I am going to post my thoughts after work. In short, despite some flaws, its a fantastic summer blockbuster. People looking for There Will Be Blood type PT Anderson depth and realism in a movie about giant lizard stomping the world should have their prioties checked out.
Because if you're going to fill a monster movie with a bunch of human nonsense then the human nonsense has to hold up. Bryan Cranston's character is the only human in the film that seems to be acting reasonably, intelligently, and would've probably been the best person helping lead the front on the human side.
Instead, you get Ken's character, you get people who's judgment should be questioned forever for following his judgment
your own example of following the creature by sea using battleships after it damn nearly leveled hawaii is no doubt a great way to lose your battleships, which wouldve left the naval forces to explain that loss by shrugging their shoulders, pointing at ken and saying, hey, ask him.
and just a lot of really dumb writing and acting on the human side.
I hate to keep going back to pacific rim but they made a better godzilla movie because they knew the human side of things was incredibly dumb and made the monsters the focus of the film. I'm not saying that Godzilla needed to be Pacific Rim but when you're leaning that heavily on what is essentially the side stuff of a monster movie then it needs to hold up. In the case of Godzilla, it doesn't.
I thought a lot of the assumptions they made about Godzilla seemed pretty crazy for people not knowing much about him at all, but I would rather them make dumb assumptions that were right then spend time having them try and actually solve things. I just wanted to see Godzilla wreck stuff and he did, though there could have been more of that.
I think that it happens to be that he just happened to know a lot about Godzilla and his purpose and intentions when there seemed to be no way that he should be privvy to that information.
Where did you read that? Almost everyone in here has acknowledged this this film is somewhat flawed. Just because it didn't live up to all it was hyped up to be doesn't suddenly make the 98 version a better movie.
Which some people in this thread have actually stated.
You have far worse characters in that film with an even longer run-time and an almost entire 20 minutes dedicated to Jurassic Park Raptor ripoffs. With three chase scenes that end up nowhere.
The entire:
"Hey, look guys the 98 film had so much more action and the movie knew it was stupid which means it had to be so much better"
The movie isn't dumb. Everything you posted is explained in the film (with one or two exceptions). Not directed at you specifically, but there are a lot of things many people in this thread seem to miss. Though to be fair, some of these are very subtle.
They loaded the nuke in a population center to drive about twenty miles out into sea where it would pose "minimal fallout" to the city. Lure the MUTOs there and explode it, hoping the blast would kill the beasts.
They used a train because it seemed to be steam powered and the MUTO's EMP range has a 200 mile radius. No win scenario here.
Not sure here. Maybe they didn't have time to take it out?
The MUTOs are impervious to radar traction. You need eyes in the sky.
The MUTO drained a lot of energy out of the nuke. When Ford brought it out to sea, there were still 15 minutes left on the timer.
I know they were loading it to drive it out to sea, that doesn't mean it ever need to come anywhere near San Francisco! San Francisco isn't the only place on the entire Pacific Coast in the US that can have boats.
Trains aren't steam powered anymore. They are diesel powered hybrids. An EMP is going to make a train just as useless as anything else. And again, in the end, they used a helicopter.
We have a lot of nuclear warheads literally just laying around. It would be easier to get them from the Amarillo stockpile then from ICBMs in Kansas.
15 minutes on a boat like that still won't get far enough away from the city. However, I was pretty sure the timer was a lot lower than 15 minutes, and I don't mind being proven wrong on this fact.
Because if you're going to fill a monster movie with a bunch of human nonsense then the human nonsense has to hold up. Brian Cranston's character is the only human in the film that seems to be acting reasonably, intelligently, and would've probably been the best person helping lead the front on the human side.
Instead, you get Ken's character, you get people who's judgment should be questioned forever for following his judgment
your own example of following the creature by sea using battleships after it damn nearly leveled hawaii is no doubt a great way to lose your battleships, which wouldve left the naval forces to explain that loss by shrugging their shoulders, pointing at ken and saying, hey, ask him.
and just a lot of really dumb writing and acting on the human side.
I hate to keep going back to pacific rim but they made a better godzilla movie because they knew the human side of things was incredibly dumb and made the monsters the focus of the film. I'm not saying that Godzilla needed to be Pacific Rim but when you're leaning that heavily on what is essentially the side stuff of a monster movie then it needs to hold up. In the case of Godzilla, it doesn't.
