What's with the negativity towards the anime movies? Yeah, the first one is forgettable. Though it's harmless and nothing worse than what a Godzilla film generally delivers besides a reduced focus on the monsters. City on the Edge of Battle was an immense improvement over the first film and one of my favorite Godzilla films. I quite liked the philosophical conflict and character dynamics. It has a lot more going for it intellectually and narratively than the bulk of the serious Godzilla movies.

They’re slow moving ponderous drivel full of incomprehensible pseudo profundity that somehow make an animated Godzilla look as if they made the movie with a rubber toy.

If they’d made one feature instead of padding what is obviously a 90 minute script into 3 long movies it might actually be good.

I'd completely agree that the first film is disposable and does little more than hurt the trilogy. What value it has could easily be removed and used to supplement its sequel. But the second movie really works for me and I tend to view it as its own thing. The relevant characters are fleshed out, the world is expanded upon in interesting ways, and themes are given time to breathe. We see the alliance between the three initial factions begin to fall apart as disagreements about how to handle Godzilla emerge and this eventually leads to a pretty emotional climax. Haruo, who has a lot on his plate, comes across as sympathetic this time and has matured quite a bit since the last film. He questions himself and worries about whether he's doing the right thing or if he's harming those he cares about. It's like Shin Godzilla with its world-building. Just trade the politics with philosophy. Technology vs religion and the value of our humanity. City on the Edge of Battle feels like a proper film with an interesting hook for a follow-up attached. The third movie isn't on Netflix yet so I can't comment too much on that one, though rumors about a Lovecraftian Ghidorah definitely has me intrigued.

Godzilla's lumbering nature seems intentional to me and is standard for standalone films. Look back at Godzilla (1954), Return of Godzilla, and Shin Godzilla. It's taken to a greater extreme here since this Godzilla dwarfs all previous versions by a considerable margin. Something that size would move slowly. And, think about it, would the supreme lord of the land really need to move with any urgency? No serious threat has opposed him in thousands of years.

I didn’t really mean the speed of his movement. The creature design is so stiff and lifeless that they mmanage to make it look fake, for lack of a better word, despite being animated.

^ Exactly. When they first announced a Godzilla anime, I was wondering how they would realize the movement of such a creature in animation. After watching the Godzilla anime, I still wonder how they would realize his movement because Godzilla hardly moves in these movies.

See, usually Godzilla, like, picks up a bus and he throws it back down as he wades through the buildings toward the center of town. And if he's not doing that, Godzilla's usually performing boxing moves or is clawing at Rodan in a monster fight or something. But these anime Godzilla movies are the first in film history where Godzilla just stands in one spot throughout the entire movie as people fly in circles around his head. He shows up, does nothing, and gets shot at for it. I honestly prefer Godzilla's Revenge over this. At least in that one Godzilla moves around and actually fights things.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:^ Exactly. When they first announced a Godzilla anime, I was wondering how they would realize the movement of such a creature in animation. After watching the Godzilla anime, I still wonder how they would realize his movement because Godzilla hardly moves in these movies.

See, usually Godzilla, like, picks up a bus and he throws it back down as he wades through the buildings toward the center of town. And if he's not doing that, Godzilla's usually performing boxing moves or is clawing at Rodan in a monster fight or something. But these anime Godzilla movies are the first in film history where Godzilla just stands in one spot throughout the entire movie as people fly in circles around his head. He shows up, does nothing, and gets shot at for it. I honestly prefer Godzilla's Revenge over this. At least in that one Godzilla moves around and actually fights things.

I think this is this huge issue with size they wanted bigger they wanted meaner but the bigger you make a monster the more slow moving it becomes as the CGI has to move it realistically and that Godzilla is like some super leviathan version, hence it has real limited movement and gets real boring real quick (This is why I think after Shin Godzilla they should have kept in that size range and not gone this way.)

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:^ Exactly. When they first announced a Godzilla anime, I was wondering how they would realize the movement of such a creature in animation. After watching the Godzilla anime, I still wonder how they would realize his movement because Godzilla hardly moves in these movies.

See, usually Godzilla, like, picks up a bus and he throws it back down as he wades through the buildings toward the center of town. And if he's not doing that, Godzilla's usually performing boxing moves or is clawing at Rodan in a monster fight or something. But these anime Godzilla movies are the first in film history where Godzilla just stands in one spot throughout the entire movie as people fly in circles around his head. He shows up, does nothing, and gets shot at for it. I honestly prefer Godzilla's Revenge over this. At least in that one Godzilla moves around and actually fights things.

I don't even understand why the people in the movie who came back from space don't just go to the far end of the planet and build a city there.

Oh no! It's Godzilla! He's gradually coming this way!

