TALKBACK #23: Godzilla 2000

[Gojilove]

I've never been a fan of the purple spikes and green skin. But I love the way this suit looks as a toy/model. But I agree, its always looked very stiff and rubbery in execution to me.

[MekaGojira3k]

[Jorzilla]

While I think this Godzilla suit is visually interesting, it kind of fall's victim to the 1990's era "eXtreme design!!!" trend, albeit right on the tail end of that trend. It has grown on me over the years, but I much rather prefer a more organic looking Godzilla, with maple leaf spines. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

[Giganfan]

With the exception of Godzilla Final Wars, I think all of the Godzilla suits of the Millenium series have a sort of awkward symmetry to them. From one angle, they look really impressive, but from another, it's like "ugh, well that's weird". My least favorite Godzilla costume is the one from Godzilla X Mechagodzilla and Tokyo SOS. In my opinion, it is the ugliest suit design since Son of Godzilla. The suit from this film, along withGodzilla X Megaguirus, however, doesn't bother me too much. I often wonder what it might look like if the dorsal spikes were a little more propotionate with the rest of the suit.But on the whole, Godzilla looks pretty sharp in Godzilla 2000 (no pun intended).

Having recently revisited Godzilla 2000 Millennium on blue-ray, I am at once brought back to the very first time I saw this movie. Back in 2000, cam-corder bootlegs were still very much the norm, and with three months until the film had its' state-side theatrical release, I couldn't help myself. At the time, my faith in Toho to make kaiju eiga had been severely shaken by how dreadful the last two Mothra films had been, so when I saw "G2K" for the first time, the first thought that entered my mind was "well, at least they remembered how to make a Godzilla movie!" On the whole, it's a middle-of-the-road Godzilla movie. Having Takao Okawara direct made sense from a financial stand-point (all three of his Heisei-era Godzilla flicks made money), and at the very least, I affectionately refer to him as "the popcorn Godzilla hack". Not a great director by any means; certainly lacking the talent of Shusuke Kaneko, or the child-like zeal of Masaaki Tezuka, but an experienced veteran who knew how to make a traditional Godzilla movie. His work here is at least as competent as in Godzilla vs. Mothra

I admit, I know nothing about traditional music composition, but one thing I am certain of is this; Takayuki Hattori sucks at it! His music for G2K is just...not good. Not only is the score completely drowned out by the action, but it also sounds like the man was making music for a totally different kind of movie. Hattori's music for Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla was equally inappropriate. There is just something very irritating about those horns. Maybe it's just me, but the music in this film sounds like it was done by a total amateur.

I've always been a moderate fan of Kenji Suzuki's effects work, particularly in this movie. He showed a genuine aim to try new things while blending classic "tokusatsu" with new age, digital animation. The overall effort is shakey, and far from perfect, but who cares, really. The miniature work in G2K is much more refined and detailed than Koichi Kawakita's later Godzilla movies. And the cgi, though hardly Hollywood-grade (or even on par with Shinji Higuchi's Gamera work, for that matter), is still fun and inventive.

So yeah, in the grand scheme of things, Godzilla 2000 Millennium ranks someplace in the comfortable middle of the Godzilla series. Standard-issue, Godzilla-by-numbers, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't break any new ground, but it at least lovingly re-treads some of the old.

[Jared]

This Japanese version is a chore to get through, and probably the dullest of the Millennium films, but I still have a lot of love and nostalgia for the US version. It's amazing how far a little basic editing and sound design will go.

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

Yeah and it makes me sad that they couldn't spend any money on dub jobs like G2k got for the rest of the millennium series.

[Joseph Goodman]

Some unconnected thoughts and observations after watching Sony's Blu-ray disc:

- The submersible that explores the meteorite is actually a real-life vessal, the Shinkai 6500, which for two decades was the deepest-diving submersible around. It even got its own Lego kit!

- The classic gamer in me is amused by the use of old MAME changelogs for any scrolling English text when the Millenians hack all the computers.

- Boy howdy, does the Japanese cut look like ass, or what? Thanks, Toho!

[Henry88]

[lhb412]

We should all have a special 'Toho Transfer Setting' on our TVs by this point, right?

Turn the brightness way down, boost the color a smidge, and viola: an image resembling how it's supposed to look!

[Joseph Goodman]

Monkeying with the contrast and color space (and a cooler color temperature on my Samsung 7150 usually) won't help the hideous noise from the flying spot scanner based telecine it was transfered on, though.

[canofhumdingers]

No, but if your tv has decent video noise reduction capabilities you can significantly reduce the ugliness. I found turning my TV's DNR setting to low or medium helped dramatically with the Biollante and G'84 blurays. Which is (sadly) funny because I am normally vehemently against the use of DNR.

[Dr Kain]

[Benjamin Haines]

[XvGojira]

I could be wrong on this but I could have sworn that they wanted him to be as green as he was in GxM but miscolored him/forgot that he'd appear darker on screen or whatever. So when they went to shoot GxM they repainted him brighter to make the colors really pop out.

[Dr Kain]

I guess it could be a tint of green if you look at it in the right light.

Thanks.

[MekaGojira3k]

I like the new head on the Gira-Goji suit, but I like the subdued green in G2k.

[klen7]

Shinichi Wakasa talked about the decision to "go green" for G2K at G-Fest 2k13. Maybe somebody has a video of that or a better memory than i do.

[Jared]

The suit wasn't repainted or modified for GODZILLA VS. MEGAGUIRUS - the cinematography/lighting on each film is completely different, enough to change the look of the suit significantly. This has been confirmed by Wakasa.

[canofhumdingers]

^^^I thought I read somewhere that they re-jiggered the Godzilla suit's head a bit (kinda like they did in '64 between the Mothra and Ghidrah productions)? It certainly LOOKS different on screen - mostly in the way it attaches to the neck.

[jellydonut25]

Aside from the Green thing, I agree with Kain. The GFW suit is not so good...which is funny because I personally actually like just about every other suit in the movie (Kaiser Ghidorah probably not so much), and the kiryugoji suit is great.

[Dr Kain]

[MekaGojira3k]

[kiryugoji04]

The paint scheme appeared brighter, the face was tweaked, and the shoulders were bulked up a little as well. That's my understanding.

[Jared]

This is where we need Keith for confirmation, lol. I saw a direct quote from Wakasa one time, but maybe the translation was off, who knows. It's not hard to believe, though, seeing how one movie was beautifully lit and shot on film, and the other had downright ugly lighting on early digital...