Ok, how bout this, regardless of the human elements not being up to expectations, in most of those scenes didn't you still gather the scale of the problem? I feel like thats what the first 2/3rds is for. Setting you up for the
big fight by showing the scale of the situation.
Including,
following Godzilla in the water, the MUTO's destroying different parts of the world looking for nuclear energy to feed on, the human element of Ford not wanting to lose his wife like his dad did, the fact that the military was pretty much defenseless and had to take major considerations on what they wanted to do to solve the problem?
I hate to keep going back to pacific rim but they made a better godzilla movie because they knew the human side of things was incredibly dumb and made the monsters the focus of the film. I'm not saying that Godzilla needed to be Pacific Rim but when you're leaning that heavily on what is essentially the side stuff of a monster movie then it needs to hold up. In the case of Godzilla, it doesn't.
I hate to keep going back to pacific rim but they made a better godzilla movie because they knew the human side of things was incredibly dumb and made the monsters the focus of the film. I'm not saying that Godzilla needed to be Pacific Rim but when you're leaning that heavily on what is essentially the side stuff of a monster movie then it needs to hold up. In the case of Godzilla, it doesn't.
I feel like Godzilla 2014 is conflicted on how the humans should be treated. They at least have some interest in human drama, with the groundwork laid by Cranston's character and how that is "supposed" to impact his son...but shortly after, ATJ's character simply becomes a vessel for the audience to follow and not necessarily invest in. After a certain point, Ford's character stops developing (I'd say the moment his dad dies) and is more there for an audience ride-along.
It "worked" for me, in that I think they use the POV-angle very well, and there is no doubt that other movies have done "shallow" characters better. Since Jurassic Park comes up often in this thread, the characters in that don't feel like they got much more screentime vs Godzilla's, but they have distinct personalities and are likeable.
Still, like I said, enough of what was good about Godzilla helped me get over this. It is not the case for everyone.
I know they were loading it to drive it out to sea, that doesn't mean it ever need to come anywhere near San Francisco! San Francisco isn't the only place on the entire Pacific Coast in the US that can have boats.
Trains aren't steam powered anymore. They are diesel powered hybrids. An EMP is going to make a train just as useless as anything else. And again, in the end, they used a helicopter.
We have a lot of nuclear warheads literally just laying around. It would be easier to get them from the Amarillo stockpile then from ICBMs in Kansas.
15 minutes on a boat like that still won't get far enough away from the city. However, I was pretty sure the timer was a lot lower than 15 minutes, and I don't mind being proven wrong on this fact.
I think it's unfair to say that a movie needs to be either a) completely thoughtless and dumb, or b) completely mature and smart. I don't think even the smartest movies out there perfectly account for everything, so to say that Godzilla is "shit" because it is not entirely one or the other is a dumb thing to say.
The problem is with the viewer. If you went into this movie expecting realism out the ass that makes even our own reality less real, then that's your problem. If you're going to say one scene is illogical, you better account for every scientifically impossible scenario in that case. Otherwise it's nitpicking fairly innocuous things in the movie and calling it a piece of shit. Oh, but a "dumb movie" isn't a piece of shit because it knows it's dumb and makes no attempt at being smart. What does that even mean?
Edit: I'm not saying that there can't be issues within a movie, because every movie has them, but there isn't anything, in my opinion, that makes this movie into what is, according to some users and in other words, a deplorable, boring, thoughtless, uninspired piece of shit.
I think it's unfair to say that a movie needs to be either a) completely thoughtless and dumb, or b) completely mature and smart. I don't think even the smartest movies out there perfectly account for everything, so to say that Godzilla is "shit" because it is not entirely one or the other is a dumb thing to say.
The problem is with the viewer. If you went into this movie expecting realism out the ass that makes even our own reality less real, then that's your problem. If you're going to say one scene is illogical, you better account for every scientifically impossible scenario in that case. Otherwise it's nitpicking fairly innocuous things in the movie and calling it a piece of shit. Oh, but a "dumb movie" isn't a piece of shit because it knows it's dumb and makes no attempt at being smart. What does that even mean?
The film wants to be taken seriously. As a viewer, if you're asking me to take you seriously then that's what I'm going to try and do to respect the vision of the film. With that said, the film doesn't earn its tone. It's that simple.
