For a movie based on 20+ terrible Godzilla movies before it.
I understand the nostalgia and fun of the other movies, but let's be serious; they're bad, just about all of them. So bashing this isn't even a matter of whether or not it's a good movie. Everyone is hating on it because it's not their idea of an enjoyably bad movie like the rest of them.
While I do agree that people are incredibly hard on this movie, I think that's really unfair to say. There were definitely some pretty awful ones in the series - "Godzilla vs Gigan, "Godzilla's Revenge", "vs The Smog Monster", "vs Mechagodzilla" (1974) being top contenders for that category - but there were some really good ones as well such as GMK, the original 1954 Godzilla, Godzilla 1984, etc.
shareCertainly, and I'm by no means an expert, I've probably seen a dozen of them in the passed year. You can't argue with the original, but anything made in the last 30 years or so has been a disaster, so I have a hard time taking criticism for the new one seriously.
shareGMK wasn't terrible, but I have a hard time with most of what I've seen made since the 80's. Everything is time travel, lasers, and bad futuristic technology, not to mention horrible plots. I get it, James Bond even had the Roger Moore era, but not every movie of his was Moonraker. I think I have to go back deeper into some of the originals to paint a better picture, cause they just seem to get worse and worse.
Recommendations?
The stuff from the Showa era was also filled with pretty bizarre stuff, including phaser tanks, alien cockroaches, humanoids that turn to rock when they died and some green rejects from Planet of the Apes, among other things. A certain level of reflexivity is required when watching them; after all, these were low budget monster flicks from the fifties, sixties and seventies. Even the Heisei series (eighties to nineties) were pretty low budget.
If you want, I can make a list of some of the good ones to watch.
Time travel....I take it you're referring to Gvs King Ghidorah 91, right? I don't think it was a bad flick - it explored some of Godzilla and Ghidorah's origins (even if the latter had been radically changed), played with viewer expectations and was the first Godzilla flick to use Japan's ascendancy into an economic superpower as a theme. The WW2 stuff was pretty questionable, though.
Everyone is hating on it because it's not their idea of an enjoyably bad movie like the rest of them.
"Every *beep* time that something epic was moments from happening, it would cut away from it and show some aftermath on a little tv screen, or some human drama"
It was only one time. There were plenty of epic moments in the movie, some of it not just being the monsters fighting. The MUTO rising from its cocoon, Godzilla's first appearances where he creates a tidal wave that floods an entire city block, his reveal at the airport, Godzilla's attack on the bridge from the perspective of someone on the bus - that's just naming only a few scenes.
The problem isn't the lack of Godzilla or his build-up, the problem is the lack of strong characters. If there had been stronger characters, no one would have complained.
It was only one time.
I think part of the problem was that we the audience have been a little spoiled when it came to what we wanted that the end result was much too reserved for our liking. The other problem is the view that this is an "action" flick.
[deleted]
"in other words. im an idiot.."
I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. You can't deny that for a one hundred million dollar film that it is unusually reserved in comparison to other blockbusters, especially films like, say, "Transformers" or any of the Marvel superhero movies.
I have no idea how you came to that conclusion.
It was only one time.
The first time it happens is in Honolulu. The moment Godzilla shows up they end the scene and show Driftwood's kid watching a news report about it.
Then the next time there's going to be monster action, they show a brief look at the Muto on an unnoticed TV screen in Las Vegas, then above it rips open the ceiling of that casino and immediately cuts away from the scene to show only the aftermath.
You can't deny that for a one hundred million dollar film that it is unusually reserved in comparison to other blockbusters, especially films like, say, "Transformers" or any of the Marvel superhero movies.
"how???
heres your quote"
Oh, I see. You weren't clear in terms of the context in which you were speaking. When you wrote "I'm an idiot", I thought you had meant yourself when you had replied to this:
"I think part of the problem was that we the audience have been a little spoiled when it came to what we wanted that the end result was much too reserved for our liking. The other problem is the view that this is an "action" flick."
I thought you had meant that you somehow took my comments as to meaning that you "didn't get it" or whatever and took offense. Just to correct you, there's two fight scenes, not three - the one in the city had been drawn out for several hours.
Going to this point:
"Then the next time there's going to be monster action, they show a brief look at the Muto on an unnoticed TV screen in Las Vegas, then above it rips open the ceiling of that casino and immediately cuts away from the scene to show only the aftermath"
In my defense, I thought he was strictly talking in terms of monsters fighting, not in terms of monsters going on the rampage.
