Monsterverse Missteps

[Voyager]

Madison's friend was worthless and served no real purpose.

[AllosaurHell]

In a perfect world, Team Godzilla in GVK would have consisted of Dr. Serizawa, Graham and Joe Brody (he would probably be pro-Godzilla if he lived to see Godzilla kill his wife's killers) and keep Bernie cause he was the best part of Team Godzilla in my opinion.

[Voyager]

In a perfect world, Team Godzilla in GVK would have consisted of Dr. Serizawa, Graham and Joe Brody (he would probably be pro-Godzilla if he lived to see Godzilla kill his wife's killers) and keep Bernie cause he was the best part of Team Godzilla in my opinion.

I think this would be interesting.

[Vakanai]

In a perfect world, Team Godzilla in GVK would have consisted of Dr. Serizawa, Graham and Joe Brody (he would probably be pro-Godzilla if he lived to see Godzilla kill his wife's killers) and keep Bernie cause he was the best part of Team Godzilla in my opinion.

This. 2014 Godzilla and KotM really had this weird thing about killing off all the interesting characters...

[Bigdog]

Imagine if you would that you're off to visit family accompanied by some friends, largely minding your own business, but on the way there some stranger shows up and beats you down and knocks you out. Eventually you manage to make it to your family's house, but no one's home. Still shook up from the random attack and beating you took you go to the kitchen to grab a knife just to feel a little safer, only to have your assailant from earlier bust down the door and proceed to beat you down and stomp you so terribly your heart stops beating. Luckily one of the friends you brought along happens to be an EMT and manages to get your heart beating again. As you awaken another of your friends points out that your assailant has an assailant of their own, who is proceeding to try and kill the stranger who literally just killed you for a little bit. Your friend tells you that the person kicking the butt of your would-be murderer is your real enemy, and this making sense to you, you go out and kill your murderer's would-be murderer. Your assailant then gets up and glares at you until you drop the knife and show submission. This is enough to get your assailant to relent, and they decide not to murder you again, but on the condition you move into your family's basement (turns out your family had all died and no one is home) and never show your mug outside again so your former assailant doesn't have to see you. You gladly do so, as this is somehow a happy ending.

I've been told this plot isn't a misstep but makes perfect sense, yet somehow I'm still not convinced...

The movie was still the most fun I've had in probably a year at that point, so for that reason, it was a good movie to escape into for its timeslot. It has plenty of flaws as I note below, but I really liked it.

Pretty much everything about the Hollow Earth, them being too human-like, and the massive unexplained leap of technology simply had me watching it for the monster fights and Kong's story, which was pretty decent. Mind you I skipped KOTM and felt somehow it made absolutely no difference to Godzilla vs. Kong's story beyond a few things here and there. Making the monsters too human has always been a peeve of mine to begin with, so when Kong got his Sword of Omens despite his own family apparently being regular giant apes, [didn't watch Skull Island either.] from that basement, I mentally checked out.

I didn't even watch KOTM and I thought the main trio in GvK were absolutely worthless to the story. Between their pseudoscience and stupidity, I was hoping the guards would find them and kill off the characters to provide some sort of motivation for her father because their names are utterly forgettable. Something to actually subvert expectations and make the antagonists feel actually evil instead of , you know, feel like the good guys for wanting to kill off the kaiju for their demonstrated threat to the entire human race. Finding out that Serizawa's son was in it made it a tad worse since he's basically a nobody. He should've been the main antagonist instead of that generic Hammer CEO knockoff from Iron Man 2.

They could've easily gone down the Miki Saegusa route with her and did something interesting instead of them acting like the main human protagonists of every Transformers movie that gawks like gaping morons at all the carnage while finding themselves always conveniently in the middle of the conflict. Yet somehow, GvK, story-wise, managed to make every single Michael Bay Transformers movie feel like high art by comparison.

But it was really fun, though.