I'm not sure what this says about me as a fan, though I not mind Godzilla's depiction in these movies and I'm okay with being indifferent towards Godzilla if that Godzilla exists in an interesting film. And as a work of serious science-fiction, which is what most recent Godzilla films fall under, City on the Edge of Battle is one of the stronger films in the series. Godzilla movies are rarely ever "about" Godzilla. He does what he has always done in the standalone movies. Ruin urban environments and spam his nuclear breath. This is true for Godzilla (1954) where he was catharsis for post-war Japan and true for Shin Godzilla where he represents the challenges which post-Fukushima Japan struggles with.

movieartman wrote:

SPOILER: Show

I love that King Ghidorah really feels true to the Godzilla franchise as I was worried about how he was gonna turn out.

They better have something special planned for Godzilla Vs. Kong because frankly, after the excellence that is King Ghidorah, having Godzilla go up against a giant monkey (APE!) is going to be a major letdown.

... I anticipate they will have to turn to ALIENS to up the ante!

Also, the last Godzilla anime film, Godzilla: The Planet Eater, where King Ghidorah has been turned into a giant glowing gold noodle gets dropped on Netflix next Wednesday - January 9, 2019. The placeholders will be done. Then, after GvsK hits theaters in Summer 2020 I believe Toho's contractual obligations with Legendary/Warner Brothers frees them up to begin production on new original Japanese Godzilla films. I'm okay with Anno's Shin Godzilla being a standalone film. I think that's the perfect place to end it.

If I had to predict: Godzilla from his wounds in KotM and vs. Kong has an immature Godzilla and Mechangodzilla.

Whatever it is they do, I just hope they go fuck it and go full ham, because fuck it. Stop giving a fuck about realism, Hollywood. Realism is boring. I can get realism at the grocery store. My eggs expired and I had to pick up new ones. That's realism.

The Planet Eater dropped on Netflix today.

The Planet Eater reminded me a bit of The End of Evangelion as you have an extended sequence dedicated to the inner struggle of the protagonist and Metphies attempting something reminiscent of human instrumentality. I liked the themes it raises and it manages to commit to its themes, something a lot of modern Godzilla films struggle with, though it does not bite as hard as The End of Evangelion. Urobuchi and the directors could have gone more surreal. But I had a good time.

Apparently Urobuchi and co wanted to do more crazy monster action but TOHO mandated that they couldn't have any monster vs monster fights. Like having the city transform into a 1km Mechagodzilla with all the Showa version's bizarre gimmicks or even have the city's cannons transform into Mechagodzilla heads as they started firing. If you're not going to allow monster fights, why not do it in a modern setting where it's just Godzilla instead of this future setting where monsters have taken over the planet?

Godzilla Earth is a neat design and his hyper beam heat ray is cool but he never really has a chance to show off.

King of the Monsters is looking really good though. I have high hopes for that. I really enjoyed G14 but the white bread military guy MC was rather dull.

Chuckman wrote:If I had to predict: Godzilla from his wounds in KotM and vs. Kong has an immature Godzilla and Mechangodzilla.

Whatever it is they do, I just hope they go fuck it and go full ham, because fuck it. Stop giving a fuck about realism, Hollywood. Realism is boring. I can get realism at the grocery store. My eggs expired and I had to pick up new ones. That's realism.

Let Kong pilot a MechaniKong power suit like a Jaeger.

BlueBasilisk wrote:

Let Kong pilot a MechaniKong power suit like a Jaeger.

You. You understand.

Jesus fuck tits, I'm watching through the third and (thankfully) final Godzilla anime film, and I've never felt so much hatred and confusion over a movie in my life. My hatred for this thing is stronger than anything I've felt over this franchise before. Like, I haven't felt this way since DC's The Killing Joke animated movie.

This is probably gonna be a long, rambling rant. If you're down to witness some well-deserved venting, buckle up.

Okay, so you remember those twin girls who were clearly supposed to be the Mothra Fairy Twins, but human-sized? Like, that wasn't an homage to the Twins or anything like that. They weren't cleverly winking at lore. They were actually the Mothra Fairy Twins. And they do summon Mothra....'s silhouette in a hallucinatory dream sequence of the main character. So the movie goes as far out of its way as possible to prove that these are in fact the Fairy Twins without ever actually using Mothra in a battle. Like, it's the most useless use of a monster in a movie that's about giant monsters I've ever seen. I can't think of anything else to relate it to, honestly. This has to be one of the biggest wastes of space in a movie ever.

Which makes the filmmakers' decision for Haruo to have sex with one of the twins all the more mind-boggling. And just to make it even more infuriating and gross, Haruo doesn't even figure out which of the twins he's with until she's naked in front of him. Like, the movie goes WAY out of its way to prove that these are, in fact, undeniably, the Fairy Twins from the Mothra lore, despite Mothra not being important to anything with this movie whatsoever, has its main character fuck one of the twins, all while explicitly stating that Haruo really couldn't be bothered to care which one it was, and the movie doesn't even seem to notice that it did that, or that it makes the main character out to look like a little bit of an asshole. This is Bruce Wayne fucking Commissioner Gordon's daughter levels of infuriating. This is as bad as the time Batman boned Batgirl. This is DC's animated The Killing Joke movie for the Godzilla franchise.

