GODZILLA: King of the Monsters (5-31-19 -NO SPOILERS PLEASE)

[jellydonut25]

[zibbazabba]

OK - I read everything you wrote, and I read it again. Would you say you liked the movie or that you just liked certain parts of the movie? Were there actually glimpses of the 13 other Titans?

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

GOod for you Jelly muscling your way into the theater. I am also curious about how much of the other titans we see^^^ (I didn't read your spoiler tags but I don't consider the other titans spoilery)

I suspect you only get a good look at a 3-4 tops and the rest are on monitors. Eh?

[lhb412]

It's crazy that within a decade we went from midnight premieres of movies on Thursdays to late evening showings on Thursdays to now where a big movie is essentially in wide release on Thursday. There's a dozen screenings of the film on the 30th at the theater I'm going to! I'm not even going to the earliest few, since that would be during working hours!

[jellydonut25]

[Jinzo Ningen]

A question for you, Mr. Donut...

Regarding the effects, can we actually SEE what's going on during the monster battles or is the CG work murked up fairly heavily with darkness, dust and whatnot? I was hoping for at least one set piece with them tearing it up in broad daylight. Everything else you wrote sounds encouraging. Thanks for the thoughts and comments.

[jellydonut25]

No real daylight battles to speak of. I thought you could still see everything fairly well though.

Ghidorah's very existence causes a hurricane to follow him around wherever he goes, so that's a thing. Rodan's initial appearance is semi-daylight-ish. That's about it.

[KaiserGhidorah]

[jellydonut25]

Hey if that's your thing, more power to you, and you'll probably really REALLY dig this. Rewatching the 2014 movie the other day, I was struck by how near-perfect I found the pacing and the build for the MAJORITY of the movie. It just keeps stacking things on top of one another and layering the stakes and consequences in such a well thought-out way that I was held pretty rapt for much of the run time. I would have liked a little more kaiju action in the climax, but everything leading up to it, in terms of the pacing, is perfect for me. It's just unfortunate that Ford is such a dull character.

[Gentleman]

A YouTube channel called WaterTower Music has the soundtrack up, if y'all want to listen.

https://www.youtube.com/user/WaterTowerWB/videos

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

^^ Have listened to Godzilla's and Mothra's themes and they're just everything I could hope for. Love how Bear does 'em clean for a verse before bringing in his extra instrumentation and chanting.

[Jinzo Ningen]

OK Jelly... one other thing: how was the audience reaction to the film, in your opinion?? (You may have been so focused on the film itself you may not have noticed much ) but I am curious if the 'average' non-kaiju fans in the theater got drawn in by the film... laughed, cheered, clapped, rooted for the monsters, etc.

How much folks get into this movie will obviously determine repeat viewings and word-of-mouth recommendation to others.

[Jinzo Ningen]

And while I'm at it... I would very interested in hearing or reading about the reaction of the folks at Toho to this new film. I recall execs being teary-eyed at the 2014 film. I can only imagine how they'll feel about this entry! Not to mention how Japanese (and G-fans in particular) will react to the movie. There was a cool reaction vid to the 2nd teaser trailer on YouTube from a Japanese fan; he was calm and thoughtful through most of it (typical reserved Japanese) but was downright giddy and bug-eyed by the end, where Godzilla and King Ghidorah were charging at one another.

[TerranigmaFreak]

Guys, the mountain monster was revealed in Pokemon Detective Pikachu. Watch that if you want to see what the mountain monster looks like.

[Benjamin Haines]

[Gentleman]

Even though it's not officially "his" theme, I'd have liked it if they'd chosen to use the theme Toho borrowed for King Ghidorah in 1991. His new theme is imposing, but I really like that particular piece.

[Benjamin Haines]

^ Ghidorah's 1991 theme is a reworking of his 1964 theme!






I would have loved to hear Bear McCreary's rendition of the classic Ghidorah theme but I'm just glad that he incorporated the classic Godzilla and Mothra themes. It's so surreal that we're getting those in a new Hollywood Godzilla movie!

[lhb412]

I can understand only using Godzilla's and Mothra's respective themes. Ifukube made some great music for Ghidorah and Rodan, but nothing as iconic or wedded to the character.

[GFan]

Avoiding spoiler-y stuff is becoming hard..



Seriously.. 3 days. I'm exhausted from anticipation.

[Russzilla]

[Benjamin Haines]

This shot seems very evocative of Matt Frank's art:

[Gwangi]

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

As far as classic sound effects, Godzilla’s roar at times is straight up 70s/90s. Mothra sounds very rooted in Mothra classic. Ghidrah....eh....occasionally you can hear a little classic cackle kinda creep through but not really. And Rodan? I didn’t hear Rodan at all. Not that I REALLY care about those things overmuch, because I thought Ghidrah was awesome and never really thought about the roar.

As far as crowd reaction, definitely positive. Some of the humor actually plays better in context and just in general people laughed along a lot. Though the “oh my God....zilla” part still clunked to the ground with an absolute thud. Everyone liked it but I don’t know how many of them were still thinking about it even as soon as they got to their cars. It’s that kind of a fun popcorn movie.