That's the difference between us, for you it was the most fun you had during a very un-fun point in history (pandemic). But for me the flaws prevented me from having any fun. It was just too damn crappy a movie. I couldn't enjoy it even if it was a better time in history. For right now? Basically I got to watch a crap movie while already experiencing a crap year. Nothing about the movie was fun to me, just a really out there more dumb than it needed to be movie that threw out the characterization of the previous movies to make Godzilla a villain for Kong and then have them end on "respectable" terms (bull!) as if one of them hadn't gone out of their way out of character to kill the other all film long because...MechaG somehow? Even though it had nothing to do with any of their conflict.
It just wasn't fun to me, and it's hard to wrap my head around how it was fun for anyone, unless you literally care about nothing but the fight scenes, Godzilla winning, and/or wanted Godzilla to be evil and antagonistic since 2014 anyways.

I had basically lower than usual expectations for it given that I heard about how KOTM basically took a dump on everything that 2014 built up. Which is why I've never seen it. The fact that pretty much nothing from KOTM honestly impacts Godzilla vs Kong is extremely damning in my opinion. A whole city's destroyed and people are just ambivalent about all these giant monsters? Why are people still living around the coasts? There was this extremely well thought out YouTube video that broke down how society would change according to Godzilla's existence that came out around the time of the 2014 film.

It's one thing for some fools to continue living in disaster areas. It's a whole other to have two cities wiped off the map and then people just shrugging "Whatever. Let's pick up the flimsy house of cards and hope it never happens again." That's the definition of insanity. I can't get behind any story where the worldbuilding basically has people in the immediate danger acting so moronic like that. People still haven't lived in Chernobyl since the nuclear accident, and something on par with that in such a short timespan would only mean that there's no excuse for anybody to still have any business living on the Gulf of Mexico.

If Boston and San Francisco were both annihilated to the extent they were in both prior movies because of monsters, no one can reasonably tell me with a straight face that there wouldn't be a massive exodus from the coasts. That culture and the way of life for many people across the world wouldn't shift more inwardly. Because with all those ships becoming prohibitively expensive from the insurance hikes due to a chance of giant monster fights sinking what's the cornerstone of global trade, no one can tell me honestly that domestic manufacturing wouldn't have a new boom. And with such a shift of capital and resources, if let's say rare earth deposits were found in appreciable numbers outside of China, there goes China. With such a grievous loss of overseas trade, land trade itself to Europe would drive Europeans to prefer American resources, which throws China into serious political issues with a crumbling economy. It'll get very bloody real quick and with no presumable end in sight to these Titans save for MechaGodzilla, this will likely be the status quo for centuries to come.

My major gripe was how waves away Godzilla being a threat to humanity by pushing out that justification by Millie Bobby Brown's character. Having Godzilla being outright antagonistic against humanity would be a change in pace because without any other monsters to face, Godzilla now has one more enemy left: human civilization. It could, if it were handled by competent writers and a studio that didn't hamstring its creatives every step of the way, pull the rug from underneath the audience. The Godzilla that was cast as the savior of humanity has been all but a lie. Characters would have this creeping realization, with or without MechaGodzilla in the story that their continued way of life is not only unsustainable, but could be the ultimate reason for mankind's downfall if left unchecked. Yet ironically, their lives depend on this toxic cycle, moreso than others.

Those glowing eyes for Godzilla were pretty stupid too.

Even without MechaGodzilla, how can anybody reasonably rationalize the millions of deaths from the past five to six years in their universe and pretend it's a good thing to keep these creatures alive without any intervention. Or worse, try to undermine getting rid of them. This movie has the same stupid moral that Fallen Kingdom has that even murderous creatures humans aren't prepared to deal with, should be released into civilization because despite being abominations of nature, they deserve to live too.

All this I stated would be more than enough reason for the antagonists in the film not be mustache-twirling villains. There's real economic and political consequences for the Titans' destruction that could feasibly cause the end of the world as we know it, but that's fine according to the three stooges. Which is an insult to that iconic comedy trio because they're intended to be that way. Sure, it's not a great idea to recycle Age of Extinction's strategy of using the bits from the main villain in order to create a military weapon, but for the most part, it was a far better idea than all the idiots sitting on their hands watching the monsters fight as if all that loss and devastation didn't affect them.