"so you are trying to talk about this film and expect people to take you opinion and analysis seriously, then you get a basic fact, and one of the cruxes of your arguement entirely wrong... how do you expect to be taken seriously and not called a joke???"
Ooh, I made a mistake. Shoot me. :P
I wasn't wrong in terms of what I was saying - that there were plenty of epic moments, that the problem wasn't the lack of Godzilla or his build-up but the lack of strong characters, etc.
"again, are you uneducated or just not very intelligent??"
Considering the frequency of your grammatical, punctuation and spelling errors, you're not one to talk with regards to intelligence or education, as it's pretty apparent you're no Mensa candidate. The only reason you seem to be responding to a post made back in 2015 is to pick a fight - that, and perhaps to boost your own self-worth by trying to convince yourself that my one mistake makes you somehow better and alleviates you of whatever inadequacies you possess. I may have made a mistake, but at least I have the education and backbone to acknowledge it.
"its obviously trying to follow the jaws and cloverfield formula to an extent..... besides this it saves them a massive amount of money, only having to show one Muto walking and in focus, while skipping far more special effects intensive and the costly 3 other fights it could of shown (one fight according to you, but youve been proven to not know what you are talking about
are you really comparing this to transformers..... and marvel films...........
please stop talking"
Before being completely dismissive and a total mental midget, allow me to explain. While as a general rule one shouldn't compare movies of a certain genre/subgenre to those belonging to another, it is worth pointing out that in general big budgeted Hollywood blockbusters, movies with hundreds of millions of dollars such as Marvel movies, "Pirates of the Caribbean", "Transformers" (can't really say much about the series itself since I only saw the first one), and others tend to go all-out with the action, spectacle and set-pieces, often times with little in the way of restraint ("more is more"), so to a certain extent, it's not as ridiculous as you make it out to be. If you want something a little more appropriate and more relevant to the subgenre that "Godzilla" is part of, however, I suppose "Pacific Rim" would be such (to an extent).
In terms of "Godzilla 2014", as you had noted it was trying to follow the "Jaws" formula of "less was more", possibly as a way of saving money, but it seems more as a way of building up suspense and the spectacle of seeing the creatures in their entirety from human level. However, even for something that is a giant monster movie, a big budget Hollywood movie especially, it is unusually reserved. I kept getting the impression that there was more material that had been dropped onto the cutting room floor due to the way the movie was edited. The cut from the airport battle to having it play on television in the 2014 movie was an interesting decision, even a bold one, but presumably having such a thing would have been predicated on the idea of it either trying to make a point and/or will eventually lead to something more, like we'd get to see something truly spectacular that hadn't been revealed by the trailers. That, and the writing, if not the human element being strong enough to allow for such a thing.
It's possible that there could be another cut of the movie that is different from what we currently have, not unlike how Richard Donner's "Superman 2" is vastly different from the Richard Lester version, as I remember there was supposed to be a cameo of Akira Takarada, but that wasn't at all featured.
I think you're acting like a spoiled little kid who feels entitled to be instantly gratified like many in this day and age.
First of all, as far as the story goes, the MUTO could not match Godzilla one on one which is why it keep flying off when it engaged him and that it would take 2 to fight him. Why keep showing it just flying away??? You really need to see that??The director chose to use cut-always as a
stylistic way of showing that. When the
MUTOs did get together they tag-teamed him and that was all the needed to be shown. Get an attention span and learn patience.
Okay, let me pitch you an idea for a porno...
Smoking hot chick calls up for a pizza delivery... she puts on her sexy lingerie and waits for the doorbell to ring.
<<Ding-a-ling-dong!>>
"here's your pizza, miss, that'll be $10.60."
Smoking hot chick in her sexy lingerie hands the pizza guy $15, tells him to keep the change, takes her pizza and closes the door.
The end.
There's your Godzilla 2014 in porno form.
Ha, ha. Well, that would be bad. And there you probably have the answer. If watching a porn, your watching it for one reason, and one reason only (usually). If the reason for seeing Godzilla is only seeing literal monster fighting, and the other stuff bores you, then of course a movie that favours other stuff would bore you. I personally don't think this movie favours human drama though. I think it has a very good balance between action and drama. What it favours is the human angle, and anticipation. I absolutely find it suspenceful. But I also liked movies like "Signs" and "Cloverfield Lane", which is almost entirely human angled.
shareIt was only one time. There were plenty of epic moments in the movie, some of it not just being the monsters fighting. The MUTO rising from its cocoon, Godzilla's first appearances where he creates a tidal wave that floods an entire city block, his reveal at the airport, Godzilla's attack on the bridge from the perspective of someone on the bus - that's just naming only a few scenes.
