Shin Godzilla *SPOILER* Thread

[TripMasterMunky]

[Deathless]

[Jomei]

[GiganGoji]

[TripMasterMunky]

[The Great MM]

I do say, I'd say my favorite thing about this movie so far isn't the utter chaos it's causing among the fandom (we've seen that before, after all), but the memes. Some of these are golden.

[Jomei]

[The Great MM]

[Castellan Zilla]

[lhb412]

With the extremely dense dialog I'm glad a company like Funimation, with so much experience in creating subtitle tracks, got the rights.

[Matolen]

I have a question, is Funimation known for being respectful to the original script -- meaning that the ideas and storyline, etc will be accurate to the movie as seen in Japan?

[ebirahsmeg1]

Sorry for the delay on the review folks, I went out of town immediately after I saw this Friday night.

My first thought when I left the cinema: What in the blue Hell did I just watch?

That basically sums up my experience. Here's a quick, simple plot summary followed with my thoughts (Disclaimer: My Japanese GF was visiting her parents, so I had to go see it alone. I tried the best I could with my Japanese skills to understand what the hell was going on):

Plot synopsis

The Japanese Coast Guard is searching an abandoned boat that apparently belonged to a scientist searching for something. Next, a big explosion in the sea outside Shinagawa/Odaiba in Tokyo Bay sinks the boat, followed by red liquid that floods the sea and the underground highway. A tail then appears, and a salamander creature crawls and slivers ashore and wrecks havoc. It eventually manages to stand upright and starts slowly growing and sprouting tiny arms. The JSDF shows up to do battle, but it lets out a roar and quickly slivers back into the sea.

And several meetings (and believe me, are there some meetings in this film...Christ almighty ), the creature appears again and is in full-grown form. It is emitting radiation from its body everywhere it walks (and this is expanded on during... you guessed, more meetings). The Americans classify the creature as "Godzilla". 60 years ago (or 16? My Japanese didn't quite catch it), there was a huge cache of nuclear waste dumped at the bottom of the sea and Salamander-zilla fed on it.

The JSDF throw everything at it, and shockingly, nothing works. The US chips in and brings in the stealth bombers, which drop powerful smart bombs on Godzilla's back and blows off one of his dorsal fins. He responds by opening his mouth with his bottom jaw splitting into two like a mandible and shooting air, which transitions to fire, then transitions into a purple beam/laser and wastes the city. Purple beams also shoot out of his back and destroy the stealth bombers. His body then becomes fully still like stone, apparently hibernating due to using too much energy in his beam attack. During the purple beam attack, the Japanese Prime Minister is killed (I think) and another succeeds him (and this process is shown through....*drum roll* another meeting :rimshot: Seeing a pattern yet?).

Russia and China want to take over decision making on handling the Godzilla crisis management in Japan, while US eventually decides that nuclear weapons are the only choice, with Japan struggling to stand on their own (similar to today's geo-political climate) and thus the countdown to find a way to stop Godzilla before the US starts their nuclear attack on him begins. They decide to freeze him by using remote-controlled crane trucks to shoot the freezing material into his mouth. They start the attack with US drones, which he shoots with his lasers With the help of bombed filled trains and shinkansen bullet trains as well as the military destroying skyscrapers so they collapse), they manage to bury Godzilla beneath the rubble and the freezing attack is a success. Thus the use of nuclear weapons is avoided.

The final scene ends with Godzilla's standing up, but frozen in the middle of the city with frozen mutated people with dorsal fins climbing out of his tail.

Um...yeah.

Things I liked:

- Sound effects were awesome. Many older sound effects from the older Showa films were used throughout, and they didn't come off hokey and were incorporated perfectly.

Likewise, Godzilla used a nice variety of all his various roars from the Showa and Heisei era.

- Soundtrack-wise, classic Ifukube soundtracks were used through several key segments and fit the scenes perfectly. For those who boast that Ifukube scores cannot work in modern films might change their minds after seeing this film. The awful "choir" music did show up during Salamander-zilla's scene, but other than that the film's soundtrack was decent, albeit not that memorable.

- The finale was actually pretty unique and clever, and I didn't find it anti-climatic as others have reported. The way they incorporated the trains, shinkansen bullet trains, US drones, and remote-control cranes was a very fun and well-executed sequence. Definitely Higuchi's best sequence in the film by far.

- Although uneven at times (the Salamander-zilla sequence in particular was laughable at times), the SFX was usually pretty solid with some great military battles and city destruction scenes.

