallel man vs man stories taking place in the monster's shadow (as in Ghidorah TTHM), or the man vs nature disaster movie style that calls for just running away and trying to survive. Those can be great stories too, but they don't fit if the writer wants the central conflict to be man vs monster.

Lastly, why the heck was this movie named Planet of the Monsters?? Besides Godzilla and the forgettable flying creatures, what other monsters were there? Yeah I know there were monsters very briefly in the intro, but does that even count?

Given that the original title was Kaiju Wakusei, the ambiguity of calling it Monster Planet might have fit better. Looking at the razor plants and the spores clouding the atmosphere, Godzilla has essentially turned Earth into a monster that humans can no longer inhabit.

[tbeasley]

i really love both G'14 and Shin-G. I'm glad Toho isn't doing the Ultramanesque science team for each movie like they did for most of the millennium series.

I feel that the new batch of movies (Legendary, Shin, Anime) is what the Millennium era could've been, which like you said often resorted to more G-Force/Heisei style anti-Godzilla military groups (looking at you, Tezuka films). The variety is refreshing, even within the MonsterVerse you get films as tonally different as G2014 and Skull Island.

I'm also really digging (whether intentional or not) the back and forth between depictions we've been getting - Legendary is a 'grounded' version with a more traditional antiheroic Godzilla (exactly what it needed to be after G98, similar to what G2K had to do), paving way for Shin, another take on the 'real world' scenario, only with a bizarre, antagonistic Godzilla that goes for something different, a completely contemporary take on the character. And now to contrast against these we get POTM which is a totally outlandish sci-fi tale with another all new Godzilla with bizarre powers and abilities.

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

Movie was extremely boring. Polygon is incapable of doing that style of animation. There are studios that can at least make interesting action sequences with that style of animation.

Not my cup of tea.

[Benjamin Haines]

I watched Planet of the Monsters again and yeah, I really like it.

The intro got me really intrigued, up until the part where the aliens showed up, which seemed like it was just dropped in without much thought. Did this story really need aliens? I feel even without the aliens the movie would've been almost exactly the same.

I think the presence of two different races of intergalactic refugees is the most intriguing element of this movie. There have been a lot of Godzilla movies that involved alien invaders but this flick manages to come up with a fresh approach. I like how succinctly Haruo summarizes the premise during the opening narration: “Those from a far away galaxy, who were after this blue planet for themselves, didn’t wait for this paradise of oxygen and water to become scorched earth.”

Oh! I wonder if the Exifs sabotaged the Mecha-G launch! Which would put these factions at odds with each other!

There definitely seems to be a lot of tension simmering between Metphies and Galu-gu during that scene where they talk alone, as they both take subtle jabs at the old plans of each other’s race. Galu-gu says that even if humanity had managed to defeat Godzilla way back when, “it was only a matter of time until Exif’s cult took over Earth,” to which Metphies counters that even if Mechagodzilla had defeated Godzilla, “no one knows who it would have bared its fangs at next.” Galu-gu briefly struggles to keep his composure, acknowledges that his people failed in the construction of MG, and again notes that the Exif failed to “brainwash Earthlings” with their religion.

It seems like the Exif were the first aliens to reveal themselves to humanity because they were probably involved in the rise of monsters on Earth, with Godzilla possibly being something they hadn’t expected. They unleashed monsters to make humans desperate enough to be receptive to their religion. Meanwhile the Bilusaludo had been looking for a new planet to call home since they lost their own planet. Not only did the Bilusaludo want to prevent Earth from being rendered uninhabitable by Godzilla, they knew that if the Exif took over humanity and managed to defeat Godzilla then the Bilusaludo would probably not have been welcome on Earth. The Bilusaludo may well have been honest about wanting to coexist peacefully with humanity. I think they built Mechagodzilla with the intent of wiping out both Godzilla and the Exif, and the Exif either knew it or jumped to that conclusion and decided to sabotage Mechagodzilla. The survivors of both races ended up adrift in space with the human refugees, each of them wanting to get back to Earth for their own sakes, so they try to avoid fighting outwardly over those old grievances in order to force an alliance with each other.

Also, this bit of narration juxtaposed with the people praying makes me think the Exif might have been working behind the scenes to make sure those who didn’t join their cult met an early demise.

Oh, them sabotaging Mechagodzilla certainly makes sense if they were competeing against each other for the conquest of Earth and believed Mechagodzilla would be used as a tool of conquest after defeating Godzilla.

... just how big is this Mechagodzilla, anyway? With Papa Godzilla being so much larger than the Godzilla is was built to fight and all.

Metphies recalls seeing other worlds destroyed by monsters like Godzilla, which makes me wonder if he encountered kaiju like King Ghidorah or Gigan in the past, and if he and the Exif had anything to do with monsters appearing in the first place. They definitely seem to enjoy pulling strings.

I was delighted to realize that the Bilusaludo were revamps of the black hole aliens, and unless I'm mistaken the Exif are similarly based on the people of Planet X. That would certainly lend credence to that bit of yours I've bolded. Like their '60s counterparts, they put on a benevolent face, only they promise religion instead of medical knowledge.

If the Exif are meant to be another take on the Xians/Xilians, maybe their name was meant to be spelled Xif and it was changed to Exif to make its pronunciation clearer.

It’s interesting that they offer humanity salvation in the form of religion rather than medicine. If they did unleash monsters on Earth to make humanity more open to what they had to offer then they've also got something in common with their ’04 counterparts.

