GODZILLA (2014) Pre-Release Thread

King Kong and a giant octopus or I'm waiting for video.

After the number of staff changes this production has seen on the creative side of things, the biggest surprise to come out of the announcement is that there's still a movie to tell advertisers about. I'll get excited if/when it looks like there's a finished production ready to ship to theaters.

I'm a life long Godzilla fan, so I'm looking more forward to this than to Pacific Rim.

I'm also a lifelong Godzilla fan and I'm looking forward to both movies but I have to say PACIFIC RIM is doing everything right at the moment. As for this new American Godzilla film, my expectations are set reasonably low.
 

Yeah, it's all about the expectations.  With Pacific Rim, it's a giant monster movie from GDT.  As for an American Godzilla movie, well...  I hope it's good, but history tells me to expect the worst and hopefully be surprised.

I'd really liked what I'd seen on this project so far, but multiple monsters - are they really necessary? We don't need this to be the Batman Forever of Godzilla films. Let's stick to developing Godzilla first before we start bringing in a whole menagerie.

Isn't the character of Godzilla adequately developed by now? Do we need a rebooted origin story? An insane monster mash handicap match is the least of what I'd want to see in a new G film.

 

But we might get to see Godzilla hug a giant bat!

Ben Grimm, I can see it now...Godzilla: Attack Of The 50 FT BATMAN!

 This Godzilla is going to look like Godzilla and breath fire. Its already better than the Tri-Star Godzilla. I know that isn't a big feat, but its a start. I know this movie is supposed to have a darker tone, but I want to hear Blue Oyster Cult's Godzilla in the movie, and not just in the end credits.

A completely serious question but other than the first film are any other Godzilla films really any "good"? What I mean by that is, are the stories really that compelling? Or is it all down to Godzilla himself and how he's portrayed. What does this film need to do to succeed as a "good" Godzilla film?

 The first Godzilla is a great metaphor for the bomb. When Godzilla attacks Tokyo its not fun. There is a scene of a woman holding her daughters and trying to calm them by telling them they'll be seeing daddy soon. Its not the camp fun of the rest of the series.  Everything else dudes in rubber suits fighting each other and crushing models, but damn they're so much fun!

I like Final Wars, due more to the scale of the story it attempts to tell than the execution. Act 2 of the movie is the end of human civilization, and Act 3 is a scrappy band of survivors lashing out against the aliens after the fact. It's just a spin on post-apocalypse sci-fi that I haven't seen elsewhere.

Not at all in love with the idea of more than one kaiju plus Godzilla, unless they are larval Mothra. While I really want a villain-to-hero type of arc for the big guy, I don't want it over one two hour movie. I worry that he will be realized none too differently from the 90's GINO - a big, territorial, accidentally distructive and misunderstood lizard that should be pitied, not a terrifying, punishing force of a possible supernatural nature to be feared and heeded.

Godzilla vs. The Thing is more serious than the later entries, but still pretty out there. If you do not count G vs. King Kong, it is the third one in the series after Godzilla Raids Again. They start getting campy after that.

And please, no BOC.

Does someone really want a Godzilla origin story? That's like a Batman movie where all Batman does is beat up muggers. He's a giant lizard that breathes fire. There, he's been developed. Now I want to see Godzilla wreck the shit of another monster that's just a bigger jerk than him.
 

 

 

Basically not do that.  Have him breathe fire, look like Godzilla, and be some metaphor for how, again and again, nature points out the folly of man.

We've had two films that only feature Godzilla: Gojira and Godzilla 85. The first film is a classic and IMO cannot be re-done or improved on. The second is pretty weak sauce.

 

I'm happy to read that we'll get some Ragin Kaiju action in the new film! I predict the first Non-G monster will be a "Red Shirt" and the second a real menace that needs to be taken down.

I'm not interested in a north american Godzilla. Doesn't most of the fun of Godzilla movies come from the Japanese style/poor translation? That said if this movie has Jet Jaguar or Rodan in it then I'm camping out for tickets.
 