- Satomi Ishihara...not that great of a performance acting-wise (her English lines were dreadful at times), but she was one of the few somewhat developed characters (relatively speaking). Being easy on the eyes doesn't hurt either

Things I didn't like:

- Salamander-zilla. Seriously, when first saw him, I almost broke out laughing. He eyes and expression looked like a rooster on meth. And while I don't mind them trying something new origins-wise instead of trying to connect it to the '54 film that has been done countless times before, this origin just doesn't seem like a good fit for Godzilla.

- Meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings....holy mother of Christ was it skreeonking ridiculous. An endless parade of random characters appear with their names/titles shown. Very similar to issues surrounding the old war film "A Bridge Too Far" with just an over-abundance of undeveloped characters. I didn't care for a single one of them or their fates as a result.

As for those whining about "Oh look, another review complaining about meetings"...yup. It was a *BIG* problem in general with this film as a whole. When most of you actually see this film down the road, you'll see why this item has been harped on so much.

It got so bad that at one point, there was actually a scene where as they were setting up tables / chairs for *another* meeting, a camera was actually placed on the chair so we could get a first-person perspective view from the chair as it was....being moved in front of a table. Riveting stuff there Anno....

The tables, chairs, and whiteboards were the real stars of the film.

- Godzilla's design....sorry, but it's not "edgy" or "cool"...it's just ugly. Scrawny arms, ridiculous tail, weird face...you know the drill (Don't even get me started on the cliched "bottom jaw/mandable splits into two" when uses his breath/beam....looks very lame, unoriginal, and just isn't "Godzilla"). As Ed G said, it seems they designed him ugly as just a cheap way to make him "scary". Honestly, I think a more traditional design would have been far creepier in the context of this film.

- Lasers out of every orifice....Kawakita must be smiling down on us. The lasers from the back and tail were completely over-indulgent and overkill, and I'm sorry, but these powers belong to another kaiju, not Godzilla. He didn't need these extra lasers to portray his power and strength.

Overall, I thought Anno / Higuchi might give us something more interesting / riveting, but when you cut through all of the bullsh*t, beyond the radical Godzilla design and even more radical origin story for him, I felt the story, pacing, and everything was rather...b-l-a-n-d. I would rate this along the lines GRA/G1985/G2000//G2014. It was ok, but certainly not a film worthy of all of the controversy/flame wars I've seen on another certain "message board"

And that's my honest, no BS account of what I saw. Heading for bed. Nighty night

[Gargantuan Gargantua]

It sounds like Anno is pulling one of those situations where he is trying to make you frustrated by the constant meetings taking place as if he is saying, "See this is what we have to go through..."

I'd rather have the frustration come out through a character rather than making the audience sit through it. Seems like this movie could use 10 minutes taken out of it. I don't mind a boring movie since I am a fan of Mamoru Oshii movies but he usually does a good job of incorporating music and gives you pretty things to look at while doing it. Anno sort of can do that in the Evangelion movies.

[TripMasterMunky]

[Benjamin Haines]

[GiganGoji]

I also forgot to mention the three frames where the screen was completely filled, top to bottom, with writing over the scene.

[jrichreturns]

So, I have garnered info from some who have seen the film I talk to and a source that was in the know of the film.
So the red goo? Just Godzilla's blood and in some cases, as other posters have pointed out, Godzilla's cellular matter itself is like Sanda's or Gaira's and any piece could reform and make a new Godzilla. So it's like Gvs Biollante or G2000 to an extreme. Godzilla IS NOT absorbing any life forms into himself, yes he's a mysterious amalgamation of sea life (the issue is we aren't totally sure what exactly). He IS, from some people point out, absorbing energy around him (its kinda hard to tell, but that's what some sources are claiming).

The things growing on his tail? They aren't human, most likely they are clones of Godzilla. Turns out there's a definite answer, so here we go folks:

Thing is, from what I have gathered, is that Shin Gojira was initially made with Higuchi and Anno's separate plots and they put them together the best way they could. The final script had to be reworked and alot of that is still unused. From news today that SHIN GOJIRA IS NUMBER 1 AT THE BOX OFFICE, I think we will get a sequel and we can address more of what was planned.