Godzilla isn't a lighthearted romp through the world with our dear friend, the king of monsters. It's not a romantic comedy between two long lost MUTO lovers. It's a Godzilla movie that starts with a
husband unknowingly sending his wife to her death in a heartfelt moment.
It very much wants you to take the human story seriously and it really does a shitty job of making you care about it for the rest of the movie.
http://youtu.be/z8wRyimbzW8
If you can stomach through some of the "Godzilla is a cool dude" hyperbole, his criticism of the movie itself is pretty much spot on with how I felt.
Again, I enjoyed my time in the theater, but there was a lot of downtime. I probably won't seek this out for home viewing.
Then they should use a Boeing E4
Also, there are no megaton nukes currently in the arsenal. The current winner is the W88, which has a yield of 500 kt, designed for MIRV launch systems, the Peacekeeper (decommissioned in 2005) and Trident. Basically, we realized that a big boom wasn't as helpful as a bunch of smaller ones over a greater area. In regards to the movie, that would mean... 8km to expect to survive initial blast.
EDIT:
Didn't even think to look this up, because I thought warheads would be the big booms, but they aren't. The B 83 is our biggest, and it DEFINITELY didn't need a train for transportation. It is 1.1 Mt, and dropped by Lancers. Again, though, saying that the stuff we were blowing up in the 50s were small is...disingenuous to say the least. the B 83 is still literally 15 times smaller than Castle Bravo, which was the other reason Godzilla was created.
The problem is with the viewer. If you went into this movie expecting realism out the ass that makes even our own reality less real, then that's your problem. If you're going to say one scene is illogical, you better account for every scientifically impossible scenario in that case. Otherwise it's nitpicking fairly innocuous things in the movie and calling it a piece of shit.
Unrealistic movies still have to follow their own internal logic. There has to be a consistency running throughout even the most implausible of stories, otherwise anything goes and nothing matters.
Oh, but a "dumb movie" isn't a piece of shit because it knows it's dumb and makes no attempt at being smart. What does that even mean?
The film wants to be taken seriously. As a viewer, if you're asking me to take you seriously then that's what I'm going to try and do to respect the vision of the film. With that said, the film doesn't earn its tone. It's that simple.
Godzilla isn't a lighthearted romp through the world with our dear friend, the king of monsters. It's not a romantic comedy between two long lost MUTO lovers. It's a Godzilla movie that starts with a
husband unknowingly sending his wife to her death in a heartfelt moment.
It very much wants you to take the human story seriously and it really does a shitty job of making you care about it for the rest of the movie.
I see it as the scale is on a rise throughout the entire film. The human conflict and element is important in the beginning, but it transforms into something completely out of our control. It just makes us look expendable when you have these gigantic mutants destroying cities without much effort.
It felt personal in the beginning considering Cranston and his wife, but I became desensitized toward the human struggle later on, not because people were really "shitty" actors, but because the situation was so dire and no one was safe.
In Gareth Edwards Godzilla, point of view is everything. Here is a $160 million studio tentpole in which perspective stomps over plot, and characters are defined not by their actions, but by their insignificance. Here is a confidently paced monster movie that eschews the four action setpieces strung together with exposition and iced with a tease template of contemporary blockbuster cinema. Edwards devotes the films first hour to the deepening tragedy of a single family, and builds to an unspeakably spectacular climax thats less dependent on what were seeing than on how were seeing it.
Edwards Godzilla is the result of a creative team attempting to reconcile the essence of Hondas original with the narrative demands of a blockbuster. This film may not need viewers to care about its characters, but it still needs to have some. Its a tall order, but in returning to the transitional trajectory of the movie that started it all, this new Godzilla finds an extremely elegant solution. Brodys attempts to reunite with his wife and child are little more than scaffolding for a story that is explicitly about the transition from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism. Its a theme that Edwards film promotes to a plot, the movie gradually reorienting this presumptuously human story until were reduced to mere observers, trying desperately to save ourselves as monsters battle above us, oblivious to our plight.
Godzilla is both humanitys reckoning and its salvation, a response to our unchecked parasitic relationship with the planet and a reminder of our ultimately supporting role as stewards rather than beneficiaries. Steven Spielberg exerts an undeniable influence on the way the film moves, but Hayao Miyazakis work best anticipates where it goes. If Jurassic Park is about the perils of playing God, Godzilla responds that just being ourselves is bad enough.
