Godzilla (2014) - - - - Part 13

[Schlosser85]

There were some awesome shots of Godzilla, especially in the final battle.

 

[terry78]

See, people were kinda going in thinking Cranston was the Raymond Burr of the flick, if you get me.

 

[GremlinZilla89]

Shallow?

Godzilla (2014) was not a deep film.

Says you.

 

[GremlinZilla89]

I wonder if any sort of fan edit could save this movie. It would be significantly shorter, that's for sure...

Nothing needs saving. It's great the way it is.

 

[GremlinZilla89]

You don't see much of the Alien in Alien but the Alien still drives the film. Even if the Alien is not present on screen the characters are indeed reacting and dealing with it. It is revealed that Weyland purposefully set them up in order to try and retrieve the Alien, Ash's secret mission.

The MUTOs are the Alien of this film. They are the source of conflict on every scale, even ultimately the Brody family drama. Remove Godzilla and little changes for much of the film.

I've made this argument elsewhere and in depth before so I'll spare you.


Also choosing to present a 300 foot monster that lumbers across a cityscape the same way other filmmakers presented a 7 foot alien in claustrophobic space ship is a questionable choice at best.

The characters in Alien are very much everymen characters but they are used in a different way. Alien is very much a haunted house film. Its does not attempt to be a drama.

In this Godzilla film they attempt to have a family drama at its center but many ultimately do not find the family compelling. I actually did find the father/son dynamic to be quite strong, and even once abandoning that the basic "I gotta get back to my family" story could have worked better than it did.

Olson has not a damn thing to do. Audience stand-ins need not be complete blank slates or non-active participants.

Disagree entirely. But whatever. We aren't going to change each others mind.

And I simply don't see why your first point is an issue.

 

[GremlinZilla89]

See, people were kinda going in thinking Cranston was the Raymond Burr of the flick, if you get me.

You mean he was going to be lazily edited in by studio heads to make the film more palatable for audiences?

 

[terry78]

Haha, hey, that's what a lot of older folks that weren't Japanese remember from Godzilla sans the monster himself.

 

[John Locke]

Apparently this is a still from young Ford's bedroom. In the universe of the film a, MUTO film already exists!

I'm watching it right now and yeah it's in there. It's actually kinda hard to miss although I did the two times I saw it in the theater. After Ford walks out the room it pans to a model of one of the Apollo's (I think) and behind it is the poster.

 

[TheVileOne]

They needed Cranston on the aircraft carrier arguing it out with Serizawa and the Admiral to strategize on all this.

Watanabe was not up to the task for his film, granted he did not get very good direction from Edwards.

 

[Leenie]

Having Joe sacrifice himself toward the end would have been stronger, I think.

As it is, he's the only character who gains human interest, and then they kill him off within the first half an hour, offscreen no less!

It's a bit slapdash.

I agree with this for the most part. Joe needed to stay throughout the course of the film. It would have created a good father-son dynamic throughout the movie, too. I feel that the general audience would have felt more of an emotional attachment to the main characters if Joe had not been killed so early on.

I liked Aaron Taylor Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, and Ken Watanabe just fine in the movie, but the movie probably would have been elevated in quality big time if they had kept Cranston in most of the movie. Heck, a lot of people probably wouldn't have complained about all of the "hiding" or "teasing" of Godzilla if this were the case.

As is, though, I don't view Godzilla as a deep movie at all, but I think it's a really fun monster flick. I've actually missed these kind of movies, and I think this was kind of a breath of fresh air (or a breath of nuclear fire? I dunno ). Can't help but think how much better the movie COULD have been if Cranston had actually been around longer, though.

 

[redhawk23]

http://stomp.godzillamovie.com/

Godzilla stomps your neighborhood.

Typing in the White House's address is pretty hilarious.

 

[MrMaooz]

Honest Trailers-Godzilla

[YT]LOyVy7CTUJE[/YT]

 

[Boom]

Real Kaiju Have Curves.

 

[Maximus One]

I really didn't like this movie. And I really wanted to

 

[ShadowBoxer]

The honest trailers guys nailed it on the head with this movie (even though they are being humorous). People tried to stand me down here back in May when I said Godzilla is barely in the movie and only has about 10 mins if screen time in a TWO HOUR movie with his name on it. There were people saying Godzilla was in the movie for 20- 30 mins. I was like you saw an entirely diffrent movie. This movie is simply boring and only worth watching for the last 1 fight scene that's over in like 5 mins. One of the biggest disappointments of 2014.

 

[Lencho01]

He was in it for almost 8 minutes...

[YT]9YsnZ4bYIjs[/YT]

 

[Sithborg]

Which isn't exactly uncommon in a Godzilla movie. Having seen 30 of these films, I guess it didn't bother me as much.

 

[Thoix]

I have no issue with Godzilla's screen time. I felt his presence through out the whole movie, even before you showed up on screen at all. Plus all his scenes were top notch.

 

[Donut]

I'm guessing Godzilla gets more screen time in the sequel. Or the sequel will have a good chance of making less then this first one. The sequel will loose the curious audience if nothing changes

 

[Sithborg]

We will see. We are potentially looking at 3 other monsters. Mothra's life cycle has a tendency to take up screen time.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

I have no issue with Godzilla's screen time. I felt his presence through out the whole movie, even before you showed up on screen at all. Plus all his scenes were top notch.

Yep, agreed. Like otherwise mentioned, the Toho & Heisei films also had Godzilla on screen for a limited time too. Hell, in the original he was on screen for maybe...5, 6 minutes. 8 tops.

 

[Roose Bolton]

I can't imagine that they'd include Godzilla's three biggest enemies in one film and not cut loose when it came to monster mayhem.

 

[craigdbfan]

Yep, agreed. Like otherwise mentioned, the Toho & Heisei films also had Godzilla on screen for a limited time too. Hell, in the original he was on screen for maybe...5, 6 minutes. 8 tops.

I'm surprised by the amount of people who seem to think otherwise. The other monsters that Godzilla faces typically get a good chunk of the screen time and that's now even mentioning the human subplots which were ridiculously convoluted and focused on during the Heisei/Millennium eras with Godzilla being used sparingly throughout to really make you cheer for him when he does come into play.

 

[Defacto]

He was in it for almost 8 minutes...

[YT]9YsnZ4bYIjs[/YT]

Those scenes and the ones with Cranston are basically the only scenes worth watching. I also find it lame to compare this to Alien or Jaws even, because in those movies, the characters were actually interesting.

And I can't believe just how childish that ending is. The city is totally ruined, probably millions of people dead, nuke fallout to worry about, and the news can only come with "the king of monsters, saviour of our city?". And people actually cheering. So freaking dumb. I really really wanted to like this movie, but it's impossible.

 

[A Necessary Evil]

I'm surprised by the amount of people who seem to think otherwise. The other monsters that Godzilla faces typically get a good chunk of the screen time and that's now even mentioning the human subplots which were ridiculously convoluted and focused on during the Heisei/Millennium eras with Godzilla being used sparingly throughout to really make you cheer for him when he does come into play.

Yep. I do tend to wonder if most of these "the other Godzilla films had him on screen for loads of time!" tend to reminisce about the...other "Godzilla" movie. You know. That one.