Kaiju Fan Confessions

[SoggyNoodles2016]

Any creature that continues the Dinosaur Revolution T. rex trend of the "Death's Heads" motif is cool with me. Designwise, Skullcrawlers are the best original monsters in the Monsterverse.

Oh shit, I forgot about those rexs. Agreed too, skull heads are great.

On that note, Kong's original creatures are usually top notch. Skull Island had the Skullcrawlers; Kong 05 had the V-rex; good stuff all around.

Double agreed. So many good creatures have come from Skull Island.

[GodzillavsZilla]

Watching all of the Showa Gamera movies now that I have the Arrow Gamera set (with the exception of the original and Barugon; the former I haven't watched in a few years and the latter I saw on YouTube a few weeks before I got the set), I think Super Monster is better than its reputation suggests. Is it a good movie? No, but I find Jiger and Zigra a lot worse and I actually enjoy it more than the original, Barugon, and Gyaos because of the human scenes. There's something about the story that's oddly charming and wholesome, I like seeing these three space women and the little boy just hanging out while the evil space woman tries to kill them.

What kills the movie is the monster scenes, the abundance of stock footage and the flying Gamera prop are really bad. I at least understand that it was made on a really low budget, but it just sticks out like a sore thumb. I think if it had a bigger budget and just had Gamera fight one monster instead of all of his previous opponents because of stock footage, it would probably be my favorite Showa Gamera movie.

[Spuro]

Is it a confession to say that I kinda prefer the dinosaurs?

I don't know. To me, making a Kong movie without dinosaurs is like making a Godzilla movie without any building destruction. It just doesn't feel right.

To be clear, I’m not comparing dinosaurs and King Kong, to skull crawlers. I’m just saying I think they’re some of the best original monsters created in recent years, but seem to go under appreciated. There’s a lot more fanfare and people talking about monsters that appeared for like 20 seconds in KOTM than Skullcrawlers, despite them having a role in Kong Skull island and possibly the upcoming films.

Yeah that's fair. I often forget the new KotM monsters exist.

I think I'm partial to the Mutos, myself, but the Crawlers are neat. I think I've been too spoiled by the Gyaos, though; monsters that fill the same essential roll as the Skull Crawlers but do it (IMO) so much better.

[Voyager]

Gamera vs Zigra is a favourite of the Showa Gamera series for me.

[Desghidorah]

Dino thought stop-motion looked stupid

What was stopping him from using suitmation like they did with Kong? Along with what he said to Meryl Streep and the rapey version of Kong, this is a reason why I think RKO should've chosen The Legend of King Kong.

I'm actually very familiar with the production of the film. Suits were considered, but Dino was adamant about sinking so much time and money into the barely-operational robot they couldn't manage. Plus 'The Legend of King Kong' was in production at the time and it would have had dinosaurs so Dino (irony given the name, I know) said no to keep his different and doubled down on the romance. He also wanted Kong to look much more human-like, thinking audiences wouldn't sympathize with an animal.

[Gigantis]

Here's one that might prove a bit controversial: I honestly wouldn't mind if a future Rodan design had feathers, so long as they don't go too far and just make him look like a big bird.

[GodzillavsRayquaza]

^ I wouldn’t mind that as long as it’s not overdone.

Anyway, I don’t know how controversial this will even be, this might be an opinion most people hold and I just don’t know, but I think Godzilla is the weakest part of Ebirah, Horror of the Deep. There’s this interesting human cast, a tense plot regarding the Red Bamboo and trying to escape it, and Ebirah himself is this threatening presence throughout the story. Then Godzilla shows up, and it’s not a bad rampage, but it’s just a par for the course one. Nothing really exciting happens that we haven’t seen other movies do way better (all of this of course not helped by how he’s acting exactly like Kong because Toho just replaced “King Kong” with “Godzilla” in the script and called it a day). Even the final battle between Godzilla and Ebirah, it’s cool, but again it just pales in comparison to how good the rest of the movie is.

[CrimsonBloodX]

Here's one that might prove a bit controversial: I honestly wouldn't mind if a future Rodan design had feathers, so long as they don't go too far and just make him look like a big bird.

I'm with you on this. I remember seeing the leaked MonsterVerse Rodan design and hoping that the feathers don't make it in the movie. But now I'm hoping we get a Rodan with feathers in the future.

[Gomi: Ninja Monster]

Here's one that might prove a bit controversial: I honestly wouldn't mind if a future Rodan design had feathers, so long as they don't go too far and just make him look like a big bird.

I'm with you on this. I remember seeing the leaked MonsterVerse Rodan design and hoping that the feathers don't make it in the movie. But now I'm hoping we get a Rodan with feathers in the future.

I wouldn't mind a feathered Rodan, but not how the MonsterVerse maquette did it. Feathers have a shaft to keep their shape and are separate from each other, the "feathers" on the maquette just look like one big flap of skin that ends in separate flanges, neither aerodynamically useful or logical from a biology standpoint. You wanna go all in on the bird vibe and make him a big Archaeopteryx-looking thing? Fine by me, just please don't mix bird and pterosaur wing anatomy in the worst way possible.

[Desghidorah]

I think more than a few outspoken G-Fans have a selective bias against non-Japanese kaiju films. Many of the greats are Japanese, but being Japanese is not a requirement to be good or great. I've seen a few reviewers I won't name whom I do respect quite a bit really grasp at straws on this one. When a Japanese kaiju film had an extremely lightly developed romance between two of the characters that could be totally missed as it adds nothing to either side, it's "Deep, tactful, and realistic"; when a Non-Japanese kaiju film had a couple expressing concern, doubts, worries, and support for one another, it's "obnoxious, unrealistic, and showy".

