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Sanguinia posted:Its this. The whole argument Thanos makes is that when he's done this experiment manually on various planets the long-term result was a glorious success that proves him right. The fact that his logic doesn't hold up just makes him like every other Malthusian. He cherry picks the data that supports his proposition because he's an arrogant narcissist who couldn't possibly be wrong. This is also why one of the more popular theories of why Dr. Strange needed to look through so many potential timelines to get the actual outcome of the movies was to look for a timeline where both Thanos and Tony Stark die and stay dead. If he just wanted to stop Thanos, finding any way to distract Star Lord for 15 seconds would be enough. But that wouldn't end the threat of Tony Stark loving around with the Infinity Gauntlet.
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Nov 30, 2021 19:40
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Raenir Salazar posted:I think its less the specific number of people only that at least on Titan were already at the precipice and needed to do something drastic immediately. If we assume that Thanos felt that this was the same elsewhere, that galactic civilization was nearing the tipping point of self-destruction; the issue isn't people having too many children, its the socio-economic decisions made up until that tipping point and with a hard reset people can make better decisions so when the population regrows back it is done so sustainably. Right, but socioeconomic decisions/circumstances don't always reflect on whether or not a pair of mates reproduces. If you consider the idea that there are various galactic civilizations across various stages of evolutionary/societal development, a planetary society that gets its, Neanderthal-level population numbers wiped out by half isn't necessarily going to see the error of their ways that they...haven't committed yet. A theoretical low-development planetary species without some sort of effective birth control is still going to reproduce at whatever rate it was before the snap. The more and more you "zoom out" on Thanos' big picture, the less and less it makes sense. I submit once again, that Thanos was just a half-assed Zamasu.
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Nov 30, 2021 19:58
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Thanos and his belief that shortages will wipe out civilization is equally as absurd as Malthus's. It makes him a rather one-dimensional but believable villain because if you never actually think about it his position feels correct and allows a moral opposition that plays up the superhero angle of strong men making hard decisions to save humanity in spite of itself and whoops that sounds a lot like fascist talking points.
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Nov 30, 2021 20:01
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Lib and let die posted:Right, but socioeconomic decisions/circumstances don't always reflect on whether or not a pair of mates reproduces. If you consider the idea that there are various galactic civilizations across various stages of evolutionary/societal development, a planetary society that gets its, Neanderthal-level population numbers wiped out by half isn't necessarily going to see the error of their ways that they...haven't committed yet. A theoretical low-development planetary species without some sort of effective birth control is still going to reproduce at whatever rate it was before the snap. The more and more you "zoom out" on Thanos' big picture, the less and less it makes sense. It doesn't seem like an uninsurmountable leap of the imagination to me. Simply put the most advanced civilizations that got snapped presumably all recover first; and if Thanos is right then they all engage in more responsible conservation and stewardship of their resources and then as part of their new duty will the moment a newcomer civilization arrives on the scene that hasn't internalized those lessons will go and apply peer pressure on the late comers to develop sustainably. Like it is flawed but not in the way you think it is, its flawed in the way that any rationalization of a narcissistic form of the sunken cost fallacy is; it isn't hard to from that point of view to think of ways in which everything will work out; and also ultimately I think we're supposed to assume that Thanos knew it was a desperate gamble to begin with, it's just the least-worst option he can think of. golden bubble posted:This is also why one of the more popular theories of why Dr. Strange needed to look through so many potential timelines to get the actual outcome of the movies was to look for a timeline where both Thanos and Tony Stark die and stay dead. If he just wanted to stop Thanos, finding any way to distract Star Lord for 15 seconds would be enough. But that wouldn't end the threat of Tony Stark loving around with the Infinity Gauntlet. Its a good theory but I think any what if that involves stopping Star Lord from loving up just results in someone loving up. For example Star Lord tries to use the Gauntlet to bring Gamora back, which forces him to go Revenge of the Sith and bring it to Thanos etc. Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 20:17 on Nov 30, 2021 |
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Nov 30, 2021 20:13
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Lib and let die posted:A theoretical low-development planetary species without some sort of effective birth control is still going to reproduce at whatever rate it was before the snap. The more and more you "zoom out" on Thanos' big picture, the less and less it makes sense.