Unsurprisingly, one of the most common criticisms the film has engendered is that the people in it are bland and dont do anything. Devin Faraci put it best in his otherwise-positive review, observing that Nobodys going to walk out of Godzilla wanting to buy toys of the human characters. Hes wrong, of course, because the world desperately needs a Juliette Binoche action figure, and Hasbro is still slacking on the Dan In Real Life merchandise, but his point is well-taken.
In fact, one major sequence even begins with Brody fiddling with an action figure that resembles himself, and a little boys interest in the toy lands him squarely in the middle of a MUTO attack that the military is powerless to stop. Its a cute story beat, but also one that bluntly reinforces our insignificance in the face of the films crisisultimately, the only thing the humans do well in Godzilla is provide scale for the monsters. The people only there for us to see how insignificant they are.
Judging from reviews and social media, many viewers feel betrayed by the films dwindling interest in the family that dominates its first half, as the Brody clans multi-generational tragedy is a distant memory by the time we get to the climactic kaiju battle. The eponymous radioactive monster, who has all the emotional complexity of a natural disaster, easily emerges as the most nuanced character in the film, and alsodespite his prolonged absences from the pictureits one true lead.
This is the rare live-action summer blockbuster in which, by design, not a single one of the human characters in the movie has anything resembling a complete emotional arc. And while its difficult to argue that Brody wouldnt have benefited from some memorable dialogue and a more charismatic performance, the lack of a compelling homosapien protagonist helps clarify the films true trajectory. This is a story about exposing the myopia of the human perspective and then humiliating our inherently egocentric POV. Were just another part of the equation Godzilla has come back to balance, an urgent reorientation that Edwards turns into a story by gradually disempowering his human characters, conflating us with the bad guys until Godzilla can emerge as an aspirational figure.
The 1954 Godzilla ends with a scientist killing the titular beast, but
by the closing credits of Edwards edition, Godzilla hardly even knows we exist
. The King of Monsters was born into global culture as a reckoning, but in the ongoing aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, the worst fears of Hondas film have been confirmed, and Godzilla is less of a mythological threat than he is a daily part of our ecosystem. Weve become a far more destructive species over the course of the last 60 years, but Godzillas invincibility in the face of our growing power confirms that our stewardship is a temporary charge, and not a birthright. If Hondas film was a desperate plea for reason, Edwards is a plea for perspective. We used to be the villains in this story, but now were just in the way.
Saw it this weekend, was pretty disappointed in it. Pacific Rim pretty much blew it out of the water, but hopefully Godzilla 2 can leverage the potential of the first and give us a satisfying movie.
Again, I enjoyed my time in the theater, but there was a lot of downtime. I probably won't seek this out for home viewing.
Then they should use a Boeing E4
Also, there are no megaton nukes currently in the arsenal. The current winner is the W88, which has a yield of 500 kt, designed for MIRV launch systems, the Peacekeeper (decommissioned in 2005) and Trident. Basically, we realized that a big boom wasn't as helpful as a bunch of smaller ones over a greater area. In regards to the movie, that would mean... 8km to expect to survive initial blast.
Makes sense. I think they specifically mention the mega term at one point though. I'd imagine that with Godzilla possibly out there they keep a few big'uns for him.
Guys, I'm watching this in a few days. Question: 3D or no 3D? To be honest I don't care much about 3D but I don't mind it if the movie actually merits it.
To the '98 movie? I agree. I even just said that. :lol But I think there are plenty of Toho Godzillas that were overall more satisfying movies than this one.
A movie could contain all of the answers to its plot and still do a bad job of communicating them. Just because the information is in the movie doesn't mean the movie got it across well enough.
Hence why I said "directly stated." I don't see how you can more clearly communicate something than going to a sceme wherein all they're doing is planning and having the characters state what the plan is and why. Which is what happened with the things he was complaining about.
Guys, I'm watching this in a few days. Question: 3D or no 3D? To be honest I don't care much about 3D but I don't mind it if the movie actually merits it.
I vote no 3D (and I LOVE watching movies in 3D). I saw it at IMAX and apart from maybe one or two scenes where the 3D was noticeable, there was a ton of motion blur.