The problem isn't the lack of Godzilla or his build-up, the problem is the lack of strong characters. If there had been stronger characters, no one would have complained.
It's the expectations of modern audiences. It's no longer less is more, it's more is more. I for one loved the long build-up and the brief glimpses we got of the action and Godzilla in-particular. I'm really surprised at the criticism leveled at this movie. I was on this board leading up to the release of the movie and most of the things that hardcore fans wanted to see ended up being in the movie. It was the antithesis of Godzilla 1998 which those same people hated.
The director was a massive fanboy himself and made a movie for the fanboys that the fanboys ended up hating anyway. Just impossible to please it seems. I don't think this made enough at the box office for their to be a sequel but those whiny fanboys don't deserve another Godzilla movie anyway after their response to this one. They can go back and re-watch men in rubber suits stomping all over a terrible looking model city while sparks fly everywhere and have a good cum. Tards.
I think your impression of how the fanboys reacted is a little stilted. Most of the hardcore Godzilla fanboys, myself included, loved this film and got exactly what we wanted. The fans that despised this film are an incredibly vocal minority that usually fall into one of two categories. Either they're what I call "nostalgia nazis," who automatically decide that any Godzilla movie after a certain time period is complete trash. The time at which the quality supposedly drops off varies from person to person, but these people write off every single new film as garbage and will not actually try to form an educated opinion. The other "fans" are people who loved the 1998 version and have either grown up seeing it as the definitive take on Godzilla, or are hipsters who jumped on the bandwagon because the movie is a bit dated now and pretty much everyone else hates it. These people aren't even really fans of the franchise as a whole, but they sometimes claim to be, and they believe that they somehow have to think Godzilla 2014 is the absolute worst movie ever made since they liked the 1998 version. Apparently you can't like both. You must praise one beyond everything else and completely despise the other and proclaim it to be the worst film ever made.
But for the most part, real fans of the series either absolutely loved this movie or were reasonably pleased and excited for more. Thankfully, the movie performed well enough at the box office to get multiple sequels, and Godzilla's original creators are making a new Japanese Godzilla film this summer. In fact, Legendary is setting up an expanded universe based around this film, with the sequel coming out in 2018, while a crossover with King Kong will come out in 2020. So despite all the people *beep* on this movie, it was a critical and financial success and was well-received by most of the fanbase, and as a result we're getting at least two sequels to it, not to mention the new Japanese film that is being made due to the new interest this film generated in the series.
But for the most part, real fans of the series either absolutely loved this movie or were reasonably pleased and excited for more. Thankfully, the movie performed well enough at the box office to get multiple sequels, and Godzilla's original creators are making a new Japanese Godzilla film this summer. In fact, Legendary is setting up an expanded universe based around this film, with the sequel coming out in 2018, while a crossover with King Kong will come out in 2020. So despite all the people *beep* on this movie, it was a critical and financial success and was well-received by most of the fanbase, and as a result we're getting at least two sequels to it, not to mention the new Japanese film that is being made due to the new interest this film generated in the series.
I enjoy this movie. Great film.
Iron Maiden is bigger than Jesus.
Lets put things in perspective why this film does not deserve more than a 6
a) Acting is mediocre at best , with the exception of the lead actor that dies early
b) Story is okish but nothing that deserves more than a 5
c) Monster design is quite good, but they rarely appear inside the film
d) This is an action film , or so has been advertised in the trailer , that lacks one element, action
e) music is okish but nothing memorable
f) dialogues are not interesting at all
g) Unlike the original it lacks any deep meaning or something that would captivate audiances in some way
This is a crystal clear 6/10 that was lucky enough to reach 6.5/10. But the biggest problem with this film is its fans, they all rushed to rate the film a 9 so they expected that the rest of us who are not big fans of Gojira in any case we will do rate it at least an 8. Sorry but no way I would rate this mediocrity as high as JAWS which by the way it was just a shark eating people vs a huge monster leveling cities. I find the shark far more scary and the film it 100 times better than this .
