Bagheera wrote:But in any event GvK was not an improvement in that regard by any means. Replacing a flawed human story with no human story is no remedy, particularly when the monster fights are lacking as well.

I have to disagree, I thought the fights were pretty great and a huge improvement over KoTM whereas I actually got to see them in full force and hardly got cut away to whatever the humans were doing. In regards to the lack of human story, I'm not saying its wrong to want a good human story; but it's also sharing screen time in the same movie with a plot that literally goes:



Any serious drama between the human cast is going to look really awkward next to a plot like that. At that point, I wouldn't be able to tell what the movie is going for. There's just enough plot to get these two to smack against each other like big toys; and in comparison to how this movie is received to how the other two were received, it seems to have worked much better.

I feel like at some point we're going to find out that...

Natalie the Cat wrote:I feel like at some point we're going to find out that...

SPOILER: Show

they had a faithful mechagodzilla design, but the studio made them replace it with that ugly hunk of shit because it was more "grounded" or some such nonsense

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFDW1dsVa1Y

This review pointed out something I was not aware of and is concerning the director wanted to make this for kids, which I think is a huge mistake as Godzilla and Kong films are meant to be aimed at all audiences and when Godzilla went in to kids territory that led to the downfall of the franchise and it going back to bed for years.

Also, not all kids film age well not all of them are re-watchable as kids grow up they come back years later and go this isn't as good as I remember and this could really hurt this movie decades on as the vibe I'm getting is not every adult is impressed with it. Similar to how I remember adults not being big on films like Short Circuit but as a kid I loved it but on rewatch years on realized what they were getting at and that it's not a great film and nether is its sequel.

This may also explain why mechagodzilla's design was simplified as if you're aiming at the child audience you make kiddy versions of things.

TheFriskyIan wrote:

Bagheera#919182 wrote:But in any event GvK was not an improvement in that regard by any means. Replacing a flawed human story with no human story is no remedy, particularly when the monster fights are lacking as well.

I have to disagree, I thought the fights were pretty great and a huge improvement over KoTM

No, the fights in KotM had weight to them, and they actually paid attention to their surroundings. GvK had clear visuals, but that's it -- there was no sense of scale to them, which looks weird to anyone expecting a kaiju to move like a kaiju.

silvermoonlight wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFDW1dsVa1Y

That review is accurate. This is a little kids' movie, and I think the reason this bugs so many of us is because the Monsterverse set us up for something more. But oh well.

I have no problems with what was in the film. I didn't need Aliens to explain MechaGodzilla. I just think the movie has that blockbuster problem where it tries to do too many things during the runtime when being more focused would make everything better.

I really feel 90% of my problems with the film could have been fixed if they had just chosen to follow the Team Kong storyline that goes to the Hollow Earth and didn't divide the movie between that storyline and following Team Godzilla. Kong is THE protagonist of the movie his storyline - and the humans involved - is the only one we should have been watching. Trying to split the movie between two separate storylines and give both equal weight made everything too choppy and thin to be interesting.

All the stuff with Millie Bobby Brown, Ricky Baker and Brian Tyree Henry is ultimately superfluous to the film as a whole. I know they're in there to humanize Godzilla but since they can't actually interact with Big Chonke the same way Team Kong can with the Big Monke made them feel even more unnecessary. Team Godzilla added nothing to the narrative - also two conspiracy theorists in a movie being proved right is one conspiracy theorists being proven right too many - except they make MechaGodzilla glitch for a second by pouring booze on the command console. Introducing MechaGodzilla could have easily been worked more into the Kong storyline - IE. introduce the concept of MG earlier and let Skarsgard be made aware of it so he's forcing the girl to make Kong lead them to the Hollow Earth aware of what will happen if they get there and then because of this he has to redeem himself in the third act by recharging Kong - and then the film would have been able to more succinctly follow that storyline which is the more interesting one anyways.

Oh well. The MonsterVerse has been very messy from the get go with the tone fluctuating from film to film. I'm fine with this being a kid's film. I enjoyed it. I just wish I loved it.

Gendo'sPapa wrote:Oh well. The MonsterVerse has been very messy from the get go with the tone fluctuating from film to film. I'm fine with this being a kid's film. I enjoyed it. I just wish I loved it.

