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Godzilla |OT| Legendary

Shouta

Member
Nohe wasn't per se, but a father-son quarrel in a Spielbergian film is and it wouldn't have made sense.

It's actually refreshing because Aaron Johnson's character acted exactly like one viewpoint in the aftermath of what happened in the beginning of the film where his Dad was the other.
He tried getting over the disaster at the power plant for all of his life and his father kept dragging him back over the years. He resented him a bit for it and I could feel it in in his eyes in at Cranston's house. He was convinced to see his father out and he gained a resolve after learning the truth behind everything. Cranston's line on the helicopter in particular was kind of a closure moment for both on wound they both had, even if it cost Ford's dad his life. It was an understanding for both and I think that it's fairly rare to see the quarreling be so low-key in the film. It takes center stage as a conflict rather than an obstacle they see through together.

I loved the shot in the house after they came back to it where Cranston is at his desk looking at the picture of his wife and in the backgorund, the walls were so run down you could see into the other room. where kid Ford was at the beginning. The camera was blurred to make it look like it was Ford standing in the background because he was standing there looking at the toy previously. It ended up just being the light and trees there after they focused to see the background.
It's why i think they should be viewed as a pair rather than individually.
 

Wilbur

Banned
So, having seen both Monsters and now Godzilla, I feel pretty safe in guessing that Gareth Edwards has never actually DIRECTED a single actor in his short career.

That said - I really liked this movie, whereas I thought Monsters was a vapid, emptyheaded, stilted, staid little turd of a movie. The major difference? When awe was needed? Awe was PROVIDED. It's been a really long time since Godzilla was able to do that. There were many an awesome moment in this film. And I mean "awesome" in the dictionary definition of the word, not just your run of the mill synonym for "Cool!" There are visuals in this thing that inspire awe. And they happen frequently.

It says something that Edwards' inability to get any of his actors to behave like human beings on a reliable level is only a minor inconvenience this time around.

How did none of the actors act like human beings? Genuinely curious what you mean.
 
It says something that Edwards' inability to get any of his actors to behave like human beings on a reliable level is only a minor inconvenience this time around.

minor for you maybe dawg. boring kick ass and olsen ensured i won't be watching this again.

the movie definitely looked nice though and i had high hopes during the first half hour or so.
 

East Lake

Member
So you would have changed all of Cranston's scenes to fit this? How would you have done this?
Well Serizawa already wants him kept with the rest of them as an expert. He has already done research on the seismic activity and everything. That said I don't think he needed to be that character. I think they just needed some people in it that were as emotionally invested in the events as he was.
 
So, having seen both Monsters and now Godzilla, I feel pretty safe in guessing that Gareth Edwards has never actually DIRECTED a single actor in his short career.

That said - I really liked this movie, whereas I thought Monsters was a vapid, emptyheaded, stilted, staid little turd of a movie. The major difference? When awe was needed? Awe was PROVIDED. It's been a really long time since Godzilla was able to do that. There were many an awesome moment in this film. And I mean "awesome" in the dictionary definition of the word, not just your run of the mill synonym for "Cool!" There are visuals in this thing that inspire awe. And they happen frequently.

It says something that Edwards' inability to get any of his actors to behave like human beings on a reliable level is only a minor inconvenience this time around.
I have a brother-in-law who is in the Navy and he's a pretty chill guy. Maybe it doesn't translate well to film, but I appreciated the less oohra, more low key approach to a military character.
 

