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I just finished watching Megaguirus and it was better than I was expected it to be. The fight between Godzilla and Megaguirus felt like a cartoon against how seriously the rest of the movie played but it worked. If it had any problem is was that the entirety of the Megaguirus subplot was just padding because the Godzilla: Defender Of Clean Renewable Energy main plot wasn't long enough and somewhat redundant with 84.
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Jan 18, 2019 02:08
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| # ? May 27, 2024 20:43 |
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Karloff posted:I mean, you don’t need to. But you should. The decision to wash America’s hands, and portray them as an innocent party is akin to the same decision to remove pointed references to the nuclear attacks in G54 when it was recut into Godzilla: King of the Monsters. In the case of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the reason for the transformation was because it was part of a political and capitalist agenda to not villianise America, similar to how the New World Picture re-edit of Godzilla 1985 specifically villianised Russia (they edited a scene where a Russian sailor bravely tries to cancel a nuclear launch so it depicted the opposite). Godzilla 1998 is a part of this legacy, this erasure of America’s dominant role in nuclear proliferation. It’s an insulting change. An American film choosing to remake a film specifically made in response to both attacks and testing committed by America, absolutely removing any mention of these crimes, and pinning the blame entirely on another country. It’s bollocks. It’s shameful. Had the filmmakers elected to pin the blame on global political situation than that would be one thing, but they don’t, they remove America’s culpability and dump it all on France and the use of American nuclear test footage actually twists the knife, because that means they are showing US nuclear tests with the French national anthem over the top! We are shown American nuclear tests from the immediate post-war era, and then we are told that these are actually recent events conducted under the French. The collision of signifiers here does not erase American involvement. It quite literally foregrounds it, but also expands the historical and geopolitical implications of it. As Davros1 points out, the filmmakers exploit the topicality of France's own engagement in nuclear proliferation. But in formalistic terms, these events can only be conveyed through an American packaging. The twist of the knife is that while the French characters assume responsibility for their own actions, the actions we see being perpetrated are directly rooted in American imperialism. The plot of the film is that the monster is created by the direct actions of the French. The narrative of the film is that the Americans are immutably, irrevocably responsible. The French literally don't exist in the narrative without American action being depicted. The Americans have taken a deleteriously terrible production of their own ideology, but then given it a label to avoid culpability: "I thought you said this was French Roast!" "Yes, look, French Roast!" "... More cream." quote:I mean, I have a different take. The film depicts Godzilla trapped within a bridge, a man-made structure, and then absolutely destroyed by American Military might, The majority of its children are also wiped out (bar one, of course). There’s a somewhat famous quote from Shusuke Kaneko "It is interesting [that] the US version of Godzilla runs about trying to escape missiles... Americans seem unable to accept a creature that cannot be put down by their arms.", and on this I would have to agree. The military is depicted as foolish in some regards, but characters such as Hicks and O’Neill are depicted as noble and correct, especially in comparison to the politicians above them, and Godzilla is depicted consistently throughout the film as being inferior to the power of the US military. But what feelings does Puffy excite, and on behalf of whom? The exciting music doesn't occur as a consequence of, like, the two lovers kissing and the world being able to live again. It happens because the monster is still alive! Puffy's exciting, triumphal lyrics are aligned with the promise that the monster will rise again, this subaltern being could not be cleansed away. '54 takes place in Japan, where the monster is the unique product of nuclear proliferation, and the characters themselves have lived through the trauma of a nuclear attack. It would be somber. '98 takes place in the U.S., where the monster is still a unique product of nuclear proliferation, but where the characters themselves are the privileged benefactors of that diabolical force. The ending is triumphal not because the humans are righteous or noble. Nobody in the film is portrayed as being as noble as Godzilla. The ending is triumphal because it portends the survival of the oppressed despite everything. quote:Godzilla
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Jan 18, 2019 02:35
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G'98 is worth it for the pretty good cartoon sequel series.