Exactly. The last American Godzilla had Mathew Broderick feeding him fucking fish. And baby Godzillas for god sakes. There are some people that don't like that we might have two actual monsters for him to fuck up in this one? Why? 

I really want to see a Godzilla origin story, the movie Godzilla '98 promised to be but wasn't. I loved the first 30 minutes of that film though, with the yellow tinged nuclear test footage, the giant footprints, the sinking of the fishing fleet ("Gorjira... Gorjira...").

I will second that.

I could go for an origin story as well.  They could include other monsters within that since a lizard wouldn't be the only victim of some sort of nuclear disaster/test.

Darabont has me interested again.  I hadn't heard he was writing.  Don't screw it up Edwards, you're the weak link here.

Making this the pre-release thread.

What is the release date on this guy?

May of 2014.

 

Why do all genre heroes and villains have to be related to each other? Batman and Ra's al Ghul are part of the same ninja cult, Superman and General Zod are from the same planet, Spider-Man and the Lizard both... have their genes spliced... some dumb shit like that.

 

I want the evil kaiju to be some freaky aliens' war machines, but luckily Earth has a giant nuclear lizard on its side. Fuck realism; that was off the table when the giant nuclear lizard started breathing blue fire.

While I disagree in this instance, I wouldn't mind seeing Mothra reimagined as a giant, benevolant, telepathic space moth from a gas-giant planet.

For the sake of symmetry and resonance hero and villian have to be related somehow. Unbreakable wouldn't be the same if Mr. Glass shot laser beams from his eyes.

What if Godzilla fights the monsters and robots from Pacific Rim?  Cross Over Event!

Also, you're guaranteed this moment: "You and I are not so different..."

 

 

I agree some of the opening title footage from the 98 film was spooky, but the rest of the elements you cite came straight from Gojira.

 

 

No they don't, they really, really don't. Godzilla's greatest foe is King Ghidorah, a "Space Monster" who 1) roams the universe looking for inhabited planets to ravage and/or 2) is under the control of aliens. No ties to Godzilla at all, yet that very fact made him a formidable foe. That and the cool creature design.

 

Other examples:

 

Van Helsing had no familial ties to Dracula: he was an academic who was called in by the people being victemized by Dracula.

 

Lex Luthor has no ties to Superman: he's just a crazy scientist who is 1) jealous of Supe's power and/or 2) a xenophobe who hates an alien being becoming a pseudo- role model for Humanity.

 

Comic Book Spiderman has no ties to Doc Ock or most of his other Rogue's Gallery. The only reason he has a tie to the Green Goblin is Gobby gets a hard on for Spidey.

 

The Joker and Batman can be seen as "Caos vs. Order" or some such: nonetheless they are not siblings, married to each other, etc.

 

Here me now, Hollywood: there ARE other ways to plot movies than Joseph Fing Campbell.

I do actually agree with you but it's interesting that in Dracula 1992 Hopkins plays the priest who damns Elizebeta's soul causing Dracula to renounce god. Copola seems to suggest these people have been fighting eachother in one form or another for hundreds of years, and Van Helsing is just the latest incarnation. The captain of the Demeter is also voiced by Hopkins, perhaps suggesting a distant familial connection there. I think Dracula is better off for it in that version of the film.

Godzilla could fight another irradiated super animal from the same island chain where the fateful iguana originated, but maybe save that for the sequel. You need to make the appearence of a second mutant seem like a big deal, otherwise godzilla seems less impressive and unique if there are a whole bunch of monters running around all of a sudden. Let's see how the world reacts to the existence of one giant monster before we drop another into the equation.

If they have to create another mutant, it should be a giant crab like in Godzilla VS The Seamonster. It makes sense as an animal that could be realistically mutated (shellfish build up pollutants in their tissues by virtue of being bottom feeders) and also capable of wreaking havoc on land and sea once transformed through atomic exposure.