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Nov 30, 2021 20:32
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Raenir Salazar posted:It doesn't seem like an uninsurmountable leap of the imagination to me. Simply put the most advanced civilizations that got snapped presumably all recover first; and if Thanos is right then they all engage in more responsible conservation and stewardship of their resources and then as part of their new duty will the moment a newcomer civilization arrives on the scene that hasn't internalized those lessons will go and apply peer pressure on the late comers to develop sustainably. What kind of peer pressure? How would you resolve the inherent class struggle of "those elitist ayliums from omicron persei 8 have flying sun powered cars but they're telling us we're not allowed to burn our dead dinosaurs so we can move food from the field to the market!"? Then again, expecting anything out of Whedon's brain to come anywhere close to class analytics is trying to judge a goldfish by its ability to climb a tree, so maybe I'm just swinging at ghosts here. Guavanaut posted:Is there an Evangelical movie equivalent where the big villain has a gauntlet that does education for women and girls and incentivized long term contraception until they're ready to start a family? No joke, I've got a customer file with Kevin Sorbo's phone number in it. A far less scrupulous me might pitch this to him anonymously to see if he bites.
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Nov 30, 2021 20:34
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Lib and let die posted:What kind of peer pressure? How would you resolve the inherent class struggle of "those elitist ayliums from omicron persei 8 have flying sun powered cars but they're telling us we're not allowed to burn our dead dinosaurs so we can move food from the field to the market!"? Whedon didn't direct Infinity War, and I'm not sure what point you're making here; why does class struggle have to do with anything? You're not making a consistent argument here; no one is saying Thanos's argument is logically sound, only that it can make sense from a certain point of view. The whole point if you can't make a counter argument to it, that couldn't with enough effort be handwaved or atlas shrugged away.
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Nov 30, 2021 20:44
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Isn't it 50% of all life? I feel like not limiting the thing to 50% of sapient life or something, which would sorta make sense, has to be part of the conversation. Like, were they afraid that anything but a flat rate culling across the board would encourage people to think too much about resource use? "Thanos snaps the top consumers responsible for 50% of consumption into dust" would be a very different movie.
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Nov 30, 2021 20:46
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Raenir Salazar posted:It doesn't seem like an uninsurmountable leap of the imagination to me. Simply put the most advanced civilizations that got snapped presumably all recover first; and if Thanos is right then they all engage in more responsible conservation and stewardship of their resources and then as part of their new duty will the moment a newcomer civilization arrives on the scene that hasn't internalized those lessons will go and apply peer pressure on the late comers to develop sustainably. Why would it be assumed that much larger and more complicated civilizations would recover from a collapse the quickest? Seems like the opposite would be the case, not least of all because half of the people who created the crisis of that moment would still be around and in much better starting positions than their similarly wiped out opponents. That's even before getting into how much more dependent they are on complex systems that would be shattered by the sudden loss of half of those tasked with maintaining them. The black death hit some areas of Europe of the tune of 50% of the people died, there wasn't any suddenly rise into sustainable prosperity for all there or anything. Leopold's Congo similarly took decades after the rubber terrors to even get back on its feet only to find themselves saddled with someone who wasn't any better because of the intervention of said bad actors. IIRC it's not even a desperate gamble, it's portrayed in the movies as a grim thing that was nonetheless successful, because basically the writers said it was and that's that A Buttery Pastry posted:Isn't it 50% of all life? I feel like not limiting the thing to 50% of sapient life or something, which would sorta make sense, has to be part of the conversation. Like, were they afraid that anything but a flat rate culling across the board would encourage people to think too much about resource use? "Thanos snaps the top consumers responsible for 50% of consumption into dust" would be a very different movie. I'd certainly hope not, because a sudden halving of the bottom of the food chain would mean there just isn't room for the upper tiers for a good long while
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Nov 30, 2021 20:49
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Raenir Salazar posted:Whedon didn't direct Infinity War, and I'm not sure what point you're making here; why does class struggle have to do with anything? You're not making a consistent argument here; no one is saying Thanos's argument is logically sound, only that it can make sense from a certain point of view. The whole point if you can't make a counter argument to it, that couldn't with enough effort be handwaved or atlas shrugged away. I'm just trying to workshop how the lesser-developed society might react to a more advanced society's missives about how to develop The Right Way. Does the further advanced society just hand over the most cutting edge technology, or are there important societal lessons to be learned culturally as a society evolves technologically? Either you're giving a more primitive society dangerous technology that's not viably sustainable at the current stage of planetary evolution or you sit in your ivory tower and tell them "no not like that" every time they make an advancement that we know from experience can be troublesome in the long run. When one society has flying space cars that poo poo out drinkable water and they're telling a developing society "no you can't have road cars that burn fuel" you're going to create at the very least an illusion of class struggle.