Helmholtz

Member
Just saw this in imax 3d. It was pretty good stuff.
I personally appreciated the slower build up to the meaty action scenes. In fact, most of the earlier scenes that emphasized the scale of the monsters
such as the bridge scene, the boat scenes, skydiving etc...
were the most impressive to me. The action that went down in the later parts of the film was also pretty well done, and I felt like there was just enough. The fights were short and sweet in general, but also effective. For me I don't need to see giant creatures fighting for two hours. The amount we got here was more than enough. I realize that not everyone is like me though; for instance I didn't really like Pacific Rim, which had a lot more giant things fighting in it for extended periods of time.
The acting was serviceable. Cranston's performance was easily the best, but even then it wasn't anything too noteworthy.
The scene where he's locked up was his stand out moment, with the rest being standard fair
Watanabe put on his best "oh shit" face for most of the movie, which was cool I guess. One thing I dug was that most of the characters roles were believable, and they didn't try to have them do or say things that were unnecessary or unbelievable. For instance,
Wattanabe's character basically just voices his concerns and it doesn't escalate much beyond that. The military leader just does what he thinks is best for humanity, the movie doesn't try to paint him as evil or an antagonist.
. The way the characters are written is such that they don't take away too much from the creatures, which is good. Even Kick-Ass didn't bother me too much. Sure, he had a lot of screen time, but he wasn't given an excess of dialogue and was mainly there just to show the bad ass monsters from a human perspective.
I also found that the movie had a good amount of humor in it, some of it intentional and some probably not. But I dug it either way.
So yeah, it was a good, bombastic blockbuster flick, with some fairly smart pacing and mostly good tone. I think one of its biggest accomplishments is the sheer sense of scale you feel at many points throughout the film, something I felt was lacking in a movie like PR. This movie is certainly not a piece of shit like some would have you believe. I'd definitely recommend seeing it in Imax, though the 3D wasn't noticeable to me at all. The screen size/sound is what's key here. I'd personally give the movie something like a 7.5/10, and that's coming from someone who's not all that into summer blockbusters in general.
 

ReiGun

Member
Can someone who wanted more Cranston please post their view of how the narrative in the film goes down please, in this alternative version?

The reason we're able to be so close to the action is because it's military stuff. What do you propose the alternative to be instead of just "WALT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE"

Cranston could have been on the ship, talking to Watanabe's character. At least, that's what I thought they were gonna do, as I felt the there was real potential for the two characters to find a common ground in their desire to understand what was going on with the creatures.

Ford shouldn't be taken out, however. Even if he is boring, I agree he's needed because he gets us closer to the events.
 

Wilbur

Banned
Oh yeah.

Replace actors. Or, get rid of the assistant lady to Watanabe and replace her with Cranston instead.

So he just says all the lines she does? Still nowhere near the action or crux of the drama?

This is akin to when my dad cut the matrix trilogy together in QuickTime. The entirety of the first movie. The car chase and the burly brawl in reloaded. The fight at the end of revolutions. No narrative sense :lol

People giving these films fan edits like "Cranston should have been the lead" and then not coming up with a better alternative... just giving him Hawkins' lines would have pandered to Cranston fans, not made the character any better or given him a reason for being there.
 
How did none of the actors act like human beings? Genuinely curious what you mean.

I mean Cranston (and to a lesser extent, Hawkins and Olsen) were the only ones who seemed to be actually engaging with anything that was happening onscreen. And in Hawkins & Olsen's case, it's because they literally had NOTHING else to do.

I really got the sense that unless you were an actor who is good at directing yourself, Edwards is going to leave you stranded, because for a movie that features so many awe-inspiring moments, to have a majority of the characters just squinting or staring mildly undercuts the majesty of the visuals.

For all the Spielberg comparisons that have been thrown around (and a lot of them are apt) Spielberg made sure that his actors actually REFLECTED the stakes on their faces when he dollies up to them.

A lot of this movie features actors just barely acting. Not underplaying. Just mostly standing there. It was the same in Monsters. Luckily, there's a metric TON more to work with here in Godzilla, so Edwards' inability to get his actors to manufacture humanity isn't as much of a drag.

People are talking about replacing actors/characters, and it's the wrong solution to an obvious problem. The actors are fine - the cast is a good cast. The problem is their director just strands them. You don't need to switch actors or cut characters. You just need to draw performances out of the people you already have. He didn't do that
 
Cranston's character
was a nuclear scientist and the only person to even realize there was communication going on among the kaiju. I they had kept him around, he and the Japanese Scientist might have come up with a better idea than stare at the camera and say something cheesy. The son still could have been army man trying to get to his family, as a secondary character.
 

duckroll

Member
why did godzilla
wait until he was about to die to use the fire breath

-signed,
the people who complained about the sword in pacific rim

I had a long discussion with a friend about this after the movie. Our conclusion was that he was clearly building his meter with smaller jabs and basic attacks, before he could use his special attacks at the end.
 
Can someone who wanted more Cranston please post their view of how the narrative in the film goes down please, in this alternative version?