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Jan 18, 2019 04:12
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K. Waste posted:'98 takes place in the U.S., where the monster is still a unique product of nuclear proliferation, but where the characters themselves are the privileged benefactors of that diabolical force. The ending is triumphal not because the humans are righteous or noble. Nobody in the film is portrayed as being as noble as Godzilla. The ending is triumphal because it portends the survival of the oppressed despite everything. I've got to say though, in retrospect the film I think Godzilla '98 makes the funniest parallels with is King Kong, which it almost entirely flips. A pregnant single mother leaves her bomb-scarred homeland under her own power in search of a better life, thrives in the big city, and is hunted down alongside her family by the entire military-industrial complex out of desperate fear that she'll replace them as earth's 'dominant species' because she's better-adapted to the modern world than Americans (especially subways, because Americans hate public infrastructure). Apologies for incoherence, I had a few of these thoughts bounce around my head months ago and you reminded me of them. ps Kong gets murdered by the Empire State Building; Godzilla gets the military to blow up the Chrysler Building something something castration.
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Jan 18, 2019 04:53
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Godzilla 98 is the embodiment of the perfidious Gaul himself, who should get out of America. He was created on French territory by French bombs and is some kind of frog. He can't fit in with our modern ways and smells of fish. By contrast there's a good Frenchman played by Jean Reno who stops the frog by adopting icons of America - guns, Elvis, and covering up your government's shameful war crimes.
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Jan 18, 2019 06:11
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mods changed my name posted:in vs mechagodzilla 2 I think they call Rodan Radon and it fucks me up That's where his name comes from anyway, right?
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Jan 18, 2019 07:57
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Wikipedia posted:The Japanese name Radon is a contraction of Pteranodon.
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Jan 18, 2019 08:03
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god drat it, english dubs have set me up for failure
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Jan 18, 2019 08:08
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Names are meaningless Right, Angilas/Angirus/THEKILLEROFTHELIVING?
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Jan 18, 2019 08:15
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i loving love that Godzilla dude
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Jan 18, 2019 08:16
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The context of G98's release is notable. It was mass booked into more theaters than any film prior had opened in (with the studio taking a larger cut than they ever had previously), had been hyped for a solid year, had the tagline SIZE DOES MATTER, it was very much pushed as The Biggest Thing You'll Ever See, the ultimate symbol of 90s blockbuster excess. Now critics try to be above all this but there was a certain fatigue regarding this kind of blockbuster event. They had of course dragged other big stupid blockbusters before, to little avail- ID4 and The Lost World and Twister and Batman Forever all made tons of money. But G98 didn't do very well- it was ultimately a smaller-scale movie than it was hyped to be, not as intense, has sort of a goofy tone. And so I think the backlash against it was bigger than the actual criticism. (Armageddon got pretty bad reviews too, but it also made a ton of money so it didn't matter.) People saw weakness in the Hollywood blockbuster juggernaut and the knives came out. Of course in the long run it's not so much remembered as a major disaster as it is just plain not remembered. The film definitely has flaws on, if not a technical level, a structural one. A lot of the comedy business goes on more than it should- in particular a lot of the bits with Charles Caiman and Mayor Ebert elicit a "We get it, we're supposed to dislike these people, you've made your point." A major issue is that Maria Petillo is BADLY miscast as Audrey- she's just too drat cherubic, and her simpering around drags down a lot of the human-focused scenes. (And in retrospect, I'm not quite clear what Matthew Broderick was going for either. He did this act so much better in Wargames.) There are a lot of little pacing issues, the stuff with the babies goes on too long. As I've said before it's a movie I'd really like to do a full edit of, if I ever had the time and the HD space and good editing software. But I kinda like it. It has a goofy charm. There's something notable in a bunch of weird misfit characters coming together to deal with a weird mutant that doesn't quite fit in our ecosystem. Jean Reno is also great. And I love the monster itself, it's a beautiful design.
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Jan 18, 2019 08:59
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I remember my aunt pre ordering tickets for G98, and each one came in a sleeve made to look like Godzilla’s skin, and had a film cell with it. I can’t find any images of it online. Was this a thing movies used to do?
