Legendary Pictures' Godzilla

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Harbinger O Great Justice
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So, while I'm not the biggest fan of this dude's presentation, he covers the changes to Godzilla between the 2014 and 2019 really well:


Aside from the spikes, whose designs I mentioned on the poster, I hadn't really been immediately aware of any of them having not really looked too closely at the new figures / statue designs that they showed, because I have a 2014 Godzilla statue in my living room, and figured that they hadn't made too many changes worth noting. I have to say that I'm a HUGE fan of all the alterations they've put in place. The lack of toes was one of the only things that I didn't like about the 2014 Godzilla design, and all of the other changes that they've made to slightly-more-closely reflect the designs of the original in his more muscular and flight-y designs are really great.

The other thing that I like is that for the most part, the changes are minor enough that most of them could be explained by Godzilla just being dormant and going back to being active – the more defined musculature and the blunted end of his tail are likely a result of being active and using his tail as a weapon. I've seen someone even suggest that the look of his spikes could be seen as mineral build-up that's cracked off if you wanted to have a good head-canon for the minor adjustments to all his designs.

They're all really little changes, but together they definitively make the 2019 Godzilla my clear favourite over the 2014 version.

EDIT: This picture is the perfect follow-up:

Dup4eGjXQAE7Wc2.jpg:large




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George Root III lifted the oxygen mask from his face in the intensive care unit at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Tuesday and whispered three words: "King of Monsters." He meant the long-awaited blockbuster film "Godzilla: King of the Monsters" set to hit theaters in May. The stage 4 cancer that started in Root's kidney four years ago and spread through his body has now attacked his lungs.

A devoted Godzilla fan since childhood, he has been waiting to see the film since before he was diagnosed. Now, he likely won't live to see it. That is, unless, his friend and owner of the Transit Drive-In Rick Cohen can pull some major strings. Cohen and Root met 20 years ago through Root's affection for the drive-in. Root was president of the Western New York Drive-In Movie Society.

"There's only one thing George loves more than the drive-in, and that's Godzilla," Cohen said.

Root, a Lockport resident and former newspaper reporter, was diagnosed with renal cell carcinoma in December 2015. As his prognosis got worse, he had hoped to hang on until the movie's original release date, scheduled for June last year. Delays pushed the release back to May, but Root likely has days to live, not months. "He was hoping he could hold on for just a couple more months," said Cohen. "He really wanted to see it before his time is up."
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1103347274812452865

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1103386141171089408

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1103491414028111874

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1103686560023699456

Friend and Transit Drive-In owner Rick Cohen said the last-ditch effort by fans from around the country would have warmed his heart. “The family was very touched by the outpouring of kindness and support,” Cohen said. “If George had been more alert, he’d have been thrilled.”
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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1103699175043145731

The director retweeted the last of the above tweets, and also shared this today.
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1103772280541179904



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ChipNoir

Pro Adventurer
The Twilight Mexican said:
@ChipNoir
Smog Monster fans unite!
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It has so much potential for a modern itteration what with global warming and pollution being a problem. I can vividly imagine Hedorah being as born from a science experiment to create a synthetic bacteria that universally eats pollutants (as we're discovery exist already) but rapidly grows into a massive monster.
 
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Harbinger O Great Justice
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The Godzilla Tracking site's been updated at some point and Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, & Ghidorah are all moving. Additionally there're a list of alerts on the bottom of the page:
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: A large current of boiling water is slowly moving north off the coast of Alaska. Monarch satellite tracking currently underway.
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: Unidentified fossil discovered at an archaeological dig site outside of Rio de Janeiro. Monarch Science team requested for assistance with specimen identification.
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: Godzilla travelling unusually close to ocean surface. Advisory sent to vessels passing through his projected course heading.
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: Seismic “heartbeat” detected in German mountain range is increasing in speed. Dr. Graham notified.
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: Cyclonic energy storm moving at high speeds across Western France. Monarch tracking scans in progress. Monarch Operatives in the region are urged to report any findings to @monarchsciences.
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: A hypnotic Titansong has been reported echoing through a mountain pass in rural China. Dr. Chen conducting audio forensic analysis.
  • ⋈ MONARCH ALERT: Seismic volcanic pulses emanating in Isla De Mara, Mexico. Monarch Outpost 56 on red alert.
  • Titanus Gojira location: Lat: ??? Long: ???



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Lulcielid

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Eyes of the Lord
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Lulcy
Theozilla

Theozilla

Kaiju Member
I saw Godzilla: KOTM a few days ago. I had a great time. Colorful and exciting fun movie. It was a love letter to the Shōwa era Godzilla films of old. While not Bryan Cranston deep, the human characters are engaging and the actors are having fun with their roles, and are far more memorable and lively than Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen characters from the 2014 film. Long time Godzilla fans will be able to spot plenty of well incorporated homages and staples from the long-running Toho monster movies.