What do you think a sequel would be? From what I can guess and what I gathered I can see a few things:

1. Possibly a new Godzilla growing from the tail and being a more traditional Shodai/Heisei hyrbid.
2. Same Godzilla idea as the previous idea, but it bursts from the carcass of Shin. Turns out his regeneration is picked up but he rarely does have any other sea life left in his geneome. Why? I believe that Godzilla itself has been Shin Gojira, but also not. How so? The life stages and hybridization. Perhaps something absorbed a Godzilla-like creature and its regeneration took over-turning this amalgamation into what the creature is supposed to be.? Perhaps proto G got absorbed by this mass of mutating sea life and headed for land in confusion. Shin wnated on land, unlike a sea creature and attempted to stand . Not like a sea creature. Perhaps this thing absorbed Godzilla and instead of turning into a monster with Godzilla-like features-it turned into a Godzilla that was slowly hijacking the process. So those human skeletons may be said entity's way out. So You Can have your Judas vs Godzilla.

Just my two cents. But now I can see a sequel happen with concepts that didn't make it. 300 pages worth of scrapped script can yield good ideas.

[Moonlight SY-3]

Saw it for the second time Saturday night, still loving it.

I was thinking about taking my six-year-old son to see it, but upon the second viewing I've decided not to...not because it's too scary, but because there is no way in hell he'd be able to sit through those long meeting scenes and all that dialogue. It'd just bore him silly. That said, my Japanese friends who have seen it say the dialogue is very interesting and not boring at all, in a Tarantino-esque way, so there's that. As I mentioned in my first report, it took every single brain cell I have all firing at 100% to even begin to understand what they were saying, let alone register whether it was interesting or not. So in that respect, it's a very adult film...lots of complicated adult concepts addressing complicated political and social (not to mention scientific) issues, with quick edits and rapid-fire dialogue. Exactly what my son is NOT interested in at 6 years of age! So I'll get the Blu-ray when it comes out and he can enjoy just the monster parts. I'm pretty sure he'll love wide-eyed Proto-G flopping around the city. He does love Ewoks and Jar-Jar, so...

One interesting detail I forgot to mention and haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet were the chrome covers that snap over Godzilla's eyes when he fires the beam. Eyelids, I guess, but you only see them when he fires the beam. Also, the lower jaw does not completely split like Otachi, but just kind of separates at the front of the chin and gets wider (see the pictures a page or two back). People seem to hate that feature, but I thought it was pretty cool. I love everything about the beams, including the tail and back beams. The tail beam is unprecedented, but we got plenty of "body blast" beams from Heisei G, so these are more or less extensions of that concept. I also liked the whole idea of Godzilla having some kind of natural phased array radar that allows him to sense stuff coming at him. On the second viewing I noticed the initial phase of the beam is more like a gas than a liquid, as I first reported. He blasts this gas straight down, which flows out down the streets of the city, then it turns to ID4 City Destroyer fire, then focuses to God Warrior beam. He then chokes that back and starts with the back beams. Very intense sequence, I thought. The tail beam doesn't join the party until the final action sequence.

Speaking of the tail, I made a point of watching that tip closely to try and see what might have happened to it, and confirmed that you do not see any of the weird frozen mini Alien/Godzillas (I don't think they look human at all...humanoid, yes, but definitely not human) until that very last scene. Once Godzilla is frozen, you see him from many angles and varying distances, but the tail looks "normal," not blown apart like it is in the very last scene. So whatever happened to result in that final state must have happened between the scene with Hasegawa and Ishihara and others talking and the cut straight to the tail scene...kinda weird.

So yeah, second viewing, and I'm still digging it. I initially predicted fandom complaints would be split between "That ain't Godzilla!" and "What, that again?", but it seems so far it's the former much more so than the latter. And oh yeah, Proto-G has HUGE gills that they slam right in your face so you don't miss them, gushing with sludge. I wonder if that was in response to the "gills controversies" of 2014?

Just go see it when you can and decide for yourself. I enjoyed it, and happily accept it as another interesting chapter in the history of Godzilla. Looking forward to what's coming next!

[lhb412]

^Does the beam cause things to explode into molten liquid like in God Warrior? I ask because that's my favorite thing in that short film.

[Moonlight SY-3]

[lhb412]

^Thanks!

[Moonlight SY-3]

[Psycho Soldier]

Is it wrong that I think those are the best-looking baby Godzillas in the franchise's history, next to MGII's Baby Godzilla? I understand the "rooster" criticisms of the proto-Godzilla now, and they both look weird without (fully developed) arms. But going from these figures, they look far more acceptable than Little Godzilla or Minilla. I guess the bar is low to begin with.

[Moonlight SY-3]

[The Great MM]

Funny thing is. Add some arms to "B", shrink the spines a bit, and make the color green. It pretty much is a slightly redesigned Junior.