The core problem rests in Hollywood's misplaced black-and-white morality. Everything is either in the right or in the wrong, and there's nothing in the middle. Nothing nuanced about both sides showing merit or both going wrong at once. It can't be that hard to write a movie where the antagonists' aren't one-dimensionally evil and have solid motivations why they needed to delve into such drastic measures in order to fight against such long odds. Their end results don't have to be sympathized with, but empathized. Or conversely, that the protagonists only see their views as the only ones that matter. Instead of it being that the antagonists' way of approaching the issue was shortsighted or motivated by less than noble intentions, Bootleg NERV is so blatantly evil that even governmental institutions would have to be extremely stupid to give such an obvious international company for hire unchecked power and authority across borders. Why would China invite Bootleg NERV's influence and not have spies inside to make sure they're not doing anything to mess with their nation's autonomy?

Unintentionally, the main protagonists or the "heroes" of the film , act like privileged villains. They're mostly complacent when it doesn't affect them and won't lift a finger, because that'll upset the natural order. I've never quite liked Dr. Serizawa in the Legendary films because he's the type of pseudo-intellectual blowhard that masks his BS in scientific and philosophical lingo in order to make his stupid ideas sound more profound and sound than they really are. It's one thing to not want to interfere in destroying an ecosystem, but another in letting three monsters lay billions of dollars of damages, death and so forth because it doesn't match this "scientists'" moral high ground. Even Dr. Yamane recognized that the original Godzilla was a threat at the end of the day.

I'd much rather have characters that would rail against these "heroic" protagonists and be shown in the right for it.

It's why Dr. Serizawa's son should've been the primary focus of the story, as Ford was in 2014. Having a scientist's noble intentions screwed with by a corrupt corporation only in it to have a monopoly on violence is an extremely fascinating story in it's own right.

I decided I didn't care about what really happened because the filmmakers didn't. And for what it is, it was a fun ride like KOTM probably was.

I can't say I was disappointed because I didn't expect much from hiring the director of the Netflix Death Note movie to make anything resembling any sort of competence. He did when the Kong aspects shone through and did as much as what the studio allowed him to do. It's not as if Legendary hasn't botched other franchises like Pacific Rim.

[Vakanai]

The movie was still the most fun I've had in probably a year at that point, so for that reason, it was a good movie to escape into for its timeslot. It has plenty of flaws as I note below, but I really liked it.

Pretty much everything about the Hollow Earth, them being too human-like, and the massive unexplained leap of technology simply had me watching it for the monster fights and Kong's story, which was pretty decent. Mind you I skipped KOTM and felt somehow it made absolutely no difference to Godzilla vs. Kong's story beyond a few things here and there. Making the monsters too human has always been a peeve of mine to begin with, so when Kong got his Sword of Omens despite his own family apparently being regular giant apes, [didn't watch Skull Island either.] from that basement, I mentally checked out.

I didn't even watch KOTM and I thought the main trio in GvK were absolutely worthless to the story. Between their pseudoscience and stupidity, I was hoping the guards would find them and kill off the characters to provide some sort of motivation for her father because their names are utterly forgettable. Something to actually subvert expectations and make the antagonists feel actually evil instead of , you know, feel like the good guys for wanting to kill off the kaiju for their demonstrated threat to the entire human race. Finding out that Serizawa's son was in it made it a tad worse since he's basically a nobody. He should've been the main antagonist instead of that generic Hammer CEO knockoff from Iron Man 2.

They could've easily gone down the Miki Saegusa route with her and did something interesting instead of them acting like the main human protagonists of every Transformers movie that gawks like gaping morons at all the carnage while finding themselves always conveniently in the middle of the conflict. Yet somehow, GvK, story-wise, managed to make every single Michael Bay Transformers movie feel like high art by comparison.

But it was really fun, though.

