Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

[edgaguirus]

At their worst, the MonsterVerse movies are cheeseball modern action blockbusters, not incompetently made but very by-the-book, standard products.

At the Bay films worst, they are actively offensive, inanely plotted, pedophilic (intentional or not), miserable, brazenly full of post-9/11 American jingoism, and utterly incompatible within their own chronology.

I will gladly take the MonsterVerse any day.

As will I.

[Mechagigan]

Funny you say that about G'14 because I just reviewed the G'14 MMS on my blog and mentioned how as much as I love the movie for nostalgia reasons, I barely ever can bring myself to watch it. I know this is the most dead horse in the fandom, but man, the fact Godzilla is barely in it totally kills my interest. I guess the MUTOs are still pretty wicked, so I dunno, I might pop in the DVD sometime, but all my memories of the flick are random soldier boy talking, with guest appearances by Walter White and Scarlet Witch. It's a shame cuz they make amazing use of Godzilla and the other kaiju, visually and otherwise - When they use 'em - but that's also the only cool part of the whole project

It's always been said to be a creative choice inspired by Jaws or Alien but I gotta assume it was a budget thing. Fwiw, the effects scenes are still spectacular

[MC_Lovecraft]

I guess this is officially an unpopular opinion, then!

The screentime complaint about G'14 has never made any sense to me. I know the "Godzilla's not in it enough!" meme, but every time he appears it's a huge deal, and the impact never really goes away because Edwards is so judicious in how he employs his title character. To go with an intentionally ungenerous read, I never thought Godzilla fans were that immature, needing Godzilla to be in every scene or they forget what they're doing.

[Kagutaba]

For all its shortcomings, Gareth directed the living hell out of Godzilla 2014.

[Legion1979]

I guess this is officially an unpopular opinion, then!

The screentime complaint about G'14 has never made any sense to me. I know the "Godzilla's not in it enough!" meme, but every time he appears it's a huge deal, and the impact never really goes away because Edwards is so judicious in how he employs his title character. To go with an intentionally ungenerous read, I never thought Godzilla fans were that immature, needing Godzilla to be in every scene or they forget what they're doing.

I've always thought the real complaint was that every time Godzilla showed for a fight the film decided it wasn't something we needed to see. Name another Godzilla movie that has ever done that.

[Kagutaba]

I guess this is officially an unpopular opinion, then!

The screentime complaint about G'14 has never made any sense to me. I know the "Godzilla's not in it enough!" meme, but every time he appears it's a huge deal, and the impact never really goes away because Edwards is so judicious in how he employs his title character. To go with an intentionally ungenerous read, I never thought Godzilla fans were that immature, needing Godzilla to be in every scene or they forget what they're doing.

I've always thought the real complaint was that every time Godzilla showed for a fight the film decided it wasn't something we needed to see. Name another Godzilla movie that has ever done that.

It's an understandable complaint. The focus is more saved for the San Francisco battle and I myself appreciate that pay-off to all the build-up that exceeded it, I understand why many others felt "blue balled". That's honestly how I felt about much of the battles in the sequel, King of the Monsters.

[MC_Lovecraft]

I've always thought the real complaint was that every time Godzilla showed for a fight the film decided it wasn't something we needed to see. Name another Godzilla movie that has ever done that.

Now personally, I considered that a clever form of buildup. The cutaways from the early action served to whet the appetite for the main event in San Francisco, while simultaneously grounding the monster action in the world of our human characters. The Honolulu fight being mainly seen on a T.V. is one of my favorite bits of realism in any kaiju movie. Disasters taking place in other parts of the world has become such a mainstay on television in recent years, it gave an audience that might not be familiar with the kaiju genre an immediate touchstone for the action and the emotional beat.

So, I guess I can't name another Godzilla movie that's done it like that, but I think it would be good for the genre if more of them tried little changes to the formula like that.

[LSD Jellyfish]

While I’ll always love more monster fights and action, I don’t mind the Male MUTO basically just fleeing from Honolulu. The film makes to clear that the male Muto is heading towards its mate, and when the male Muto actually engages Godzilla towards the end of the film it’s to protect the nest. When we see the male Muto fight Godzilla at the end of the film it’s more or less what we would have seen better.

[Jomei]

I guess this is officially an unpopular opinion, then!

The screentime complaint about G'14 has never made any sense to me. I know the "Godzilla's not in it enough!" meme, but every time he appears it's a huge deal, and the impact never really goes away because Edwards is so judicious in how he employs his title character. To go with an intentionally ungenerous read, I never thought Godzilla fans were that immature, needing Godzilla to be in every scene or they forget what they're doing.

Yeah, I've been rebutting those arguments for a decade.

I agree with your takes here.

[Mechagigan]

I think the difference for me is I just never really got into the human stuff in G14 specifically, and it's so heavy on it. Counter argument would be Minus One - I feel like he's not really present in that one all that often, either, but the legit story keeps me interested regardless

[Jomei]

G'14's narrative is more unconventional and less character development-focused, I'll grant that. It's a movie that, perhaps to its detriment, downplays the importance of the individual human stories gradually as the film progresses in favor of the drama of grand species-level conflict unfolding. We normally assume stories will center humanity, and this one subverts that expectation, perhaps not entirely effectively--it certainly comes with a cost, but I think there are some benefits.

My argument is that, to make up for that side of things, the film excels visually, sonically, and conceptually.

But by shifting away from what MC's talking about re: G-screentime and suspense-building, we risk re-litigating every single gripe about G'14. Pretty soon we'll be back to "the advertising lied to me!!!!"