I appreciated seeing some old favourites on screen during the intro exposition, even if only in still shots. We're supposed to assume the humans and aliens wiped them all out, though, right? The characters focus on Godzilla as if he is the last kaiju standing. I read that there's a reference during the introduction to Hedorah being killed, but I think I missed it.

Haruo says in the opening credits narration that Godzilla burned everything in sight, human or monster. I think the implication is that Godzilla killed all of the other kaiju.

There is a quick shot with a news chyron describing a successful “Operation Hedorah” and an image of what looks like the aftermath of the operation, although I don’t think Hedorah is visible in any discernible form.

[lhb412]

There is a quick shot with a news chyron describing a successful “Operation Hedorah” and an image of what looks like the aftermath of the operation, although I don’t think Hedorah is visible in any discernible form.

I think Hedorah is supposed to be a chemical weapon used against the monsters. I've heard that it killed Rodan and Angilas - and if you look at that shot you see a skull, possibly Rodan's.

[daikaijusaurus]

are you talking about the NGE theme? I'm by far no fan of the overrated series, but many people actually enjoyed that music bit...

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Yup, that's the one! LOL! You know as a piece of rock music it's not bad at all, but it just feels so out of place in Shin Godzilla, especially in the areas they inserted it in. Godzilla Vs Biollante also has this digital rock piece just thrown in at random places throughout the movie. Similarly feels so out of place and annoying. What is the purpose of this is beyond me. Perhaps young people in Japan think it's cool?

[Gwangi]

Finally had the weekend to see it. Very slow moving at first, but I liked the ending battle and of course the emergence of the much bigger Godzilla. It was enough, I guess, to give it my initial thumbs up, but I really need to see it again to get a better understanding of it (and before my Netflix trial comes to an end - I am becoming such a cheapskate as I get older! It has also afforded me to watch the second season of "Stranger Things"!).

[MekaGojira3k]

It's very middle of the road entry for me. I like it more the longer I think about it, but it's hard for it to rise above the (THIS IS PART 1), it's how I felt about the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie, it's set up. The world and the way they've used the Xians and the Aliens from the Black Hole is interesting. I also loved the ending with BIG FELLA-Goji rendering the victory useless. The animation didn't bother me as much as I expected, but I'd still prefer 2-D animation.

[lhb412]

It's very middle of the road entry for me. I like it more the longer I think about it, but it's hard for it to rise above the (THIS IS PART 1), it's how I felt about the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie, it's set up. The world and the way they've used the Xians and the Aliens from the Black Hole is interesting.

Pretty much. There's a lot of potential in the story, and if entries #2 and #3 fulfill that potential it could retroactively bump up Planet of the Monsters' rating, but as is it's, as you say, "middle of the road."

I think the closest comparison I could make is Godzilla x Mechagodzilla '02.

[MekaGojira3k]

It's very middle of the road entry for me. I like it more the longer I think about it, but it's hard for it to rise above the (THIS IS PART 1), it's how I felt about the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie, it's set up. The world and the way they've used the Xians and the Aliens from the Black Hole is interesting.

Pretty much. There's a lot of potential in the story, and if entries #2 and #3 fulfill that potential it could retroactively bump up Planet of the Monsters' rating, but as is it's, as you say, "middle of the road."

I think the closest comparison I could make is Godzilla x Mechagodzilla '02.

XD, exactly! It's sitting very near to it and Tokyo S.O.S. in my personal rankings.

[canofhumdingers]

Finally had time to sit down and watch this last night. It was.... okay. I’m just not a fan of anime as a medium in general, and all this did was reinforce that opinion. From the art style, to the lousy animation, to the typical anime tropes; it’s just not my cup of tea.

But that being said, it’s Godzilla so I knew I’d give it a chance, and I went in open minded. Excusing the anime wrappings this story was presented in, I tried to evaluate the film on its own merits for plot, writing, acting etc. My final review could be summed up as “lots of interesting ideas and a surprisingly cool Godzilla delivered in a lousy, convoluted execution that is disappointingly boring for long stretches.”

So yeah, I really don’t care for the anime presentation, but I’m willing to look past that. The story is pretty cool. Godzilla is much neater than I’d anticipated. The characters mostly suck and the long boring dialogue driven exposition really sucks the life out of the film. And I didn’t even realize there were TWO alien races until like halfway through the movie, though that’s probably on me.

To end on a positive note, I think the overall story is actually really cool and like others have said, it will really depend on the next two installments to either elevate or sink this first one. The finale of this first act where they fought Godzilla and took out his shield was actually pretty well done and exciting, which was a breath of fresh air after most of the film had been pretty boring. And I really liked the little technical bits about space travel and the warp jump. That stuff was neat.

[canofhumdingers]

Wow, two weeks since this was released outside Japan and the discussion has already been dead for days...

Seems a rather damning commentary (or lack thereof...) on the first installment.

[lhb412]

^That's as much a comment on message boards these days as anything, and on the plus side: most of the general audience reaction I've seen is pretty postive!

[jellydonut25]

Wow, two weeks since this was released outside Japan and the discussion has already been dead for days...

Seems a rather damning commentary (or lack thereof...) on the first installment.

Because it SUCKS.

[Godzilla4ev]

It was really, really bad. Knew I wasn't getting a lot of Godzilla action going but I was still shocked at how much of a mess this was. What a waste of resources.

I feel the same way about Shin. Waste of resources.