That's the difference between us, for you it was the most fun you had during a very un-fun point in history (pandemic). But for me the flaws prevented me from having any fun. It was just too damn crappy a movie. I couldn't enjoy it even if it was a better time in history. For right now? Basically I got to watch a crap movie while already experiencing a crap year. Nothing about the movie was fun to me, just a really out there more dumb than it needed to be movie that threw out the characterization of the previous movies to make Godzilla a villain for Kong and then have them end on "respectable" terms (bull!) as if one of them hadn't gone out of their way out of character to kill the other all film long because...MechaG somehow? Even though it had nothing to do with any of their conflict.
It just wasn't fun to me, and it's hard to wrap my head around how it was fun for anyone, unless you literally care about nothing but the fight scenes, Godzilla winning, and/or wanted Godzilla to be evil and antagonistic since 2014 anyways.

I had basically lower than usual expectations for it given that I heard about how KOTM basically took a dump on everything that 2014 built up. Which is why I've never seen it. The fact that pretty much nothing from KOTM honestly impacts Godzilla vs Kong is extremely damning in my opinion. A whole city's destroyed and people are just ambivalent about all these giant monsters? Why are people still living around the coasts? There was this extremely well thought out YouTube video that broke down how society would change according to Godzilla's existence that came out around the time of the 2014 film.

It's one thing for some fools to continue living in disaster areas. It's a whole other to have two cities wiped off the map and then people just shrugging "Whatever. Let's pick up the flimsy house of cards and hope it never happens again." That's the definition of insanity. I can't get behind any story where the worldbuilding basically has people in the immediate danger acting so moronic like that. People still haven't lived in Chernobyl since the nuclear accident, and something on par with that in such a short timespan would only mean that there's no excuse for anybody to still have any business living on the Gulf of Mexico.

If Boston and San Francisco were both annihilated to the extent they were in both prior movies because of monsters, no one can reasonably tell me with a straight face that there wouldn't be a massive exodus from the coasts. That culture and the way of life for many people across the world wouldn't shift more inwardly. Because with all those ships becoming prohibitively expensive from the insurance hikes due to a chance of giant monster fights sinking what's the cornerstone of global trade, no one can tell me honestly that domestic manufacturing wouldn't have a new boom. And with such a shift of capital and resources, if let's say rare earth deposits were found in appreciable numbers outside of China, there goes China. With such a grievous loss of overseas trade, land trade itself to Europe would drive Europeans to prefer American resources, which throws China into serious political issues with a crumbling economy. It'll get very bloody real quick and with no presumable end in sight to these Titans save for MechaGodzilla, this will likely be the status quo for centuries to come.

My major gripe was how waves away Godzilla being a threat to humanity by pushing out that justification by Millie Bobby Brown's character. Having Godzilla being outright antagonistic against humanity would be a change in pace because without any other monsters to face, Godzilla now has one more enemy left: human civilization. It could, if it were handled by competent writers and a studio that didn't hamstring its creatives every step of the way, pull the rug from underneath the audience. The Godzilla that was cast as the savior of humanity has been all but a lie. Characters would have this creeping realization, with or without MechaGodzilla in the story that their continued way of life is not only unsustainable, but could be the ultimate reason for mankind's downfall if left unchecked. Yet ironically, their lives depend on this toxic cycle, moreso than others.

Those glowing eyes for Godzilla were pretty stupid too.

Even without MechaGodzilla, how can anybody reasonably rationalize the millions of deaths from the past five to six years in their universe and pretend it's a good thing to keep these creatures alive without any intervention. Or worse, try to undermine getting rid of them. This movie has the same stupid moral that Fallen Kingdom has that even murderous creatures humans aren't prepared to deal with, should be released into civilization because despite being abominations of nature, they deserve to live too.

All this I stated would be more than enough reason for the antagonists in the film not be mustache-twirling villains. There's real economic and political consequences for the Titans' destruction that could feasibly cause the end of the world as we know it, but that's fine according to the three stooges. Which is an insult to that iconic comedy trio because they're intended to be that way. Sure, it's not a great idea to recycle Age of Extinction's strategy of using the bits from the main villain in order to create a military weapon, but for the most part, it was a far better idea than all the idiots sitting on their hands watching the monsters fight as if all that loss and devastation didn't affect them.