[miguelnuva]

I guess this is officially an unpopular opinion, then!

The screentime complaint about G'14 has never made any sense to me. I know the "Godzilla's not in it enough!" meme, but every time he appears it's a huge deal, and the impact never really goes away because Edwards is so judicious in how he employs his title character. To go with an intentionally ungenerous read, I never thought Godzilla fans were that immature, needing Godzilla to be in every scene or they forget what they're doing.

I've always thought the real complaint was that every time Godzilla showed for a fight the film decided it wasn't something we needed to see. Name another Godzilla movie that has ever done that.

Terror of Mechagodzilla with the first fight you can make an argument.

[Mechagigan]

The whole "false advertising" thing seems legit from what I remember, but also, it really matters less and less since it's been 10 years LOL. I never cared they acted like Cranston was the star, I just found his character really interesting, regardless of the actor.

[StreamOfKaijuness]

G'14 is still my favorite of Legendary's Godzilla movies and my favorite of Legendary's takes on the character himself, and it's not even close. I'm still surprised that I like the one with the original bug monsters more than the ones with other Toho monsters or Kong but that's how it shook out.

The prerelease marketing eleven years ago certainly was misleading. I actually enjoyed that but it was easy to see why North American audiences turned out in such unexpectedly huge numbers on opening weekend and then rapidly lost interest in the movie after that. It was less than a year after Breaking Bad concluded and the marketing made it look like "Godzilla starring Bryan Cranston" in an epic disaster film but the movie ended up being "MUTO starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, featuring Godzilla and Bryan Cranston" with most of the disaster/survival elements revolving around the MUTOs while Godzilla played the role of a superhero and showed up to fight the other monsters. Mainstream audiences and fans alike were expecting a Godzilla-centric disaster film in the style of Minus One, and I think Minus One's eventual breakthrough success in America was partially because it finally scratched that itch for moviegoers.

[edgaguirus]

I've heard complaints about the recent MV films being too kaiju focused. It can go both ways.

KSI really gets the human and kaiju balance right, having a good human story and thrilling kaiju action.

[Fearsome Godzilla]

I'm not sure whether or not this is an unpopular opinion here, in Toho Kingdom, but it's definitely not common from what I've seen: throughout the course of the Showa, Heisei, and Millennium eras, the MechaGodzilla movies were easily my favorites. ToMG and GvMG are my favorites of Showa; GvMG2 is my favorite of Heisei (tied with TRoG and GvD); and, perhaps the most unpopular of all, I kind of prefer GxMG over GMK.

[Jomei]

I think they're generally well-liked. The Showa ones are both classics, the Heisei one is above average for its series, and the Kiryu films stand out in their era as well.

The specifics of that take people might quibble with, but the general popularity of Mechagodzilla films is hardly unpopular I'd say.

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

Godzilla's lack of screen time in G14 wouldn't have been a detriment if the movie wasn't called Godzilla, wasn't the first film in a decade, the first big budget Hollywood attempt at a Godzilla movie since 1998, and had a compelling narrative with interesting well drawn characters. It focuses so much time with the human cast while doing barely anything with them. Outside a strong start the non monster scenes are a slog to get through. Even when they finally decide to show the monsters they're either shown on tv monitors or only show up for a few seconds before cutting back to the human cast, often times right as the monsters are about to actually do something. I'd give anything to never have to hear Edwards' name ever again in any context outside of this film. Made me sick to my stomach when he was announced to direct Rebirth and now they supposedly want him for Dune? He only did one film people actually really like and by some accounts the only reason people liked Rogue One was because of stuff added to the film after Edwards was kicked out mid project. God if only Blomkamp was given access to the projects people seem to be attaching Edwards to.

[HedorahIsBestGirl]

I'm not sure whether or not this is an unpopular opinion here, in Toho Kingdom, but it's definitely not common from what I've seen: throughout the course of the Showa, Heisei, and Millennium eras, the MechaGodzilla movies were easily my favorites. ToMG and GvMG are my favorites of Showa; GvMG2 is my favorite of Heisei (tied with TRoG and GvD); and, perhaps the most unpopular of all, I kind of prefer GxMG over GMK.

The Mechagodzilla movies are some of my favorites, too. MG itself is one of my favorite kaiju eiga baddies alongside my beloved Hedorah and Iris. I'd say a MG movie is my second favorite of the three classic eras; ToMG after GvH for Showa, GvMGII after RoG for Heisei, GxMG after GMK for Millennium. Not a fan of Tokyo SOS though. As to the spectrum of opinion popularity, I'd say this falls somewhere in the middle; maybe slightly less popular on TK, since a lot of users seem to dislike the '93 Mechagodzilla movie.

Added in 3 minutes 18 seconds:

God if only Blomkamp was given access to the projects people seem to be attaching Edwards to.

Most directors have hits and misses. Neill Blomkamp wrote and directed District 9, and it was amazing. He also wrote, directed, and produced Elysium, which was mediocre, and Chappie, which was so bad it was sometimes painful to watch. In my opinion, Edwards has a better track record; I'm in the pro-G14 camp, Rogue One is the only good Star Wars film in recent history and Monsters is great. His only film I'm not a big fan of is The Creator, which was at least serviceable with memorable visuals.

[Breakdown]

For what it's worth, The Academy included Godzilla vs MechaGodzilla '74 in their "Godzilla through the decades" post on Facebook, which featured other Godzilla movies generally considered to be among the best. I know it doesn't mean anything in the long run, but its cool that the The Academy even acknowledged it.

Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla is Academy-Certified kino.