Godzilla trailer

[ray245]

[Borgholio]

*nerdgasm*

[Mr. Coffee]

Looks like it's got a solid cast, but I've never herd of the director. I'd be tempted to say "It's a Godzilla movie, how hard can it be to not fuck this up", but I saw the 1998 Roland Emmerich version in theaters, so I know better.

[LadyTevar]

Moved to proper forum

[LadyTevar]

I'm cautiously hopeful, btw

[Borgholio]

I could have sworn that general was Tom Hanks...

[JLTucker]

Looks like it's got a solid cast, but I've never herd of the director. I

He directed a little indie monster movie appropriately titled "Monster".

Anyway, to me it looks like crap. We just had a godzilla movie and its name was Pacific Rim [Job].

[Boeing 757]

Well, the trailer has me stoked to see it. I'll probably go to see it just out of sheer curiosity alone.

[Borgholio]

It does look good. Definitely not a guy in a suit anymore. The big G actually looks intimidating now.

[Alferd Packer]

I'm happy that they brought back the iconic roar. I might see the movie on that alone.

[Adam Reynolds]

By virtue of not having it always be raining and dark it does already look better than the Emmerich version. The smoke adds to the feel rather than simply concealing the fact that the monster looks fake. As a side note Elizabeth Olsen looked just like Chloe Moretz in one scene(I actually thought it was her), which is amusing because Kick-Ass plays a major character(He was the main soldier).

[Dr. Trainwreck]

And yet I'm afraid this film will be stupid. Pacific Clichefest was salvaged in my mind by its fight scenes; unless they do something really extraordinary with exploring the themes and subtext of monster movies (I'm sure there is a ton of anime to give them ideas), they'll just release the poorer version of an already prosaic movie.

[ray245]

Based on the actors and actress they are able to attract, I think they will avoid making the film too cliche.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Actors don't tell me much. I like Ken Watanabe and the Internet tells me I should be ejaculating because of Bryan Cranston but I don't watch Breaking Bad, and that's it. Actually Ray, saying "they can afford these stars" is not reassuring in regards to general quality. Watanabe, for example, still can't make me see The Last Samurai because that shitpile's working title was Whitey Does Japan.

[jollyreaper]

To be fair, a lot of the Japanese movies are terrible, too. The last three Godzilla movies were cluttered messes that could only be enjoyed as kitsch.

I heard great things about the last three Gamera movies but haven't seen them yet.

Pacific Rim was 8/10 for me. It didn't really break new ground but did what it did quite well. I wanted a little more out of it but was happy with what I got.

What I don't want from a new Godzilla movie is silly, generic crap we can get in any silly, generic movie. I don't need romantic subplots, I don't need contrived human drama unrelated to atomic destruction by fire-breathing lizards.

American movies like to do Olympic coverage in movies. As if we can't care about sports on their own, we need to know the life story of every athlete. Twenty minutes of commercials and fluff, two minutes of event. No, how about just sports coverage? Ok, it's 2012 and we're destroying human civilization. Let's worry about unsympathetic divorced dads and their uninteresting families. I don't mind good character development, I just hate perfunctory character development, where it's there because it's expected, not because it's necessary. Usually in this sort of movie it feels like padding. We can afford 20 minutes of monster effects and need to round it out to feature length somehow. Yeah, put that crap in there.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Personal opinions and so on, but if Pacific Rim does nothing new and doesn't fulfill all your expectations then on what grounds is it 8/10? I get it's rad, but being rad and being good are different concepts with marginal overlap.

To throw a bone, though, at least Pacific Rim didn't delve into any backstory shit besides what was already tied to the Kaiju. It would have been even better if Mako was the protagonist and Blond Abercrombie & Fitch Model (y'know, that Really Whatsisname) was support. It would have come close to redeeming the fucking Nazi who thought 'Gupsy Danger' was a good name for the robot.

[jollyreaper]

Personal opinions and so on, but if Pacific Rim does nothing new and doesn't fulfill all your expectations then on what grounds is it 8/10? I get it's rad, but being rad and being good are different concepts with marginal overlap.

That's a fair question. I ask what a movie is setting out to accomplish. Is it trying to be a simple stoner comedy, a tense thriller, a profound commentary of the human condition? I'm not going to ding a comedy for not being profound if it's just trying to be dumb fun. Some comedies start with seeming dumb and swerve into profound. But if it's trying to be a stupidly fun comedy and I'm not laughing, it's failing at what it's trying to be.

Pacific Rim was trying to be the perfect movie for our inner 12-year old. A lot of attention was paid to world-building, backstory and the visuals. It's impressive. The storyline ended up being rather conventional with predictable story beats but they weren't trying to wow the audience with unexpected twists. Besides, to the people watching it who are actually 12, they don't have the experience to know what's predictable and what's not. This is likely to be their first experience and so it's all new. This movie may well be a major event in their geek life. I know Star Wars wouldn't have been the same experience for me if I saw it as an adult, if I knew the films Lucas was referencing or ripping off.

