Godzilla & Kaiju Movies: the most fun a man can have in a rubber suit

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Godzilla & Kaiju Movies: the most fun a man can have in a rubber suit

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

Likewise, Serizawa�s supercharging of Godzilla occurs immediately after he gives White Dad the �fortune cookie� pep talk. Then we get the dual loaded images of the submarine bursting out of the water, and the invigorated Godzilla shooting his laser straight up into the air as a display of pure power. After that, White Dad is really hyped about using Godzilla to attack Ghidorah, like nobody else thought of just shooting Ghidorah with rockets before.

I find it difficult to see that scene as anything other than Serizawa transforming into a Godzilla.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2019 21:47

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 10:24

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

I could not help but notice how every big fight repeats the cliche of a monster about to chomp down on a human, only to get blindsided by another monster at the last second.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2019 15:04

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

I totally understand ignoring the "human parts" of a Godzilla movie to enjoy the monster fights. I'd argue that they're one story and it doesn't make sense to do that, but I get it. But the family drama in this Godzilla movie is too obnoxious to be ignored.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2019 18:34

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Reminds me of Bradbury's The Fog Horn and how it was adapted to The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms

I'm annoyed with how often filmmakers just rip off the xenomorph for their monsters. Yes, any and every giant animal would sound like high-pitched wailing, good job! The last time I remember being really annoyed with it was the last Resident Evil movie, which had terrible sound work.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2019 14:56

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

I feel like to really capture the feel of a kaiju film, strategic management would be just as important as capturing the feel of mass urban destruction.

# ¿ Nov 5, 2019 21:35

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Not kaiju, but you'll probably like Super Inframan.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2019 15:49

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

GvK is so gloriously stupid. "How do we even the odds between Godzilla and Kong? Give Kong an axe. No, a laser axe." Also, their world looks like our world but there are spaceships and space stations that must have cost a trillion dollars, but not in space.

There are many criticisms to be made of this stupid movie, but I'm inordinately pleased that the miserable Russell family drama from the last film is almost gone. I know it's stupid to criticize a kaiju movie for not having the kaiju onscreen all of the time, but the human parts of KotM were just enervating.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2021 15:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Asterite34 posted:

This complaint always confuses me. the US sank literal trillions of dollars into the Military-Industrial Complex after some regular people armed with box-cutters destroyed two buildings. Can you imagine how much you could convince tax-payers to fork over if there were antediluvian monster-gods immune to all conventional weapons that can at a minimum destroy whole cities?

People aren't "convinced" to fork over their wealth to their rulers. But I'm not actually complaining, just interested in how this space opera technology hasn't bled into the daily life of anyone who doesn't live in these megascale Bond villain fortresses.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2021 16:12

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Sodomy Hussein posted:

When they mentioned that they lost "the fleet" in this movie I was like... In this universe, where there is a constant threat of kaiju attack, there would never not be some kind of fleet. When you got out of high school, you wouldn't go to college, it would be a question of which fleet you would join, even if you weren't actually military. If Godzilla destroyed 17 ships, they would poo poo out 17 ships from Pittsburgh steel by the end of the next day.

I think the answer is that even with a draft, they can't crew enough ships to run interference against Godzilla. If Godzilla attacks, their plan is to shoot Him with harmless weapons until, in His wisdom, He answers their prayers for death. Did the Navy have some huge initiative to recruit people with suicidal ideation? I'd like to see those commercials.

Halloween Jack fucked around with this message at 19:33 on Apr 5, 2021

# ¿ Apr 5, 2021 19:31

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Sodomy Hussein posted:

Yeah this is a movie that is satisfied with being big and dumb and seems confident that everyone gets that and has stopped asking questions. Once a movie decides that the hollow earth is not only there, but an alien planet with a sun, you're not even thinking about why jets are still trying to dogfight with Godzilla. Every character and plot point is perfunctory.

For me it's the other way around. If you show me a really well-thought-out setting where humanity has had to cope with Godzilla's existence, I'll buy that Godzilla exists and he can destroy a black hole by breathing on it or whatever.

