Shin Gojira trailer

[TithonusSyndrome]

Looks like there's still a place for the old methods that isn't purely nostalgic. Immediate reactions:

-Still not sure about the overall Gojira design. The mouth and teeth are especially out of place; teeth that small are typically more of a piscivoric feature and it sort of slightly undermines the image of Godzilla as an indomitable land predator. The red streaks pique my interest and make me wonder if the script is going to be borrowing from "Destoroyah" at all. The upturned hands at rest are a fucking embarrassment.
-Are those... F-2s taxiing at 0:53? Jesus man, the JASDF looks considerably less glamorous and modern than in films of past decades.
-The shots of Godzilla being fired at by platoons of armored vehicles is unbelievably welcome to see. I had forgotten how much I missed those iconic sequences, and they're shaping up to be some of the best-shot in the franchise here.
-The emergency response HQ at 0:21 looks a lot more like the real sort of thing that the Japanese government would set up in response to major disasters, ie Fukushima, rather than the sort of confabulated "Dr Strangelove" Hollywood military headquarters from past movies. I'm all for this change.

Could be pretty good, hope it gets at least limited distribution over here in August so I can catch it in a theater.

[Elheru Aran]

This almost looks like an April Fools' Joke. The whole Godzilla being played by a guy in a rubber suit again, I don't really care for-- they did a pretty decent job with him in the American film (the current one, not the 98 one, obviously). The hands are just freaking weird, and the arms seem strangely small.

It makes me wonder, if this is a legit movie, if this is actually another monster that Godzilla will show up to kick the ass of.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Toho doesn't have the resources that WB does to make a movie, so you're either going to get CGI that suffers badly in comparison to what WETA can do or something like this which uses "hybrid effects" as a way of trading on the visual cachet of the franchise's past. I understand that you don't like it, because I have reservations of my own, but I don't see why this effects approach should be such a shock given the options a that a studio far smaller than any in Hollywood has.

[TithonusSyndrome]

For comparison's sake, here's the proof-of-concept trailer for a new Gamera that debuted at last year's Comic-con:



Accounting for stylistic differences in direction and editing, is this really so much better an option than what Shin Gojira is attempting, or maybe about the same in terms of final effect?

[Elheru Aran]

No, I get it. It just looks odd compared to the WB movie-- less fluid and lively. Hell, it doesn't look as good as I remember Godzilla looking in Final Wars, but part of it may be a deliberate stylistic choice.

Now that Gamera film, I liked that a little better, actually. It appears that they mixed computer graphics with model work, and the final result, while still kinda cheesy, looks better IMO. Professionally cleaned up for cinema, it'd look good.

[TithonusSyndrome]

I'm not sure Godzilla *should* be fluid or lively. He's supposed to be indifferent and utterly beyond our ability to harm; the scene of him indifferently wading through a fusillade of tank fire stirred my G-fan senses more than anything I saw in Goji2014, where he almost came across as being more like some prehistoric version of Lenny from Of Mice And Men than anything else, repeatedly clamping his jaws on the male MUTO and releasing it over the course of a fight that apparently lasts twelve hours in a space that would be smaller to them than a city block would be to you or me.

If it sounds like I hated that movie then I should point out I was mostly happy with it, but it still missed a lot of essential Goji beats that this movie is keener to strike, like the march forward into artillery fire and so on.

And I hate to break your heart as mine once was, but that's not actually a Gamera film; it's purely a proof of concept and a way to test audience reception.

[Elheru Aran]

Film, trailer, whatever. I don't follow Gamera so I don't care that much, I was looking at it from a technical perspective

You make a fair point. I suppose I've gotten inured to the concept of CG critters as they've become much more common lately in American/Western cinema and even television.

[Sidewinder]

I saw the trailer in the Anime News Network article. The fact the director is Anno Hideaki- the man responsible for 'Neon Genesis Evangelion'- makes me apprehensive. This apprehension is NOT relieved by the following statement:

[Live-action 'Attack on Titan' director] Higuchi [Shinji, Anno's collaborator] promised that this will be the scariest Godzilla yet, quoting the horrors of the real world, like 9/11, the March 11 tsunami, and subsequent Fukushima nuclear crisis having stripped the the world of its innocence.

