American Godzilla 2.0

[LegionWrex]

"You are not fooling anybody when you say that what happened was a natural disaster. You're lying. It was not an earthquake, it wasn't a typhoon. Because what's really happening is that you're hiding something out there. And it's gonna send us back to the stone age. God help us all."

Bryan Cranston will make this movie. Trust me.

[Bagheera]

This is a pretty cool chart depicting size of G14 based on estimations so far:


150 meters is almost too big, actually.

It's actually a lot more interesting if you look at the progression over time. Instead of getting bigger with every iteration he got bigger for awhile, dropped back to his original size, and then grew again. The current American incarnation is just stupidly large by comparison.

Also, pardon my ignorance, but Tokusatsu? I always thought legit Gojira was Toho.

[Blue Monday]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokusatsu

It's actually a lot more interesting if you look at the progression over time. Instead of getting bigger with every iteration he got bigger for awhile, dropped back to his original size, and then grew again.

Yeah one of the things I admire about some of the Millennium films is that they take Godzilla back to his original 50 meters.

I reckon this film is going to use the enormous scale to full-effect, though.

Word. Godzilla (1984) was my first Godzilla film.
Such nostalgia.

[Chuckman]

They seem to be depicting Godzilla as a natural disaster more than an embodiment of nuclear power, so making him a goddamn mountain makes sense.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

They seem to be depicting Godzilla as a natural disaster more than an embodiment of nuclear power, so making him a goddamn mountain makes sense.

To be fair, the Japanese only truly portrayed Godzilla as the embodiment of nuclear power once in 1954 and again starting the 80's throughout the 90's. Everything else was just him pretending to be Ultraman or something like that.

[UrsusArctos]

150 meters is almost too big, actually.

They probably scaled him up to match the Kaiju in Pacific Rim. That works, though, because a 150-meter titan is infinitely scarier than a 50-meter giant dinosaur.

[Blue Monday]

To be fair, the Japanese only truly portrayed Godzilla as the embodiment of nuclear power once in 1954 and again starting the 80's throughout the 90's. Everything else was just him pretending to be Ultraman or something like that.

Pretty much exactly this.

Also Chuckman, there's no reason why he can't both be depicted as a "force of nature" and an "embodiment of nuclear power" in this film. If done right the two aren't mutually exclusive, and I reckon that's the angle they'll work at here.

They probably scaled him up to match the Kaiju in Pacific Rim.

You're probably right. Slattern (Category V on the Serizawa Scale) at 181 meters effectively still manages to dwarf a hypothetical 120 meter Godzilla.

[CJD]

The difference of course being we largely see Slattern in comparison to the Jaegers so the scale doesn't come across the same.

Plus I'd still bet on the King of the Monsters in a fight.

[Chuckman]

Pretty much exactly this.

Also Chuckman, there's no reason why he can't both be depicted as a "force of nature" and an "embodiment of nuclear power" in this film. If done right the two aren't mutually exclusive, and I reckon that's the angle they'll work at here.



You're probably right. Slattern (Category V on the Serizawa Scale) at 181 meters effectively still manages to dwarf a hypothetical 120 meter Godzilla.

The limited info we have suggests they're using him as a metaphor for climate change, or the effects of deforestation or the negative environmental impact of industrial civilization in general. Something that is woken up by progress and progress will ultimately fail to stop.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Oh, Roland Emmerich still takes the cake when it comes to global analogies- um... exaggerated depiction on film. And it wasn’t even in the Godzilla movie he directed.

Honestly, I see it really hard to construct the King of the Monsters as an allegory to Global Warming. The way the original 1954 accomplished its nuclear analogies with Gojira was by having the monster return after some length of time to kill the survivors of his previous attack, painting a similarity in how the deadly effects of radiation poisoning takes months or even years to finally kill those who had originally survived the initial exposure.

In that sense, it would be really weird to see a Godzilla movie follow the symptoms of global warming that closely with Godzilla 2014. In order to achieve that same effect and technical accuracy as the radiation allegory had, we would need a mvid depicting multiple Godzillas scattered across the Earth, each inflicting their own uniques forms of destruction within their localized territories. Some Godzillas might have a cold blast to their breath, while other Godzillas would have such a hot blast from their breath that they melt everything in its path. Each of these different species of Godzilla would live in the environment where their destruction would cause the most harm.

And that would just be a silly movie. (Though, if the characters within the film merely suggested that possibility, I guess that silliness wouldn’t be as forefront as if they had actually shown it.)

Instead, the only way I could see someone painting Godzilla 2014 as an allegory to global warming is to have the whole “blame man for everything” spin on the story, which was a staple of the original 1954 film that absolutely no relation to global warming or its effects. So, really it might just end up being viewers imposing their interpretation on a rather standard slate instead of an artist painting a more specific picture for us, à la the 1954 Gojira film.

