Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) - Part 1

[TheVileOne]

I believe it did. As someone who experienced 9/11 firsthand and the imagery the movie used, they nailed what they were conveying.

War of the Worlds seemed more evocative of 9/11 imagery.

 

[Iceman]

Haha, nice.

 

[Kuwolski]

Yes I'm kind of annoyed that the previews shift earlier and earlier, which means it's more difficult to find relevant comparables. If it started at 8pm like Kong 2017 then at least we could extrapolate something like 20M true Friday from 6.3M preview for KOTM (Kong got 3.7M preview, 16.4 true Friday, i.e. 4.4x multiple). But previews started super early means that 6.7M preview only leads to 12.9M true Friday (not even 2x multiple).



Saying DoA on day 1 is a bit too early but yeah, 140M domestic + 120M China + 200M other OS markets seems like best case scenario right now. With 460M WW it might break even if the production cost is 180M and not the alleged 200M+ some trade reported earlier this week. But never say never, it might rebound in domestic market like Kong (though even then 140M+ is really difficult and CS is only B+).

I know K vs G might be the last movie but as a new viewer I wish there would be a Mothra movie. Who knows she might be the Monsterverse's Wonder Woman.

Too early for sure, I'd be hesitant to jump the gun myself, but that Cinemascore is a bit depressing. Hopefully It can rebound.

 

[MahvelBaby!]

Not looking bueno for el future sigh.

 

[Sithborg]

Eh, declaring it dead after one night is silly. Looking at one of my theaters, they are near filling up the screen. Even added a screening today, I saw. Box office is a marathon, not a sprint. Its not breaking records, but it doesn't need to. As is, I am going to pick up tickets for my show tomorrow, as it is filling up quick.

 

[Flint Marko]

I really loved the first Godzilla and was looking forward to this. I'll catch it when it's available to rent but this is disappointing to hear.

Godzilla 2014 had a fairly thin story but I was invested enough to really enjoy the action when it came, which was always well-directed and immersive. But I guess it didn't kick in any sustained interest over the past 5 years.

 

[MadVillainy]

So this was ok. I kinda just don't really feel anything toward this movie and I just got out. I do like it better than the first one...I guess.

I thought the human characters were fine. Nothing special, but a huge improvement over Godzilla 2014. I thought Millie Bobby Brown was really wasted. Like you could've cast most young actresses in that role. I get why they did it. I just wish they did more with her. Especially since I'm a big Stranger Things fan. I'm a big Friday Night Lights fan and thought that Coach Taylor/Kyler Chandler was good. And Vera Farmiga always brings it.

I liked the villains. This motivation is kinda being done to death. "Humans are the disease due to the pollution and wars." I mean I get it. But it's almost always never done that well.

The humor was hit and miss. Again with that MCU syndrome of just trying to be funny at almost every turn. And it just doesn't land. I was in a pretty full theater and I could tell that it wasn't just me. The jokes had like a 40-50% landing with all of us. I thought Thomas Middleditch would be a problem with humor. But he was pretty good

Now for the monster action. I've seen a few people on Twitter and Reddit say things along the lines of "I go to Kaiju movies to see the kaijus, not the humans" as a way to shoot bail to movies with bad characters.
1) I think that's ridiculously stupid
2) When it comes to King of the Monsters, I don't even think the action was that good. Everything was shot at night with dust, snow, or whatever all in the air. The action felt like most of it was shot from the POV of a human watching it so you didn't see everything. I thought the action was really lackluster. When I watched Kong Skull Island the action was clear, it took place in day, there were a lot of wide shots. In this movie, all of that barely happened.

So yeah I thought this was and average to good movie. But I saw it like less than an hour ago and I'm already kinda forgetting it. And I don't really have a desire to watch it again.

I'm very curious about how they're going to do Godzilla vs Kong. This movie was almost way too big and with sequel escalation and certain things that happen to Godzilla in this movie, I really don't know how they will pull that off.

 

[MadVillainy]

I really loved the first Godzilla and was looking forward to this. I'll catch it when it's available to rent but this is disappointing to hear.

Godzilla 2014 had a fairly thin story but I was invested enough to really enjoy the action when it came, which was always well-directed and immersive. But I guess it didn't kick in any sustained interest over the past 5 years.

And that's the problem. 5 years is way too long to wait for a sequel nowadays. Especially if a character isn't making any other apperances in team up films etc.
With the number of blockbusters coming out every month, you can't let the audience forget about you. And they will just due to the sheer bombardment of blockbusters. You have to be really really good to be able to take a 5 year break.