I vote no 3D (and I LOVE watching movies in 3D). I saw it at IMAX and apart from maybe one or two scenes where the 3D was noticeable, there was a ton of motion blur.
Guys, I'm watching this in a few days. Question: 3D or no 3D? To be honest I don't care much about 3D but I don't mind it if the movie actually merits it.
Makes sense. I think they specifically mention the mega term at one point though. I'd imagine that with Godzilla possibly out there they keep a few big'uns for him.
Guys, I'm watching this in a few days. Question: 3D or no 3D? To be honest I don't care much about 3D but I don't mind it if the movie actually merits it.
Don't go to a standard 3D showing, go to an IMAX 3D. The 3D itself isn't worth mentioning, but its worth it for giant screen and the superior audio. It makes the movie even better than it already is. I wish there was a 2D imax version.
They initially speculate on the possible predatory relationship when they first encounter the
remains at the Philippines mining site
. Then it's further bolstered by the fact that
Godzilla reawakens with the activity of the MUTOs
.
In any case it's not exactly a wild leap of logic to assume two different species of creature possibly have a competitive relationship in nature when they seem to share a need for similar resources. That's frankly one of the safer hypotheses he could make.
It's a fucking scientist that everyone is counting on who has just enough knowledge about these monsters to have his opinion valued all the way up the chain of command and he just decided the course of action for the entire military based on nothing but an uneducated hunch.
I didn't get the sense that anyone was "counting on" Watanabe and his team at all. They wanted them there for any expertise they could provide but the military made it very clear that they were proceeding with their own plans unless the scientific team could come up with something rock solid to use against the monsters. That was all made perfectly clear to me via the movie.
Say what you will about the writing in Pacific Rim, but that movie was dumb, it knew it was dumb, and it played up to its own dumb expectations beautifully.
That's a good read, but I don't agree with all it's points. If the point of having dull, uninteresting characters that become irrelevant by movies end is to make them seem insignificant compared to giant monsters, then is that a point really worth making? I think Edwards could have accomplished what the Dissolve is claiming his goal was, without the lifelessness and generic exposition dumping characters.
In any case it's not exactly a wild leap of logic to assume two different species of creature possibly have a competitive relationship in nature when they seem to share a need for similar resources. That's frankly one of the safer hypotheses he could make.
godzilla could've awaken to be part of a muto threesome. He had no empirical evidence to back up what he was saying. what about this one: maybe godzilla wanted the female muto for himself.
Who knows, really? I just came up with that right now and the logic behind my reasoning is as sound as about 99% of what comes out of Ken's mouth in the movie.
I didn't get the sense that anyone was "counting on" Watanabe and his team at all. They wanted them there for any expertise they could provide but the military made it very clear that they were proceeding with their own plans unless the scientific team could come up with something rock solid to use against the monsters. That was all made perfectly clear to me via the movie.
Pretty sure that they hung off of every dumbfoundingly irrational word that came out of ken's mouth but maybe that was just too lost in wonderment as i tried to figure out why ken was doing a convincing Jayden Smith impression in every scene he had in the film.
I did not. But that's a pretty lazy justification for the theme considering every kaiju movie ever made has the same thing happen. If they were gonna take a serious approach to the movie I expected a serious screenplay, not a totally half-assed one.
Said most kaijuu movies tend to be Godzilla's though, and it is accompanied by "humanity's fault to nuclear use". Like I said the human element is eh, but the theme is still there.
In any case it's not exactly a wild leap of logic to assume two different species of creature possibly have a competitive relationship in nature when they seem to share a need for similar resources. That's frankly one of the safer hypotheses he could make.
godzilla could've awaken to be part of a muto threesome. He had no empirical evidence to back up what he was saying. what about this one: maybe godzilla wanted the female muto for himself.
Who knows, really? I just came up with that right now and the logic behind my reasoning is as sound as about 99% of what comes out of Ken's mouth in the movie.
I didn't get the sense that anyone was "counting on" Watanabe and his team at all. They wanted them there for any expertise they could provide but the military made it very clear that they were proceeding with their own plans unless the scientific team could come up with something rock solid to use against the monsters. That was all made perfectly clear to me via the movie.
Pretty sure that they hung off of every dumbfoundingly irrational word that came out of ken's mouth but maybe i was just too lost in wonderment as i tried to figure out why ken was doing a convincing Jayden Smith impression in every scene he had in the film.