My personal, way-out-there theory for the movie is that the text Godzilla will be a giant monster attacking a heavily populated city. The sub-text for Godzilla might also be a giant monster attacking a heavily populated city with an emphasis on certain individuals of the population. Only time will tell if I’m right, I guess.

EDIT: The line about “Bring us back to the stone age” is rather associated with Global Warming, I guess. Though, that’s also the effect of anything that would prove humans aren’t as fit to survive on Earth’s surface as we had once thought we were. So I still stand that it will mostly be our interpretation of the standard destruction plot over an artist’s attempt to paint a more specific message with his film.

[movieartman]

To be fair, the Japanese only truly portrayed Godzilla as the embodiment of nuclear power once in 1954 and again starting the 80's throughout the 90's. Everything else was just him pretending to be Ultraman or something like that.

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) also did, more so than the 90s ones, it had godzilla being influenced by the spirits of the war dead, coming back to life to punish the Japanese for forgetting there past, both there own crimes and there ancestors suffering.

tis one of my top 3 favorite godzilla films, and its a truly terrifying portrayal of Big G

[Blue Monday]

When I think “destructive force of nature”, I think less about being an allegory of natural disaster or whatever and more just about representation of the character itself. Meaning he’s not a character that is intelligent; talks, plots, schemes, et cetera - Nor exactly is he a rabid, wild beast. Creators often use the term “force of nature” to describe the slow, ponderous and unknowing inevitability of the monster’s path or actions – Something that cannot be reasoned with or negotiated all the same. Kind of reminds me of whenever Marvel talk about Galactus in their comics, they use that same term; a “force of nature”.

Not saying they won’t or can’t use themes of whichever hot topic environmental issue in the film. In fact they most likely will. And from the trailer we also see numerous shots of atom bombs and nuclear warheads so all that jazz is going to be in there too. What’s the bet that survivors of Godzilla raids will eventually start to succumb to radiation sickness just like in the original.


@Movie Art: I love me some GMK. My other favourites include the original, Mothra vs Godzilla (1964), Godzilla (1984), vs Biollante (1989), vs Destroyah (1995) and Godzilla against Mechagodzilla (2002).

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) also did, more so than the 90s ones, it had godzilla being influenced by the spirits of the war dead, coming back to life to punish the Japanese for forgetting there past, both there own crimes and there ancestors suffering.

tis one of my top 3 favorite godzilla films, and its a truly terrifying portrayal of Big G

Gojira the Ghost Whisperer? Why haven’t I seen this yet?

I do need to catch up on the Millennium Series. So far I’ve only seen Godzilla 2000, the two Mechagodzilla movies, and Final Wars.

[Blue Monday]

GMK is hands down the best of the Millennium series. It was also directed by Shusuke Kaneko who did the 90s Gamera trilogy; arguably the greatest daikaiju eiga out there (with special effects from Shinji Higuchi).

Whilst it is good however, his Godzilla movie doesn't compare to said trilogy at all.

[Chuckman]

[quote="FreakyFilmFan4ever"][/quote]

Metaphor and allegory needn't be that specific. Example: The Lord of the Rings is full of allegory for Tolkien's experience of the Great War, but every single character and concept doesn't match up to an aspect of that conflict- it is merely informed by it.

The point isn't that Godzilla mimics the effect of climate change, but rather the principle of tampering with things beyond our ken and discovering that our devices are incapable of protecting us once we've let the genie out of the bottle.

It's actually the same, on a conceptual level, as the nuclear allegory, but climate change is more relevant today. If anything nuclear power could save us from climate change but that is debate for another thread.

I haven't seen the movie yet so I can't say for sure, but the trailer sure makes the point that the ultimate expression of human progress, the harnessed forces of creation itself, cannot stop the monster.

[Bagheera]

IOW it doesn't have to be a one for one allegory to be meaningful and relevant.

[FreakyFilmFan4ever]

Hm. I guess “allegory of X” and “embodiment of X” are two different concepts. The 1954 film was certainly the embodiment of nuclear and hydrogen war heads, which would contain a lot of allegorical/metaphorical attributes by default. All an allegory needs to do is simply remind the viewer of something specific, and wouldn’t need to be the embodiment of anything in order to do so.

So, I guess I can see Godzilla 2014 as an allegory to global warming, reminding its viewers of the subject at hand. But I certainly can’t see him become the embodiment of that concept in as strong a fashion (or even in any fashion) in the same way Gojira was the embodiment of harmful nuclear destruction.

[Dataprime]

If this film is a hit, maybe it might convince TOHO to produce more Godzilla movies.
I mean it's been 10 years since the last one was released. So I'm sure everyone
here (and around the world) is hungry for more of the big G.

[Blue Monday]

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2014/02/28/weve-seen-over-20-minutes-of-godzilla-and-want-to-tell-you-all-about-it-context-themes-and-character/

"So, in our movie, it is very much the man v nature theme. And the Nuclear theme is very present..."

Caved and read some of the scenes detailed.
Sounds very, very promising.

[Chuckman]

I'm so fucking hyped the club can't even handle me right now.