Monster movie throw-down: Godzilla or Pacific Rim?

[slumcat]

DISCLAIMER

No feelings of any of the two movies are meant to be hurt.

No feelings of any of the people involved with any of the two movies are meant to be hurt.

No feelings of any of the fans of any of the two movies are meant to be hurt.

This is just a poll for fun. Please don't ask for a BOTH option. Sometimes its just fun to pick.

With that out of the way...

Last 2 major Monster Movies - both made by WB and Legendary, both with a heavy Asian influence, both with Asian cast members in a leading role, both with relative newbies in the lead role, both with older character actors in supporting roles, both with decent reviews.

Which did you like more and why?

 

[Thundercrack85]

Pacific Rim was too cheesy for me, but I did like the designs a lot. Plus, giant robots are awesome.

At least the protagonist in Pacific Rim made sense, whereas in Godzilla, it really stretched suspension of disbelief that he kept popping up.

That said, the film does a great job leading up to Godzilla, but once he shows up, it doesn't seem to know what to do with him, because it's only an hour into the movie.

So... I'm undecided.

 

[DarkSovereignty]

Two VERY different movies, in terms on tone and ambition, I'll go with Godzilla though, I really like Pacific Rim, but I loved Godzilla.

 

[Figs]

I'm going to go with Godzilla but I'll admit that's partly due to a bit of bias. I've been a long time fan of the character like so many others. Pacific Rim was fun and had a lot of cool action scenes but that final fight in Godzilla was great.

 

[slumcat]

Pacific Rim was too cheesy for me, but I did like the designs a lot. Plus, giant robots are awesome.

At least the protagonist in Pacific Rim made sense, whereas in Godzilla, it really stretched suspension of disbelief that he kept popping up.

That said, the film does a great job leading up to Godzilla, but once he shows up, it doesn't seem to know what to do with him, because it's only an hour into the movie.

So... I'm undecided.

I find it absolutely preposterous. Very inelegant writing. He just happened to be in Japan at that time and then in Hawaii and ofcourse then the climax had to happen in SF because the wife and child are there.

And it seemed like a major editing mishap to me that in the climax, he goes from seeing Godzilla fall to the boat scene where a lot of time should have passed but the attack by the moth on the boat has proceeded just a few seconds.

 

[Blitzkrieg Bop]

I loved the concept of Pacific Rim, but the movie never clicked for me. I quite enjoyed Godzilla.

 

[flickchick85]

I liked Pacific Rim alright, more than I expected to from the marketing, but I loved Godzilla. Both had shoddy scripts and bland leads, imo, but the monsters (aka, the main draw) were far more effective and awe-inspiring in Godzilla to me.

 

[Rowsdower!]

I still need to see Godzilla, but I caught the end of Pacific Rim again yesterday on HBO. It's amazing how cheesy and stupid that movie is. I had only seen it once in the theater and thought it was dumb but entertaining. But watching it again made me realize that it's just dumb. Godzilla HAS to be better than that, right?

 

[BrollySupersj]

Please don't do this to me!

 

[X Knight]

Godzilla by far!!

although, it's kind of hard to compare them, because they are 2 very different movies.

 

[Asteroid-Man]

Pacific Rim had lots of action and a shallow plot. Godzilla had a loooot of build up to one amazing action scene and a storyline with gravitas. Godzilla wins it for me.

 

[pr0xyt0xin]

Godzilla by far.

Cloverfield would be a closer match.

 

[Spider-Fan]

These films represent 2 opposite ends of the monster movie spectrum. But, while I liked Pacific Rim, I was far more enthralled with Godzilla. So, Godzilla.

 

[DA_Champion]

Godzilla has better human characters and doesn't internally contradict its pseudoscience, so it wins for me.

Pacific Rim has a better score, but that's not enough to overcome its problems.

 

[Lighthouse]

I like both but Pacific Rim was more entertaining and while cheesy had human characters I actually cared about. Godzilla's characters had absolutely no pulse, and is only saved by an incredible final act.

 

[Boom]

Godzilla. I hated Pacific Rim.

 

[ironwez20]

Godzilla by far. hated the characters in PR

 

[Thundercrack85]

I wouldn't say I hated any of the characters in Godzilla, but Ford was pushing it, by apparently being the only man who could do blank when blank was needed. And other than his parents, his whole family, was rather irrelevant, and the movie could have done without them.