And, fuck me right in the asshole, that whole scene where Haruo fucks a human-sized Fairy Twin is there just for padding out the goddamn story to fill out a whole wretched 90 minutes of what someone Toho thought would quietly pass for "entertainment" so the movie could at least be considered feature length. But I'm not sure this movie's other tactics of padding out the run time are any more favorable. I shit none of you when I say that Ghidorah's coming to Earth is just three small black holes opening up in the clouds as a head from each of them take an excruciating 5 minutes of screen time to reach Godzilla, all while the scientist guy is stuck in a loop of "How could this be? How is this possible?" until the filmmakers decided it was time for the next 10-minute-long beat of the film. And what was that 10-minute-long beat you ask? Ghidorah biting down on Godzilla once and sssssssssssssssssssssslllllllllllllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwlllllllllllllllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy dddddddddddddrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnniiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnggggggggg aaaaaaawwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy GGGGGGGGGGGGooooooooooodddddddddddzzzzzzzzzzziiiiiiiiilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa'sssssssssssssssssssssss eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggggyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. What the fucking shit is this fucking shit? I thought there was going to be an actual goddamn monster fight in this fuckass whole-ass asshole of a film about two monster goddamn fighting. The "fight" ends when Haruo is finally able to disrupt the prayers of the alien people to Ghidorah, therefore making hIm vulnerable to Godzilla. (Oh yeah, Ghidorah's a god in this movie, apparently.) After a solid 15 minutes of a hallucinatory scene showing prayers being blocked and counter-prayers being prayed, and that afore-mentioned Mothra silhouette fly-by, Godzilla ends Ghidorah in 5 seconds.

After all that, the humans begin to co-exist with the Fairy Twins' native people, and the movie shows us children appearing, as though it's a montage, and these kids were born during this co-existance and are up to be, like, 5 years old. So we're meant as the audience to ascertain that about 5 years has passed since Godzilla defeated Ghidorah. And that's when the scientist guy shows Haruo that he's finally repaired a flying mechanical suit from the first time they fought Godzilla, and Haruo suddenly remembers "Oh yeah, that's right. I hate Godzilla." Haruo grabs his dead girlfriend who's been dead for the past 5 years but hasn't decomposed yet because it was merging with nano machines that killed her (I guess that's how that works), tells his 5-year rebound Fairy Twin fuck buddy (who's now understandably very emotionally attached to Haruo) that deciding to lose is what makes us human before leaving her to climb into the mech suit's cockpit and FLIES THE GODDAMN MECHA SUIT RIGHT INTO GODZILLA WITH HIS 5-YEAR DEAD GIRLFRIEND ON HIS LAP.

Godzilla ends Haruo in 5 seconds.

Roll credits

Wait for End Credits Scene.

The End Credits Scene is just a bunch of other children at a religious ceremony in the Mothra Cave where they pray to have good dreams and not be bit by bugs and shit, all while a now elderly Fairy Twin fuck buddy watches on and smiles.

I.

Hate.

This.

Movie.

The movie has no redeeming aspects to it, nothing that makes this shit show worth while, and just simply doesn't seem to care about anything it's talking about or showing us. And, in doing so, it seems to piss all over everything that made these kinds of movie worth watching in the first place.

-10/10, I want my time back. Fuck this movie!

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Which makes the filmmakers' decision for Haruo to have sex with one of the twins all the more mind-boggling. And just to make it even more infuriating and gross, Haruo doesn't even figure out which of the twins he's with until she's naked in front of him. Like, the movie goes WAY out of its way to prove that these are, in fact, undeniably, the Fairy Twins from the Mothra lore, despite Mothra not being important to anything with this movie whatsoever, has its main character fuck one of the twins, all while explicitly stating that Haruo really couldn't be bothered to care which one it was, and the movie doesn't even seem to notice that it did that, or that it makes the main character out to look like a little bit of an asshole. This is Bruce Wayne fucking Commissioner Gordon's daughter levels of infuriating. This is as bad as the time Batman boned Batgirl. This is DC's animated The Killing Joke movie for the Godzilla franchise.

Jesus....I had not watched this yet I wasn't sure I even wanted to just to add a third review now I just don't think I want to at all because the sound of this is just so bad and I agree that it does have killing joke issues and its very disrespectful in the sense that in no other movie in the franchise have they been treated that way yes they've been captured but I always felt that sexually they were off limits because there divine beings so to breach that line is terrible and it proves his girlfriend was there to be a prop love interest and throw away and the end scene with her dead body just sounds insane.

I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe, thank you for this.

A review like that makes it a must-see! Hmm.

^ See it if you must, but I gotta warn you that I trimmed a LOT of the fat from this film while writing that rampaging rant. You’ll spend the first 45 minutes of the film bored to tears while the movie sleeps on otherwise interesting ideas.

Also, I watched this in its English dub because I truly couldn’t be bothered to sit around and read subtitles while The Godzilla Joke: Battle of the Five Armies played on screen for an excruciatingly long time. This movie made me believe in time travel because it claims to be shorter than The Matrix Revolutions, but I know that can’t be true because it felt like I was sitting there for 2 days watching this shit.