The Godzilla-lead MonsterVerse films feel like all of the Showa Era tones squashed down to a few movies.

Godzilla (2014) was the version of the Godzilla/Godzilla Raids Again films from the 50's with Grade A special effects and cinematography.

Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) feels like the first couple Ghidorah or Mother movies of the 60's.

Godzilla v Kong feels like Godzilla vs Megalon or Godzilla vs Gigan or something like that.

Taking 15 films worth of tone progression and squeezing it in 3 movies was kind of a lot. Kinda feels like tonal whiplash, if you ask me.

Gonna re-watch KOTM & then GVK for the 1st time soon.

Re-watched these...

Mothra (1961)
- Decent
- Decent score.
- Interesting slightly subversive handling of some of the characters, the reporter who appears to be a comic relief type chubby guy is basically the lead & gets the most stand out heroic/badass moments (this happened in the Japanese cut of Godzilla Raids Again as well)
- Extended sequence with Mothra & Tokyo tower is well done.

- The atomic heat ray guns are damn cool and honestly more impressive than the later 60s/70s Maser Tanks that would become mainstays of the Showa era.


Mothra vs Godzilla / Godzilla vs The Thing (1964)
- Among the 3 best films of the Showa era (50s-70s), fully Great.
- Refines & improves on virtually everything from 61: Capitalist villains are better here & less cartoon-ish, the fairies are used better, the natives of their island are more advanced where as they were presented as pure reactionary savages in 61, a better more detailed & flexible adult Mothra prop, among the best scores of any G film.
- Film has a searing distaste for authority, almost all authority figures (politicans, police, businessmen, plutocrats, village leaders, even a priest) are presented as being corrupt, liars, reckless or cowardly. The military is surprisingly presented fairly well, they are shown cooperating with the US for the greater good, they come up with some grounded but still cool plans against Godzilla but even here their biggest failure was out of their own recklessness. The press is shown in the best light but even with them their editor is presented as a petty tyrant against staff that aren't in his favor.
- The primary battle is solid. Only slight problem is IMO there was too many hyper close up shots.
- Sets for the Nagoya attack particularly the tower & castle are great.
- Possibly the best Showa Godzilla suit. The torso/legs could be more sculpted/muscular but the the head/spines/hands are damn good. Head is shaped kinda like a snake but the details around the cheeks/lips are mammalian. Eyes/eyebrows are notably menacing.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Loving that Nick Adams action going on in the cast sheet for the new Godzilla anime.

"We opened Pandora's box, and there's no closing it now!"

Godzilla singular point.

I'm going to say right of the bat, I did enjoy it, and it was a fun ride though kind of flawed, but its ending scene could imply a much better second series to come.

Oh, is there a new Godzilla anime?

Natalie the Cat wrote:Oh, is there a new Godzilla anime?

Godzilla singular point it's on Netflix it's a series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GQE1BurPpk

This is like a Saturday morning cartoon version of Shin Gojira lol

Natalie the Cat wrote:This is like a Saturday morning cartoon version of Shin Gojira lol

Having watched start to finish, It's still far better than Netflix's first Godzilla train wreck attempt, downside though it is quite a ride and can be a hard slog in terms of the science as it's not done in a way that's fun, I believe this is due to the series writer being a novelist, so he's writing it in the long hand and maybe wasn't thinking about in a manner that everyone could understand.

The other issue is one of the VA dub leads has a super flat voice which is weird and jarring since he's in life or death situations, and he just doesn't react like normal people do.

Hey, I didn’t say it was *bad*. It just reminded me of the American Godzilla ‘toons in a weird way and then it just clicked.

I think I only understood half the story and it took wayyyyy to long file Godzilla to show up. It was indeed miles ahead of the previous one though

Natalie the Cat wrote:Hey, I didn’t say it was *bad*. It just reminded me of the American Godzilla ‘toons in a weird way and then it just clicked.

I never got the impression you were saying that

I remember those cartoons and I do agree that it does have that vibe.

My Godzilla vs Kong (2021) review!