Thing is, it has a beginning, middle and end. It's a proper movie. Same view I have for Avatar. It's extremely conventional but done with such panache it works. I would compare this to movies like the three Transformers which are done so poorly they can't even qualify as stories. As the saying goes, "you're so far off-base you aren't even wrong." Same holds true for movies like World War Z, JJ Treks, Skyfail, etc. The scripts didn't even get mashed into a movie-shaped object before filming started. To say that Pacific Rim is a conventional story well-told in comparison really doesn't even begin to describe where it went right and those other films went wrong.

To throw a bone, though, at least Pacific Rim didn't delve into any backstory shit besides what was already tied to the Kaiju. It would have been even better if Mako was the protagonist and Blond Abercrombie & Fitch Model (y'know, that Really Whatsisname) was support. It would have come close to redeeming the fucking Nazi who thought 'Gupsy Danger' was a good name for the robot.

There's quite a good debate to be had as to where they could have placed the story to begin with. It's been pointed out that probably two movies were glossed over in just the prologue. If this were an HBO series, the whole first season could have been about the timespan between first kaiju and first successful jaeger mission. Just defeating the first one could have been a two-hour pilot leading into the series which is that crash-development program. So it's interesting that the writers worked out the whole history of this first kaiju war from the opening of the breach to the closing of it and said you know what, this is the most interesting story to tell.

At the end of the day, I like the movie. I've seen it several times. I think it does a great job for what it is. While I have my nits to pick, it doesn't piss me off like movies that aren't even trying. Iron Man 3, now there was a trainwreck. A successful one to be sure but man, those writers have nothing to be proud of there.

[Gandalf]

It would have come close to redeeming the fucking Nazi who thought 'Gupsy Danger' was a good name for the robot.

Did anyone involved with writing/production ever explain that?

[Darth Quorthon]

Hopefully this will be on before The Hobbit when I go to see it this weekend, I want to see it on the big screen.

As to the movie itself, I'm cautiously optimistic. I like the cast, and I got a pretty good vide from the trailer. Here's to hoping it doesn't suck.

[ray245]

Actors don't tell me much. I like Ken Watanabe and the Internet tells me I should be ejaculating because of Bryan Cranston but I don't watch Breaking Bad, and that's it. Actually Ray, saying "they can afford these stars" is not reassuring in regards to general quality. Watanabe, for example, still can't make me see The Last Samurai because that shitpile's working title was Whitey Does Japan.

Usually actors and actress are attracted by the quality of the script as much as they are attracted by the pay. Usually if you are able to attract a cast of actors and actress known for their acting ability rather than their body/fame, it is an indication that they think the script is worth their time.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

It would have come close to redeeming the fucking Nazi who thought 'Gupsy Danger' was a good name for the robot.

Did anyone involved with writing/production ever explain that?

Travis Beacham (the guy who wrote the script along with Del Toro) said "it hadn't crossed his mind". How the hell he managed to miss the racism in the phrase "gypsies are dangerous" is something I do not know. Perhaps 'Striker Eureka' was so stupid it broke his mind the instant he came up with it. That would explain names like... well, everything. Stacker Pentecost; like the fifty-days period between Jesus' resurrection and ascension I guess.

Usually actors and actress are attracted by the quality of the script as much as they are attracted by the pay. Usually if you are able to attract a cast of actors and actress known for their acting ability rather than their body/fame, it is an indication that they think the script is worth their time.

Usually actors and actresses are attracted by the pay as much as they are attracted by the quality of the script. But we both reserve the right to have an opinion, so there's no harm.

[Grumman]

Based on the actors and actress they are able to attract, I think they will avoid making the film too cliche.

*cough*Movie 43*cough*

[jollyreaper]

It would have come close to redeeming the fucking Nazi who thought 'Gupsy Danger' was a good name for the robot.

Did anyone involved with writing/production ever explain that?

I thought it was homage to the Japanese tendency to slam cool English words together without actually knowing what they mean. Why name a final fantasy villain after the Kabbalist tree of life? What doeS it have to do with Jewish mysticism? Stacker Pentacost just seemed like another typical anime cool name.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Oh yes, homages. I hear they treat Klanitis now with them, it's wonderful that our medical science is so advanced.

[jollyreaper]

Well, I had no idea but googling "gipsy danger racist" shows that there's a ton of angst over the name. This is a fight I will avoid. A queer commentator said it is as bad as naming the mecha "faggot danger." I hope he doesn't hear about the NATO reporting name for the mig-15!

The official word from del toro is its named after a classic aircraft but the argument then goes the aircraft was named after gypsies so therefore still racist.