Nowadays I think it you have to make the sequel within 3 years or you're running a huge risk. After that you might as well wait some more time and do one of those long awaited sequels like Tron Legacy or something

 

[redhawk23]

Critics are out of their freakin' minds these days.

This was a GREAT, wonderful blockbuster. Probably the best one so far this year.

Michael Dougherty is a gem, and clearly took some notes from both Steven Spielberg and James Cameron.

But I forgot that Kevin Feige's name isn't printed on the movie poster's credits......

The films Kevin Feige produces, for whatever their other faults remain very character focused. Everything else just kind of hangs on that. The action and even the special effects in the Marvel films aren't particularly great. Even the plots are essentially pretty thin, but the focus on character remains.

Non Marvel filmmakers seem to think the secred to Marvel's success are just quips, and so just force in some bad jokes. This isn't the case though.

 

[MadVillainy]

The desire to make human drama the core of these monster movies is always going to be a kind of damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t thing: *if* you can do it competently, it’s a solid way to make your film special compared to other monster films, but at the same time, the very premise of a monster movie is the spectacle of the monster and their destructive rampage, and it’s easy to screw up human drama when trying to frame it around monster spectacle.

We need to stop treating monster films differently.
There are plenty of movies that are able to balance their set pieces and their characters. That's what these filmmakers need to do.
I think I'm in the minority, but I thought Kong Skull Island did it well for the most part. I loved the whole Captain Ahab thing with Samuel L Jackson's characters and I liked the platoon of soldiers.
What I didn't like were Hiddelston, Brie Larson, and John C Reily (he gave a good performance but he really felt like he was in a completely different movie)

I think the real issue with the human characters is that they want to give us the gravitas of a Cloverfield or Gojira, but also the wrestlemania with the monsters: I’m accepting the fact that you can’t do both.

Unless it’s a standalone with a message and metaphor they’re trying to convey, we’re not going to care about the humans. Cloverfield, I cared about Rob and his friends, this movie, I wanted Mothra to eat Vera Farmiga.

For this Monsterverse they really could’ve kept Project Monarch with about 4 characters all in the same movies and interchange the military personnel. We don’t care about human drama for this, we wanna see a fun slugfest.

Again it's not that difficult for filmmakers to do. It's not impossible. The monsters are action set pieces. Or at least they should be treated that way. That's all they're there for, to fight. So treat them as such. Plenty of movies have great action set pieces, but still have good characters. They're not mutually exclusive. And I don't get why these monster or giant robot movies are being graded on a curve.

48 million is far from terrible. Sheesh.

Don't delude yourself 48 mill for a domestic haul opening weekend isn't good for a 170-200 million dollar movie.

 

[Kuwolski]

And that's the problem. 5 years is way too long to wait for a sequel nowadays. Especially if a character isn't making any other apperances in team up films etc.
With the number of blockbusters coming out every month, you can't let the audience forget about you. And they will just due to the sheer bombardment of blockbusters. You have to be really really good to be able to take a 5 year break.

Nowadays I think it you have to make the sequel within 3 years or you're running a huge risk. After that you might as well wait some more time and do one of those long awaited sequels like Tron Legacy or something

I'm not sure really. I think some franchises would be fine with a longer wait, it's just hard for people to get emotionally connected to a franchise built around giant monsters causing destruction. I think the first film failed with us actually caring about the human characters and since then they've stopped trying. This film is great in terms of all out monster mayhem, but it's not enough or sustainable for a GA.

 

[redhawk23]

I agree with your takes pretty much 100% blackman.

With his work on Kong Skull Island, Jordan Vogt-Roberts has thus far proven to have the best action sensibilities of the directors so far. He has gone fairly in depth about how his approach was heavily influenced by the action framing of video games, particularly Shadow of Colossus.

I wish he had come back for Godzilla vs Kong. I have my doubts about Adam Wingard.

 

[MadVillainy]

I'm not sure really. I think some franchises would be fine with a longer wait, it's just hard for people to get emotionally connected to a franchise built around giant monsters causing destruction. I think the first film failed with us actually caring about the human characters and since then they've stopped trying. This film is great in terms of all out monster mayhem, but it's not enough or sustainable for a GA.

I can't think of any recent franchise that came back and did better (either domestically, internationally, or both) after taking over 3 years for a direct sequel. Except for the franchises that come back 10 or more years later. I could be wrong. But I think 5 years is way too long. Especially when the first one wasn't a huge slam dunk

 

[Flint Marko]

Godzilla 2014 is way, way better than Kong.

Is that a hot take?