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Jan 18, 2019 10:45
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mods changed my name posted:in vs mechagodzilla 2 I think they call Rodan Radon and it fucks me up Yeah that's actually his name in Glorious Nippon. Just like how English speakers don't spell Godzilla with a J.
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Jan 18, 2019 11:46
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One thing I really liked about Godzilla 98 was the ending, and not in that sarcastic way. The last few heartbeats of Godzilla are emphazised and the entire tone of the scene is sad as heck, and when the crowd erupts and cheers it took me back a bit as a shock, the American military def aren't the good guys no matter how you look at it
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Jan 18, 2019 11:54
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Open Marriage Night posted:I remember my aunt pre ordering tickets for G98, and each one came in a sleeve made to look like Godzilla’s skin, and had a film cell with it. I can’t find any images of it online. Was this a thing movies used to do? Kinda yeah. Pokémon the first movie had cards they gave out, and the next one had a dope Mew foil that every kid NEEDED. I don’t remember the Godzilla one, which surprises me because I was all about that movie. I had almost every toy around.
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Jan 18, 2019 11:56
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Actually, poo poo, I may have had this https://www.ebay.com/itm/Godzilla-1998-premier-movie-ticket-memorabilia-/372017895500
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Jan 18, 2019 11:58
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That’s it! It wasn’t like a handout you got the day of. I had mine for like a week before. I remember carrying it around in middle school in anticipation.
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Jan 18, 2019 15:40
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All this talk and Netflix having it on file has caused my early morning to become a very Broderick breakfast. Agree with person who said Audrey (Aubrey?) is miscast. The most 90’s thing is Hank Azaria’s face being allowed on film though.
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Jan 18, 2019 16:31
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K. Waste posted:But what feelings does Puffy excite, and on behalf of whom
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Jan 18, 2019 19:29
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Has it been done to death talking about how similar 98 and shin are in their usage of smaller creatures to almost portend a more modern, agile, asymmetric threat?
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Jan 18, 2019 19:38
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mandatory lesbian posted:One thing I really liked about Godzilla 98 was the ending, and not in that sarcastic way. The last few heartbeats of Godzilla are emphazised and the entire tone of the scene is sad as heck, and when the crowd erupts and cheers it took me back a bit as a shock, the American military def aren't the good guys no matter how you look at it To go back to Drakyn's notes about the parallels between the film and King Kong, this heartbeat thing is also shamelessly cribbed from the '76 film.
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Jan 18, 2019 20:20
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Peacoffee posted:Has it been done to death talking about how similar 98 and shin are in their usage of smaller creatures to almost portend a more modern, agile, asymmetric threat? Shin Godzilla is the opposite of agile so probably not.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:02
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The Godzilla spawn in the 98 movie were mostly there to cash in on Jurassic Park and to give the human characters a human sized threat for action sequences.
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Jan 18, 2019 21:12
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Tezcatlipoca posted:Shin Godzilla is the opposite of agile so probably not. Fair points about the babies being just a dozen baby t-rex proxies, but with shin I was referring to the final stage that was forming out of the tail.
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Jan 19, 2019 01:02
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Took me perusing the wikizilla to learn that Shin's tail has a mouth at the tip of it, hence why it could shoot laser beams
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Jan 19, 2019 01:42
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Shiroc posted:I just finished watching Megaguirus and it was better than I was expected it to be. The fight between Godzilla and Megaguirus felt like a cartoon against how seriously the rest of the movie played but it worked. If it had any problem is was that the entirety of the Megaguirus subplot was just padding because the Godzilla: Defender Of Clean Renewable Energy main plot wasn't long enough and somewhat redundant with 84. Yeah, the movie may as well just be "Godzilla vs. the Black Hole Gun" with a subtitle of "and also a giant dragonfly."
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Jan 19, 2019 09:28
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The major problems with X Megaguirus are A) the whole "soldier obsessed with killing Godzilla because Godzilla killed her CO" plot never quite connects, her character feels underdeveloped, and B) the romantic subplot is legit awkward and gets kinda creepy with the whole "makes an anime child version of her for his computer" bit. The human stuff is just not well handled and actually gets in the way of the monster action.