Good sir, we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
That's a good read, but I don't agree with all it's points. If the point of having dull, uninteresting characters that become irrelevant by movies end is to make them seem insignificant compared to giant monsters, then is that a point really worth making? I think Edwards could have accomplished what the Dissolve is claiming his goal was, without the lifelessness and generic exposition dumping characters.
and Cranston's fantastic role early in the film is what seals it for me that the wooden acting and terrible writing wasn't intentional. He killed it with his small screen time and it's the case where no one else comes even close to what he did in the film. I even forgave the terrible wig, he was so good. Once his role in the film ends, everything pretty much falls flat until the final showdown.
godzilla could've awaken to be part of a muto threesome. He had no empirical evidence to back up what he was saying. what about this one: maybe godzilla wanted the female muto for himself.
Who knows, really? I just came up with that right now and the logic behind my reasoning is as sound as about 99% of what comes out of Ken's mouth in the movie.
The Awakening comic really should have been integrated into the film, or at least summarized. His father had already studied and tracked Godzilla and MUTOs for Monarch, which is why he knew that much already.
How is it post human when the vast majority of the story is about how humans deal with stuff they can't deal with? I'm not buying this explanation for terrible characters: all of these goals of cinematography people keep propping up to explain the bad characters could still be executed - even be better! - if the vessels of the story connected with the audience.
As a kid who grew on 80's/90's Godzilla and up I liked it. The setup was nice (yet took a while) and once they finally showed a fight I was quite pleased. Mean Godzilla is what I have been waiting for and he was definitely shown.
The pacing was janky though and the cutaways to the military were jarring. Some scenes with them did have there moments (
the Halo jump for sure.
) but it wasn't balanced enough. Its probably really hard to find a balance between the monster parties and human parties respectively. Cloverfeild was focused on the human side and it shined because of that. Pacific Rim was all about monsters so it shined to many on that end (though not me, but that's because my taste in 'camp' has diminished alot over the years...Cloverfeild being a specific reason for that).
The only movies that have gotten that balance, to me, is probably "Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack" and the Heisei Gamera Trilogy in its entirety.
Not to get too off topic but a Gamera reboot needs to happen so bad it hurts. Gamera vs Godzilla needs to happen so bad it hurts. Also didn't the
creature in Godzilla seem like a mix of Gyaos and Legion???
Anyway I gave the movie a B-/C+. Definitely could've gotten more Godzilla and less human but for the first attempt it was not bad nor disappointing.
Said most kaijuu movies tend to be Godzilla's though, and it is accompanied by "humanity's fault to nuclear use". Like I said the human element is eh, but the theme is still there.
I dunno, I guess it's there but it's flimsier than I would like. A theme should be reinforced in some way in most scenes of a movie, but I didn't feel that in this.
And it wasn't really a thought provoking theme either, it's basically just 'we can't control nature'. What is there to contemplate?
That's a good read, but I don't agree with all it's points. If the point of having dull, uninteresting characters that become irrelevant by movies end is to make them seem insignificant compared to giant monsters, then is that a point really worth making? I think Edwards could have accomplished what the Dissolve is claiming his goal was, without the lifelessness and generic exposition dumping characters.
Plus, I don't know if he really makes the point of them being irrelevant by having Cranston deliver the take care of your family line and then have Ford survive and his family safely reunite at the end. And then the rest of humanity essentially gets happy and cheers.
That's a good read, but I don't agree with all it's points. If the point of having dull, uninteresting characters that become irrelevant by movies end is to make them seem insignificant compared to giant monsters, then is that a point really worth making? I think Edwards could have accomplished what the Dissolve is claiming his goal was, without the lifelessness and generic exposition dumping characters.
Well, the article does say that a more charismatic lead and better dialogue would have definitely helped, and I agree--but I don't think we need a character arc, we just needed more from the lead. Alan Grant, Ellen Ripley--these are characters that we LIKE, even if they don't experience much growth, because we're able to understand the characters' actions. Godzilla veers a bit TOO much into Ford just being a vessel that we tag along with, IMO, leaving his character fully by the wayside.
I don't even know if it's Edwards' inability. Sally Hawkins, Cranston, Juliette Binoche, and David Strathairn were fine. I felt like Hawkins did a lot with a tiny/insignificant role, because she knew how to emote.