The reason we're able to be so close to the action is because it's military stuff. What do you propose the alternative to be instead of just "WALT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE ENTIRE MOVIE"


1. Cranston (damn I can't really remember the character's name!) was the only who seemed to have studied what was going on and it seemed only he gave a shit as to what these creatures could do. the Watanabe charactrer was AWFUL. brought n othing to the table. I kept waiting for him to talk to Cranston to see what ideas they could exchange but nope, he just kept staring at the iomega Zip drives, LOL.

it's not just military stuff. it should be POV of regular folk on the ground experiencing destruction from giant creatures(I laughed every time they shot at the monsters with their guns, it's like shooting at the wind!)
Walter White needed to go in there and tell the military"look, they eat nukes for breakfast, do this instead." I got so frustated when Watanabe told them "nukes won't work" and Navy captain. "UM, nuh uh force will kill them, they were using firecrackers back then", which is wrong by the way but whatever.
 

Trey

Member
I'm sorry, but if those of us who enjoyed the film can be drive-by mocked for remembering character names, why can't a silly generalization of a collection of posters be used in mock-form? Since when does a mock strawman argument = no no?

It's only slightly annoying to have my problems with the film be hand waved away as "nitpicks," and accused of not liking the film only because it wasn't cliched enough.
 

sunnz

Member
Watched it and really did enjoy it.

Love the design of godzilla, just amazing.

I was waiting and waiting to see the mouth ray thing to happen, when it did it was orgasmic, especially how it was charging up in the fog, so sexy to see. When he killed the female with it, i exploded. I also genuinely felt sad when Godzilla was pretty much destroyed by both of those two creatures.

When they were talking about how godzilla and the other two roamed the earth long before Dinosaurs, THAT is a film I would love to see.

I assume that seeing godzilla not really kill or attack humans was to show he is somewhat friendly right?

I enjoyed pacific rim more though, as far as monster films go.
 

Shouta

Member
I had a long discussion with a friend about this after the movie. Our conclusion was that he was clearly building his meter with smaller jabs and basic attacks, before he could use his special attacks at the end.

Perfect answer. =o

Does that mean that one scene was his Ultra 1?
 

MrKaepora

Member
Watched it tonight, it's a well put together movie and, has a disaster movie, I think it does its job. Seeing it we can see that the producers wanted the viewer to identify some of the recent disasters that shocked the world and show that we are mere pawns that want to control the forces of nature. The monsters are the protagonists has it should be.

Loved this Godzilla monster that almost fells like a Clint Eastwood, if Clint Eastwood was more than 100 meters high, and it's telling mankind to get off its lawn.

All things considered, it was well worth the ticket.
 

Wilbur

Banned
1. Cranston (damn I can't really remember the character's name!) was the only who seemed to have studied what was going on and it seemed only he gave a shit as to what these creatures could do. the Watanabe charactrer was AWFUL. brought n othing to the table. I kept waiting for him to talk to Cranston to see what ideas they could exchange but nope, he just kept staring at the iomega Zip drives, LOL.

it's not just military stuff. it should be POV of regular folk on the ground experiencing destruction from giant creatures(I laughed every time they shot at the monsters with their guns, it's like shooting at the wind!)
Walter White needed to go in there and tell the military"look, they eat nukes for breakfast, do this instead." I got so frustated when Watanabe told them "nukes won't work" and Navy captain. "UM, nuh uh force will kill them, they were using firecrackers back then", which is wrong by the way but whatever.

But of course they're gonna fire guns at it, and of course it's going to be futile. That's how we see that it's pointless and that it is like shooting at the wind. It reinforces that for us.

And Cranston (Joe Brody was his name; I can remember every character's name :lol, please guys PAY ATTENTION or read more wikis) didn't know they eat nukes. So why would he have done that?
 
The humans in a godzilla movie are always going to be a problem. They will never be the most important part of the movie, but they will always take up the majority of the screen time. This movie handled them as well as humans in a Godzilla movie can be handled.
 
I do wish Cranston had stuck around longer just because the start of the movie built up his character's motivation. That never really passed down to his son in anyway. Once
Joe died, it felt like the first 30-40 mins of character development died with him
 

Wilbur

Banned
I thought Cranston was the best in it too.
i would have loved for him to hang around for longer

As it stands though, I'm not going to go around rewriting a film giving a vision that'll never come to fruition. It didn't happen, I understand why it didn't happen, the plot goes down avenues where it makes sense that it didn't happen and I'm okay with that.
 