So cry all you want but there is no way you will convince all non Godzilla fan that this is a movie deserving more than a 6. Personally I found the previous one more enjoyable though as mediocre because of much better acting, far far more action, and a Godzilla that was not moving as slow as a snail.
Personally I found the previous one more enjoyable though as mediocre because of much better acting
G98 had 3 A list veterans actors
1) Mathew Broderick
2) Jean Reno
3) Kevin Dunn
Acting wise , its by extremely far the best Godzilla ever.
This Godzilla has one good actor that only things he is known for is a TV series. We talk here like night and day.
G'14 is the only Godzilla movie with four Oscar-nominated actors (Watanabe, Strathairn, Hawkins and Binoche).
98 had Maria Pitillo as a lead.
It's not like these things matter when it comes to the actual performances, mind. Yeah, Reno was cool, but Dunn didn't do much besides looking frustrated while asking questions and shouting orders. Broderick's delivery is often awkward as hell, sometimes almost as cringe-inducing as Wahlberg's finest moments from The Happening. I'll take ATJ's bland stoicism over that any day.
They are eating the guests, sir.
This is a movie that people should be hard on. You know what movie is the most similar to Godzilla (2014)? Saw 3. You know why? Both movies are completely void of humor, except for one singular fleeting brief moment of comedic relief. Everyone is super serious, nobody feels like a character, there's no chemistry between any of the actors. It amounts to nothing, and there's not even enough CG monster battling to go around. It falls flat, it's boring. Godzilla 1998 at least had plenty of humor and goofiness about it to make it an enjoyable watch.
shareSome of us prefer our monster/disaster films to be devoid of goofiness and humour, which tends to detract from the seriousness of the subject matter thus spoiling the experience. It is difficult enough to suspend belief when watching these types of films without having to deal with will smith punching aliens (Independence Day)for example. If you know beforehand the film is meant to be a cheesefest then fair enough, you can decide to avoid watching it if it's not your thing.
sharePeople were expecting an average action/entertainment monster movie like Pacific Rim and Godzilla 1998.
Godzilla 2014 is a very good film, it lived up to the principles of what a Godzilla movie is suppose to be, 90% of story 10% Godzilla, its always been like that.
Jaws, Alien and Hellraiser did the same thing and they're great films.
The Walking Dead series does it as well.
Don't bring pacific rim into this, that movie is fantastic and treated as ridiculous because it embraces its crazy nature.
Pacific Rim is very creative, and the battles are fantastic to watch multiple times.
This movie simply cannot match it.
Monster movies should be really about... monsters.
It was always like that because FX sucked at the time.
Nostalgia glasses are ruining movies.
"Godzilla 2014 is a very good film, it lived up to the principles of what a Godzilla movie is suppose to be"
I cannot agree with this at all.
"From a phylogenetic perspective, we are all fish!"
Agreed! I don't know if it's the just IMDb crowd that considers Godzilla (2014) as the worst film to grace the Earth, but I thought it was a fine film, and a damn fine film at that. Edward Gareth's previous film Monsters I thought was okay, but I could tell what he'd be capable of with a Hollywood-level studio behind him. With Godzilla he got that, and I felt like he knocked it out of the ballpark.
You are right to compare it with the previous Godzilla movies which are held on pedestals. True, Godzilla: King of the Monsters was a total gamechanger, and even today it's a hugely important symbol of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki bombings and the terror of the atom bomb. After that, as you said all those 20+ sequels are kinda hit and miss.
My major problem with a lot of the previous Godzilla films is some of them started to focus on ancient spirits and aliens (basically humans who wear jumpsuits and sunglasses). Sometimes instead of intimidating and apocalyptic, it just felt silly. To date my favorite of the previous films are Godzilla: King of the Monsters, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Terror of Mechagodzilla.
The key thing is that the monsters must serve the story. In the original, Godzilla was literally a living atom bomb. In KKVG, King Kong was worshiped as a god but wasn't literally some earth spirit incarnate. In TOMG, there were aliens but their plan was a simple "Use a robot version of Earth's greatest monster to wipe out Tokyo." You could also argue that Mechagodzilla represents man's technology turning against us.
As far as the 2014 Godzilla goes, I liked the story. The MUTO's took up the risk of radiation and nuclear weapons while Godzilla represented the uncaring role of nature's destruction. The characters were relatable, they weren't stupid, and I didn't mind the lack of mindless monster destruction, it had build up like Jaws or the original Godzilla. People are waaaay too hard on this movie.
Can't be too careful with all those weirdos running around.