The core problem rests in Hollywood's misplaced black-and-white morality. Everything is either in the right or in the wrong, and there's nothing in the middle. Nothing nuanced about both sides showing merit or both going wrong at once. It can't be that hard to write a movie where the antagonists' aren't one-dimensionally evil and have solid motivations why they needed to delve into such drastic measures in order to fight against such long odds. Their end results don't have to be sympathized with, but empathized. Or conversely, that the protagonists only see their views as the only ones that matter. Instead of it being that the antagonists' way of approaching the issue was shortsighted or motivated by less than noble intentions, Bootleg NERV is so blatantly evil that even governmental institutions would have to be extremely stupid to give such an obvious international company for hire unchecked power and authority across borders. Why would China invite Bootleg NERV's influence and not have spies inside to make sure they're not doing anything to mess with their nation's autonomy?

Unintentionally, the main protagonists or the "heroes" of the film , act like privileged villains. They're mostly complacent when it doesn't affect them and won't lift a finger, because that'll upset the natural order. I've never quite liked Dr. Serizawa in the Legendary films because he's the type of pseudo-intellectual blowhard that masks his BS in scientific and philosophical lingo in order to make his stupid ideas sound more profound and sound than they really are. It's one thing to not want to interfere in destroying an ecosystem, but another in letting three monsters lay billions of dollars of damages, death and so forth because it doesn't match this "scientists'" moral high ground. Even Dr. Yamane recognized that the original Godzilla was a threat at the end of the day.

I'd much rather have characters that would rail against these "heroic" protagonists and be shown in the right for it.

It's why Dr. Serizawa's son should've been the primary focus of the story, as Ford was in 2014. Having a scientist's noble intentions screwed with by a corrupt corporation only in it to have a monopoly on violence is an extremely fascinating story in it's own right.

I decided I didn't care about what really happened because the filmmakers didn't. And for what it is, it was a fun ride like KOTM probably was.

I can't say I was disappointed because I didn't expect much from hiring the director of the Netflix Death Note movie to make anything resembling any sort of competence. He did when the Kong aspects shone through and did as much as what the studio allowed him to do. It's not as if Legendary hasn't botched other franchises like Pacific Rim.

I actually read all that! Sorry, just...that's an intimidating wall of text you typed up there, and usually I bow out when it gets that long. But this time I read the wall of text! I'm proud of myself!

I'm just going to keep this short because I'm afraid of what'll happen if I don't. I agree that the filmmakers didn't care care about what really happened in their movie, disagree that for what it was it was a fun ride. I just did not enjoy the ride. I hated the ride so much it basically killed the monsterverse for me - I realize it's continuing, but I also realize I probably won't watch any new content in this cinematic universe again. I'm just praying for a day it gets rebooted in more competent hands - and yeah, I realize that means I'll be waiting a real long time, cause it ain't happening this decade. That's going to be a lot of Godzilla and Kong content to miss out on - but something tells me I also won't be missing much.

[Lesko]

Imagine defending Godzilla’s revenge

I'm not trying to beat that pretentious title nazi but isn't it All Monster's Attack? The reason why I am even bringing this up is because I always thought Godzilla's Revenge made no sense at all. Who is he getting revenge on exactly? It just is right up there with Gigantis for worst alternative title ever. At least All Monsters Attack kind of makes sense with the roster of monsters. All of that aside I think any MV entry is better than that movie though lol

I agree that All Monsters Attack is a better name than Godzilla's Revenge for the reasons you stated (I do disagree that any MV entry is better than this movie - I can think of one really recent one I feel is much, much worse...). I always thought the premise of this movie could make for a really great film if we ever got a Studio Ghibli Godzilla entry. Seriously, that'd be pretty cool.

Wow and I thought I hated GvK lol. Although I most definitely agree on that movie in of itself being a massive MV misstep. I don't hate the concept of the movie. I just thought it was executed in the worst possible way imaginable. While Godzilla and Kong never were equals except for a stint in 1962 and will never be equals ever again, this still could have be done as an entertaining movie but it just wasn't. So many things were just glossed over. I don't want to mention all of the faults I have with that particular entry at the moment because it would be an essay. To put it shortly it would have needed a whole ground up reworking. Expand the characters and especially the backstory between Godzilla and Kong rather than only lazily releasing a literary version. There's obviously a lot more that needed to be done but those are the most important.