I assume that seeing godzilla not really kill or attack humans was to show he is somewhat friendly right?

It's more because he could not care less about them.


1. Cranston (damn I can't really remember the character's name!) was the only who seemed to have studied what was going on and it seemed only he gave a shit as to what these creatures could do. the Watanabe charactrer was AWFUL. brought n othing to the table. I kept waiting for him to talk to Cranston to see what ideas they could exchange but nope, he just kept staring at the iomega Zip drives, LOL.

it's not just military stuff. it should be POV of regular folk on the ground experiencing destruction from giant creatures(I laughed every time they shot at the monsters with their guns, it's like shooting at the wind!)
Walter White needed to go in there and tell the military"look, they eat nukes for breakfast, do this instead." I got so frustated when Watanabe told them "nukes won't work" and Navy captain. "UM, nuh uh force will kill them, they were using firecrackers back then", which is wrong by the way but whatever.

Cranston's character didn't know they absorb radiation, hell he didn't even know they exist. All he was sure of was that the nuclear meltdown wasn't caused by an earthquake and that there was some weird echolocation shit going on.

Once he and his son had seen the MUTO existed and it proved he wasn't crazy there was nothing more he could add to the movie. Killing him off was the smart thing to do otherwise the movie just becomes more bloated and for what? A few scenes of him worrying about his son and telling him to be careful as he goes off to transport the nuke?

And we don't know whether the military were wrong about killing them with a giant nuke because they were never close enough to do it
 
Oh yeah! A few pages back people were remarking how far fetched it seemed that they had a zip disk reader. Honestly when I saw that I kind of chuckled at how authentic to Japan that was. Has anyone else been inside a Hard Off store in Japan before? You can find a used PC FX or MSX system in there. A Japanese man easily getting his hands on a zip drive isn't hard at all.

Now I don't know about the archival qualities of zip discs though I'd expect them to be more robust than 3.5" floppies.
 

East Lake

Member
For all the Spielberg comparisons that have been thrown around (and a lot of them are apt) Spielberg made sure that his actors actually REFLECTED the stakes on their faces when he dollies up to them.

A lot of this movie features actors just barely acting. Not underplaying. Just mostly standing there. It was the same in Monsters. Luckily, there's a metric TON more to work with here in Godzilla, so Edwards' inability to get his actors to manufacture humanity isn't as much of a drag.

People are talking about replacing actors/characters, and it's the wrong solution to an obvious problem. The actors are fine - the cast is a good cast. The problem is their director just strands them. You don't need to switch actors or cut characters. You just need to draw performances out of the people you already have. He didn't do that
It makes me think of the scenes in Jurassic Park where they first see the big dinosaurs in the Jeep where Sam Neill rips his glasses of and grabs Laura Dern's head to show her. It was an appropriate response to seeing the dinosaurs and I felt the same sense of awe they did (also saw it as a kid so that certainly helped). Or the scene when the cars are flipped over and the T-rex is trying to eat them and they're trying all this shit to not be eaten, vs
Aaron Johnson's scene where he kills the eggs and the monster sees him, and he just sort of sits there with his bum leg looking and the monster and waits to get eaten.
I'm sitting there thinking where's the suspense?
 

zma1013

Member
Went and saw it in IMAX 3D and was not disappointed. Awesome visuals all around. Great camera work, none of this crazy shaky cam, zoom in BS, just nice framing of the action all around. I wasn't bothered at all being forced to watch in 3D because at least the IMAX I went to, the entire movie was visibly bright and clear. Acting from Cranston is good as usual, and I didn't have a problem with the other actors. They seemed to be doing about as good as they could possible do given the rather obvious formulaic progression of the movie and dialog.

Also,
dat Mortal Kombat finishing move, holy shit.
 

Betty

Banned
Once he and his son had seen the MUTO existed and it proved he wasn't crazy there was nothing more he could add to the movie. Killing him off was the smart thing to do otherwise the movie just becomes more bloated and for what? A few scenes of him worrying about his son and telling him to be careful as he goes off to transport the nuke?