 

[DarthSkywalker]

Eh, declaring it dead after one night is silly. Looking at one of my theaters, they are near filling up the screen. Even added a screening today, I saw. Box office is a marathon, not a sprint. Its not breaking records, but it doesn't need to. As is, I am going to pick up tickets for my show tomorrow, as it is filling up quick.

It really isn't going well. Estimations of over $230m WW opening weekend, are now down to $180m.

Godzilla: King Of The Monsters Dives Lower Overseas, Eyes $130M Bow – Deadline

And yeah in this day and age, it really is a sprint. Especially in the summer months where there is something coming out every week. One of the big issues with this film seems to be that the hardcores went early, and there isn't much of an audience outside that. That doesn't really suggest legs.

 

[-JKR-]

The films Kevin Feige produces, for whatever their other faults remain very character focused. Everything else just kind of hangs on that. The action and even the special effects in the Marvel films aren't particularly great. Even the plots are essentially pretty thin, but the focus on character remains.

Non Marvel filmmakers seem to think the secred to Marvel's success are just quips, and so just force in some bad jokes. This isn't the case though.

I found this to be way more character-focused than the majority of the MCU movies. The character felt way more human and relatable than most of Feige's quippy-avatars.

 

[redhawk23]

What's really frustrating about the whole "Who care's about the humans? It has good monster fights and that's enough!" defense is that there have recently been some really good stories that integrate quality human character stories with the monster action...in comics.

Godzilla: Half Century War might be the best piece of Godzilla media produced since the 50s, even as it riffs on the entire series.

Similarly, Godzilla: Cataclysm tells the story of two brothers living in post-apocalyptic word overrun with monsters, their grandfather holding a secret possibly connected to how the world ended up that way.

Given the space to do so, there are writers that have found ways to tell meaningful, moving stories with this genre and these monsters. The stories of these Legendary films just aren't particularly great. It has nothing to do with them being monster movies and more with them being average-to-subpar Hollywood blockbusters. They don't need to be and shouldn't be graded on curve.

 

[redhawk23]

I found this to be way more character-focused than the majority of the MCU movies. The character felt way more human and relatable than most of Feige's quippy-avatars.

The characters here were as broad as they were thin and there wasn't much of a basis for much of their conflict or decisions. Take the daughter character out and almost nothing would change.

 

[Abudefduf]

The human characters in Pacific Rim were good and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

 

[Kuwolski]

I found this to be way more character-focused than the majority of the MCU movies. The character felt way more human and relatable than most of Feige's quippy-avatars.

I'm sure people will eventually see it your way and this will take off. No worries.

 

[MadVillainy]

The human characters in Pacific Rim were good and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.

I dare you tell me with a straight face the personality traits and/or character arcs for Mako or Raleigh.

 

[-JKR-]

I'm sure people will eventually see it your way and this will take off. No worries.

It's not like anyone will take this movie away from me if people don't.

What's really frustrating about the whole "Who care's about the humans? It has good monster fights and that's enough!" defense is that there have recently been some really good stories that integrate quality human character stories with the monster action...in comics.

Godzilla: Half Century War might be the best piece of Godzilla media produced since the 50s, even as it riffs on the entire series.

Similarly, Godzilla: Cataclysm tells the story of two brothers living in post-apocalyptic word overrun with monsters, their grandfather holding a secret possibly connected to how the world ended up that way.

Given the space to do so, there are writers that have found ways to tell meaningful, moving stories with this genre and these monsters. The stories of these Legendary films just aren't particularly great. It has nothing to do with them being monster movies and more with them being average-to-subpar Hollywood blockbusters. They don't need to be and shouldn't be graded on curve.

Have you actually seen this movie?

 

[Abudefduf]

I dare you tell me with a straight face the personality traits and/or character arcs for Mako or Raleigh.

Okay!

Mako was... scared of monsters? And she refused to disobey her adoptive father, because filial piety or something. But then she found her confidence with to the help of Charlie Hunnam.

Charlie Hunnam felt guilty for the death of his brother. But he got over it when he found a new partner in Mako. He was also quite cocky and stubborn? I think? Or was that the other guy?

Charlie Day was terrible.

Look, I'm not saying they were great, but at least they didn't bore me. I liked them enough to root for them instead of the kaijus.

 

[Schlosser85]

I dare you tell me with a straight face the personality traits and/or character arcs for Mako or Raleigh.

Character arcs? Raleigh making a redemptive comeback by getting into the cockpit with another co-pilot after the trauma of his brother's death, and Mako stepping out from her mentor's shadow and proving she can be a Yaeger pilot.....not complicated.

 

[Kuwolski]

It's not like anyone will take this movie away from me if people don't.

They wouldn't dream of it. Seems very personal to you.