[TheLastGezora]

It's one thing for some fools to continue living in disaster areas. It's a whole other to have two cities wiped off the map and then people just shrugging "Whatever. Let's pick up the flimsy house of cards and hope it never happens again." That's the definition of insanity. I can't get behind any story where the worldbuilding basically has people in the immediate danger acting so moronic like that. People still haven't lived in Chernobyl since the nuclear accident, and something on par with that in such a short timespan would only mean that there's no excuse for anybody to still have any business living on the Gulf of Mexico.

If Boston and San Francisco were both annihilated to the extent they were in both prior movies because of monsters, no one can reasonably tell me with a straight face that there wouldn't be a massive exodus from the coasts. That culture and the way of life for many people across the world wouldn't shift more inwardly. Because with all those ships becoming prohibitively expensive from the insurance hikes due to a chance of giant monster fights sinking what's the cornerstone of global trade, no one can tell me honestly that domestic manufacturing wouldn't have a new boom. And with such a shift of capital and resources, if let's say rare earth deposits were found in appreciable numbers outside of China, there goes China. With such a grievous loss of overseas trade, land trade itself to Europe would drive Europeans to prefer American resources, which throws China into serious political issues with a crumbling economy. It'll get very bloody real quick and with no presumable end in sight to these Titans save for MechaGodzilla, this will likely be the status quo for centuries to come.

Isn't this a problem in any long-running Kaiju continuity? The Showa and Heisei eras had regular monster activity and attacks from the coasts and we frequently saw coastal cities and towns that had not been abandoned or reinforced in any way against kaiju attacks. I wouldn't mind seeing more focus on the geopolitical realities of kaiju attacks but that's not ultimately what most of the films are about, and I think it'd be wrong to judge solely the Monsterverse by this metric and not any of the other Godzilla continuities.

[Vakanai]

I'm not trying to beat that pretentious title nazi but isn't it All Monster's Attack? The reason why I am even bringing this up is because I always thought Godzilla's Revenge made no sense at all. Who is he getting revenge on exactly? It just is right up there with Gigantis for worst alternative title ever. At least All Monsters Attack kind of makes sense with the roster of monsters. All of that aside I think any MV entry is better than that movie though lol

I agree that All Monsters Attack is a better name than Godzilla's Revenge for the reasons you stated (I do disagree that any MV entry is better than this movie - I can think of one really recent one I feel is much, much worse...). I always thought the premise of this movie could make for a really great film if we ever got a Studio Ghibli Godzilla entry. Seriously, that'd be pretty cool.

Wow and I thought I hated GvK lol.

...why does my preference for All Monsters Attack have to be taken as part of my indictment of GvK? I honestly just don't hate it like a lot of fans always have. It's not a great film, but it has it's own strange dreamlike charm and a nugget of wasted potential. I just can't bring myself to hate All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge. I think better executed it really could've been something.

[Rando Yaguchi]

I just can't bring myself to hate All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge. I think better executed it really could've been something.

Agreed. A few more passes at the script and a bigger budget, could have been a classic.

[DynomikeGojira]

Releasing KOTM five years after Godzilla 2014 is a big one

[Major sssspielberg!]

Not bring Jordan Vogt-Roberts back in a bigger capacity. Him and Gareth Edwards were the best suited to the material.
Though I get the feeling the only one who didn't view the Monsterverse as a springboard to bigger and better things was Michael Dougherty.

[Lesko]

I agree that All Monsters Attack is a better name than Godzilla's Revenge for the reasons you stated (I do disagree that any MV entry is better than this movie - I can think of one really recent one I feel is much, much worse...). I always thought the premise of this movie could make for a really great film if we ever got a Studio Ghibli Godzilla entry. Seriously, that'd be pretty cool.

Wow and I thought I hated GvK lol.

...why does my preference for All Monsters Attack have to be taken as part of my indictment of GvK? I honestly just don't hate it like a lot of fans always have. It's not a great film, but it has it's own strange dreamlike charm and a nugget of wasted potential. I just can't bring myself to hate All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge. I think better executed it really could've been something.

