Kaiju Fan Confessions

For discussions covering more than one Toho film or show that span across more than one “era.”
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gottatalktothefake
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by gottatalktothefake »

^ I frequently have the “critic from ratatouille” type flashbacks, especially as I get older. I can’t imagine being 30 but I’m only a little over 5 years away from that.

I miss blockbuster, something about going out and browsing the movies before picking one out and maybe grabbing a horribly overpriced snack was great. Streaming is far more convenient and time efficient but it lacks that feeling ya know?

It’s part of the reason why movie theatres survived the worst of Covid, people (including myself) like to go out and see movies. It’s part of the experience.

I’ve been reminiscing a lot lately, perpetual ratatouille critic. I want to be able to experience everything I love for the first time again. See all the twists and turns again, fall in love with them again. Everything feels cynical and disillusioned now. I’d love to see the ending to Jurassic Park for the first time again, having the T. rex burst in and kill the raptors blew my mind back then, it was such a nonstandard ending.

It feels like my hometown and life itself is just a shell of what it was, everything being abandoned, destroyed or just rotting.

I just want to go back to the way things were, hell, even going back to mid 2016 would be a vast improvement. The world is so fucked now that I just want to curl up in bed and not engage anymore.

Sorry for the off topic rant. This is what goes through my head constantly.
GojiSquid wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 7:58 am TBF if a movie has a sex scene without a monster mash, then is it really a graveyard smash?

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by edgaguirus »

gottatalktothefake wrote: Sun May 28, 2023 6:26 pm

I just want to go back to the way things were, hell, even going back to mid 2016 would be a vast improvement. The world is so fucked now that I just want to curl up in bed and not engage anymore.

Sorry for the off topic rant. This is what goes through my head constantly.
It's alright. I think we all get hit with that feeling sometimes.

It's one reason I've always enjoyed Godzilla. It's kind of like therapy to watch these movies and enter another world for 90 minutes or more.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Follinollante »

gottatalktothefake wrote: Sun May 28, 2023 6:26 pm ^ I frequently have the “critic from ratatouille” type flashbacks, especially as I get older. I can’t imagine being 30 but I’m only a little over 5 years away from that.
Anton Ego is the name.
About your intro to Godzilla, I have actually really similar memories.
First, it all started with Godzilla: Monster of Monsters on the NES. This was my first taste of Godzilla, and my interest was kindled. Then, one day, my dad and I were home alone and my dad had rented a Godzilla movie from Netflix (in the mail lol). He didn't watch the whole movie with me, and was doing other stuff in the background. The hell if I cared. Terror of Mechagodzilla had me riveted from start to finish, and I remember literally cheering when Godzilla burst out of his supposed grave to beat the snot out of his two enemies.
Yeah, little 5-year-old me had officially developed a (perhaps rather unhealthy) obsession with the big guy.
Funny thing is, at the time, I never noticed any material unsuitable for young audience members (like myself back then). Finding out years later was kind of awkward.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by gottatalktothefake »

^
Terror of Mechagodzilla reminds me. I have a soft spot for when the hero inexplicably shows up as people are yelling for them for help. Godzilla's intro in that movie is fucking awesome. Children are crying for Godzilla to help, then he suddenly and inexplicably appears in the middle of the city and levels Titanosaurus with his atomic breath as his theme plays. Brilliant.
GojiSquid wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 7:58 am TBF if a movie has a sex scene without a monster mash, then is it really a graveyard smash?

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Legion1979 »

gottatalktothefake wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:58 pm ^
Terror of Mechagodzilla reminds me. I have a soft spot for when the hero inexplicably shows up as people are yelling for them for help. Godzilla's intro in that movie is fucking awesome.
This is exact scene was the very first time I ever saw Godzilla in action, all the way back in 1986. Yeah, it really packs a punch.
Children are crying for Godzilla to help, then he suddenly and inexplicably appears in the middle of the city and levels Titanosaurus with his atomic breath as his theme plays. Brilliant.
I think you're confusing this scene with the first fight. The second time they meet Godzilla doesn't use his atomic breath on Titanosaurus right away.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by gottatalktothefake »

