Shin Godzilla review thread (Spoilers! Duh...)

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

[daikaijusaurus]

My wife and I saw this the other day. Since my wife is Japanese, she just sat back and enjoyed it, while I was struggling to read every subtitle and title card of the characters lol.

All in all, we both enjoyed it, it was an entertaining movie with amazing action and humor. I think my wife appreciated the humor more than I did since she understands the bureaucracy of her county more than I do, but I got a kick out of it too.

Overall, it had a very good story and characters, I didn't find myself bored at all, but I did find Satomi Ishihara's character quiet annoying and felt the movie would've been better without her. Or even get an actual American actress instead because her English accent was horrible.

When my wife saw pictures of Shin Godzilla, she hated it! But when she actually saw it on screen she really liked it and felt the design went well with the theme and story of the movie. I liked it too actually, I thought his evolution was quiet good, although I did wish he had a 5th stage resembling more of the classic Godzilla. But oh well. His beams we really amazing, I was most impressed by this than anything else. When his spines lit up and the fire, smoke, radiation emanated from his mouth, I was like, "Oh yeah I know what's coming next!!" Exactly how I felt when Godzilla 2014's tail started lighting up!

I did find the ending a little unsatisfying. I understand that they don't want to kill him off so they'll be opening for a sequel, so I think it would've been better if he remained unstoppable. After all, you can't stop a tornado or a hurricane, you just have to wait until it goes away and better prepare for it's return.

If Toho wants to continue with more live action movies, my preference would not be a Shin Godzilla 2, but going back to the classic Toho Godzilla. I really can't see other Toho kaiju showing up in the Shin Universe, they just don't fit in unless they completely redesign their look and origins. So my hope is that Shin Godzilla is just a one shot.

It was also fun being in a theater with other Godzilla fans with their Godzilla t-shorts and toys. Nothing tops our experience with Godzilla 2014, but this was the next best thing!

[Dr Kain]

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

[jellydonut25]

[The Great MM]

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

[XvGojira]

How is he not, though? We follow him through out the movie. He start off telling the people at the table to research stuff and they're all "Who are you addressing?" but by the end he's kind of a big deal, all because he doesn't follow the same stagnant protocol everyone else did. His development is less of a typical character development and more watching his career path drastically alter by dealing with the issue of Godzilla. And he, by far, has more screen time than anyone else in the movie.

As for the PM now thing, he's too young and too low on the totem pole to even think of it. No one would vote for a 30-something nobody to run the country, hell even in the US many though Kennedy at 43 was too young. When Kayoko was brought up they said something like "American's take talent over age", which to me, some one who doesn't know much about Japanese politics, says that Japan values age a bit more over accomplishments.

[MekaGojira3k]

[O.Supreme]

[XvGojira]

[MekaGojira3k]

FIXED

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

[Gwangi]

[Hybrid Gojira]

I posted this in the other Shin thread -

Yeah, I hated this movie.

In my mind, this isn't really Godzilla. The idea of a monster that continuously evolving is cool, but it also makes Godzilla into something he's not. Godzilla with wings? Pssh, go away Anno, and take your Godzilla tail people with you.

Had Godzilla stopped evolving at the final form we see, I would have perfectly fine with it, but that's not the implication of what we hear in the film, nor from what we see at the end of the movie with the Godzilla people. I also HATE how stiff and lifeless Godzilla is. I also take issue with the movie itself for being overly dull during the second half. Does it have some cool moments? Sure, I liked the Tokyo destruction sequence, but after that this film drops into a free fall of non-stop talking for 40 minutes. It's boring.

I'm cool being in the minority on this one. The movie sucked and it's one of my most disliked of series.

[Benjamin Haines]

[kiryugoji04]

That wasn't her father but it also wasn't the President. He was identified as some U.S. official whose name began with a C. Can't remember what it was though.

[msweets13]

Saw the film last Tuesday. Been processing it ever since. Here some thoughts.

