TALKBACK #25: GMK

[jellydonut25]

[Hybrid Gojira]

^ To be fair, there are probably a lot of spiritual/supernatural undertones in Japanese cinema that is lost on western viewers. Maybe this is one of those instances. I recall reading an interview about GMK having a ton of Shinto influences. I'm over my head in really trying to understand all the niches of the culture, but it seems to me that most of the audience would have grasped that.

[Gman2887]

[jellydonut25]

I'm sorry, I don't buy that just because I'm not Japanese, these silly (stupid) aspects are less silly (stupid).

Especially stuff like, "When he touched your hand in the cell he meant this stone." That's a level of goofy that transcends language/cultural barriers.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[jellydonut25]

I guess I refuse to acknowledge it, then.

I never found the notion of Godzilla being some sort of spiritual harbinger to be stupid, it's the EXECUTION of this stuff that is dumb, not the concepts themselves.

It's silly. "He touched his hand to the glass. He clearly meant this rock."
No. He didn't CLEARLY mean a rock, it's just goofy nonsense.

Just like the "What was that on the camera? It disappeared." he first time I watched the movie, I just breezed past it because I was like, "What? Well, let's watch the rest of the movie." The second time though, I rewound that scene like 5 times trying to figure out what the hell I was supposed to even be looking for...and if it's supposed to be King Ghidorah's horns as I've heard argued: how can it be his horns if he's frozen in ice? What kinda sense does that make?

That's not a cultural gap, that's a universal goofiness that doesn't add up in a logical way.

[klen7]

[daikaijusaurus]

My wife is Japanese, born and raised in Japan, and spent most of her life in Japan before she moved to the states. When we watched this movie together a few months back, she found it to be pretty unusual, particularly the parts with the stones containing the souls and also the souls of the dead inside Godzilla. So this is not a "Japanese" thing, but this is more of a "Kaneko" thing. And at the same time, she loved Gamera 1 and 2 but felt Gamera 3 was also a bit unusual for the same reasons as GMK.

For me, I love GMK for what it is, an enjoyable movie with a complete baddass Godzilla. I love the FX, battles and the destruction, but I really don't care for the unusual spiritual tones of the movie, same as Gamera 3. So from what my wife tells me, the spiritual tones of these two movies are not really Japanese, so if anyone feels that we don't understand them because we are not Japanese is not true at all. My guess is that many Japanese would feel the same as we do, because an unusual movie is an unusual movie no matter what country you're from

[daikaijusaurus]

[lhb412]

I don't think it's a cultural gap, either. In great films like Spirited Away, Pom Poko, and Yokai Daisenso you have a reliance on Japanese mythological thinking and once you grasp a few key things they make sense as stories. You'll probably want to know more, but sitting there watching the movie you're fine. GMK's mythology feels all muddled.

[Hybrid Gojira]

[DannyBeane]

[MekaGojira3k]

I don't mind it, especially since I imagine it'd be a lot closer to the regular Angilas as far as how the body was going to end up as a suit. The Soukougeki-Goji suit looked a lot different in maquette than stance. I also suspect the poodle aspect wouldn't be as obvious as the quadruped/ankylosaur thing being highlighted.

[kiryugoji04]

I LOVE that maquette. Probably would have been my favorite Anguirus design if it'd been used.

[DannyBeane]

Not trashing your opinion but what do you like about the design?

The face is alright but the head looks too big for the body. The spikes are too big and make his shell look too small. His tail is also too short with the club being too big. It looks like its going to snap off if he tries to swing it at anything. Also his legs look too long and make his proportions look odd. The design just rubs me in all the wrong ways. Then again I'm probably an old fogey that hates change.

[klen7]

I wasn't crazy about that Anguirus, but i got a very canine feeling from Baragon seeing him in action, and I can see both Varan and Anguirus having a canine feel as well from the maquettes. So i think the Anguirus design works only because of the other two suits. If Kaneko had used that Anguirus instead of Baragon, i don't think i would have liked it.

[kiryugoji04]

[Benjamin Haines]

I dig all of the GMK maquettes. I think Anguirus looks regal, like an ankylosaur with a dragonlike head. While the King Ghidorah we ended up with looked puny compared to prior incarnations, the way that Anguirus maquette's legs are structured suggests that he would have stood tall on all four feet instead of on his knees. If the FX crew had pulled a Death Ghidorah and had two suit actors to make Anguirus walk around, that would have made him a quadruped who stood at eye level with Godzilla, very imposing.

[klen7]

[kiryugoji04]

The crazy size differences are probably my favorite aspect of GMK. The genre needs to do that more often.

[MekaGojira3k]

[daikaijusaurus]

[jellydonut25]

I thought Ghidorah replaced Varan...no?

[daikaijusaurus]

[Benjamin Haines]

Varan definitely would have taken Mothra's role, emerging from the bottom of Lake Ikeda and then flying across Japan to battle Godzilla in Yokohama.

Suit designer Fuyuki Shinada did give Ghidorah spikes on the back of his jaws as an homage to Varan.