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Nov 30, 2021 20:50
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Epic High Five posted:Why would it be assumed that much larger and more complicated civilizations would recover from a collapse the quickest? Seems like the opposite would be the case, not least of all because half of the people who created the crisis of that moment would still be around and in much better starting positions than their similarly wiped out opponents. That's even before getting into how much more dependent they are on complex systems that would be shattered by the sudden loss of half of those tasked with maintaining them. First, it isn't us assuming that, it's Thanos assuming that; but on screen in the MCU Earth didn't collapse; and based on what we can infer in Endgame, while there were problems the rest of the galaxy didn't collapse either. We've also (in real life) never seen a technologically advanced society completely collapse; the closest example is the USSR and they still maintained the basic fundamentals of a civil service and its technological base. Sure an argument can be made that there would simply be a NeoBronze Age collapse situation where losing half your population results in a domino effect of irreplaceable complex systems collapsing as one domino knocks out another; but its a theory with limited evidence, its a good argument and I like it a lot but we can't just automatically assume some theory or another is clearly correct when analyzing film. In Endgame its even directly stated that half of humanity going away actually allowed for many ecosystems to actually recover from Humanities industrialization; so on the whole narratively speaking we're supposed to see that Thanos "has a point" with the setting basically bearing partially him out, otherwise it would be a completely uninteresting conflict if Thanos was entirely in the wrong. I don't think that's the writers "deciding" something, I think that's how storytelling works. The mindset in which to approach this isn't going to be well served entirely assuming a completely realistic and grounded assumptions, but also consider the narrative weight of the actions on screen. The whole point of this discussion was someone basically saying that Thanos's motivation made no sense and the comics version would have been better, and I disagree; I think it does make some sort of sense but you have to get into the right mindset for it. Something can make sense and be internally consistent and be flawed. Basically to put it into terms I think you'd better appreciate, imagine if instead of half of all life literally; since its a film and nothing is literal in fiction; its metaphorical allusion to something else; and that something else is probably some combination of capitalism, climate change and the existing entrenched status quo power structures that refuse to see reason everything lines from there up for me. Thanos is a Che Guevera like revolutionary seeking to upend the existing order fighting a successful guerrilla campaign but doesn't think he can reach his goals in his lifetime without nuclear weapons to terrorize the world into correcting itself; which has real life precedent with Mao during the Cuban Missile crisis. Lib and let die posted:I'm just trying to workshop how the lesser-developed society might react to a more advanced society's missives about how to develop The Right Way. Does the further advanced society just hand over the most cutting edge technology, or are there important societal lessons to be learned culturally as a society evolves technologically? The simplest answer is they either threaten them into confirming and adopting a different form of society that can develop "the right way" or they move in militarily to force it. Lots of history of this sort of nation building for centuries for us to draw on. If we assume an ideologically changed galactic society along the lines of thinking that Thanos would have wanted that would entirely be in keeping with his aims and methods. Hunt11 posted:At least when Fate Zero pulled the hard men doing hard things poo poo the ending had the wish granting device basically laugh at the character for being such a loving dumbass.  Raenir Salazar fucked around with this message at 21:15 on Nov 30, 2021 |
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Nov 30, 2021 21:12
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I haven't seen the movies, but honestly, it sounds like quite a departure from the comic version of Thanos. Originally in the comics (at least when the original Infinity Gauntlet stories were written), he would occasionally use Malthusian arguments about the necessity of death and population reduction when he was seeking to justify his position to other people, but he rarely consistently stuck to it. Once the need to fake a sympathetic explanation was past, he'd quickly revert to his real position on killing: that the death of other creatures was something beautiful and amazing, which was exemplified by his romantic attraction to the divine avatar of death. And even then, after obtaining massive power with which to commit cosmic-scale genocides, he would typically lose interest in actually carrying out those genocides. No matter how much he talked about his lofty goals and his love of death, he would always ultimately give in to his ego and his lust for power. He talked all kinds of ethics and philosophy and pseudo-religion in order to justify his quest for power. But once he gained that power, the smart-talking strongman would always forget his supposed motives and become preoccupied with enjoying the feeling of playing God.
