Shin Godzilla *SPOILER* Thread

[Gwangi]

Of course, this is all assuming that it ends with "Godzilla vs. Kong". Suppose that is a smash hit and Legendary wants to continue with the Monsterverse? Certainly, a lot of things are going to have to be re-negotiated, should the path take us that direction.

[Ultra T-Rex]

[Benjamin Haines]

[lhb412]

[tbeasley]

I wonder if Shin being a solo G film was part of Toho's agreement with Legendary, and Toho/Anno was able to work around that by having multiple Godzilla forms throughout.

[klen7]

The actual Shin "work around" - Higuchi said that the original pitch to Toho was to have Godzilla continue to mutate into weird stuff, but Toho shot it down, so instead they had weird stuff mutate into Godzilla

[Geno]

Not sure if I already said it, but there's no doubt this was the best Godzilla movie in 50 years. The only movies I hold above it are the original, the two 1964 films, and Monster Zero. Shame we can't get a sequel, as even though I enjoy some parts of the American movies so far they don't come close to what Anno and Higuchi have done.

[kidnicky]

Finally saw it. So what the hell was on the tip of his tail? I remember people speculating it was a whale but at the very end of the movie it looked like skeletons?!

[lhb412]

^Lot of speculation, but the only thing for certain is that it's supposed to be Shin Godzilla's next form (the fifth, of the one's seen in the movie: the first is the tail, the second is the thing that comes ashore, the third once it sprouts arms and stands up, and the forth the main traditional Godzilla form that gets the most screentime).

Many think that, now that Godzilla has been defeated by man, Godzilla has decided to emulate them in order to survive. Each time Shin Godzilla changes it's to adapt for survival.

[Kailem]

I finally saw it last week and spent the next couple of days going back and reading through this thread from the beginning. I knew as soon as Shin Godzilla himself was revealed that this was going to be a divisive film, but damn, I don't think I expected it to be this divisive! Did even Final Wars cause so much of a split among fans as this seems to have?

I guess one "benefit" of waiting so long to see it compared to many others is that I had a long time to digest certain aspects of it that I'd either seen or heard about over the months. The aforementioned look of this Godzilla being the most obvious one, but also things like how "talky" the film was meant to be, the tail beam (though not the back beams; somehow I managed not to find out about that part until I was watching the scene itself) etc., so some things I was prepared for. It did remind me a lot of Godzilla 1984 with the whole "dammit America, stop trying to nuke us!" angle, and while I agree that it certainly felt like the most nationalistic Godzilla movie to date, that aspect didn't really rub me the wrong way as much as it seems like it did for some people.

Again, I was prepared for it to be a very meeting-filled movie, but I thought the quick-fire dialogue generally kept most of those scenes from dragging as much as they could have, and I found it interesting to have a Godzilla movie almost entirely told from the government's point of view. I did feel like the pacing could have been tightened up a bit after he went into "cooldown" in the middle of the film though for sure, and holy damn did we really need subtitled for almost literally every single person, street, room, helicopter and even missile that makes an appearance?! I've never seen more than a few minutes worth of Evangelion, so is that just something Anno likes to do in everything he touches, or just his attempt here at trying to keep things as "real" as possible? Either way it was definitely overkill.

I also thought the effects on the whole were really good. Certainly there was the occasional not-so-great shot in there every now and again, whether it be a helicopter or train looking a bit fake or Godzilla moving in a slightly wonky way, but overall I was really impressed. I'll always lament the lack of a traditional man in a suit, but at least there was still other miniature work mixed in there in various places, and similarly the use of classic music and sound effects was also nice.

As for Godzilla himself I basically look at him as an alternate universe "Elseworlds"-style take of the kind we, to be honest, only really got in GMK, despite that sort of approach supposedly being the Millennium series' whole "deal". As a result I didn't really have any problem with any of the crazy weirdness shown here, the mutations, the back beams etc. I completely get why people would, but for me personally I just looked at it as a completely separate kind of Godzilla than any of the previous films or incarnations, because until and unless we find out that any future films are going to follow on directly from this and that Shin Godzilla is going to be the Godzilla going forward, that's basically what it is.

I will say though in regards to the whole "when is it a mutation too far?" discussion that if they announced a sequel that really did follow on from this and actually had him mutate into some sort of crazy Godzilla/Human hybrid army (as opposed to, say, those things just breaking off from him or spawning from his cells etc.), that would be going a bit too far imo. And please don't give him wings, either. But as an ambiguous ending in and of itself, I liked it, in all its metal craziness.