TBH I am not a fan of the original King Kong vs Godzilla, I personally feel it's the weakest G film aside from G's Revenge (and possibly the anime trilogy which I have not seen) and I do like this notably more, that said it is the most flawed of the Legendary monsterverse.

Pros!
- Fights are vastly better lit than 2014 and less muddled than 2019. The lights of Hong Kong are a tiny bit glaring but still a beautiful setting for the 2nd battle.
- All the fights are good & well choreographed. The angles from the ground & elsewhere of Kong jumping around Hong Kong's rooftops while Godzilla's breath follows across the sky made for some great shots.
- CGI is mostly great & on par with if not slightly better than Skull Island and fully better than much of 2019.
- The half of the plot focused on Kong & the discovery of the Hollow Earth is good.
- Demián Bichir is charismatic & likable in his 1st scene with Skarsgard, he deserved a far better developed villain.
- Score is very good although I get why some reviewers have felt that it's not as classical or iconic as 2019s. The theme when Kong sits on the throne in the Hollow Earth in particular I liked.
- The flying snakes of the Hollow Earth are cool.
- Less jokes & quips than 2019.
- Also less cutting away from the fights.

Mixed Elements!
- As others have said the monsters seem a little too fast & weightless at times, that said I think there is still plenty of impact to them. This is more a problem while Godzilla is being slapped around by MG than it is during the G vs Kong fights.
- Good overall cast that is mostly underused/underdeveloped.
- Brian Tyree Henry gives a fun performance but it's inconsistent how much of a Alex Jones crazy guy he is suppose to be. In his scene early on gaining access to a computer inside Apex they present his annoying awkwardness as being a conscious act but then later they reveal he literally bathes in bleach & other loony stuff.
- Hall & Skarsgard do decent overall jobs. Hall seems to obviously cringe at a few lines.
- MechaGodzilla's design is mixed but is growing on me. The body shape, spines, tail & shape of head is all solid but the arms are oversized & the mouth looks overly toothless (literally)
- The film gives Kong the sympathetic tired world weariness that Godzilla had in 2014/2019 & for G replaces it with a kinda sadistic streak I don't know how to feel about. His motive of keeping all Kaiju in line comes off more like bullying here but I suppose that might be kinda the point as Kong is far more intelligent & sympathetic than the other Kaiju from 2019.

Cons!
- Godzilla's atomic breath blasting through to the Hallow Earth may be the single most preposterous, suspension of disbelief breaking thing in the history of the Godzilla franchise.
- Godzilla's fight with MechaGodzilla is way too one sided, going into curb stomp territory. Especially considering the director claims MechaG is weaker than Ghidorah.
- Human villains are straight up poor to bad overall. Both are used notably less than Charles Dance in 2019 (which is saying something as his lack of screen time was a notable problem I had with that film) and lacking in motivation FAR more than the overly criticized Emma Russell (vera farmiga). They pepper in a few tiny tidbits of motive to Demián Bichir but give absolutely ZERO to Shun Oguri who is playing Serizawa's son (apparently the novelization explains his motives & resentment towards his father but it's 100% missing from the film)
- Killing the Iwi off screen & not explaining what catastrophe has befallen Skull Island.
- Not explaining where the other Titans are (they said godzilla's attack on apex is the 1st Titan sighting in 3 years) and giving that unexplained "defeated" label about them despite Godzilla being cool with them after they bowed in 2019. The tie in graphic novel apparently fully explains this but it's still a notable inconsistency within the films themselves.
- Eiza González & Kyle Chandler are given extremely little to do.
- Lance Reddick (who I am a big fan of) is given a microscopic role with like 2 lines of dialogue, wasted even worse than he was in Angel Has Fallen.
- The character of Josh is absolutely pointless aside from giving MBB someone to talk to before she meets Bernie.
- Him partially disabling MG by pouring beer on a random computer was convenient & dumb (such is even acknowledged within the film)
- Ghidorah's skull is way too small compared to his size in 2019.

I really want to know what the original script was before the re-shoots.