And Coppola should have known better. The whole theme of the novel Dracula is that Science, represented by Van Helsing and indeed by the conceit of a series of collated diaries, uncovers and destroys Superstition (and in fact, traditional religion). By injecting the belief in Reincarnation Coppola undercut this theme (and I'd debate it's effectiveness in the film as well: Oldman is so good as a monster that I really didn't care for him suddenly becoming Heartsick Harry).

 

Back to the Big G: there was a series of paperback novels that postulated an "Age of Monsters", sort of like the Mayans predicting an onslaught of Kaiju instead of a pedestrian end of world. So, those giant Mantis's from Son of Godzilla come to Earth via Meteorites, etc. It was a pretty cool concept and one that could work well in a film.

This should really be...Marvel Entertainment's GODZILLA!  Can Dum Dum Dugan, lead his Stalwart S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents, in the Helicarrier, to capture...The Big G?  Will the Grandson of a Scientist Steal...Red Ronin to befriend Capture Godzilla?  This would have been a...MARVELous film.  The Sequel could be an all out fight between...Godzilla, S.H.I.E.L.D. and...The Shogun Warriors.  Will Earth...Survive? Finally Godzilla and Red Ronin are marooned on Monster Island, earth is attacked from Mars, and Killraven and co must free Godzilla and Ronin to save the earth from Mars!

Godzilla 2014 needs to be a darker story more in line with the serious tone of the original for this to really work. I do not mean foux reality Nolan type nonsense but a focus on the people of the story. People need to die and it needs to be sad when they do. Darabont makes me happy but it has a lot to do to impress (although I think its a given that it cannot be as shite as the Emerich tripe...).

 

In regards to Pacific Rim, looks fantastic and the main bonus is that is an original property. It has nothing to live up to other than Del Toros reputation. Cannot wait for either tbh.
 

Is Darabont still as pissed off as he was when he made the Mist? They'll never let him do it, but writing an ending as depressive and anti-hope as the Mist ending for a blockbuster Godzilla movie would be balls.   
 

Shouldn't this be moved to focused film now that it's a pre-release? Or am I being too OCD? Anyway, I'm glad bill ol' G will be fighting other monsters. It would be cool if it could have a similar tone to Gojira. It's not like nuclear weapons have gone away or anything. 

I wish Gareth Edwards was the DP, and not in the big chair.  Monsters was lovely but everything else about it was rubbish.

Not to get too anal, but I really hope that Godzilla isn't an iguana in this new movie.

 

That's not to anal, that's common sense. The 98 design was so horrible.

I liked the design in that movie but I was never particularly wedded to the original look.

I would prefer they not really address what type of animal Godzilla is/was.

Avoid "Theropoda Allosauria" at all costs.

Wydren, If the new Godzilla doesn't resemble...Any of the Japanese Godzilla Models, it is a...Failure!  Just think of Peter Jackson's King Kong.  Kong wasn't radically redesigned, like Godzilla was.  Also, do you remember the filmmakers agreed that a living creature would not...Breathe Fire?  Emmerich and Devlin were both interviewed before the film came out and said that.  

Peter Jackson did redesign Kong. He's no longer monstrous, Jackson just made him an over large gorilla. The original Kong has a 'missing link' freakish look to him and an odd semi bipedal walk. Jackson's Kong's scale is hard to determin, and I think more adorable than horrifying.

Dr Harford, I didn't say Kong wasn't redesigned by Jackson.  It wasn't as...Radical a Redesign as Godzilla 98 was.

I would say it was a comparable level of redesign, but I can respect the fact you liked what they did with Kong but not Godzilla.

 

To be fair, people in the 1930s thought gorillas were man-eating dangers!

I get why Kong was designed the way he was back then, but I think that odd sort of human quality he had in the original made him much scarier and his fixation on the blond far more compelling. Naomi Watts never seemed like she was in uncomfortably creepy danger since Kong was more like an over aggressive puppy or dog than some sort of primal missing link jungle king.