Legion1979 wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 6:00 pm
gottatalktothefake wrote: Fri Jun 02, 2023 5:58 pm ^
Terror of Mechagodzilla reminds me. I have a soft spot for when the hero inexplicably shows up as people are yelling for them for help. Godzilla's intro in that movie is fucking awesome.
This is exact scene was the very first time I ever saw Godzilla in action, all the way back in 1986. Yeah, it really packs a punch.
Children are crying for Godzilla to help, then he suddenly and inexplicably appears in the middle of the city and levels Titanosaurus with his atomic breath as his theme plays. Brilliant.
I think you're confusing this scene with the first fight. The second time they meet Godzilla doesn't use his atomic breath on Titanosaurus right away.
I was talking about the first fight, titanosaurus is wrecking shit, and then Godzilla shows up randomly in the middle of the city.
GojiSquid wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 7:58 am TBF if a movie has a sex scene without a monster mash, then is it really a graveyard smash?

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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How about the poem scene in G vs Hedorah? Ken describes an environmental disaster, and then Godzilla answers to call to do something about it.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Seeing the first 20 episodes of Kamen Rider (1971) and watching Shin Kamen Rider got me thinking about the concept of gatekeeping. I'm of the opinion that gatekeeping is an overused term, but does inevitably happen in any sizeable fan community/group, whether explicitly intentional or not.

The reason why I bring Kamen Rider into this is because I now consider myself a Kamen Rider fan. I love the original show, despite not having watched it all, and Shin Kamen Rider was pretty rad. I intend to watch more in the future. However, as we all know, the tokusatsu genre is gigantic, so I'd have to watch dozens of shows, something I really just don't have the time for.

This relates to Godzilla, because I can't help but think of someone who has just seen Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 1974, and then going to see Godzilla vs. Kong in theaters. This is a hypothetical situation, but I imagine many people don't actually watch all, or even most of the Godzilla films/Toho catalog. So for that reason, I'll be careful moving forward.

But, conversely, I don't now go around claiming to be a Kamen Rider expert. I've seen just a small fraction and know there's true Kamen Rider experts and many people who know more about the topic. If I went around lecturing people on Kamen Rider and someone called me out, it wouldn't be gatekeeping, in my opinion.

Feel free to disagree. I just thought this was super interesting because I believe many Godzilla fans will now find themselves in this exact same situation.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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LSD Jellyfish wrote: Mon Jun 12, 2023 8:14 pm
But, conversely, I don't now go around claiming to be a Kamen Rider expert. I've seen just a small fraction and know there's true Kamen Rider experts and many people who know more about the topic. If I went around lecturing people on Kamen Rider and someone called me out, it wouldn't be gatekeeping, in my opinion.

Feel free to disagree. I just thought this was super interesting because I believe many Godzilla fans will now find themselves in this exact same situation.
This is EXACTLY it. If someone is a super casual fan who only watched one or two movies I do not care, they're a fan if they want to be, we are such a small fandom I'm more than happy to see new fans. If that same person claimed to be an expert, and then either started posting absolute falsehoods (I don't mean different opinions, I mean actually factually wrong statements) on a forum or went on a podcast to spew nonsense to hundreds of thousands to millions of people unopposed, then that's a bunch of crap and I'll call it out. It's not gatekeeping no matter how much they or others try to tell you, you're not putting other's up to that standard. They're putting THEMSELVES up to that standard that they clearly fail to meet and are mad people are pointing out they're wrong. And most of the time in my experience it's not common misconceptions or obscure facts they got wrong, it's baseline knowledge of recent things they claim to love. And I'm not correcting them to be an asshole or smartass, I just don't want misinformation to spread.

It's like someone claiming to be an expert in political events, and then claiming that the Great Recession started under Bill Clinton and then calling you a gatekeeper when you point out that isn't true. And then they continue to say that like no one ever corrected them.

If someone says they're a longtime hardcore fan, and then says "Well, only Godzilla movies that use suits count, Shin counts because it uses mocap, the monsterverse doesn't use such things." It makes me immediately figure out that they're full of shit, because if you've been a fan for decades, yet haven't seen any of those behind the scenes videos for the monsterverse that went viral through the fanbase, ESPECIALLY the King Ghidorah actor trio, you are either lying about being a fan for that long or are just lying to support a purist standpoint. And then they and others will cry "GATEKEEPER" if you say that's wrong and post links to the videos. This is an actual thing that happened to me BTW, almost word for word.