Well that is because I think All Monsters Attack is even worse than Godzilla vs Kong. Although I actually think both All Monsters Attack and Godzilla vs Kong share a lot in this regard. Their base concepts aren't bad. They're actually entertaining in of themselves. They just both were executed very poorly. Now for AMA that is more due to budget restrictions rather than lack of effort. GvK certainly had those when you get to hear some of Wingard's ideas that were more outside of the box, but generally speaking GvKwasn't that tight of a budget. Especially compared to something like AMA which was practically a shoestring budget.

They are two different types of entries though so they'd need to be handled different on a step by step basis. The time each entry was made also needs to be taken into account. We live in the age of big blockbuster crossovers which is perfect for GvK. AMA was made when children friendly kaiju entries were the norm. So each entry had a sort of archetype it needed to fill with expectations from the audiences. Mindless GAs for GvK and children for AMA. I think both of them more or less succeeded for those target audiences so I guess technically they were a success. Especially with GvK's financial success. However being a success for the intended audience doesn't automatically make the film good or even entertaining. That's where both of them fall short. At least from my perspective.

However to get back to their potential for a moment because as I said the base concepts aren't bad. If AMA didn't have such a bad budget it could have easily cut down on the stock footage and added some more original content that could make a very compelling child friendly kaiju film with some good VFX. Maybe develop some of the children a bit more to make them more relatable but only to an extent because remember we're talking about a kid audience here. If AMA was fleshed out more I could see it being an older version of Gamera the Brave only with the fantasy dream premise we're given in AMA. Perhaps up some of the surreal imagery too to the point where it feels like it could have been made by Akira Kurosawa. I don't think this has masterpiece potential, but definitely could have been a standout entry. I'm not one for the more kid friendly entries though so when I talk about something feeling of higher quality I mean more from the perspective of a general kaiju fan.

GvK on the other hand was pretty good in the VFX department but sorely lacking in narrative and character building. The backstory should have been established more along with the main characters. Context is very important in GvK. Why where they fighting? A war? What about their war? Why was that literally glossed over? That is very important! Why is Serizawa also so glossed over that you forget his relation to his father? the fights themselves were more or less fine if a bit short. As a general kaiju fan normally I don't have to have solid characters or backstory to enjoy the movie so long as it is entertaining. However GvK gives us blatant building blocks without building them and and the film suffers as a result. It's be like if Gojira just gave us bare bones exposition like "something woke this creature up" without mentioning what exactly or even a brief description of what Godzilla is. It's the same reason I don't care much for Gamera 3. It feels like I am being taunted when I am given such a small amount of information that actually makes things connect less if they had just not given those tidbits at all. Either give some heavy detail or don't. No middle ground for me.

Anyway I know I kind of went off on a tangent here but seeing AMA being brought up with GvK really made me want to point how how they both are very similar in terms of missed potential with good concepts. I know they aren't the only Godzilla entries that suffered from this but in terms of missed potential they're both high up there.

[Vakanai]

Wow and I thought I hated GvK lol.

...why does my preference for All Monsters Attack have to be taken as part of my indictment of GvK? I honestly just don't hate it like a lot of fans always have. It's not a great film, but it has it's own strange dreamlike charm and a nugget of wasted potential. I just can't bring myself to hate All Monsters Attack/Godzilla's Revenge. I think better executed it really could've been something.

Well that is because I think All Monsters Attack is even worse than Godzilla vs Kong.

Well I disagree - and rather than go into all the things you said (I didn't read the rest of your post because if I did it'd just make me want to make a bigger post and it ain't worth it) I'm just doing to leave it at this: I think All Monsters Attack is a flawed yet oddly charming film poorly executed, and I think GvK is a piece of poo on fire in a pile of poo on fire in a dumpster on fire on a barge dull of dumpsters full of poo, all on fire, so that the smell of burning poo can never leave it and woe be unto all noses unlucky enough to get within 50 nautical miles of it. In a nutshell, yes I think All Monsters Attack is better than GvK, but it's still not an indictment of GvK - as much as I hate GvK, it's unrelated to my feelings for All Monsters Attack, I just have different opinions on both these films than you do.