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Nov 30, 2021 21:17
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Would Thanosian foreign policy be based on economic sanctions?
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Nov 30, 2021 21:28
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Raenir Salazar posted:First, it isn't us assuming that, it's Thanos assuming that; but on screen in the MCU Earth didn't collapse; and based on what we can infer in Endgame, while there were problems the rest of the galaxy didn't collapse either. We've also (in real life) never seen a technologically advanced society completely collapse; the closest example is the USSR and they still maintained the basic fundamentals of a civil service and its technological base. I think we're on the same page more or less then, I'll admit I've mostly been viewing this in terms of how it'd play out in our contemporary world and not the analysis of it in the films, which I can't really speak to beyond the stuff I got through osmosis here and in broader popular culture. I think it's easy to write a scenario where it mostly worked out, but it'd be a whole lot messier in reality and it relies on assuming critical systems for advanced civilization are a lot more robust than they are in practice, and it doesn't seem like that's a controversial opinion. Thanos snap as metaphor, yeah it's really something to ponder on. I've not been too concerned about Thano's motivations because while they're interesting in a literary sense, the practical effects are far more interesting and pertinent, but again I'm not coming from a deep dive on it like I would with say, Dark Knight Rises or - god help us all - Assassin's Creed. If we ever get around to Godzilla movies I'll probably have a lot more to say
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Nov 30, 2021 21:28
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Epic High Five posted:I think we're on the same page more or less then, I'll admit I've mostly been viewing this in terms of how it'd play out in our contemporary world and not the analysis of it in the films, which I can't really speak to beyond the stuff I got through osmosis here and in broader popular culture. I think it's easy to write a scenario where it mostly worked out, but it'd be a whole lot messier in reality and it relies on assuming critical systems for advanced civilization are a lot more robust than they are in practice, and it doesn't seem like that's a controversial opinion. This is sort of where I'm coming at it from, too, sort of from the perspective of say, someone from Asgard showed up and started yelling at us that like, our use of radio broadcast waves is actually contributing to the acceleration of the heat death of the universe or something, and trying to figure out how your average rural Trump voter might accept or refuse the missive.
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Nov 30, 2021 21:38
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Lib and let die posted:This is sort of where I'm coming at it from, too, sort of from the perspective of say, someone from Asgard showed up and started yelling at us that like, our use of radio broadcast waves is actually contributing to the acceleration of the heat death of the universe or something, and trying to figure out how your average rural Trump voter might accept or refuse the missive. I like how close this is to like, several other combined movies or tv shows/anime. 
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Nov 30, 2021 21:50
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I can buy the idea that the transition from agricultural to industrial society creates a demographic glut and that an industrial society would pick themselves up in a more efficient manner if someone did a hard reset on the population, and the secondary effects on culture could also be a prosocial reset.