I'm a very, VERY casual Ultraman fan, I'm not going to pretend otherwise, I'll freely admit it and I'll correct myself when I'm wrong. If I said something incredibly wrong like "Ishiro Honda HATED Ultraman and Tsuburaya" I'd want someone to say I'm completely incorrect.
Last edited by gottatalktothefake on Mon Jun 12, 2023 8:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
GojiSquid wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 7:58 am TBF if a movie has a sex scene without a monster mash, then is it really a graveyard smash?

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by edgaguirus »

I'm the same way with Ultraman. I like it but have only seen a few of the series, so I'll let other be the expert there.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Executive Hamster »

Thats the realization Ive come to recently: that too often in various fandoms, franchises, or interest groups the term gatekeeper gets thrown around. But its almost always more complicated than that. Like if you look at the people who use the term "gatekeeper" a lot, its usually people who are pretty new to any given group/ hobby/ etc. And often times the reason the cry "gatekeeper" is because they said something stupid or spread misinformation about something and were immediately corrected by someone who is more informed.

I also feel like gatekeeping in some instances can keep certain fandoms and interest groups alive, by preventing them from being watered down by unrelated or tangentially related stuff. But this depends on which fandom or interest group and I cannot think of any specific examples of this regarding Godzilla.

I hate to constantly bring up the metal community here but it really is a perfect example of a community where the people who whine about gatekeepers and elitists are simultaneously CONSTANTLY spreading misinformation and posting stuff that has little to do with metal. And the metal community largely sides WITH these people, which has contributed to metal as a whole being watered down to the point that anything heavier than Nickleback (and even INCLUDING Nickleback, according to some) has been thrown under the metal umbrella, and if you push back against this AT ALL then you are a stinky elitist.

I do find it funny you mention Kamen Rider though because Im in a similar boat. Ive only watched the beginning of the first show as well as Zo, J, and Kamen Rider the First. And yet, I have a sizable Kamen Rider collection. Someone could make an argument that I am in fact a POSER and gatekeep me out of the Kamen Rider fandom. And maybe I wouldn't disagree with that, because IF I started acting like I knew what the fuck I was talking about when it comes to Kamen Rider, that would make me a massive clown, because I sure as hell dont.
Last edited by Executive Hamster on Tue Jun 13, 2023 7:27 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by gottatalktothefake »

^ I think it all comes down to the context as you said.

I believe fans should be able to have any opinion they want, no matter how different from the norm it is. You think Space Amoeba is the best movie of all time? It's within your rights to think that. My caveat is that the opinions have to be based on facts if that makes sense. A recent example is during the months of Puss in Boots 2 spam across the internet, a few video essays came up that called it "the scariest and best horror movie ever", which is dumb as hell and reeks of them being grown ass adults who never watched anything rated above PG. If someone says "I love Puss in Boots the last wish" then that's fine, but if they said "I love Puss in Boots the last wish because it's an amazing horror movie" then I'll question if they've watched any horror movies in their lives, because it sounds like even Goosebumps might have been too much for them.

People also need to accept and admit the limits of their knowledge. There's a huge difference between "Yeah I've only seen Terror of Mechagodzilla and Godzilla 2000, but my favorite so far is Godzilla 2000" and "Godzilla 2000 is the best movie in the entire franchise, nothing can convince me otherwise and if you disagree you are obviously an idiot and a fake fan" and then it turns out they've only seen 2 of the movies, which IMO isn't enough to fairly judge a series as massive or as diverse as Godzilla.

Reminds me of the people who compare everything they like to Citizen Kane. "Oh it's the Citizen Kane of ____" as a way to try to prove their supposed film knowledge. It shouldn't shock anyone that the vast majority of people who say that phrase have never even seen Citizen Kane.
GojiSquid wrote: Tue Oct 31, 2023 7:58 am TBF if a movie has a sex scene without a monster mash, then is it really a graveyard smash?

