Godzilla (2014)- Thoughts? (Spoilers)

[ray245]

Just came back from seeing that movie, and I think it is a rather decent Godzilla movie. The atomic breath looks really cool on screen, although I find it weird that Godzilla is being portrayed in a rather heroic manner towards the end of the movie. The military pretty much makes things more complicated for themselves with their stupid plan more than anything else. I don't think the military has done anything but cause more collateral damage to the civilians in this movie.

I will give this movie a 6.5/10.

[generator_g1]

Lol.

[Korgeta]

It felt a bit underwhelming to be honest, it was 'good' but it didn't have the wow factor that should come with it, one ot two characters were quite limited, tailored to suit parts of the film but couldn't be used anywhere else. One example is Joe Brody, once he met his requirments that was it, he was out of the way, almost as if Edwards and other writing staff knew they couldn't take that character any further, so they pretty much dropped a bridge on him, or vice versa given how it was in the film. They couldn't exapnd his role as the conspiracy theorist, once they found the truth they got rid of him instead of being a supportive role to his son etc. It looked forced to me.

At the same time Elle didn't offer much other then the emtional side and Ichrio's assitance was there to share out Ichrio's already heavy narration and explanation.

I did like the start of the film, the shooting in in very 50's like recording and 'unperson' deails other then the cast names themselves, which was why it was disapointing to see the conspiracy group monarch just fade rapidly and replaced by the military and the Brody sidequest.

The Mutos were indeed powerful, and surprisingly did better then orignally thought off given their size, it was odd the male one did better at tackling godzilla, given he was smaller but, flight helped which shows its all about the technquie and not sheer direct force. Interestingly, there was survival for everyone, humanity was threatened should the mutos had their offspring, Godzilla is the last of his kind as were the mutos, so it was actually all about survival.

Satisfied with the ending and godzilla useing his atomic breath sent a shiver, but the midst of the film felt muddled by some limited characters and frankly not enough Godzilla, though they did keep in touch the nuclear subject throughout.

[AniThyng]

The humans were basically irrelevant except for Ford blowing up the eggs

I like the nod to using USS Saratoga, the name of a retired conventional carrier IRL. I think they ended up using a Nimitz of some sort for the actual shots, but it would make sense not to use a nuclear carrier anywhere near monsters that feed on radiation and treat nuclear submarines as snacks

[Enigma]

Was Kanastrous involved in any way with this movie?

[Darmalus]

Needed about half as many humans and twice as much monster porn. I hated how we cut cutting to AFTER the cities getting wrecked.

[TOSDOC]

I thought the biggest plot contrivance was transporting the nukes by train. Why on earth? They ended up airlifting one of them anyway, so why not all of them? But it did make for an eerie scene in the dark with the Muto.

Brody would really not have had much more to do in the movie than offer his echolocation theory himself and stand around looking at monitors, but I would have written him in somehow to do a penance and go after his grandson while Ford got recruited into the HALO. I enjoyed Watanabe's part, he's a terrific actor and it's nice to finally see him in a Godzilla film, in a part reminiscent of Dr. Yamane.

The monsters ending up where the main characters were, and Godzilla using his tail in combat, were nice nods from the old films. But the eco-minded plot seemed to echo Gamera: Guardian of the Universe more than the original Gojira. The Muto's even look a little like Gyaos.

I was plenty satisfied with the monster action and the build-up to it. It was a nice change from the CGI-packed films of late that dive right into it. We felt we saw plenty of the big guy, it was great.

[Guardsman Bass]

I mentioned this in spoiler tags in the other thread, but the entire human plot basically had no effect at all on the "monster" plot with Godzilla and the Mutos, except to kill the Muto eggs (and even then the Big G might have just killed them afterwards). If they had done nothing but stay out of the way, it would have ended almost exactly the same way without getting a bunch of soldiers killed and nearly blowing up San Francisco in the process.

I wish they'd made a lot better use of Cranston and Watanabe's characters, as opposed to Ford's paint-by-numbers boring plot about getting back to his wife and son. I wonder if it went through a bunch of re-writes, because that might explain the somewhat difficult pacing until the second half of the movie.