I disagree, I and many others actually cared about the character, which is more than can be said for his son and his bland family or anyone else in the movie for that matter.

If they kept Cranston, they could have made it so he focuses his hatred for losing his wife onto these muto's, including Godzilla. Having discovered that the muto's were talking to each other, Cranston would be brought in to devise a way to destroy them. He and Watanabe could butt heads, with Watanabe trying to be the voice of reason and urging them to let Godzilla help. Cranston of course wouldn't listen and would be obsessed with taking down the monsters with the nuke, only to have a change of heart at the end as he realizes that Godzilla is actually not like the other muto. It would have been great to see him getting over the death of his wife and moving on with his life.
 

Toa TAK

Banned
So he just says all the lines she does? Still nowhere near the action or crux of the drama?

This is akin to when my dad cut the matrix trilogy together in QuickTime. The entirety of the first movie. The car chase and the burly brawl in reloaded. The fight at the end of revolutions. No narrative sense :lol

People giving these films fan edits like "Cranston should have been the lead" and then not coming up with a better alternative... just giving him Hawkins' lines would have pandered to Cranston fans, not made the character any better or given him a reason for being there.
I wanted to get him closer to the conflict, I wanted him to see the MUTO get taken down, the one that took out his wife. Some resolution to see he was right only to die and do nothing afterwards.
 

Ferrio

Banned
I disagree, I and many others actually cared about the character, which is more than can be said for his son and his bland family or anyone else in the movie for that matter.

If they kept Cranston, they could have made it so he focuses his hatred for losing his wife to these muto's, including Godzilla. Having discovered that the muto's were talking to each other, Cranston would be brought in to devise a way to destroy them. He and Watanabe could butt heads, with Watanabe trying to be the voice of reason and urging them to let Godzilla help. Cranston of course wouldn't listen and would be obsessed with taking down the monsters with the nuke, only to have a change of heart at the end as he realizes that Godzilla is actually not like the other muto. It would have been great to see him getting over the death of his wife and moving on with his life.

What does cranston know about weapons or destroying monsters or anything? He's a seismologist. Who would listen? Who would take his order?
 

Azulsky

Member
Oh yeah! A few pages back people were remarking how far fetched it seemed that they had a zip disk reader. Honestly when I saw that I kind of chuckled at how authentic to Japan that was. Has anyone else been inside a Hard Off store in Japan before? You can find a used PC FX or MSX system in there. A Japanese man easily getting his hands on a zip drive isn't hard at all.

Now I don't know about the archival qualities of zip discs though I'd expect them to be more robust than 3.5" floppies.

1999

Definitely Zip Disk era


I dont think this launched in JPY yet.

If it is good then i wonder if Toho will give up more Kaiju for licensing.
 

Betty

Banned
What does cranston know about weapons or destroying monsters or anything? He's a seismologist. Who would listen? Who would take his order?

They bring the son along and ask for his input simply because his father may have known something. If Cranston had lived and been taken to the briefing room to be shown that they knew of these monsters beforehand, not only would be get a powerful scene of him getting angry at them for hiding this from the public, but I'm fairly certain if he offered any sort of solution they'd be willing to listen, especially because they were still in the dark on how to defeat them.

The fact we can't remember the characters names and have to call them by the actor who portrayed them speaks volumes about how bad the characterization was in this.
 
I disagree, I and many others actually cared about the character, which is more than can be said for his son and his bland family or anyone else in the movie for that matter.

If they kept Cranston, they could have made it so he focuses his hatred for losing his wife onto these muto's, including Godzilla. Having discovered that the muto's were talking to each other, Cranston would be brought in to devise a way to destroy them. He and Watanabe could butt heads, with Watanabe trying to be the voice of reason and urging them to let Godzilla help. Cranston of course wouldn't listen and would be obsessed with taking down the monsters with the nuke, only to have a change of heart at the end as he realizes that Godzilla is actually not like the other muto. It would have been great to see him getting over the death of his wife and moving on with his life.
He knows nothing about weapons or the monsters, he would be of zero use. Guy is a former engineer at a nuclear power planet, which had a meltdown on his watch before he went off the rails and turned into a crazy nutcase who keeps getting arrested for trespassing.

They'd tell him to get the fuck out of there.
 
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