[G1985]

I'm sure it's not a popular opinion, but I think the "hollow earth" backstory was the single biggest misstep in the MV.

[HannibalBarca]

I'm sure it's not a popular opinion, but I think the "hollow earth" backstory was the single biggest misstep in the MV.

I'm not sure I'd agree that it's the *biggest* misstep in the MV (and ultimately a lot of what I'm going to say here boils down to personal preference), but I do agree that most of the (threadbare) connective tissue holding the MV movies together isn't terribly interesting or strikes me as actively dumb -- here I'm mostly talking about the Hollow Earth and the "Alpha Titan" conceit, but Monarch was pretty half-baked and underwhelming as well. It sort of defeats the purpose of a cinematic universe if the only things keeping the movies together in even a loose sense of continuity are dumb and frustrating.

Also, regarding the Hollow Earth stuff in particular, I've always been of the opinion that giant monsters should be the most outlandish and extraordinary thing in any giant monster movie, because I think that the most potentially interesting stuff in giant monster movies comes from how people and societies that are at least recognizably close to our own experience react to them. When you throw in truly batshit stuff like the Hollow Earth, it creates a sort of distance between the World of the Monsterverse and the "Real World" that makes everything in the movies seem a bit too heightened and (perhaps somewhat counter-intuitively) less interesting as a result. For similar reasons, I've never been too much of a fan of psychics or superhuman mutants in giant monster movies, because I feel it distorts the relationship between the monsters and humanity.

I don't think removing or reworking the Hollow Earth, or Monarch, or basically the entire "Titans" concept, would have transformed these movies into critical and commercial darlings or anything, but I do think that they were, at best, sloppily conceived and executed, and in any event not really what I was hoping for from the MV movies. But, then again, the MV movies haven't really been giving me "what I was hoping for" since G'14 itself, so I can understand that most of what I'm saying at this point is just "Old Man Yells at Cloud" stuff.

[Terasawa]

Regarding the Hollow Earth, I was actually shocked that KSI portrayed conspiracy theorists and parascientists in a mostly positive light (i.e. the film let them be correct), which I think is hugely irresponsible. GvK went one step further by having a typically uneducated conspiracy theorist (a heroic supporting character) be totally correct about his outsider beliefs; unlike the KSI characters, he's not even a scientist, just some nutjob that hosts a podcast. That is such a mistake today in a world where anti-vaxxers and "alternative facts" are being used as political tools.

I obviously don't care if science fiction movies present impossible pseudo-scientific elements, but there are more responsible ways to handle it.

[The Calico]

Joe Brody believed in a conspiratorial cover-up in G'14 (& was validated), so I didn't think anything of KSI's Hollow Earth theorists. But agreed on GvK - by the time of its release, its conspiracy theories really felt to be in poor taste.

By the way, before GvK, I thought the Hollow Earth simply meant that there were massive caverns deep underground, but still close enough to the surface for creatures to come and go. It's an extension of the basic idea from monster movies like "Rodan," "Gigantis," and "The Black Scorpion." Not sure if it was always the plan, but the reveal that the actual center of the Earth is hollow was too 'bonkers' for me.

[Denis]

... I also didn't like how they turned Godzilla into the villain, contrary to his previous characterization in the MV - and despite what some people argue, he was changed and made into a villain that was out of character for that film.

I agree. Both Godzilla's look (a different coloration and the overused 'threat display' internal lighting) and his behavior (animalistic and cruel, almost schoolyard level bullying) were radically different in GvK when compared to the earlier films.

I think even his face was redesigned to look more evil. He had like this evil devil smile going on a lot. I did not care for it at all for this Godzilla. If this was the first film, sure it could've worked. But making him so antagonistic and villainous after having been the opposite for his two previous films? And yet all some fans care about is that he won against the big monkey.

Main problem is they already made it clear he isn’t good, he isn’t good or bad. He’s a force of nature, doing whatever it takes to keep the planet in balance.

[Jetty_Jags]

The push to follow Monarch as it evolves into some futuristic psuedo-millitiaristic organization is likely going to continue the trend of overtly convoluted human plotlines, or those which largely ditch any human involvement what-so-ever.