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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gottatalktothefake wrote: Tue Jun 13, 2023 10:56 pm Reminds me of the people who compare everything they like to Citizen Kane. "Oh it's the Citizen Kane of ____" as a way to try to prove their supposed film knowledge. It shouldn't shock anyone that the vast majority of people who say that phrase have never even seen Citizen Kane.
And not a single person who has seen it actually considers it the "Citizen Kane of movies." At my film school, we used to say this shit ironically for laughs. Only way to cope with watching the damn thing three times in one class.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Gigantis »

Yeah I remember first watching Citizen Kane in movie class. It was good, but.. I dunno if I would say it was THAT good.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Major sssspielberg! »

I've never seen Citizen Kane but I know Godzilla: Final Wars is the Citizen Kane of movies.
I always assumed Citizen Kane was Kane Kosugi.
Kaltes-Herzeleid wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 9:44 am I love Final Wars. I praise Final Wars. Simple as.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by HedorahIsBestGirl »

Citizen Kane is held in such high regard mainly because it revolutionized cinematography. Beyond that, it's definitely a good movie and a great showcase of talent for Orson Welles, but I've seen many better films and I've never met a single person who considers it the best film ever made. Even my stuffy professor who worshipped it only ranked it third on his "official" list.
The wisest words ever spoken on TK: "When I Saw The Showa Movie's white My Friend's They seid WTF is This Your showing Me to Men Fighting In suit's they found At party city Butt when I Showed Them The Heisei film's they thoght They where pritty fun To Watch"

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by StardustGenius »

Observation; there's something of a pushback in this forum for liking stuff that wasn't made. Why is it that anyway? It's the only forum in any fandom I see that gets borderline hostile at worst, and just dismissiveness on average towards stuff of this nature. Just like, tranquilo there dudes.

Last year the early draft of the 1986 Transformers movies got a big spotlight at a convention down to art made for the panel, and story treatments from the original staff, and fans who researched this heavily and folks loved it. No snide comments or any of that. PERCEPTOR WAS SUPPOSED TO DEBUT IN THE MOVIE LIKE I HAD ASSUMED FOR YEARS!
Last edited by StardustGenius on Fri Jun 16, 2023 5:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Legion1979 »

I think its because there's so much of this type of discussion and people tend to make much bigger deals out of many of these unmade projects than they probably deserve. People have a tendancy to mourn things that never happened, even though I'm sure a lot of this stuff didn't happen for very good reasons.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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It's pretty damn sad I think if some folks researched heavily into something like Nessie and someone got called a loser or a sap for going through the energy of doing that.
Last edited by StardustGenius on Fri Jun 16, 2023 5:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

I find the discussion of lost drafts incredibly fascinating. It’s like a treasure hunt! Uncovering sacred relics and stuff that will never else exist.

The only thing I “frown upon” is when, as Legion1979 stated, people make a big deal about specific projects than warranted. The fandom has done it a lot less recently, because we’ve had more access to primary/secondary sources and lots more information, but there was a time where people would just hear “unmade Godzilla film” and not realize it was just part of the long drafting process to various Heisei entries.

I think discussion of unmade projects are really cool, as long as they aren’t just “napkin ideas”. But still, for most stuff now we have a lot of info. Clearly Barboi or whatever it was had tons of cool concept art and a lot of thought process put into it. Looking at it as “early drafts that led to something” instead of “PLANNED AND CANCELED MOVIE” makes a big difference in my mind.

Added in 4 minutes 30 seconds:
HedorahIsBestGirl wrote: Wed Jun 14, 2023 6:57 am And not a single person who has seen it actually considers it the "Citizen Kane of movies." At my film school, we used to say this shit ironically for laughs. Only way to cope with watching the damn thing three times in one class.
I watched Citizen Kane by my own volition when I was in HS. I thought it was okay…Orson Wells is good, as were the sets, but it was just a decent film. Probably very amazing at the time.

IMO, I think King Kong 1933 is actually a much more historically important film, but clearly I have a bias.
Last edited by LSD Jellyfish on Sat Jun 17, 2023 2:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
Spirit Ghidorah 2010 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 4:54 pm Anno-san pleasures me more than Yamasaki-san.

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