ATJ's character was poorly written, but between this and Anna Karenina, I'm starting to doubt his range.
Post-human=the humans are not the center of the story or even the most important aspect. Humanity not having any way to deal with the situation fits right into that narrative.
Plus, I don't know if he really makes the point of them being irrelevant by having Cranston deliver the take care of your family line and then have Ford survive and his family safely reunite at the end. And then the rest of humanity essentially gets happy and cheers.
Godzilla is obsessed with the value of reproductive family units. The dynamic of parents concerned with the well-being of their child recur throughout the film like a chorus. The first triangle is between Brody and his parents. (His mothers dying words are for Joe to take care of their son.) Next are the angry Japanese parents collecting their goth teen from a Tokyo police station, and the little girl on the beach in Honolulu, whose parents whisk her to safety when Godzilla arrives. Theres the young Japanese boy whose brief arc is entirely defined by his separation from, and return to, his worried parents. Finally, theres Brodys wife and son, whose struggle for survival is rhymed with that of the MUTOs and their spawn during the siege on San Francisco. The MUTOs are bound by a destructive lust, their goal being simply to reunite and have uninterrupted sex, a desire to which Brody and his wife can certainly relate. By the time the female MUTO pulverizes downtown Las Vegas, the giant insect monster has done more to earn our affection than anyone else in the film.
To be clear: I don't necessarily agree 100% with that article, but I think it has a strong and fair argument for taking the story away from the human characters, even if the film was not completely successful in doing so.
Pretty sure you barely paid attention to the movie. If there was one thing ken's character was absolutely adamant about, it was about not using nuclear weapons and yet look what everyone supposedly hanging off every one of his words went ahead and did anyway?
How do you even try to make a claim like that with a straight face? We all *just* saw this movie within the past couple of days.
I don't even know if it's Edwards' inability. Sally Hawkins, Cranston, Juliette Binoche, and David Strathairn were fine. I felt like Hawkins did a lot with a tiny/insignificant role, because she knew how to emote.
I really do think it was on each actor to sort of direct themselves, which is why none of them felt like they were occupying the same movie, even when they were in the same scene. Of course, I don't know that for sure, but considering the quality of the cast, (yes, even Aaron Taylor Johnson) they should have amounted to more than what they did, even if what they did wasnt' necessarily BAD.
Knowing how it was he put Monsters together doesn't help, either: He basically Blair Witched it, telling them "you have to hit these points" and then just let them do whatever and tried to piece together performances in the editing room. It didn't work. And there are a lot of performances in this movie that are serviceable, but feel like they could have been more had he actually steered them towards choices that could have unified the tone a little more.
Ehrlich is doing Edwards' legwork for him in that article, and doing it very well. I just kinda wish the director had done it himself.
The crux of the argument i was making is this, in regards to his reasoning: when the entirety of humanity is depending on your expertise to help confront the greatest challenge it has ever faced, hey, don't fuck around with some guesswork. You can get us all killed with that bullshit. He ended up being right, ok, but not because he was sitting on a stack of research which showed that Monarch has,
using years of extensive research in the matter, deduced that the motherfucker is hunting.
Maybe in some comic or in some side crap it explains that but that isn't in the film anywhere. As far as anyone can tell, he pulls it right out of his ass, along with his balance-to-the-force mumbo jumbo as if godzilla was facing the freaking sith or some shit.
Pretty sure you barely paid attention to the movie. If there was one thing ken's character was absolutely adamant about, it was about not using nuclear weapons and yet look what everyone supposedly hanging off every one of his words went ahead and did anyway?
How do you even try to make a claim like that with a straight face? We all *just* saw this movie within the past couple of days.
look, really, i was being facetious with the hanging on his every word part. If they did that, i'm sure that his sweet elaborate plan of
just letting them tussle
would've been greenlit and everything would've been just fine and the film would've been 45 minutes long and he could've rested his poor bewildered face for the rest of his life.
But i'm having a moment here where i realize that his character is borderline useless in the film with some key exceptions being
his naming of the creature
and his noticing that the monsters
are using EMP blasts
for some reason or another that makes no sense but really is causing a wrinkle in the sheets that are humanity's attempts to not get stomped.
But i'll grant you that much. They really didn't listen to him all of the time. fair enough.