Like, Fury Road shows warlords trying to waste as much gasoline as possible driving extremely top-heavy fortress-trucks through the desert, but it justifies this by creating a society that has the need to do that. You know exactly why some teenager is willing to paint a skull on his face and Wilhelm Scream himself into an exploding car because an old man told him to.

# ¿ Apr 5, 2021 20:25

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

I want Gigan.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2021 01:31

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

The original Blob is like the only horror movie that my mom will watch. For contemporary audiences it's probably better approached as a comedy.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2021 20:12

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Mantis42 posted:

ET is gross. A weird little scrotum with eyes and a mouth. I hated him as a child and I hate him now.

# ¿ Dec 13, 2023 18:40

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Again, I ask, which group's buzz? I say this because I thought Monarch was an absolute turd, a shaggy dog tale layered with prestige nonsense and tiny dashes of Godzilla: yet it got eyeballs, critical praise, and a decent audience score. Meanwhile me and everybody I know thought it was dogshit.

Monarch: The Television Show is tolerable to have on in the background while I play with my phone. My spouse likes it for some reason. I don't know why everything Godzilla related has to have "lovely absent father" as a major theme.

# ¿ Feb 29, 2024 21:06

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

PriorMarcus posted:

It's because 2014 had Bryan Cranston reincarnate as Godzilla and take on a patriarchal role over humanity. People always complain that they killed off Bryan Cranston too early whilst skipping over the fact he's in the rest of the film just as the titular character now. In his final scene he even looks directly at Ford and they reconnect, reaffirming a bond that had been broken for a long time.

Right, but why did Godzilla (2014) have to have "lovely absent father" as a major theme?

# ¿ Feb 29, 2024 22:27

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It�s often taken for granted, but neither we nor the characters in a given film have an automatic psychic investment in the large dino-lizard. You have to set the groundwork for why the dude isn�t just like �huh, that�s weird� and continuing with his day.

In this case, the protagonist accidentally uncovers the circumstances around his mother�s death and learns that his father was absent for a reason - literally trying to prevent billions of deaths. It�s an examination of the standard �boo hoo, you missed my piano recital� narrative.

I understand that the human characters in kaiju movies are there for a reason, and that "Godzilla movies shouldn't have humans in them" is burgerbrained. I just didn't care about, in your words, the alcoholic White Dad. Hiroshi Randa manages to be more interesting in spite of himself.

# ¿ Mar 5, 2024 19:51

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

"In fact, let's make it a whole family! Godzilla and Mothra can be mommy and daddy of, uh, Rodan. And all of the other monsters." With Cranston out of the way, Godzilla is now likened to a CIA agent who gets drunk sometimes and has very strong opinions about pseudoscientific theories of wolf behaviour. And the evil dad is, like, an 'eco-terrorist'...? The actual stakes are a total afterthought.

It's annoying how everyone in these narratives has to be somebody's kid. I don't know if it's because Hollywood automatically gravitates towards dumbfuck Harry Potter Chosen One narratives, or if it's because Hollywood is so nepotistic that it doesn't even occur to them to do it any other way. In the Monarch TV show, Kurt Russell flat-out tells Cate and Kentaro Randa that they have to devote their lives to being the world's foremost monster experts because it's their "family business," despite the fact that she's a schoolteacher and he's an artist and maybe other people should have a say in this?

Oh, wait! It's superhero movies! Marvel is to blame for this.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2024 19:00

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

The monster appears to be made out of vegetables. I'm not saying that's a bad thing.

# ¿ Mar 6, 2024 22:29

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

I gotta go home, but I promise I'll read that tonight while I'm watching Godzilla vs. Hedorah and inhaling smoke.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2024 23:16

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# ¿ May 13, 2024 10:24

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; Can't post for 14 hours!

What's more majestic than King Kong! Dozens of Kongs! We gave the Kong you know a cool glove. Now let's scale up everything around them so it looks like a pack of gorillas running through some underbrush.

# ¿ Mar 20, 2024 15:20

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Godzilla & Kaiju Movies: the most fun a man can have in a rubber suit