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Nov 30, 2021 23:23
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What's the deal with Shin Godzilla? My media illiterate rear end see's a movie where aged bureacracy doesn't rapidly and adequately respond to a crisis, so now it's time for a young hotshot to lead the working men to handle this problem. Thus the problem is literally stopped in it's tracks from evolving further, BUT ALSO our hot estranged women are reclaimed from foreign lands and prevent repeation of past shame/defeat by outside forces.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:02
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Gahmah posted:What's the deal with Shin Godzilla? It's ultimately about the Japanese Government's failure to prevent and properly react to the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Unfortunately like a lot of fiction from Japan it also has weird post-WW2 revanchism sprinkled on top that always comes across as weird and fashy to everyone else.
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Dec 3, 2021 21:56
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There's a lot going on in Shin Godzilla and not all of it is fashy, in short it's the third glorious return to Godzilla As Metaphor which are all the best ones. It's been forever since I've seen it or pondered it but I'll write something up about it. It's a wonderful series because it flits wildly between serious, schlock, insane, and campy. Everything from serious musings about nuclear war and proliferation to "what if your best friend was a robot who could grow huge/flying turtle?" I'll leave this here as one of my favorite anecdotes about how the message of these films is worked behind the scenes quote:After the film's [Godzilla 1984] lackluster performance in the Japanese box office and the ultimate shelving of Steve Miner's Godzilla 3D project, Toho decided to distribute the film overseas in order to regain lost profits. New World Pictures acquired The Return of Godzilla for distribution in North America, and changed the title to Godzilla 1985, bringing back Raymond Burr in order to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Godzilla: King of the Monsters!. Originally, New World reportedly planned to re-write the dialogue in order to turn the film into a tongue-in-cheek comedy starring Leslie Nielsen (à la What's Up, Tiger Lily?), but this plan was reportedly scrapped because Raymond Burr expressed displeasure at the idea, taking the idea of Godzilla as a nuclear metaphor seriously. I wish they had filmed it so we could enjoy it today, though Burr was of course correct
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Dec 4, 2021 02:43
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Epic High Five posted:There's a lot going on in Shin Godzilla and not all of it is fashy, in short it's the third glorious return to Godzilla As Metaphor which are all the best ones. It's been forever since I've seen it or pondered it but I'll write something up about it. It's a wonderful series because it flits wildly between serious, schlock, insane, and campy. Everything from serious musings about nuclear war and proliferation to "what if your best friend was a robot who could grow huge/flying turtle?" This describes exactly why I really like Godzilla King of the Monsters (2017) and didn't get why it was so mercilessly lashed by a lot of critics and fans. It's not a perfect movie but it captures a modern blockbuster version of everything great about godzilla, from the schlock to the serious metaphorical musings. A lightyear improvement over the 2014 launch film. King Kong vs Godzilla is similarly good but as a story is a lot more about the crazy goofy SciFi "lore," and trying to be character driven than it is about any kind of deeper meaning, even a dumb deeper meaning like KotM, so it's really a Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi situation with those two films for me. Kong Skull Island remains the untouchable god-emperor of the Monsterverse, natch.