 

[DA_Champion]

Mostly copied and pasted from my Pacific Rim review, with some small redactions:

Where Pacific Rim fails is in terms of characterisation. A lot of moments are simply too cliche, and thus pulled me out of the movie. The two scientists are caricatures: we have one biology specialist and one physics specialist. Both are poorly-groomed 5'6" dweebs with poor social skills. Neither of these two characters have any staff to help them out [Edit: Pacific Rim has the same perception of science as Marvel's Agents of Shield]. We see them work things out on a giant blackboard but not on a computer, an appeal to outdated cliches. One of them later accesses the neural network technology without any prior training or assistance -- by stealing it. I have to give the movie props though: A lot of Hollywood films or productions have a single expert for both biology and physics. Here, they recognise the need for two experts, it's a step in the right direction.

All of the military people are in the range of 6'1" - 6'4" except for one female, in spite of the fact that neural networks ("drift compatibility") is a special skill that shouldn't select for being on the high school basketball team. They get into brawls with each other, to let us know they're tough. Every character in this movie is an archetype.

A huge number of characters have British accents. This is a cheap trick Hollywood uses to make us feel like we are on some great adventure far away -- they use British accents. It doesn't work on me anymore, I just notice the trick, and that Hollywood has a comparable concentration of british accents to the UK.

When Idris Elba's character is about to go an important mission, he gives "the speech". This is where a large crowd surrounds an alpha male as he gives a monologue about the stakes being high, about how we need heroism, and about how we're going to win. When he's done, people cheer and clap, kind of like after the president speaks in "Independence Day".

On gender and race, an important issue to me, performance is mediocre. The one female character of note turns into a love interest for the primary male character. She is the only female characters with lines and a name. She is also asian, and she makes stereotypical remarks against creativity and risk-taking to the white, male, American character. At least she has a productive arc ...

The movie, which is supposed to have a theme of the entire world working together to solve problems, ends with the 6'1" white american male being the last man standing, being the final dude to save the day.

10/10 for monster fights, the score, the special effects
4/10 for characters and dialogue

 

[Marvin]

Pacific Rim had lots of action and a shallow plot. Godzilla had a loooot of build up to one amazing action scene and a storyline with gravitas. Godzilla wins it for me.

I personally don't understand this. Godzilla had a bunch of set pieces throughout. I'd even qualify that reactor scene at the start(see the first act of blue jasmine to see no set piece action for example). Godzilla has a handfull of 'action' including monsters even, from start to finish. It just chooses to tease/pull back the in frame monster on monster action till the end.

I personally think Godzilla shares alot with MOS in various ways. I would imagine the people that championed PRim last year, might find more to like in that(Rim) film over Zilla. Reading the novels, I myself choose Prim over Godzilla. The humans have so much more pulpy stuff going on, the feat of solo piloting and being the underdog and such.

If anything I wonder if the directors of these two films switched. Reading the Prim novel I can only imagine. And GDT might offer Godzilla some of that indulgence I've heard fans clamoring for.

 

[Ultron-5]

Godzilla. I liked Pacific Rim, but I liked Godzilla better.

 

[craigdbfan]

Gojira.

 

[ShadowBoxer]

Pacific Rim has the better monster/ Kiiju fights by far. But it also has a cartoonish story with terrible dialogue and thin characters.

Godzilla has the better character development and human drama. However, the slow build up and short glimpses of Godzilla and fights turned me off.

As a monster fight movie, I prefer Pacific Rim overall

I even prefer Cloverfield over Godzilla.

Godzilla didn't give me the epic fight or pay off I wanted. A two hour Godzilla movie with boring paper thin human characters ( besides Bryan Cranston) and one short climax fight didn't do it for me. The two quick scenes where Godzilla does the atomic breath is cool but not as cool as any of the awesome fights in Pacific Rim. Also, Godzilla literally only has like 15 mins of screen time..

 

[Sithborg]

It's like having to choose my favorite child. (Yes, it's you Godzilla)

 

[Asteroid-Man]

I personally don't understand this. Godzilla had a bunch of set pieces throughout. I'd even qualify that reactor scene at the start(see the first act of blue jasmine to see no set piece action for example). Godzilla has a handfull of 'action' including monsters even, from start to finish. It just chooses to tease/pull back the in frame monster on monster action till the end.

I personally think Godzilla shares alot with MOS in various ways. I would imagine the people that championed PRim last year, might find more to like in that(Rim) film over Zilla. Reading the novels, I myself choose Prim over Godzilla. The humans have so much more pulpy stuff going on, the feat of solo piloting and being the underdog and such.

If anything I wonder if the directors of these two films switched. Reading the Prim novel I can only imagine. And GDT might offer Godzilla some of that indulgence I've heard fans clamoring for.

By action I obviously meant between giants. Not humans.