[Steel]

I mentioned this in spoiler tags in the other thread, but the entire human plot basically had no effect at all on the "monster" plot with Godzilla and the Mutos, except to kill the Muto eggs (and even then the Big G might have just killed them afterwards). If they had done nothing but stay out of the way, it would have ended almost exactly the same way without getting a bunch of soldiers killed and nearly blowing up San Francisco in the process.

I strongly disagree with this.

Godzilla was down and getting whaled on by both the mutos just before the eggs were destroyed. I read it that he would most likely have been killed had the distraction not occurred. That makes the human involvement, while 98% of their effort futile or counterproductive, pivotal in the end.

On another note, the boat he was on at the end could not have been making more than 12 knots. He had 5 minutes left on the timer as he went under the bridge, so that puts the stated greater than megaton blast only a mile out.this would not do good things to the remains of the city or the people in it. Perhaps with enough bumping and muto saliva it was just a fizzle?

[AniThyng]

ANyway, re: EMP, are modern jet fighters really that vulnerable to EMP that they'd just fall out of the sky? I notice the helicopters seem to do just fine though lol.

[biostem]

ANyway, re: EMP, are modern jet fighters really that vulnerable to EMP that they'd just fall out of the sky? I notice the helicopters seem to do just fine though lol.

Well, all modern fighter jets are fly by wire, so there is no direct linkage between the control surfaces and the pilot's control stick/pedals, so there wouldn't be anything for them to control, if the computers were rendered inactive. Now, whether or not the redundant systems would be hardened against an EMP is another story...

[Sea Skimmer]

I thought the whole movie was a big shrug. Not horrible, not very good, basically just proof that American studios cant do this sort of movie. The first half hour or so was a pretty good direct homage to the original movie though. They might have done better sticking with that if they wanted to be serious. The dark horror did not increase and the monster on monster fighting did not deliver.

ANyway, re: EMP, are modern jet fighters really that vulnerable to EMP that they'd just fall out of the sky? I notice the helicopters seem to do just fine though lol.

No. Also low and behold our nuclear bombs work in the presence of mindboggling levels of EMP too, and are only really threatened by gamma rays and neutrons, for which they have physical armoring. Otherwise they'd be rather ineffective in an all our nuclear war. And since the EMP only effected stuff up to 30,000ft nothing would have stopped simply dropping a nuclear gravity bomb from a bomber or fighter. Nuclear weapons aren't very radioactive either and most of it is alpha rays with no real range in the open air, some medical equipment would present a way better lure.


They should have had the CONFEDERATE AIR FORCE drop the nuke anyway.

[Tsyroc]

The humans were basically irrelevant except for Ford blowing up the eggs

I like the nod to using USS Saratoga, the name of a retired conventional carrier IRL. I think they ended up using a Nimitz of some sort for the actual shots, but it would make sense not to use a nuclear carrier anywhere near monsters that feed on radiation and treat nuclear submarines as snacks

Having served on the last USS Saratoga (CV-60) I liked that as well. IIRC the hull number they used for the carrier in the movie was 88 which does not currently exist. I don't know which ship they actually used. It's probably included in the "thank yous" in the credits. It looked to me that the carrier in the movie was nuclear but it didn't seem to interest Godzilla more than the MUTOs did. Maybe the USN has learned to shield it's ships better than they did when they built the Nautilus?

[Darmalus]

They should have had the CONFEDERATE AIR FORCE drop the nuke anyway.

What?

[Sea Skimmer]

The people who fly most of the WW2 era warbirds in the US. They happen to have an airworthy B-29 bomber named FiFi. Drop the nuke with that ect...

Course nukes just make Godzilla stronger, and even bring him back from the dead so it wont work, but it sure beats the plan they actually had and would be silly, which is more important.

[ray245]

True, I wonder why on earth did the military think that they could lure the monsters away with the Nuke, when one of the monsters is capable of flight at a rather ridiculous speed.

[Tsyroc]

The people who fly most of the WW2 era warbirds in the US. They happen to have an airworthy B-29 bomber named FiFi. Drop the nuke with that ect...

