The Godzilla Monsterverse Cinematic Universe

[CMcK]

Its a real shame that we cant watch this in the cinema. It wont be the same at home.

True. But I can console myself with knowing I have a better screen at home than in the cinema. It’s £15.99 to rent Godzilla vs Kong in 4K Dolby Vision and Atmos from the iTunes Store.

[Neon Ignition]

What's your cinema like? Near us it would have been about £11 to see it in 4K Dolby surround at the cinema had it been open, that being said Godzilla 2 I found better at home just because of how manic it got

[CMcK]

I usually go to Vue about 20 minutes away as it’s only a fiver per ticket. Pretty good screens there. The local Cineworld is about £13 a ticket IIRC and the screens are pretty poor. The Glasgow Film Theatre is probably the best cinema I normally use. Not cheap but great screens and seats. But it’s obvious an OLED TV has far better contrast ratio and HDR reproduction than any cinema I would normally use but I still enjoy the cinema experience.

[Dogg Thang]

So did you guys all watch Godzilla vs Kong? What did you think? For me, I enjoyed it - that’s the important part so really everything after this needs to be taken in that context. Regardless of anything in the movie, I enjoyed it. But I personally felt it to be the weakest of this bunch of movies. While it absolutely delivered on its premise (thankfully), I found it to be a messier film that didn’t quite have any of the strengths of the previous movies. Each of the previous ones took a different approach. While not everyone found them successful all the time, I admire the approaches of Godzilla, Skull Island and KotM. Godzilla brought a sense of epicness, a sense of scale and a feeling of what it might feel like to live in a world with these creatures. Skull Island brought the fun, adventure and successfully juggled the human stories and monster stories. KotM brought the majesty and beauty and sense of awe and weight. I’d struggle to see what GvK brought that felt unique, what approach it took.

One thing I can say for it is that it leans into the ridiculousness and I have no problem with that. But it leans into all the ridiculous at once and doesn’t really have time for it all. Even in the first few minutes, I was baffled by how abridged it felt, like we were missing chunks of the movie. Like, how do they know that? How the hell did they get him onto that boat? And so on. And speaking of boats, this movie lost the weight. I don’t know enough about ships or buildings to say for sure but I didn’t buy that they could be on those boats and not tip them over. I didn’t buy that Kong at that size could hang on to the top spire of a building and not rip it off. Does it matter? Well, yeah. Because it takes away from the sense of awe - the scale, the weight, the feeling of what it might be like if this was real.

And the human stuff? That’s always tough in a Godzilla movie. I get it. And I’ve seen all the Japanese ones so I’ve seen all the different attempts at making it work. The challenge is obvious - the main monster is completely unaware of the human characters, doesn’t care a damn about them and can’t communicate with them in any way. It’s like having a movie where a main character is an ant but just an ant and the humans don’t know he’s there and he can’t speak and they don’t have any meaningful contact ever - that’s a serious writing challenge. Well, I feel this is the least successful of these movies in that regard. Everyone is just an exposition machine and characters are just thrown in there, delivering bad lines (the entire Millie Bobbie Brown group didn’t need to exist).

Lastly the CG. It’s very CG. Seems to have been an artistic choice to light everything with golden hour lighting but the result is that nothing looks real. It’s okay once you get into it but, again, takes away from that sense of awe.

Anyway, those are my feelings without getting into spoilers. In spite of everything, I enjoyed it. It delivered the movie it sold and it’s fun. I guess if you’re willing to pay money to see a movie about a giant ape and a giant plasma beamy lizard beat the crap out of each other, you can probably go with it.

[fishbowlhead]

Nice impressions dogthang. Will be another one i watch on Netflix on a lazy Sunday for me.

[Neon Ignition]

Thanks to Line of Duty we're halfway through the film atm, so far? Fun but the weakest one. The action so far has been decent but the human sections are definitely getting worse with each entry. I get they're hard to do but given they inevitably make up 80%+ of each film there's no excuse to go lazier with them. Given how nuts the backend of the films tend to be I'm assuming a rollercoaster awaits.

Question for Godzilla-buffs:
Has the franchise ever tried doing an entry that was in effect just a disaster movie? Like following a small set of humans as the film plays out in a city over the course of one single sprawling titan battle. It'd make handling the humans so much easier and avoid having to set up so many battles in a film, in a way a bit like a better made Cloverfield?

[CMcK]

The idea behind Cloverfield was good but was ruined by the people it followed being so unlikeable. A Godzilla Gaiden movie in that style could be good.

[Cassius_Smoke]

There is a problem with Godzilla in that, there is only so much destruction people can watch before they need a break. And they break up the action with bland human characters that are there simply to break up the action.
If you did a film like Cloverfield, you need to be damn sure the characters you follow are super likable and have a worth while reason for being there. A mix of ages and avoid tired tropes.

[Dogg Thang]

I can't think of one that's done it that way exactly and I think that's largely because it would make Godzilla just a backdrop element. There would be a total 100% disconnect. Like, if you imagine an earthquake disaster movie, you're not going to consider the earthquake itself the central feature even though it drives every part of the story. The movie is about the characters. As CMcK says, it would kind of be Godzilla Gaiden. Interesting though. But there are some Godzilla films that still take the disaster movie approach, just not in a 'group of survivors' way. The original is that and then Shin Godzilla and a bunch of the 2014 one is that too but they're still all trying to connect and influence Godzilla in some way to connect him with the characters.

[Brad]

[Dogg Thang]

I don't get it.

[Neon Ignition]

Speechless

[Asura]

The idea behind Cloverfield was good but was ruined by the people it followed being so unlikeable. A Godzilla Gaiden movie in that style could be good.

Thank god somebody else said it.

[Brad]

I don't get it.

Sorry, Earthquake from Samurai Shodown. He could fight Godzilla, maybe. I dunno what I was thinking really.

[charlesr]

I enjoyed it too. It brought communication between the kid and Kong which was interesting. Kong's eyesight must be amazing though. I can barely read a phone
The water fight was cool. The core was cool. The other character was cool.