the Why I Don't Like GMK thread (heavily moderated)

[FU Rogner]

[Kaiju Nexus]

[FU Rogner]

[Kaiju Nexus]

[briizilla]

[Robert Saint John]

[Kaiju Nexus]

[china]

[Danny B]

[MouthForWar]

[briizilla]

[Robert Saint John]

[FU Rogner]

[DannyBeane]

[anguirus23]

[china]

[obert22]

[china]

[planetxman]

[Lord Ghidorah]

First off, I like GMK. I convinced the local Hollywood Video guys to play GMK on the storewide screens despite their "G-rated only" policy. So there.

That said, I agree in some ways with the "GMK is over-hyped" sentiments. I'm not burning with anti-GMK fury, but then again I'm sane.

GMK is, in some ways, rather like a re-hash of Gamera III. That is perhaps not surprising. Monsters protecting the land rather than the people, unexplainable spiritual angles, uneven treatment of the most powerful breath weapon ever (insert foolish Internet shorthand here)... GMK is refreshing as a Godzilla movie, but at the same time it smells kind of like a sequel to a film that has nothing at all to do with the Godzilla mythos.

The flaws with the monster designs have already been covered ad naseum. My own opinions are that Godzilla's overall look was excellent, but his paunch was pointless and stupid. GMK Ghidorah looked like the world's most powerful KFC mascot. Mothra should've been called Waspra, but I do think the supersonic bugshit attack was amusing.
Baragon is Baragon, but at least it wasn't Varan. The monsters were warped enough without adding a flying squirrel kaiju to the mix.

From a technical standpoint, GMK was pretty good. There were some distinct flaws, though, and I call the director on those. The military's efforts in the modern Gamera trilogy were pretty lame. The same minimalist approach was used in GMK, to sad result. Here's a movie which directly (and properly) addresses the proud service of modern Japanese troops and still has them holding back. It's a Godzilla movie - the military is supposed to go nuts. There are giant monsters attacking the country, damn it. I know the capabilities of modern frigates such as were shown in GMK are far greater than depicted. Conversely, having a few missile batteries stationed in relatively narrow city streets, where Godzilla has almost no choice but to see the launchers and retaliate, was just dumb.
That said, the scenes with the F-15s bombing Godzilla were nicely done and exhibited the all-out mentality sorely lacking in the other military scenes. 'Strange.

Overall, I think that GMK plays out too much like a Gamera movie. It's still a nice film - one of the better daikaiju eiga - but it still has some notable flaws which keep it from being top-notch.

[briizilla]

[Master Fwiffo]

[Goji66]

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

[MekaGojira3k]