For me, the true horror of 9/11 is the fact those responsible were human beings like you and I- that we could easily have been the VICTIMIZERS as well as the victims. Godzilla, on the other hand, is as much a force of nature as an earthquake or a typhoon; ascribing motive to him beyond "survival" is as pointless as saying, "God sent the earthquake to punish us for [insert sin of choice, here]!" and I fear the Japanese filmmakers will force such a pointless message down the viewers throats.

[ray245]

Well the whole point of Godzilla is an allegory to the atomic bombings of Japan. So this is hardly anything new.

[Vendetta]

For me, the true horror of 9/11 is the fact those responsible were human beings like you and I- that we could easily have been the VICTIMIZERS as well as the victims. Godzilla, on the other hand, is as much a force of nature as an earthquake or a typhoon; ascribing motive to him beyond "survival" is as pointless as saying, "God sent the earthquake to punish us for [insert sin of choice, here]!" and I fear the Japanese filmmakers will force such a pointless message down the viewers throats.

You mean like how the original film was about nuclear testing and the consequences to mankind of having created and deployed nuclear weapons?

That shit is literally the core of what Gojira is. It's an incarnation of nature's revenge on mankind.

[TithonusSyndrome]

Yeah, I don't think Godzilla needs to have motives other than "survive" or "assert territorial dominance" or whatever kind of general animal mentality you ascribe to him in order to be an effective vessel for mankind's comeuppance at the hands of nature. If you really want to lament a lost thematic opportunity, lament the fact that this movie will most likely either not discuss Godzilla's status as a victim in being forced to play that role by circumstances outside his control, or if it does it will only do it in a superficial or turgid way.

[Tsyroc]

From what I've read the rumor is that the Godzilla in the trailer is in the midst of a regenerating and that is why he looks like a zombie version of himself. Supposedly there will be a couple of other looks for Godzilla in the movie. A weaker rumor is that this might be the 1954 Godzilla regenerating from the oxygen destroyer. Even with that, there's something seriously wrong with his tail. Maybe they are going for the rather long tail that he had in Godzilla Returns but the long whippy end hasn't grown back yet (one of the bits made it look like the end of his tail was missing). In the meantime it looks like way too long and chunky.

For a teaser it had far too many shots of human actors. At one time I might have recognized some of them from previous Godzilla movies but no such luck these days.

I did like the look of some of the military action shots. They at least appeared to be a slightly different take on previous stuff.

Funny thing. I kind of miss the old school stylized explosions from when they used to really set off pyrotechnics when the suit was getting shot. The same with having dorsal fins on the suit that actually light up instead of everything just being painted in later.



TithonusSyndrome, that Gamera proof of concept video was excellent. I've always been more of a Godzilla fan but at times it has been the Gamera movies that have kicked it up an notch and pushed Toho to do the same with it's Godzilla movies.

[Q99]

I'm not normally into as dark of takes, but it definitely looks well-made to me.

And, one thing it'll have over the Legendary film, is with suits they can afford *far* more on-screen monster time.

[Lost Soal]

This almost looks like an April Fools' Joke. The whole Godzilla being played by a guy in a rubber suit again, I don't really care for-- they did a pretty decent job with him in the American film (the current one, not the 98 one, obviously). The hands are just freaking weird, and the arms seem strangely small.

It makes me wonder, if this is a legit movie, if this is actually another monster that Godzilla will show up to kick the ass of.

Well if you look at the 20s mark it looks like there is a second one entering the shot

[TithonusSyndrome]

Well if you look at the 20s mark it looks like there is a second one entering the shot

That is Godzilla's ludicrously overlong spider monkey tail, which is in a three-way tie for Worst New Design Feature along with the hands frozen in an upward clutching position while at rest, and the crumpled Oogie-Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas grimace.