If I had one complaint, it was the dad character could get a little grating during the first half of the film, since he got pegged into the “outsider brought in to tell everyone how to do their own jobs” trope a bit, but not enough to be a complete drag. I honestly don't understand the criticisms from some the negative reviews I skimmed through that said the human characters were one-dimensionally boring. I mean they were no more flat than the even bigger ensembles casts of the various Avenger films. And as others have stated better before me, while I don’t have that much of an issue for critics disliking Godzilla: KOTM (i.e. having a low RT meter score) by itself; what I do find kinda galling is the undercurrent (if not outright explicit) of contempt/condescension many reviews seemed to have for the giant monster/tokusatsu genre inherently. Like any of the Godzilla films other than the 1954 original (and maybe Shin Godzilla and/or the 2014 film) are junk not deserving of cinematic respect. Which is upsetting since Godzilla: KOTM was essentially a modern-day Shōwa Godzilla film with a major Hollywood studio budget. You could tell that Michael Dougherty had nothing but love for the old Godzilla movies, not just the 1954 original.

Anyways the the film was an audio-visual treat for the senses, definitely recommend going to see if you can!
 
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I think that aside from the dad character being the, “outsider brought in to tell everyone how to do their own jobs” trope, the only thing that bothered me a tiny little bit was that it didn't have the same focus on the scale of realistic destruction that I unabashedly loved from the first film. There are some times where you'll see Godzilla moving by ships but that wake isn't pushing them away in absolutely enormous waves because of the actual mass displacement, but rather the "rule of cool" of seeing them moving towards the same destination together. By the same extension, there wasn't the same Katrina-like desperation to find someone that the first film had and the groups always seem to be able to somewhat easily reunite with one another even in the midst of destruction.

Those are just a super minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things though, because this is VERY much more in the spirit of a "Vs." era of Godzilla film, and in the Vs. films, those two elements tend to be a bit more like they are in this film. On top of that, it absolutely NAILS all of the other important points for the Vs. films, and it also has some really amazing hat-tips, homages, and encounters. It is just SO damned good.

The one that really got me the most was the military's sudden reveal of the Oxygen Destroyer Missile already being en-route, and Dr. Serizawa having to sacrifice himself to go down solo with a nuclear warhead, and bring Godzilla back from the brink of death. It was an abolutely perfect juxtaposition to how on the original 1954 film Dr. Serizawa chose to sacrifice his own life in order to destroy Godzilla and also to keep the weapon out of the hands of anyone else that also truly represents the difference in how Godzilla is occasionally portrayed as the inevitable destruction caused by mistreating the environment that needs to be stopped, and who's come to eventually embody the force who ensures that that balance is kept at all costs, and can't be destroyed by humans but needs to be accepted. The Hollow Earth transport to let Godzilla show up in the Atlantic and have the sort of glowing wake of appearance that you always got when Godzilla was going to arrive in the previous films that adds more weight than just the boiling water and light from the dorsal spines.

Overall, I think that they did a spectacular job giving each of the Kaiju a spectacular emphasis of their individual personalities. You get the sense that Godzilla is tough as nails, and that he really is willing to respect humans if they're going to show respect for him. They're not fully on the same page yet, but the moment between him and Serizawa was really genuinely felt. It was a huge sacrifice, because it destroyed Godzilla's ancient home & retreat to give him the strength he needed (which is gonna be important later), and it meant that a lot of that was lost for good. Mothra was dangerous, but also caring. You get the sense of how she perceives humans with slightly more care than Godzilla does, and does so differently. On top of that, you also get to see that Godzilla is her top priority. Rodan is the neutral party where he's following the flow, and isn't evil and but he is exceptionally destructive, and oftentimes is pitted against the others via the controlling machinations of a third party – in this case Ghidorah. Ghidorah was excellent. Each of his heads had its own personality. They each looked at and regarded various entities and motivations, and there's an intelligent and nigh-on-unstoppable malice once he gets into his own power, and the Kaiju everywhere start popping up.