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Dec 4, 2021 05:57
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Sanguinia posted:This describes exactly why I really like Godzilla King of the Monsters (2017) and didn't get why it was so mercilessly lashed by a lot of critics and fans. It's not a perfect movie but it captures a modern blockbuster version of everything great about godzilla, from the schlock to the serious metaphorical musings. A lightyear improvement over the 2014 launch film. I'll confess I haven't actually seen KSI, but if you say it surpasses the likes of 1954 and Godzilla vs Hedora I'm going to check it out right now to add to my analysis. I enjoyed KotM but my critique of Legendary is more or less unchanged in that they focus too much on the humans without giving them the sort of metaphorical depth or narrative purpose that they got in Shin Godzilla or similar titles of the type. Stupidly unlikely technology spurring hubris that results in doom that otherwise wouldn't have happened, monsters from space, tremendous peril, etc, all the good stuff That said, I'm not so sure why it was treated so poorly either. It delivered exactly what it promised and did so very well. How could a movie with The King possibly be reviewed poorly? Completely insane. By King Kong vs Godzilla you're referring to the 1962 one right? Because that one is an absolute classic of the type, known best by the tree choking gif which is absolutely appropriate What did you think of the Netflix Godzilla anime movies, out of curiosity? I'll admit that I loved them personally but even among kaiju fanatics it's hard to find someone who is even aware they exist Epic High Five fucked around with this message at 07:50 on Dec 4, 2021 |
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Dec 4, 2021 07:48
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Epic High Five posted:I'll confess I haven't actually seen KSI, but if you say it surpasses the likes of 1954 and Godzilla vs Hedora I'm going to check it out right now to add to my analysis. Just for the record I did NOT mean to say that it's BETTER than those films! When I said the Monsterverse I was exclusively referring the the rebooted universe. That said, I do think KSI is excellent and does merit serious consideration, both as a Kaiju film and a film in general, so I hope you enjoy it! I think it does a really swell job of delivering on the premise of "Take the thematics of the King Kong story and mix them with cinematic traditions about Vietnam malaise and the general shittiness of the 60s" quote:I enjoyed KotM but my critique of Legendary is more or less unchanged in that they focus too much on the humans without giving them the sort of metaphorical depth or narrative purpose that they got in Shin Godzilla or similar titles of the type. Stupidly unlikely technology spurring hubris that results in doom that otherwise wouldn't have happened, monsters from space, tremendous peril, etc, all the good stuff I can agree that the humans get a little too much juice in KOTM, although again it's a big improvement from Godzilla '14 on that front. If anything I would have enjoyed more from Charles Dance and the eco-super-terrorists who are happy to see Ghidora wipe out humanity and learn to live on an Alien Planet once he's done terraforming it, and less from the Team Godzilla Bridge Crew. At least Ken Watanabe and the main character family trio did a solid job, but I can see the criticism that they got too much at Big G's expense. Mothra and Rodan got their chance to shine though, and drat did the tag fight at the end make me happy. I agree 1962 KK v Godzilla is a classic, it was actually my very first Godzilla movie way back when I was like 8 years old, but I was actually referring to the last movie of the Reboot Series that came out last year. Its a fun popcorn movie with some good stuff in it, IMO, and I think you'd like it, but it was a step down from KOTM in my mind. I think the Neflix Godzilla animes are pretty enjoyable and I really love the reimagined Godzilla Universe they create. I wouldn't call them favorites or anything, and they certainly have big plot and character problems, but I never hated any of them. I'm glad the trailer for the one with Ghidora caught my eye and got me to check it out. Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Dec 4, 2021 |
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Dec 4, 2021 08:51
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We watched Godzilla Singular Point, does that count? Didn't make a lick of sense, but we watched it. We had just finished SSSS.Dynazenon and were hoping it would be a similar "paying loving homage to the original while going in a very different, character-driven direction" like that and SSSS.Gridman, and, uh... it wasn't that.