First a bit of personal history with the big G. I grew up on Godzilla during the 90's during TNT's MonsterVision. Had most of the Showa films recorded on VHS and would watch them repeatedly. As an awkward kid who struggled with making friends in Elementary school, Showa Godzilla was a wonderful escape. As I grew up, my love of Godzilla would wax and wane. As I matured out of the more childish Showa films, the more "mature" Heisei films were released by Sony. This eventually led to me having a growing interest in the older Showa films, especially Gojira. I never liked them as a kid, but now I could appreciate their underlying nuclear themes and as a reflection of the fears of the Japanese people. But then as Godzilla was running out of steam for me then, the Millennium series became available, again, reigniting my love for the sillier side of Godzilla and on and on it goes. As soon as I think I've moved past my love for Godzilla, something new comes out (and usually pretty different) that reignites it once again.

I have to admit, while I really liked G'14, it is also a severely mixed bag of a film that only just manages to "good" and not "great". Shin Godzilla was a chance for Toho to show the world what a "great" Godzilla film is. I purposely avoided as many spoilers as possible and just stuck to watching the "main trailers" and nothing else (especially the Malaysian one which I heard showed far too much). So color me pretty surprised when they took Godzilla to some pretty bizarre places.

On the one hand, I love that Toho was okay with letting Anno play with his origins and characterization a bit. This allowed us to see some things from the Big G that we've never seen before. I love that Godzilla is an evolving creature that has the potential to literally wipe the Earth of all civilization. This is by far the most nightmarish and terrifying portrayal of Godzilla. Godzilla's night attack of Tokyo is by far the highlight of the film. The moment Yaguchi sees Godzilla outside of his car, that literally sent chills down my neck. I had heard rumors that Godzilla atomic breath would be very overpowered, and they were right. Godzilla's ray is silly OP and actually made my theater both gasp and laugh at the same time. I can't imagine Godzilla fighting another creature with it, without annihilating them immediate and more impressively than was seen in GMK. Makes me hope and think that if Toho does make another G film it won't be connected to this one.

I really dug the human story behind Shin Godzilla. While I keep seeing many critics refer to the human story as very traditional for a kaiju film, I did not. It is most definitely a darkly humorous critique of government bureaucracy. I think a friend of mind said it best describing Shin Godzilla as "Veep vs Godzilla". My theater would often erupt in laughter as orders were passed through five different people to the Prime Minister only to be carried back down the chain. I especially liked the sequence at the beginning as the Prime Minister moves from conference room to office, to conference room, to press room doing very little, all the while proto-Zilla (who looks rather humorous on his own) destroys buildings and various parts of Tokyo. However, the pacing could definitely use some work. There were times when the revolving door of people with titles flashing up on the screen just became a bit much and I was ready for Godzilla to strike again. Pacing was especially bad after Godzilla's night raid on Tokyo. As much as I like watching how Yaguchi and Patterson was able to use political maneuvering to delay the nuking of Tokyo, it could've used some serious editing (and Satomi Ishihara could definitely use some more English lessons). Just like G'14, I'll find myself tempted to fast-forward the human scenes to get to the good stuff.

While I still think Toho has a long way to go for the CGI, Shin Godzilla definitely proves that they're trying and sometimes succeeding in rivaling their Hollywood counterpart. While some of the CG was certainly atrocious, I definitely can see the benefits of using it and how a film this ambitious probably could not have been done using more traditional tokusatsu means. Overall, I look forward to future Godzilla films from Toho using this method as it promises a new level of realism not seen before.

In the end, if I had to pick either Shin Godzilla or Godzilla'14, I would probably pick Shin. As a film, I found what it had to say more interesting and engaging, even if it also dragged. I don't mind Anno's craziness, and I like that Shin Godzilla took risks. I hope this sort of open-mindedness and willingness to play with our expectation of Godzilla will continue as Toho moves forward with the series.

[QBASS]

Well I had a unique experience this morning.I went to the 10:40 am show on 42st I sat in my seat at 10:15 and was looking at my phone..as peeps were taking their seats it hit me that everything i was hearing was non english.When I finally looked up at 10:35,the theatre was full,98% Asian.I said to myself "well I always wanted to see a G movie in Japan,this is the closest I'll get"

[lhb412]

[Hybrid Gojira]

The reviews on FB are a lot more mixed than here. I'll be interested to see how people view Shin a few years from now. G14 was ok in my book, but nothing overly special. Shin sucked.

I'm now looking forward to the anime (and Skull Island, since that sets up Godzilla 2 or Godzilla vs King Kong).