TALKBACK: Godzilla (2014) - (OBVIOUS SPOILER DISCUSSION)

[Mysterio]

[RaptorG]

[RapZiLLa54]

So after seeing it for a third time it occurred to me that almost EVERYTHING in the original teaser trailer is not in the film. Train destruction, building with a hole in it, tone of the movie, etc. A lot of the shots had been altered as well (usually better because it has a MUTO in it) except for the shot that was in the "Let them fight" trailer with the MUTO flying over the flag directly at Godzilla. Shame such a beautiful shot got cut

[Hybrid Gojira]

Thinking about it, this movie is definitely a top 15 Godzilla film and possibly just in my top 10. There are still movies I like better, but it's a solid Godzilla flick.

[Gojilove]

[Kailem]

[Shonokin]

My review for now? I need to see it again to really solidify what I think.

My initial impression is that it's a good movie but suffers from some freshman director issues. I think all the raw material is good but needed to be edited in a tighter, more cohesive and judicious way. Many scenes have too much time on screen. I've seen this in amateur and indie productions where the director thinks every shot is golden and should just take all the time it needs. But I think that winds up being a detriment to the whole and is probably a part of what makes some viewers feel the whole thing drag or is boring.

Further thoughts are that the family part was wishy washy. You don't really get to know who this family is or what they are about. So it didn't add anything major and just padded the run time. If Edwards wanted this to be more like Jaws I think a more abrasive and desperate relationship between Serizawa, the General and Cranston would have created a tighter focus and drill-down on the story's most important elements. ATJ was just a surrogate for various armed forces maneuvers that were happening and I'm not sure how I feel about that yet as on my first viewing his very existence felt painfully contrived.

I like the new Godzilla mythos they've created. Godzilla and the MUTOs were a lot of fun. Edwards did a great job of getting that sense of scale. The end fight was awesome. The tooth n nail reminded me of GRA, which is one of my favorite fights in the Godzilla series.

[MekaGojira3k]

[John Schuermann]

[KingKaiju]

[Henry88]

How ‘Godzilla’ Defied the Experts and Tracking to Blow Away the Box Office
http://www.thewrap.com/how-godzilla-def ... ox-office/

[MekaGojira3k]

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[John Schuermann]

More thoughts on film:

RE: humor. I actually liked the cut-away from the Hawaii action to the stuff on TV being watched by the Brody kid. It got a good laugh in the theater and I thought it was clever. Of course, I wanted to see more of the battle but it was a good visual joke.

RE: Shonokin's comment about having a more abrasive relationship between Serizawa, the General and Cranston. That is exactly what the movie needed, as it could have added some real drama / human conflict and allowed the movie to make some of the philosophical points that people like Steve Ryfle (and myself) would like to have seen explored. (BTW, I just got done reading Ryfle's piece, and while I think he overstates his case, I also think he makes some valid points.)

As I posted on another forum, I really did expect that we were going to get a more philosophical Godzilla movie, maybe not one richly so, but at least substantially more so than what we got. My wife and I both felt let down, and perhaps even slightly cheated. Not only did the trailers lead one to believe the film was going to be smarter and scarier than it was, but the interviews with the filmmakers gave the exact same impression.

This is what I think that is what loaded the theaters so strongly on Thursday and Friday - the anticipation of seeing the movie promised by the trailers. That's a positive in my view, in that it indicates that there is an audience out there for a smart, scary, allegorical monster movie, because that's what the promotions promised and people lined up in droves.

There is no reason why a film can be smart, scary and entertaining all at the same time.

[lhb412]

I love the symmetry of Ford and Elle being prevented from having sex early in the film and then the various Godzilla-related obstacles to the Mutos reproducing later in the film.

[MekaGojira3k]

[jellydonut25]

I'd just like to mention that while I felt very misled by the trailers and that they are grossly misrepresentative of the film, in no way did I personally think that was a BAD thing aside from my very VERY initial reaction of "Hm...where'd that tone from the trailers go?"

And I was someone who was STOKED to see the movie that the trailers represented....


...but I wound up being PLEASANTLY surprised. I guess I didn't know what I wanted.



btw, I think I may have been the only one that mused (even if not aloud) that the male basically brought the female a nuclear dildo...

[Hybrid Gojira]

[Mysterio]

I won't go into a long review but I can say that I enjoyed it a lot. I don't mind the slow build to the final fight and the teases along the way. I don't even mind the lead actor's wooden demeanor... he's a military man who knows when to get down to business, and he has reasons to be a bit introverted. I thought things were balanced pretty well. The MUTOs were so much better than I was expecting based on the little figs, which I now presume were based on concept art.

The three minor things I would have preferred be different:

1. I wish the roar was more like the classic roar.
2. I would have liked to have the classic march play over the end credit roll.
3. I wish the atomic breath was, well, a bit thicker, but I guess they did it this way because his mouth structure is more narrow than previous designs. I would at least like to have seen one shot of it strafing across a couple of buildings to really give an indication of how powerful it is.

Considering that it's been a decade since we had ANY Godzilla film, and that that one sucked balls, and that the only previous American Godzilla film ALSO sucked balls, I think this was pretty amazing.

[lhb412]

[John Schuermann]

To be clear, I am perfectly ok with a Godzilla as hero film. If that was the way they wanted to go, great, I just think it would have been better then if Godzilla was the focus of the film once he showed up, or at least during the final battle where you had a real emotional stake in the outcome (like the Rocky Balboa analogy I posted earlier). I still was able to enjoy the film for what it was, I just would have preferred the smarter, more philosophical film I had already made in my mind based upon what I had seen.

To me, the Godzilla series has always had a problem with tone whenever it tries to be both philosophical while delivering the monster vs. monster goods at the same time. That really is a conflict that I think did in most of the Heisei series. This new film struggles with some of the same thing. If you go all out dark and subtextual like the original 1954 film, then such things as outlandish monster vs. monster battles start seeming more and more ridiculous and laughable. If, on the other hand, you go light and character based like the Sekizawa 60s efforts, it can all be enjoyed for the good lighthearted time that it is.

I thought this film had the potential to be able to tie the monster battle stuff with the philosophical element for the first time ever, in that all of the creatures could be tied together within the bounds of an anti-nuclear theme. Instead, all of the nuclear stuff is more treated like a plot point rather than anything any of the characters really struggle with.

Again, I just so wanted this movie to be smarter than it was. And if they weren't going to go that route, I would have been happy if it had more of the fun light-hearted tone of the Sekizawa efforts, or something like The Avengers or the Raimi Spiderman films.

[John Schuermann]

[jellydonut25]

[John Schuermann]