The Town of Odyssey

^^That is the Godzilla movie I would prefer, but I think they took it in a different direction.

Anyway, tonight is the night (in a lot of cases--most cities have an early showing tonight and then officially NATIONWIDE tomorrow). I trust everyone is posting from a mobile device camping out in front of a theater by now?

I saw it and I didn't care for it that much. :/ I wasn't expecting to adore it, but I tried to have an open mind.

The last 20 minutes or so I thought were really good, but the build to that took too long. Bryan Cranston was awesome but he wasn't in it as much as the trailers suggested, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson was pretty "Meh" the whole time.

I liked it overall but I think they could've sped some plot up early on and kept Cranston around more, and maybe expanded the action. What action we did get I was very pleased by, though.

I really want to see this for Cranston, but I've been disappointed by reports of how small his role is.

I thought it was pretty great. I actually enjoyed it most when the camera chose to stay waaaaay back and let the large-scale action unfold, as opposed to throwing in too many shots of collateral damage or showing us the suffering of people who we don't have any reason to care about. It's a giant monster movie that really works because it knows it's a giant monster movie, and also feels appropriately Japanese. And Cranston's role is fantastic, even if it's cut short too quickly.

Would you agree though that it seems like the trailers were for a different movie? I'm not necessarily complaining, because I prefer Godzilla playing the type of role that he ended up in, but the trailers made it look like GODZILLA IS HERE TO DESTROY THE EARTH! REMEMBER HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKI!!!!! and it didn't really play out like that at all.

Maybe a little, but as far as tone and aesthetics go, I felt the trailers did a very good job of leading up to the film. And I can't say much beyond that, as I'm pretty much completely ill-informed when it comes to Godzilla lore.

I saw this last week and thought it was great! Granted, I'm easily impressed when it comes to movies, and this was my first Godzilla movie, but I thought they did a good job. I was impressed because I feel like too often they make the giant monster to be a direct threat to humanity. "Oh, it wants to eat us all! Oh no!" But this movie was about giant monsters whose concern was entirely for other giant monsters. The humans were of no importance (most of the time). It made me feel very small watching how utterly unconcerned these beasts were with the tiny little insect creatures around their feet.

Also the Godzilla roars gave me chills. Literally. I felt those roars in my spine.

Jelly wrote:Maybe a little, but as far as tone and aesthetics go, I felt the trailers did a very good job of leading up to the film. And I can't say much beyond that, as I'm pretty much completely ill-informed when it comes to Godzilla lore.

Yeah. There are a few nods to the lore but obviously this was set up to be an introduction to the Western world who are sadly uneducated in this realm.

SO EVERYONE BUY MY BOOK ON AMAZON AND LEARN ABOUT THESE CRUCIAL MATTERS!!!

I know next to nothing about Godzilla and have not seen anything else about him so I wouldn’t have picked this movie to see on my own, but I went because my group did. And I am so glad.
I really liked it! I was completely into it from start to finish, there wasn’t a single moment that lost or bored me. I had no idea what to expect so the best I was hoping for was an enjoyable movie that I could say was a good time, but I got way more than that. I was so taken with this movie that I still have a lingering sense of awe and excitement. I think it has to go past the movie itself; I think I may have caught Godzilla fever.
I was actually compelled to dig out two little Godzilla figures I’ve had stored away for years and put them up on my bookshelf to keep this enthusiasm around.

All that said, Top is completely right that the trailer was for a different movie. The story they were advertising was clearly ‘Godzilla comes to destroy the city and the military goes after him’ which never happened at all. The only confrontation with Godzilla was an accident, when he bumped that boat. And what was with that shot of the beat up Statue of Liberty? I never saw that.

I'm wondering if they cut the Statue of Liberty because they thought too many viewers would be confused as to what it was doing in Las Vegas, since I'm assuming the average person doesn't realize there are multiple Statues over the globe. Of course in that case, they should have left it out of the trailer as well.

I also noticed that the nice little speech given by the lead military official in the trailer was no where to be heard.

They also cut out the cameo by Akira Takarada. I realize no one here probably cares, haha, but he was a co-star in the first film and a handful of others through the 60's, and then was a major character in the most recent Japanese produced film back in 2004. There was a big campaign of "Get Takarada a Cameo in Legendary's Godzilla," which worked, there were pictures of him on set with the director, but at the last minute they cut his scene. They guy has to be around 80 years old, they should be using him while they can!

The Top Crusader wrote:I'm wondering if they cut the Statue of Liberty because they thought too many viewers would be confused as to what it was doing in Las Vegas, since I'm assuming the average person doesn't realize there are multiple Statues over the globe. Of course in that case, they should have left it out of the trailer as well.

And they would have left out the Eifel Tower, which wasn’t in the trailer but was in the movie.

AWESOME MOVIE!!! I especially loved the part where Go monster! Go monster!

Yeah, that was a great moment! But it raised the question among my group -- 06 Jun 2014 11:25 am --

I got the impression that is was somehow triggered by the explosion, like that somehow gave him the ability, because it was right after that when he finally started using it out of nowhere.

bookworm wrote:Yeah, that was a great moment! But it raised the question among my group

Why wasn’t he using the energy blast or whatever it was from the start of the fight? He waited until he almost got killed, and then was like ‘Oh yeah, I can do this!’

IKR

Traditionally he can do that whenever. The theory is that this version has to build it up for a while or something. They obviously didn't address it directly in the film.

Haha.

Anyway, I forget what I've said already in this thread, but after a couple viewings, I still like the film but definitely have a handful of issues with it. I really hope there is more monster screen time in the sequels and while I'd kind of like re-occurring human characters, I didn't really like many of them in this so I sort of hope they just have different people involved in sequels.

Legendary has licensed Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah for sequels, so I am pretty stoked to see how they handle them--definitely the three "biggest names" in the monster catalogue behind Godzilla. I love practical effects but they could do some impressive stuff with Ghidorah with CGI.

I always thought his rays of DEATH and WIND DAMAGE were pretty well done for their time in 1964, starting around the 48 second mark or so...