TALKBACK#18: Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah

[Dr Kain]

[Hybrid Gojira]

I've been on a Godzilla binge lately (I've watched SOG, SeaMonster, GXMG, and now GvsKG in the past week or so) and watched this tonight. I read through the last 3-4 pages of this thread and while my previous review of this film holds mostly true, I enjoyed this film much more than before. I think Jelly hit the nail on the head earlier in the discussion - the first half of the film is terrible, but the second half is fun.

For example, I don't like the characters. I hate the new origin for KG (and the Dorats SUCK). The script is garbage. This movie actually has a few SPFX sequences that are the WORST in the entire series. The miniatures are dull and lifeless. The superimposed explosions are bad, and KG's roar should not have been changed. While nothing touches the original Ghidorah in execution, the Heisei design is very cool and menacing and I might like the overall design a little more than Showa. Still, if you go back and compare the scenes where Showa KG is leveling the city to the destruction sequences in this film, Showa wins by a landslide.

But man is Godzilla awesome. For my money, this is the best looking Godzilla there is. Everything about his portrayal is excellent. Despite having some horrid matte shots, Godzilla's entrance is one of the best in the series and somehow features one of the coolest backdrops of any Godzilla film (the lighthouse with G treading through the ocean). The battle set for his first fight with KG is incredibly staged, and the finale is fun and engaging. So while a lot of this movie falls incredibly short, I still like it a ton because of how awesome Godzilla is.

[Gwangi]

[mr.negativity]

The team behind TTG must be big fans of this movie.

Despite Raven's warnings, Starfire showers love on the adorable twin destroyers of the universe.

[Dr Kain]

[MekaGojira3k]

vs. Biollante was a miraculous accident.

[Gman2887]

^Probably. But to Omori's credit, I think he's a much better director than he is a writer. There's a lot of scenes that he made work that a lesser director wouldn't have taken advantage of. There's also moments of cringe (which is his own script's fault) that were probably still better in his hands than someone else's.

[eabaker]

[lhb412]

No one makes a big deal about the two helicopters that blow up when they get too close to the UFO in the beginning. You think the first question from the Japanese government to the Futurians would be: "Why'd you blow up our helicopters?," or maybe the Futurians would lead off on something like "We're sorry about your helicopters. It was an accident."

[lhb412]

Despite some fan theorizing I think the movie is pretty clear that changes you make to history while time traveling only take effect right at the moment of your present that you leave from to commit said history-altering. Like how the lead character in The Lathe of Heaven changes history with his dreams each night but still remembers the previous versions of history, only in this case for everybody.

It doesn't necessarily make sense, but it seems to be how it functions in the plot.

[lhb412]

*nods up chin *

THERE'S SOMETHING YOU DIDN'T KNOW!

[eabaker]

Forgive the rambling nature of this post. It's hard to find much to say about such an underdeveloped aspect of the movie, but here goes...

I was thinking about this movie in the shower this morning (because of course I was), and I had a realization.

This has been among my favorite G flicks ever since I first saw it, which was probably in early 1994. But I've also never been blind to its flaws. One thing that I always identified as a flaw is that, while Teresawa is a basically likable enough lead, a good point of view characterm but he doesn't really have a story of his own. His romantic relationship with Chiaki always felt tacked-on, and the "you're my ancestor" bit with Emi seemed kind of pointless.

And then, this morning, it all tied together in my head.

Initially, Teresawa's want is established as: become a more respected/credible journalist. We don't really know if he gets that or not, but that's not the end of the world, because a protagonist's want is a starting point; if it's the whole point of a story, than you have a two-dimensional story.

But a good protagonist has a want and a need that differ from each other (though ideally they are meaningfully related), and it is the need that should be paid off in the end. So, what is Teresawa's need?

The realization that I had is that Teresawa does have a need, and that it ties in to both his desire for credibility as a journalist, his relationship with Chiaki, and the revelation about his relationship to Emi.

Teresawa is disappointed to learn that his book wasn't a best seller. This not only calls into question the viability of his want, but also clues us into his need, which - appropriately enough, in a movie about the past shaping the present and the present shaping the future - is a legacy.

In the end, he won't get that legacy through his journalism. He'll get it through Chiaki (okay, that's a little dehumanizing, isn't it), in the form of their descendants, including Emi.

So, yay, possibly my biggest problem with this movie is no longer a problem.

[lhb412]

^Hmmm... that seems a perfectly sound interpretation to me.

Personally, I've just thought the movie transitions protagonists: Terasawa for a while and then a kind of midsection where him and Emmy are co-protags but she's the clear lead by about halfway through. Maybe they thought a female terrorist from the future was too weird a character to make the audience identify with right away, so we have a more standard guy up front?

[Gman2887]

I was never under the assumption Emi became the main lead. She disappears into the future before the third act and we're mostly with Team-Teresawa, awaiting her return. Granted she's the one central to the action once she does, but the '90s films were never known for their glowing third acts.

[jellydonut25]

I've heard some recent theories that "Chiaki" (I literally didn't know that character's name until this moment) is basically just a coworker and they're not really romantically involved, she's just kinda teasing him about the marriage thing, and it's just a bit of an error of translation that makes it feel like more than that.

Not sure if there's any validity to that or if it's just people trying to make Terisawa seem like less of a scuzz for seemingly hitting on Emi throughout the movie, by claiming he's not attempting to cheat on his girlfriend, because he doesn't have one yet...

[Giganfan]

Godzilla and King Ghidorah look all 'roided-out in this movie, and Akira Ifukube accentuates that point with a power-house score. I've always loved this movie, and am more than happy to turn my blinders on to its flaws, in favor of it's strong points. And to me, Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is just a perfect Godzilla movie, from top-to-bottom. As J.D. Lees once said of Godzilla vs. The Thing, this is one "where it all came together". I also think the same of '85, Biollante and Mechagodzilla '93, for slightly different reasons, of course, but essentially, with regards to the Heisei series, these are the ones that make the cut, for me.

[jellydonut25]

Perfect?
That's a LOFTY word to throw at this one.

[lhb412]

^ 'Perfect' fir him, he says, despite its flaws.

This movie certainly gives you more to chew on then the four films that follow it. I think about Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah way more than the other '90s Godzilla flicks.

[Giganfan]

This movies flaws are easy for me to Look past because, to me personally, it's a perfect Godzilla film. It's Godzilla going one-on-one with his greatest opponent, King Ghidorah, to the triumphant return of Akira ifukube to the series. His score really fits this movie perfectly, and it really accentuates the size and power of both monsters. Koichi Kawakita does a great job of reviving King Ghidorah, and that first fight with Godzilla is one of the all-time greatest fights in the series. And if that's not awesome enough, they managed to pull off a really bad-ass Mecha King Ghidorah.

The definition of "a perfect Godzilla movie" means something different to me, than it does to other fans, I guess. i just wanted to clear that up. I like Kazuki Omori as a Godzilla director, and the two that he pulled double-duties on, I think, are two of the best. And, Yoshio Tsuchiya is excellent as Shindo.

[GFan]

Watching this wonderful mess of a movie recently and I had a thought...

Where was King Ghidorah hanging out from 1944 to 1992? Somewhere out in the Pacific?

(I know, the movie couldn't be bothered with such details... But still!)

I kinda wish someone would re-dub Godzillasaurus' and King Ghidorah's respective roars.. the 90's films had some of the worst sound FX.

[lhb412]

^ The movie's logic seems to be that whatever change you make to history only takes effect after you leave from your native time to do the tampering, hence Godzila disappears and King Ghidorah appears.

[GFan]