I'm rewatching this right now, currently fourteen minutes in. Last viewing was in 2014, and I could barely see it thanks to the sun glaring on the TV. This time I don't have that problem, so I could appreciate how cool the whole Nemuro attack sequence was. Godzilla silhouetted against the orange background of smoke and fog, just towering imposingly over the small buildings and fleeing civilians in the foreground. All those great shots following the car as it drives alongside and then away from him. It's short, but probably a top ten Godzilla city rampage scene.
I decided to try the Japanese version this time. We'll see how that goes. I know some of my favorite scenes won't hit the same without Ifukube's score, but I guess I'll deal. I'm curious to see how Hattori handles them.
EDIT: I wonder what ever happened to that little homemade GPN sign. That would be an awesome collectors item.
EDIT: I will definitely say that Hattori does a fantastic job building a sense of awe and wonder around the UFO. He totally makes every scene that thing is in.
The military battle was better than I'd remembered. The Full Metal Missiles feel powerful and vicious, and you do feel like Godzilla is standing up to an honestly intense attack. The purple sunset sky makes a really nice backdrop for this scene, too.
I love the random, stupid approach this movie takes to comic relief. The guy who gives reporter lady directions hitting his coworker over the head, the people arguing on the train. The general using the UFO to excuse his failure got a good laugh out of me. "If that thing hadn't shown up, we could have -"
EDIT: Done. In terms of polished, competent filmmaking, this is one of the best Godzilla entries of its day, better than anything else between 1991 and 2014, with only GMK on a similar or higher level. It has hiccups; visual quality was all over the place, though some of that was probably the Blu-ray transfer's fault. The sound and music do falter during the final battle, and I can see why the US edit punched things up; more on that below. The CGI is very dated, of course. But overall, it works. Godzilla is a total badass, Orga was a unique and memorable new enemy, and the human characters were leaps and bounds more interesting and charismatic than the '90s Heisei standard.
The climax of the human action, the skyscraper demolition/escape scene, was uncommonly good for the kaiju genre. Miyasaka, wracked with guilt, tries to atone for his mistake by saving his friend. Katagiri doesn't. I actually felt something as Shinoda bravely risked his life to save the data and escape, and Io worries about him. Even annoying, selfish Yuki gets her little redemption moment by going back for Shinoda. It's a high point of human drama in this franchise, for sure. It's kind of let down afterwards by the data being ultimately unnecessary, though. It would have been nice if our heroes could've done something with it to sabotage the UFO and help Godzilla, but I can respect the decision to go with the Honda tradition and leave the humans as ineffectual observers on a rooftop while the gods duke it out for the fate of the world.
I was surprised to hear the Ifukube track start up when Godzilla entered Tokyo. I'd been under the impression that Hattori scored the whole movie. It's a little frustrating that he didn't get to, but that
is my favorite rendition of the Godzilla March, so I'm not going to complain, exactly. And yeah, as stated, the battle plays pretty differently compared to the US version. Some scenes are lacking oomph, like the UFO dropping the skyscraper on Godzilla's head, or the opening blows of G vs. Orga. Orga himself feels very different, much less threatening. His weak little roar and the lack of intimidating music make him feel kind of pitiful, actually. There's a line of dialogue that was omitted from the US version, something about the alien's body not accepting the Organizer G-1. He ends up acquiring this tragic, desperate feeling, and you even feel sorry for him at times as Godzilla beats on him. It sort of works interestingly in its own right, but doesn't fit the overall context very well. Orga was a cocky bastard throughout the rest of the movie, and we see that he has no qualms about killing us all and conquering Earth. We should be cheering when Godzilla kills him, not feeling conflicted. Well... I guess it sounds bad when I say it like that. I definitely approve of grey-area morality and complex villains in media, but this instance could have been executed better.
"Stop wars and no more accidents. I guess that's all I can ask." -Akio