realinvaderdesign wrote: ↑Fri Nov 13, 2020 12:38 pm
regardless, novel isnt canon, regardless how much people try to make the tristar godzilla look tough, its still weak as mince
^ Fair enough, the novel isn't necessarily canon, so we'll stick with the Movie for feats instead. I apologize, but this is going to be a serious wall
For starters, we see him plow through tank-shells and mounted rocket launchers without any issue in the film proper.
https://imgflip.com/gif/4mdeyh
These are M270 MLRS, M1 Abrams Tanks, and HMMWVs he's blowing through; All of which appear in the movie (
https://wikizilla.org/wiki/HMMWV,
https://wikizilla.org/wiki/M1_Abrams,
https://wikizilla.org/wiki/M270_MLRS) and are present in a big firing line right before he dives into the Hudson River -He dodges some of the fire, sure, but we still see some of it hit him without him slowing down before he dives into the Hudson River.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IsISIQpKTc
(stats on the vehicles in question-contains links to armaments and weapon stats such as warhead size, etc)
https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m270.htm https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm https://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m998.htm
Plus just before he ambushes the Apaches, they blow up the building he's hiding in and we hear him holler
while still in the building, suggesting that even as he was digging away he was getting torched.
https://youtu.be/f_LDdElm9fc?t=68. and I sincerely doubt he can 'throw his voice' like a ventriloquist. So he was being riddled with enough chain-gun rounds and missiles to turn the inside of a skyscraper into a budget fire-works display before he managed to flank around them and attack from behind.
Finally, he pops up from the ground like a friggin' daisy only mere moments after his nest had been reduced to a smoldering wreck by LGBs (although the movie shows the pilot deploying Harpoon Missiles-ironically LGBs would work in turning the Garden into a crater) opening the possibiltiy he might have been inside the Madison Square Garden during the subsequent fire-bombing, considering he shows up not 30 seconds AFTER everyone escapes
This one's a bit more questionable, as he could have tunneled in after the bombing, but even if he did show up at the last second, he still tore through rubble, fire, and shrapnel without any duress (unlike, say, Skull Island Kong, who despite being from a far superior movie was badly wounded by extreme heat via Napalm and had his hands shredded by helicopter blades while 'Zilla was chomping through Apaches like potato chips
)
In regards to exactly what he's up against, it's fair to note missiles aren't made equally-an AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-7 Sparrow Missile's warhead are only 21 lbs to 88 lbs respectively (standard armaments on an F-18 Hornet, which are the jets that take him down at the end of the film) However, they are also able to be equipped with Harpoon Missiles, which are anti-ship missiles with a whopping 488 lb warhead. And the TriStar Godzilla survives an Ohio Class Submarine's Mk-48 Torpedoes, which have warheads of about 650 lbs! (sources
http://www.joebaugher.com/navy_fighters/f18_3.html http://www.seaforces.org/wpnsys/SUBMARI ... orpedo.htm)
And we know in the film that the Hornets have these Harpoon missiles as part of there armament here
, which are then promptly deployed when TriStar Godzilla is caught in the cables on the Brooklyn Bridge (without re-supplying, but that's just more of the movie's abysmal writing). And Harpoon missiles ain't weak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxpwIsZCgtM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt9IigGidG4
And it's not even that he would have necessarily been killed by the first round of these missiles either-he keeps moving and struggling after the first six are deployed, and the pilot points out to Hicks that "Godzilla" is wounded, but not dead-Hicks then has the jets circle back around and shoot him with another six. Even then "Godzilla" still manages to linger for a little longer despite being pumped full of bloody holes. This twunk of a Godzilla dies by slowly bleeding to death in the cold and rain after being shot with twelve anti-ship missiles, two torpedoes, rockets, tank shells, and high caliber bullet fire
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JcFaIDdphE.
I'm sure a major counterpoint would be 'Well if he was so resilient against most of what was being thrown against him, why'd he run?'
1. Emmerich and Devlin didn't give a Deutalios' rump about Godzilla's spirit or themes or message, which only makes the movie suffer all the more for it by having "Godzilla" act like an animal (an intelligent one, but still
just an animal)
2. Adding onto the above, even if an animal is resilient or even immune to harm, TriStar Godzilla was at the end of the day just a big animal trapped in a loud, tightly packed place with bright lights and weird itchy things that these small things that screamed at him shot at him a bunch; An animal's instincts would be to run away from the noise and chaos even if it's not necessarily wounded (much) by what's attacking it, unless the animal is cornered, provoked, or acting territorial.
Also, it's unfair to say Godzilla's ever COMPLETELY immune to conventional weaponry-Here, Legendary Godzilla is driven back by normal conventional weaponry; Granted, it doesn't kill him, but he's being driven back and we can hear him screeching and recoil from being shot in the gills by one missile
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFYP8O-YwpE despite the fact he's WAY bigger than TriStar Godzilla in height and mass. Granted, it didn't kill him or even make him bleed, but it's still notable. Heck, GMK Godzilla, despite being one of the biggest powerhouses we've ever seen, gets done in by a missile-a fictitious super missile with a drill on it that makes a wound he exacerbates by trying to use his Atomic Breath and making the wound bigger, but still (plus the fact that even the biggest, strongest missiles in GODZILLA 1998 don't explode the way they're supposed to)
-
I'm going to try and wrap this up by stating a few things
(a) This isn't meant to be me dissing the OG Godzilla; I love the Japanese Godzilla, from his laws-of-physics bending and heroic Showa incarnation to his dark, gritty Heisei anti-hero phase and his sleek, flashy and shiny Millenium era. I love the original Gojira and the menace he creates whenever he's onscreen, and I love how Shin Godzilla harkens back to that sense of creepiness and uncanniness while being unique in design and with a new flashy moveset. I adore the Japanese Godzillas, and I will love them until the day I die.
(b) I'm not trying to say the movie is some masterpiece either that people aren't 'big-brained' enough to love or whatever; I love this Godzilla and I have clearly shown I'll die on the hill of defending it, but it's not a good movie. The only parts of this movie I genuinely like/can stand are the opening, the twelve minutes ToraGoji is on the screen, the practical FX (and later the Blu-Ray edition fixing the crummy lighting on the CG model), and maybe like five characters (Phillip Roache, Animal, Sergeant O'Neal, Major Anthony Hicks, and Elsie). Everyone and everything else is either corny and makes me go 'eh' or is TERRIBLE. The writing is terrible, the pseudo-science is terrible, pretty much everyone else is unlikable or annoying or a cheap parody, and the Godzilla is barely even a Godzilla. Is it the WORST Godzilla flick? Well that's debatable, but it's not a good movie overall.
The point of all of this is to try and show that the TriStar Godzilla, even if not able to be considered a proper incarnation of the King Of The Monsters (except for the Animated incarnation) is still not some complete weakling like everyone plays it up to be; In terms of durability, this thing was a juggernaut for most of the film, only getting hurt when the plot needed it to be hurt (blood for the pregnancy test and the ending). It's still by no means the tankiest kaiju around, but I think we give the Tuna Head too little credit for what they managed to shrug off.