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Dec 4, 2021 09:28
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Watched Kong Skull Island and I enjoyed it....was sort of baseline pablum and blahblah the sort of thing you expect, but genre subversion in regards to the existing Kong mythos was there and made a lot of sense, after a fashion. My takes as a kaiju guy: 1) The whole "we lost this one stupid war so we need to double down on this one" theme was about the most unsubtle thing I've ever seen in films, which is not to say I don't appreciate it or didn't enjoy it. Vengeance, slaughter, terror, domination, the psychotic drive to destroy all who oppose you, it's all there and of course the hapless well-intentioned morons who are so stupid as to be cautious are immediately caught up in it. Can't help but feel like the general theme is "sucks to be anybody who thought this guy knew what he was doing/was obligated to follow his orders" 2) Kong's respect/admiration/acknowledgement of a person's non-rapacious attitude is a nice touch that subverts the original Kong "white damsel in distress" themes (among more legitimate ones) while also exploring the theme of kaiju that aren't just forces of blind malevolence. 3) There was maybe 4 times where I thought that the direction was some kind of harkening to Apocalypse Now or even Heart of Darkness before it...but nothing that really touched on it really or even came close. The natives were treated brusquely and as sort of passive characters nobody ever has to worry about ever, for any reason. I'd say the whole "there's an entire civ here already maybe explore that a bit?" part that was immediately ditched was a big source of frustration for me. One needs to struggle to be more empire-centric than some of the worst Showa entries, but this harkened back to them Kong v Godzilla is next on my list, and I'll be watching it after I re-watch the original. My big analysis of Shin Godzilla is something I'm still pondering on because the problem really comes down to the fact that I'm not very smart and don't watch very many movies so it takes a lot for me to be able to make pretty words about something so perfect as that film. As a handicap as I seek to elaborate upon it I've chosen to write all this up while 50mg deep on THC despite previous low tolerance so, as wise ones before me once said - "hail satan"
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Dec 23, 2021 04:46
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Epic High Five posted:Watched Kong Skull Island and I enjoyed it....was sort of baseline pablum and blahblah the sort of thing you expect, but genre subversion in regards to the existing Kong mythos was there and made a lot of sense, after a fashion. My takes as a kaiju guy: Glad you liked it, and some interesting comments I hadn't heard before. Its hard to find anything but gushing praise for KSI so I appreciate the more critical eye. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about Kong vs Godzilla. 
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Jan 13, 2022 19:07
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Sanguinia posted:Glad you liked it, and some interesting comments I hadn't heard before. Its hard to find anything but gushing praise for KSI so I appreciate the more critical eye. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts about Kong vs Godzilla. I actually already did but tossed my opinions of it in a pretty loose format into a different thread since this one died down. My main takeaway was that thematically and in terms of messaging it was a lot less adventurous than KSI or even really the median kaiju movie, and my long running complaint about these series that the humans get more focus than their personalities can reasonably support. Was expecting to hear a callback at some point to the weird warp tunnel they found in King of Monsters to the sunken city but I guess that was some other kind of insane phenomenon of the deeps. I also think they could've settled with just making Kong even more anthropomorphized OR Godzilla more of a nebulous and unknowable force instead of both. I liked it a lot still because of the bigger thing I noticed about it that I had sort of been waiting for, to whit: They've finally embraced going totally bonkers. We're back in late Showa bananas territory baby, and I couldn't be happier. Hollow earth home of the kaiju, kaiju ghost spirits, MECHAGODZILLA, dread and alien powers man what weren't meant to meddle with, bonkers super tech deus ex machina in service of deus ex machina except it's not even the right word because it was never actually needed, it's just there because hell yeah why not. I cannot wait for the arrival of bizarre aliens with convoluted plans toward world domination foiled by groups of meddlesome kids and the help of their good friend Gamera/Mothra/Jet Jaguar. Characters are introduced as critically important to this or that character who themselves are maybe half developed and killed within minutes, not all of the classic hits but enough that I was doing the  by the end in anticipation of the only place this could all go.The final battle scene was absolutely choice, as well. Mecha-Godzilla is such a common theme explored so differently among the many ways it has appeared over the decades, and I was glad it ended how it did instead of being a more rote metaphor of man's hubris/intellect against a primal beast summoned by said forces in the first place. It was better overall than Showa Mecha-Godzilla, but I think the Netflix take on it is still the most interestingly and strangely done. I do certainly hope it returns to its old Duncan Idaho role of ever destroyed, ever returning. Godzilla is currently sort of straddling the pre and post-Ghidora line where it could be either villain or defender and I'm interested to see where it goes. Inshallah, it is a modern take on Godzilla vs Hedorah with the style of the original maintained No other kaiju movies on the docket for awhile though I may give Netflix a re-watch or Singular Point a watch since I hadn't heard of it until this thread. Next up is Sorcerer because of a recommendation from the Snowrunner thread
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Jan 13, 2022 20:52
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