I also loved connecting the character(s) of Dr. Chen to the previous generations of the films with their mother & grandmother for the Mothra films. Mothra's portrayal was spot on during the films. As the larval stage, you get the sense of how they're genuinely terrifying, but I love that they're the first to establish contact with her in a way that helps really give her a closer connection to the humans in the film. I love that they don't over-emphasize, but it's also made clear that she's not responding to Ghidorah's calls the entire time and she's ALWAYS focused on Godzilla. (The joke about them having a thing was fun, and related: the eyespots on her wings are designed to look like his eyes). Behemoth, Scylla, & Methuselah were really cool new Kaiju, and I loved that we got to see another MUTO (here are all of the names of the 17 on the screen). Rodan was utilized perfectly as the pseudo ally / unwilling antagonist. I loved how they still had Rodan seemingly die while they used Mothra to get the same effect that Godzilla did after Fire Rodan's Death in Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla II, and also the way that it used both the biting, binding, and draining that Kaiser Ghidorah does as well as Godzilla's Meltdown from Godzilla Vs. Destroyah but with a really excellent twist (the wake up reveal had me on edge). Add to that the way that Ghidorah was revealed as a sudden alternate alpha and the "unnatural alien" regeneration reveal was absolutely matched by the "We'll take it." aftercredit scene. It managed to really cement Ghidorah as STILL unprecedented in how overly powerful and terrifying he is, and the fact that he'll inevatably return even more terrifying than before.

On top of that, it all lead back in to how Godzilla Vs. Kong is gonna set up, and I unabashedly love it.

Skull Island is clearly being set up to be the location for these films' Infant Island / Monster Island as all of the Kaiju start relocating after King of the Monsters, and the post-meltdown victory Godzilla is gonna have to square up as the "invading" force to stake his right as King over Kong on the island. Kong's got his intelligence and home territory, and it manages to place both of them in a way where both sides feel like neither is the "bad guy" and that it's a rivalry that's happening naturally. Especially with Godzilla constantly roaming the oceans, there's potential for audiences to genuinely not know who's going to come out victorious, and I really love that. If somehow they have to team up to go after Ghidorah again, I'm all for the battle of the kings. Also, I really hope that we get to spend some more time with the larval stage of Mothra, since she's the queen regardless of who's king.

I needed to really sit and soak in all the things that I loved, but yeah – the two Legendary films really just nailed this depiction of Godzilla to really be what the series needed him to be to embody to be excellent for however many films they want to build on. I'm here for it.



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Harbinger O Great Justice
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Harbinger O Great Justice
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Here's the one key differentiation in scale / realism of mass displacement destruction between the 2014 & 2019 films that I was sort of disappointed with. The first film had SO MANY good shots of this, it felt like with the massive increase in scale, having some more attention to those details would be really nice.


There is plenty more destruction as a result of the Kaiju DOING things (Rodan's flying being a good example), but I think that having some more establishing shots to let the increase in scale really sink in would've done a lot for King of the Monsters. I miss the destruction that happens just from the mere PRESENCE of the Kaiju just based on their sheer mass – so that the actual combat destruction has an even more significant scale. That being said, the bleak reality of the destruction almost certainly would've shifted emotions more significantly at the human character factions though.

(I really can't wait to be able to watch the films back-to-back, but I've barely got anything set up here in Sweden still, and all my stuff is still a few weeks out from showing up, so I'll probably have to wait to do it once it's out on BluRay).

Also, it's been worth adding that Toho has been really awesome and cooperative about all of the things that this film did, which is probably assisted by the director being such a deeply wonderful Godzilla fan.


It's so interesting, I remember feeling rather lukewarm on it a few times right around seeing it, but aside from the destruction lens, they were all around the differences of Godzilla films, and now it just makes me so SO happy to look back on it, and I really want to just go watch it again.



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https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1135067162303799296

In Japan, Godzilla: King of the Monsters landed 677 million yen on 479,000 admissions, for a two-day opening gross. That makes it 133.1% of Legendary's Godzilla (2014) and 108.3% of Toho's Shin Godzilla (2016). So, that makes me glad to hear that it's being well-received so far in Japan.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1135168732664406017

Also, the director's sharing out some fun little confirmations to fans noticing Easter Eggs in the film:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1136256506922508288
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1136218223681187843
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1136215237907177472
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1136212857379545088
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1136208610432864256

Also, this is 100% the kind of kid I was at that age, so it makes me stoked to see he was, too:
https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1135249784493789195




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The Twilight Mexican

The Twilight Mexican

Ex-SeeD-ingly good
AKA
TresDias
Saw this yesterday finally after also finally seeing "Detective Pikachu." Just absolutely amazing for a lifelong Godzilla fan. I was awash in euphoria throughout.

And they even made the human characters both interesting and relevant this go round!

There's just so much to love about this. I could gush for many more paragraphs.

Totally bumming me out how poorly the movie has done at the box office, though, both because of how good it was and because this was Millie Bobby Brown's first big feature. I really wanted it to go well for her.
 
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