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Jan 19, 2019 09:54
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I'm still disappointed that Megaguirus wasn't a mega Anguirus.
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Jan 19, 2019 20:16
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https://twitter.com/OMEGAGORMARU/status/1082110460189687808
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Jan 19, 2019 20:28
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Peacoffee posted:Has it been done to death talking about how similar 98 and shin are in their usage of smaller creatures to almost portend a more modern, agile, asymmetric threat? I think Destroyah's life-cycle is a better comparison to Shin Gdozilla's. Both start out as smaller creature's that are a threat on a more intimate, street-level, and both eventually become big hulking tanks of destruction. Destroyah is honestly just the poo poo. One of my favorite one-off baddies, up there with Biollante.
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Jan 19, 2019 20:40
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I remember when I was a kid and for one Christmas instead of the movies I'd wanted, my parents got me Godzilla vs Biollante. I was disappointed, I didn't really know much about Godzilla and I'd had my heart set on whatever dumb kid movie I'd wanted instead. But it's the movie that launched my love for Godzilla and giant monsters as a whole. My parents would get a good track record with getting me movies I hadn't asked for. Another good one they got me was Time Bandits.
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Jan 19, 2019 21:09
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Zartosht posted:I'm still disappointed that Megaguirus wasn't a mega Anguirus. Is it not? That's what I've pictured anytime it's mentioned 
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Jan 19, 2019 21:23
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Does Rampage deserve to be counted among kaiju movies? Or Cloverfield for that matter. I enjoyed Rampage, though I'll admit to being easily amused. It's like a modern day B-movie without shame.
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Jan 20, 2019 05:56
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Rampage is a kaiju movie where the 4th kaiju is Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.
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Jan 20, 2019 06:06
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did they really make a movie about the old arcade game?
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Jan 20, 2019 06:17
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Does Rampage deserve to be counted among kaiju movies? Or Cloverfield for that matter. I enjoyed Rampage, though I'll admit to being easily amused. It's like a modern day B-movie without shame. Most definitely. Kaiju eiga is obviously a culturally-specific term, but if you, say, compare a film like Mothra to Gorgo, or Gojira to The Giant Behemoth, there really isn't a remarkable semantic or syntactic gulf that would lead us to define them as stemming from different genre. The Rampage video game itself, while non-exclusively taking cue from various monster movies, is overtly influenced by kaiju eiga. Similarly, Rampage leans heavy on Mighty Joe Young, but also Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla vs. Gigan. Movies can also be retroactively compiled into a genre. Many of the early trick films of George Meilies, for instance, pre-date modern film horror, but many academics and horror fans would likely argue that they should be considered the 'first' horror movies. Similarly, we can consider The Lost World and King Kong to be prototypical kaiju movies. Kaiju eiga itself emerged as an attempt to capitalize upon the relative popularity of American films, with the most obvious example being how Gojira was in part developed as a rip-off of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms.
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Jan 20, 2019 06:21
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mods changed my name posted:did they really make a movie about the old arcade game? Last time I checked they were also trying to adapt games like Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command and Tetris which had even less of a narrative than Rampage. They were actually planning on turning Tetris into a movie trilogy.
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Jan 20, 2019 06:57
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I hope all of them star The Rock.
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Jan 20, 2019 07:05
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Does Rampage deserve to be counted among kaiju movies? Or Cloverfield for that matter. I enjoyed Rampage, though I'll admit to being easily amused. It's like a modern day B-movie without shame. Abrams said he wanted the U.S. to have their own Godzilla with Cloverfield. I'd say yes on that. And Rampage was great dumb fun. It's a movie that knows exactly what it is and has fun with it. My son and me cheered and laughed like hell when George ate Malin Akerman.
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Jan 20, 2019 07:33
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| # ? May 27, 2024 20:43 |
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...America already has its own Godzilla. He's called King Kong. He even predates the Big G!
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Jan 20, 2019 07:37
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