Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

For discussions covering more than one Toho film or show that span across more than one “era.”
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Legion1979
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by Legion1979 »

Spuro wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 3:57 pm
miguelnuva wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:56 pm The fact that the Mothra Trilgoy grossed more than the Gamera trilgoy at the box office shows how vast opinions are and how movie quality doesn't line up with entertainment value. No one in the world will tell you Mothra had a better Trilgoy than Gamera but look how the marbles fell with that.
I think that has more to do with the popularity of the Mothra character herself and Toho's general prestige as a studio, rather than "entertainment value."
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by miguelnuva »

Spuro wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 3:57 pm
miguelnuva wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:56 pm The fact that the Mothra Trilgoy grossed more than the Gamera trilgoy at the box office shows how vast opinions are and how movie quality doesn't line up with entertainment value. No one in the world will tell you Mothra had a better Trilgoy than Gamera but look how the marbles fell with that.
I think that has more to do with the popularity of the Mothra character herself and Toho's general prestige as a studio, rather than "entertainment value."
A character can't get popular unless something is entertaining about then other wise Toho could throw insert any kaiju.

Either way the conversation is moot because it comes down the personal opinion on why somone ultimately thinks a gipm is better.

Yes their are other factors a movie can be judge by to determine quality of a film but ultimately a finished product is judged by opinion of the one seeing it.
Last edited by miguelnuva on Sat Nov 19, 2022 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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miguelnuva wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 5:00 pm A character can't get popular unless something is entertaining about then other wise Toho could throw insert any kaiju.
Sure, but Mothra's popularity owes itself to the huge critical and financial success of the original Mothra and Mothra vs Godzilla – and perhaps more importantly because of the star power of the Peanuts during that time frame, who were famous enough to even appear on American television. It's really got nothing to do with anything the 90s Mothra trilogy did.
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Desghidorah
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by Desghidorah »

Let's also remember not all kaiju films are meant for the same audience. The Gamera trilogy was decidedly meant for teenagers and up whereas the Rebirth trilogy was meant for young children. Comparing the two is kinda like contrasting Jurassic Park with How to Train Your Dragon.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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Desghidorah wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 6:13 pm Let's also remember not all kaiju films are meant for the same audience. The Gamera trilogy was decidedly meant for teenagers and up whereas the Rebirth trilogy was meant for young children. Comparing the two is kinda like contrasting Jurassic Park with How to Train Your Dragon.
Or Jurassic Park with Prehysteria, more accurately. :P
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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Spuro wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 6:05 pm
miguelnuva wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 5:00 pm A character can't get popular unless something is entertaining about then other wise Toho could throw insert any kaiju.
Sure, but Mothra's popularity owes itself to the huge critical and financial success of the original Mothra and Mothra vs Godzilla – and perhaps more importantly because of the star power of the Peanuts during that time frame, who were famous enough to even appear on American television. It's really got nothing to do with anything the 90s Mothra trilogy did.
To be fair, Godzilla vs. Mothra 92 was extremely popular in Japan given the fact that it was the highest grossing Heisei film and didn't get surpassed in Japan until Shin Godzilla. I'm pretty sure that also has some influence on Mothra's popularity.
GVK: TNE is a modern day 70s Showa Godzilla movie. Being a massive budget modern blockbuster CGI film instead of traditional 70s tokusatsu techniques doesn't change that. Fight me.

Anguirus and Godzilla being friends in the Showa series is cannon. Deal with it.

Monsterverse is not similar to either MCU nor Bayformers just because all three are big budget CGI blockbuster franchises.

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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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miguelnuva wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:48 pm Legion argues for a film's complete merits where a lot of people just go with their personal enjoyment.
And, to be honest, I understand and respect both views. I think I fall somewhere in the middle.
Legion1979 wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:44 pm Luckily most people do. It's all good.
No hard feelings, hope I didn't come across too strong. Good little debate lol.

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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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Legion1979 wrote: Sat Nov 19, 2022 2:44 pm Luckily most people do. It's all good.
Citation needed

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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by Voyager »

I think enjoyment is ultimately more important than being a ultra super duper KINO film. I’d much rather watch a really entertaining film than a really deep and intellectual one.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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It just depends for me. I think, more often than not, I agree with Voyager. I think you have to evaluate a film under the totality of the circumstances, I suppose.

Try to be too deep, you run the risk of coming across as pretentious. Doing the opposite may be too shallow. It all just depends I think.

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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

I kept writing out thus longish thing about Showa Gamera vs. Showa Godzilla, but it kept bothering me, and I don't think I can explain it properly.

To put it simply:

I think the Showa Gamera films aren't as good overall as the Showa Godzilla films, but it largely depends what category you're looking at. The Showa Godzilla films are certainly better produced than the Showa Gamera films. With the exception of vs. Barugon, Gyaos, and bits of Jiger, many of them focus on small isolated areas, with minimal characters, and have less miniatures,
The plots and narratives are also much simpler.

So yeah., the Showa Godzilla films are better made films. I don't think that's controversial. However, I think Gamera has always excelled at monster action. The Showa Gamera films are particularly good at making Gamera vs. his opponents seem fair. In the Showa series, Godzilla often doesn't have much difficulty fighting his opponents, and the times he does, he usually gets out of it doing something ridiculous. Gamera's films provide better tension, with often the villain monster having some special method of eliminating Gamera (Jiger's eggs, Barugon's freezing weapon, Guiron slicing Gamera up). Gamera always really feels like he's fighting on the edge and do a much better job at having big bombastic fights.