So yeah, overall I liked it, and I also just liked being able to see a brand new Toho Godzilla movie again for the first time in over a decade. It's a shame we're going to have to wait at least another few years for a live-action follow-up, whatever form that may take, but hey, at least it's for a good reason!

[lhb412]

^Glad you dug the film! I agree about the 'Elseworlds' angle, especially since Legendary is essentially making traditional Godzilla movies where Godzilla behaves in a classical manner and fights monster foes - so really the only way for Toho to make their version relevant is to go wildly different.

Despite something of a split in 'fandom,' I think the movie has had an overwhelmingly positive reception overall. Lot of people who aren't necessarily interested in this stuff became interested because they got wind of its being different.

Thankfully, you folks in the UK won't have to wait so long for the anime movies... as long as you have access to Netflix, of course.

[Kailem]

Yeah I never keep up an ongoing subscription since frankly Netflix in the UK is pretty crappy, with the exception of certain shows that come around every now and then (Stranger Things, the various Marvel series etc.). But I'll definitely re-subscribe when that goes up, which hopefully should be at the same time as the US, since that's been the case with their other Netflix-exclusive stuff.

It'll make a nice change being able to keep up with the conversation when it's released this time.

[Dai]

[Benjamin Haines]

[william newell]

I've noticed that the more I watch this film, the more I like it. Of all the giant monster movies I've seen done in the so called "documentary style", this comes the closest to nailing it. All we basically know of the characters is their professional life, no love interests, or personal pursuits(outside of a couple of characters political goals). In fact, I would call this the "Tora,Tora,Tora" of Kaiju films. Virtually everything revolves around one issue. Figuring out what Godzilla is, and how to stop him. It also seems that everytime I watch this, I notice something different, whether it be with the story, of some little nifty F/X touch. Different, but respectful of what's come before, in my opinion.

[klen7]

I agree. I definitely see something new each time i watch it. I watched it dubbed with the Mrs last (her first viewing) last night. She came into it without any background or spoilers so i was interested to get her take. She didn't care for the soundtrack in a lot of places but overall thought the film was great. Most of the complaints I've heard about the soundtrack have been Evangelion related, but she's never seen Eva, so her compliants were more about tracks feeling out of place

[Dai]

[jellydonut25]

Blu rays are already selling at discounts online, so I suppose I'll be buying mine in the next little bit here. I didn't care for the movie so I don't want to spend more than like $12 on it. $16 is the lowest I've seen thus far.

[klen7]

So after two viewings of the dub, i think the dub is pretty solid with the exception of the opening scene which is pretty bad. The first time i watched it I thought it was just me getting acclimated to the dub, but second viewing and the Mrs confirmed, the opening scene on the boat is a mess. Maybe it's because of the POV, but to me the voice feels completely cartoonish and divorced from what's going on.

[Gojira07]

Finally had a chance to sit and watch the blu-ray, I thought the dub was really well done for the most part. Much better than what I came to expect from most modern dubs of these films.
Seeing this film for the second time really kind of secured my original position on it, I'm convinced if like 15-20 mins of fat was trimmed from this, it would be a top 5 Godzilla film for me.

Upon my original viewing I thought the ending was absurd and dumb and kind of took me out of the film, but seeing it again (besides from the questionable physics of the train bombs and their animation) I thought it was a lot of fun, and truly captured the magic of what these movies used to be about. It just kind of brought me back to Gammera the Invincible or Mothra vs Godzilla where the most creative attempts to rid the world of kaiju - it was creative and fun.

[lhb412]

^Shin Godzilla really scratched my itch for a good humanity vs. kaiju movie, complete with hitting him with tons of conventional weaponry, elaborate traps, and crazy science! It was good to see those elements in the forefront again.

[kidnicky]

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

[Dai]

Beautiful live performance of Persecution of the Masses, which features a far more harmonious arrangement of the choral section than the eerie version used in the film.

[Kaiju_Ultra_Fan]

watched Shin again today. I like the movie even more the more I watch it. You catch little things you missed previously.

Never noticed how much in the beginning when the smaller Godzilla is moving down the river and pushing all the boats and debris and flooding the streets, just how much that looks exactly like the Tsunami footage we saw a few years ago. I doubt that was coincidence.

Lots of little details I noticed this time, like the way his metal looking eye-screens flipped over his eyes right before the missiles hit him. Before I only noticed those when he fired off his atomic breath. But I guess like a shark he has those eyelid protectors.

great movie. I know a lot of people criticize how much of the movie is talking and how little is actually Godzilla. But what we do get of Godzilla looks amazing. I love how almost completely indifferent he is,..unstoppable.