Course nukes just make Godzilla stronger, and even bring him back from the dead so it wont work, but it sure beats the plan they actually had and would be silly, which is more important.

I was expecting the nuke plan to backfire on them and end up making one or all of the monsters stronger. They were lucky that it only went as poorly as it did.


On Godzilla's atomic breath (called "atomic roar" on one of the toys). I think they tried to get an smidgen of nature involved in how this worked. In the 1998 Godzilla they were trying to eventually (the thought they'd do so well they'd get two sequels) justify the nuclear breath weapon by basing it on some lizards forcefully puffing air as a defense mechanism. In this movie, I liked that Godzilla's spines start lighting up on his tail first and then work his way up his back. To me that was sort of like how the gila monster stores fat in its tail. Perhaps Godzilla's tail is part of his energy reserve?

Anyway, it looks like the decided to go with the atomic breath not being something that Godzilla can just blaze away with. It appears to be at least somewhat draining. I kind of like the movies where he can use his atomic breath almost too much but the limited use is more in style with the older G films this one was emulating. I would have liked it better if there had been some visible signs of heat coming off of the beam. As it was it looked like it was more force than anything, but if it's radiation based it might be that it is not as effective against the MUTOs as it would be against other things because they feed off of radiation.


In some of the supplemental material it is stated that the MUTOs used to prey on Godzilla's species. That large numbers of them would work together to kill a Godzilla and then lay their eggs on/in the corpse. The larva could feed off of the radiation and the flesh. I guess we were supposed to get that from the skeleton and the two crysalis in the Philippines. So in that sense they are really natural enemies.

[Wing Commander MAD]

I enjoyed the movie. My first though is, is that I'm jealous. I can only imagine the cool toys the kids are likely to get out of this. My Godzilla toys from back when I was a kid were simply soft plastic or rubber with ability to move the limbs and tail. Granted there was the one, that walked, had eyes that lit up, and smoked (ran on oil like model trains), but it was generally too heavy to really play with.

Honestly, in hindsight it kinda seems like the whole bomb plot was simply there to give the humans something to do at the end of the movie. At that point, we'd already established that the military couldn't do anything to any of them. Though, I really have to question the SWAT team shooting at the monster in Hawaii. The soldiers at the end at least had something beyond small arms and were probably trying to distract the female MUTO so that someone could get away with the warhead.

I did like how when Godzilla was swimming to the mainland that he basically ignored the fleet travelling behind him. It kind reminds of me of how you see sharks completely ignoring remoras and other parasite removing fish swimming about their bodies. Really Godzilla pretty much ignored the humans completely unless they did something to him, like at the bridge.

I wouldn't say that it was a great movie, but certainly enjoyable enough that leaving the theater I didn't still fill the $9.50 for the ticket was a waste of money like I did when I went in to sit down in my seat. It was way better than that terrible, not Godzilla movie, with Matthew Broderick that's for sure.

[AniThyng]

Can anyone remind me which other recent disaster flick had the protaganist's girlfriend as a doctor/nurse at a hospital in a disaster zone because that sounds awfully familiar as a plot point.

[Tribble]

I kinda miss the good ol' days when it was a guy in a rubber suit stomping on sets, but it looked good.

The only downside is that while watching it I couldn't get the Dave Chapelle skit out my head

[Nephtys]

A few comments.

I actually groaned at the implication that somehow nuking these monsters was a bad idea. I mean, it's not like the horrific physical trauma of a nuke isn't going to kill them, when they're vulnerable to being simply punched to death. But then that was entirely averted, as they never got nuked. For all we know, the Military's plan to lure the monsters out and blow them all up would have worked. So that was fun.

Mutos and Godzilla were a nice contrast in design. You've got Godzilla, in a modern version of the traditional look, vs a monster that looks very modern styled.

Again, Planes and diesel motorboats certainly do not 'turn off and stop' in an EMP. For the first part, they're explicitly designed with that in mind... and a diesel boat shutting off made no sense at all.

Why did the soldiers keep shooting rifles at 200 meter tall monsters? For the entire movie? Ineffectually?

It was a bit off that the Carrier and it's group were all following Godzilla from literally 50 feet away.