This might sound weird, but sort of think Gamera vs. Barugon (and Gyaos) as the genre piece of the Kaiju genre. It's the Kaiju genre done at it's most basic, and well, sort of like the Heisei Gamera film. while not as great as GTTHM, or my personal favorites, they really represent the genre well. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what I mean, but I think the Godzilla films are a bit more varied and experimental, while the Gamera films do what they want on the tin.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by Voyager »

^ Weirdly enough, I can see that point about Gamera vs Barugon. The more I think about it, it is the archetypal kaiju film.

Added in 16 minutes 44 seconds:
I’d say GTTHM comes close, though.
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miguelnuva
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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Gamera vs Barugon is probably my favorite of the showa series but the one funny thing that keeps coming up about that film. Everyone I show it to that aren't kaiju fans tell me the movie would be better without Gamera in it.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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I've been re-watching the anime trilogy and it is actually landing way better than I remember it being. I think partially it's because SP gave us the mass monster menagerie we were wanting anyways, allowing the trilogy to kind of sit on its own merits; but also because I'm watching all three films more or less back to back. Something I'm noticing is that the three films don't necessarily have a concise three act structure across individual entries but do work as one when taken altogether.

Essentially, thinking of them as less individual films and more as Parts 1, 2, and 3 of a long film or miniseries winds up making the presentation a lot better. So I think without the anticipated hope of a lot of monsters showing up now that the format is an anime and without the gaps in time between segments, the presentation is a lot better as a whole.

For a brief example, it's a common trope in fiction that when someone is in the wrong about something, the story will show how they are wrong over the course of its length. It will be then their choice at the end to either realize their error or suffer for it. But this also means in the first half of the story or so, they may not be immediately shown to be in the wrong.

Multiple characters in the anime trilogy have an incorrect mindset, be it the alien races as a whole falling to dogmatic nihilism with religion or false devotion towards machinery as a form of transcendence; or the main character of Haruo for clinging to a lost world and revenge that he thinks will restore human pride and salvation. By the end of the third movie, both of the alien races met their demise at the hands of their own hubris and actions. Haruo however comes to realize trying to destroy Godzilla is a fools errand and that the old world he was fighting to avenge was a broken system that has been replaced by something else much more suited to the circumstances and long-term viability. The whole point of the Houtua existing was to be a counterpoint to all three incorrect mindsets, and that's why they survive through the end.

However if you've only seen the first movie, the Houtua barely even factor and by the end of the second movie the story arc is only been partially completed. Meanwhile if you watched the third movie a long time after the first and second, some of the connective tissue doesn't become immediately noticeable.

The short of it is, I actually think the anime trilogy is substantially better than the whipping boy it has been made into and frankly has some of the best thematic elements the franchises ever had. I certainly think it is not perfect and could be fine-tuned better with the characters and there are some things that just would be flat-out fun to have like proper monster fights. But taken as a whole I really can't give a score lower than a B in terms of smart writing, which is a lot better than most of the genre.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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miguelnuva wrote: Sun Nov 20, 2022 5:18 am Gamera vs Barugon is probably my favorite of the showa series but the one funny thing that keeps coming up about that film. Everyone I show it to that aren't kaiju fans tell me the movie would be better without Gamera in it.
Gamera's presence is not only the main selling point of the film, but also provides an antithetical character for Barugon. The two kaiju bring in an ice vs fire and land vs water dynamic.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by Executive Hamster »

I haven't seen the showa gamera films in years. so long that I usually just tell people I havent seen them at all. Im partially worried to rewatch them, because I remember watching GvGurion when I was 12 or so years old and it was an utterly magical experience. I feel like watching it as an adult and it not being good might shatter that memory a bit.

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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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Executive Hamster wrote: Mon Nov 21, 2022 10:19 am I haven't seen the showa gamera films in years. so long that I usually just tell people I havent seen them at all. Im partially worried to rewatch them, because I remember watching GvGurion when I was 12 or so years old and it was an utterly magical experience. I feel like watching it as an adult and it not being good might shatter that memory a bit.
I suggest you refrain from rewatching them and continue to cherish those memories. I also enjoyed the Showa Gamera movies a lot as a kid but I tried to rewatch them a few years ago and found them difficult to sit through without a lot of help from my good friend Tennessee Bourbon.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

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I had sort of the opposite experience. I didn't like the Showa Gamera movies at all when I first saw them as a teenager, for all the reasons you'd expect. I pretty much fast-forwarded to the kaiju battles if I rewatched them. I even tried to sell my vs. Barugon DVD in a garage sale, although it ended up getting rained on, ruined, and thrown out instead.

Going back to them as an adult, I've had a lot more fun with them. Guiron in particular was a blast the last time I saw it. Of course they don't hold up critically against Shin or whatever, but they're fun, and that's all they wanted or needed to be.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by Voyager »

I never had a personal connection with the films. I watched them first on Brandon Tenold and that other channel which did kaiju stuff as a Teddy Bear with a hulk hogan voice and sunglasses.

I just thought of them in the same league as films like-

The Last Dinosaur
The Last Shark
Legend of Dinosaurs & Monster Birds
Q The Winged Serpent
The Giant Claw
Monster X Strikes Back
Mystery on Monster Island
Gorgo, etc.

It wasn’t until recently I actually watched the films. They’re just fun to laugh at.
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Re: Unpopular Godzilla Opinions

Post by gottatalktothefake »

I mean they’re not THAT bad (for the most part) but they’re still not good movies by any stretch of the imagination
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