[Spuro]

When a Japanese kaiju film had an extremely lightly developed romance between two of the characters that could be totally missed as it adds nothing to either side, it's "Deep, tactful, and realistic"; when a Non-Japanese kaiju film had a couple expressing concern, doubts, worries, and support for one another, it's "obnoxious, unrealistic, and showy".

Do you have examples for these, out of curiosity?

[Terasawa]

"Non-Japanese kaiju films"... so, "monster movies".

[Desghidorah]

Being more specific in them being giant monster films because few people specify Daikaiju these days.

When a Japanese kaiju film had an extremely lightly developed romance between two of the characters that could be totally missed as it adds nothing to either side, it's "Deep, tactful, and realistic"; when a Non-Japanese kaiju film had a couple expressing concern, doubts, worries, and support for one another, it's "obnoxious, unrealistic, and showy".

Do you have examples for these, out of curiosity?

It actually came to me after seeing some commentate on Guardian: Guardian of the Universe and Godzilla 2014. 2014's got issues, that is without a doubt. However some commentators were treating it like a complete remake of Gamera:GotU but a complete downgrade as well. Similarities certainly exist and I don't doubt for a moment Gamera wasn't on someone involved in the script's mind. But every chance to bring up a topic where the two seemed similar (such as the enemy kaiju menacing a bridge), regardless of if the contexts were very different, GotU was praised and 2014 was relentlessly bashed.

One such example would be the human characters. I rather like GotU's human roster, but stating they were all heavily invested in the finale aside from Asagi and her father Naoya or that the romance between Yoshinari and Mayumi was very well played out and developed? That's more than a bit of an overstatement. While a vast majority of 2014's characterization is lumped onto Ford and Joe Brody, it wouldn't at all be fair to say they 'ambled through the plot and learned nothing'. The Brodys actually serve as a very stark contrast to a common character type in Kaiju fiction, the "Ahab archetype", which I lamented here. Having just seen both the subbed and dubbed GotU back to back while also streaming 2014 with friends, I can affirm I find the GotU human cast enjoyable, but not especially thoroughly deep. 2014's cast is even shallower for the most part, but by the same token it's not at all aggravating like some of GotU's obstructive bureaucrats are. However for all the reviewer's remarks of 2014's cast being baseless, thoughtless, and bland, the theme of what's important in life was set up and played out as best as I could have hoped it be. It's quite early with the Brody family with Joe being a workoholic, the implication Sandra Brody told Joe to never tell Ford he shut the breach door on her, Ford worrying he's repeating his father's separation with his own son, spelled out by a dying Joeseph telling his son that nothing is more important, and affirmed by the end with Ford reunited with his wife and child.

But if you followed the grandstanding G-fan reviewers, you'd think fleshing out to this degree was found in all of the GotU cast and there was no thought behind any of the "Pointless, baseless, American cash grab" at all. I could go into more, but that risks rambling. The tl;dr of it was any times the Japanese film was lacking and the American film actually put in effort, the earplugs and blindfold went in; and any time the roles reversed, you'd never hear the end of it. And I noticed this multiple times with other non-Japanese films, regardless of if there was a comparable Japanese film to be seen.

Fully, 100% admit this is all opinion based on my end. Hell I'm not even saying 2014 is better or worse than Gamera:GotU, but when a film makes a good choice or bad choice it seemed that was ignored solely on the merit of if it was a "proper" Kaiju film based off reviewer criteria.

[Spuro]

"Non-Japanese kaiju films"... so, "monster movies".

Given that movies like Pacific Rim exist, where the monsters are explicitly kaiju, yes, non-Japanese giant monster movies can still be kaiju movies.

[eabaker]

"Non-Japanese kaiju films"... so, "monster movies".

Given that movies like Pacific Rim exist, where the monsters are explicitly kaiju, yes, non-Japanese giant monster movies can still be kaiju movies.

I mean, the word "kaiju" is used in the dialogue, but that doesn't alter the fact that it's a Japanese word, and the equivalent English-language description would still be "monster."

[G2000]

It’s deliberately imitating and invoking the tropes of kaiju films so even if it isn’t tokusatsu I’m still calling Pacific Rim a kaiju movie

[eabaker]

I'd say, if anything, it's deliberately imitating and invoking the tropes of tokusatsu in general, rather than kaiju films specifically.

[G2000]

At the very least we can all agree it qualifies as a mecha movie, right?

[eabaker]

Yeah, I think that's a perfect classification. I mean, I tend to call it "a movie about big, walking cars," but that's because I didn't enjoy it and I'm a snarky asshole.

[mikelcho]

Here's one that might prove a bit controversial: I honestly wouldn't mind if a future Rodan design had feathers, so long as they don't go too far and just make him look like a big bird.

I'm with you on this. I remember seeing the leaked MonsterVerse Rodan design and hoping that the feathers don't make it in the movie. But now I'm hoping we get a Rodan with feathers in the future.

Or maybe short, thick fur on the body that, just like bats, doesn't extend to the wing membranes like real pterosaurs have? That could possibly work, especially since we now know a lot more about pterosaurs than we did in the time when Rodan first appeared in films in the 1950s and 1960s.