Finally, the entire movie's plot and style would fit in rather well as a Pacific Rim prequel

[AniThyng]

Yeah but all the newer "digital" Jaegers would be turned into paperweights by the EMP, and the old "analog" jaegers would be radiating tasty "I'm a delicious snack, eat my crunchy nuclear core" rays

[ray245]

A few comments.

I actually groaned at the implication that somehow nuking these monsters was a bad idea. I mean, it's not like the horrific physical trauma of a nuke isn't going to kill them, when they're vulnerable to being simply punched to death. But then that was entirely averted, as they never got nuked. For all we know, the Military's plan to lure the monsters out and blow them all up would have worked. So that was fun.

Mutos and Godzilla were a nice contrast in design. You've got Godzilla, in a modern version of the traditional look, vs a monster that looks very modern styled.

Again, Planes and diesel motorboats certainly do not 'turn off and stop' in an EMP. For the first part, they're explicitly designed with that in mind... and a diesel boat shutting off made no sense at all.

Why did the soldiers keep shooting rifles at 200 meter tall monsters? For the entire movie? Ineffectually?

It was a bit off that the Carrier and it's group were all following Godzilla from literally 50 feet away.

Finally, the entire movie's plot and style would fit in rather well as a Pacific Rim prequel

Didn't Godzilla survive a multi megaton bomb at piont blank range? For all we know all the monsters have some magical armor that allows them to survive all kinds of weapon blast.

[Adam Reynolds]

Can anyone remind me which other recent disaster flick had the protaganist's girlfriend as a doctor/nurse at a hospital in a disaster zone because that sounds awfully familiar as a plot point.

This is actually rather common as a means of having a female love interest that can't be called weak but also doesn't really do anything that directly affects the plot. Off the top of my head in no particular order, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears*, and The Day after Tomorrow all used this concept. Only The Sum of All Fears was any good at all, though it had several significant flaws of its own.
* This was taken from the Clancy novels in which not only was Ryan's wife a doctor, Clark's wife was a nurse and Clark's daugher/Chavez's wife was also a doctor. Though in the book version of The Sum of All Fears, Ryan's wife was not in any danger as the nuke was in Denver rather than Baltimore. This element was used in Executive Orders as she was involved in the bio-war plot.

This almost reminds me of a feminist criticism of the 2007 Transformers movie that was complaining about the fact that the female characters were written in such a way that they were not really characters in their own right with their own motives but were intended to be the ideal woman for the target male audience. Their strengths were all about making them a better prize rather than a well rounded character.

[AniThyng]

Can anyone remind me which other recent disaster flick had the protaganist's girlfriend as a doctor/nurse at a hospital in a disaster zone because that sounds awfully familiar as a plot point.

This is actually rather common as a means of having a female love interest that can't be called weak but also doesn't really do anything that directly affects the plot. Off the top of my head in no particular order, Pearl Harbor, The Sum of All Fears*, and The Day after Tomorrow all used this concept. Only The Sum of All Fears was any good at all, though it had several significant flaws of its own.
* This was taken from the Clancy novels in which not only was Ryan's wife a doctor, Clark's wife was a nurse and Clark's daugher/Chavez's wife was also a doctor. Though in the book version of The Sum of All Fears, Ryan's wife was not in any danger as the nuke was in Denver rather than Baltimore. This element was used in Executive Orders as she was involved in the bio-war plot.

This almost reminds me of a feminist criticism of the 2007 Transformers movie that was complaining about the fact that the female characters were written in such a way that they were not really characters in their own right with their own motives but were intended to be the ideal woman for the target male audience. Their strengths were all about making them a better prize rather than a well rounded character.

Yeah I get that, but hmm, none of those 3 movies are the one I'm thinking off (definately not TDaT because I didn't watch that one). I'm almost certain there was a recent e.g. past couple years movie where the protaganists wife was a doctor or nurse at the ER of a major hospital getting patients becuase of the actions of the villians, and in at least one scene had the protaganist call the hospital and someone else pick up the phone and try to find the girlfriend.

It might be Sum of All Fears, though I only remember taht one for the hilarity of a US supercarrier being bushwhacked by a bunch of ASMs without escorts.