The Future! (assuming more films get made)
- Unless they can get a director who can juggle large cast like the Russo brothers (yes please) then they really need to stop over stuffing the cast.
- Not sure what foe I would want next if they do another G film. a lot of fans say Destroyah and while a solid choice I am not wowed by the prospect.
- I am down with another Kong film either set after Skull Island with Larson & Loki returning or in the Hollow Earth post GVK. That said the rumored "son of kong" remake idea I am mixed on. I would prefer this Kong stay alive & rule the HE for a while.

silvermoonlight wrote:
Having watched start to finish, It's still far better than Netflix's first Godzilla train wreck attempt, downside though it is quite a ride and can be a hard slog in terms of the science as it's not done in a way that's fun, I believe this is due to the series writer being a novelist, so he's writing it in the long hand and maybe wasn't thinking about in a manner that everyone could understand.

The other issue is one of the VA dub leads has a super flat voice which is weird and jarring since he's in life or death situations, and he just doesn't react like normal people do.

I'm trying to get into the new show.....I like the goofy characters...but the guy with the glasses is a bit "Spock". It just gets annoying waiting for the Big G to appear I think I'm 5 eps in at this point.

I feel like the only one on earth who enjoyed the 3 Netflix Godzilla movies.... Well at least the ending credits music from the third one
was lovely.

Natalie the Cat wrote:Oh, is there a new Godzilla anime?

The irony being, this is the first TV anime in the franchise's history to give Godzilla center-billing, and yet he's not the focus. He's really a side character here to attract attention for a high concept premise the writer wants to explore.

For anyone interested, the writer is Toh Enjoe, whose background is as a Mathematics-heavy post-doc researcher, putting the show on Futurama-tier for "over-qualified".

Enjoe though admitted to the difficulty of adapting everything into a series of 20-minute scripts. I think he conceptualized this more as a rising-action film.

It's not like that can't work for TV, but I remember several moments where I felt out of sync as though I missed an episode "Wait, those two are captured? When did that happen? They were just leaving a ramen shop last week. Also, why were they captured?" And whole air of the show is "just go with it; we need exposit about 10 more things after this scene."

But as I said in the anime watching thread, this series is still fun, I overall really like the retooling of the premise and Jet jaguar was fantastic in virtually every scene it appears. If the ending scenes are anything to go by Godzilla will get a lot more focus next season.

Alaska Slim wrote:The irony being, this is the first TV anime in the franchise's history to give Godzilla center-billing, and yet he's not the focus. He's really a side character here to attract attention for a high concept premise the writer wants to explore.

Personally, I didn't find that too disappointing, since this season seemed to be willing to take the time to set a whole lot of things up. This Godzilla was convincing as an apocalyptic nightmare and got to hand out Shin Godzilla levels of destruction to Tokyo.

However, I would be very disappointed if they keep Big G largely offscreen next season as well. I'm also looking forward to seeing Mechagozilla and Mothra in action (if all the magical-looking moths in the Tokyo scenes were any indication, she's in the works too!)

For anyone interested, the writer is Toh Enjoe, whose background is as a Mathematics-heavy post-doc researcher, putting the show on Futurama-tier for "over-qualified".

That really is an impressive set of qualifications, although it seems like his science fiction writing is notorious for being dense and hard to understand. I'm not very surprised that this is the guy who worked everything from high-concept theoretical physics, to biology, to MD5 hashes, to Hindu mythology into a script for a Godzilla TV anime. Quite frankly, I'm surprised all this came together as well as it did. Now that that's out of the way...

It's not like that can't work for TV, but I remember several moments where I felt out of sync as though I missed an episode "Wait, those two are captured? When did that happen? They were just leaving a ramen shop last week. Also, why were they captured?" And whole air of the show is "just go with it; we need exposit about 10 more things after this scene."

But as I said in the anime watching thread, this series is still fun, I overall really like the retooling of the premise and Jet jaguar was fantastic in virtually every scene it appears.

... IMHO, you've totally nailed the most irritating thing about this series and summed it up perfectly!

I don’t get this “next season” business. Didn’t Jet Jaguar destroy Godzilla and all of the red dust? How can there be a next season when the source of all the monsters is gone (and in a closed temporal loop, no less)? I know we got the teaser at the end, but that honestly seems like a setup for a completely different show. I don’t see how Godzilla himself can have anything to do with it.