Which millennium film had the most Showa feel to it?

[latinothor]

Godzilla Final Wars had a good mixture of elements from the 60’s Showa films and the 70’s Champion festival films.
The main plot is Alien invasion which is (Golden Showa)
Mind Controlled Kaiju (Golden Showa)
Kaiju are the secondary plot which is again (Golden Showa)
Fighting was Pro Wrestling which is (Champion Showa),
Kaiju scenes are shorter which is more like the (Golden Showa).
However Godzilla is in his anti hero role (Heisei), with a kind of change of heart at the end, more then straight up villain (Early Showa) or Earth Protector (Golden Showa)

[Tyrant_Lizard_King]

I voted for G2K. Well the American dub at least. The added bits of camp in the dub help in that regard. Hell I think the Tezuka films pretty much define the Millennium era feel, boring and half-assed.

[PitchBlackProgress]

Why am I not surprised GFW has the most votes here? Just because it had forced Showa tropes does not mean it had the most Showa tone

Godzilla 2000 obviously had the most Showa feel to it, really a no-brainer here..

Added in 4 minutes 57 seconds:

Definitely not Final Wars, outside of superficial similarities like aliens and world organizations, it feels nothing like a Showa film.

Thank you, I started to lose a lot of hope for this thread, glad someone can tell the difference.

[szmigiel]

:Godzilla 2000 obviously had the most Showa feel to it, really a no-brainer here...

I really want to understand why you think Godzilla 2000 is a no-brainer. I do agree that the American cut and dub does have the charm of many of the old Titra/Titan dubs that Peter Fernandez use to do.

But other then that it pretty much has all the tropes of a Heisei movie.

• Love of attacking nuclear power (seen in early Heisei)
  Godzilla as a territorial anti-hero, he holds a grudge and wants payback
  Godzilla as underdog; Ogra gets bigger and meaner and even wants to eat him
  G-Cells as a plot device
  A military branch dedicated to fighting Godzilla
  Kaiju opponent that changes form during the movie; Starship, then strange alien, then Ogra

Really the only thing missing was having the young girl have a ESP connection to Godzilla.
To me the movie is Godzilla Vs Biollante with an alien instead of a Rose-Godzilla.
The alien even uses powerlines and cables to grapple Godzilla like Biollante did with her vines.

[PitchBlackProgress]

Tropes do not equal tone...

[szmigiel]

Tropes, tone, pacing, all things that make up the "Feel".
The movie was also directed by the same man that directed most of the Heisei films, his tone is still the same.The dub is the only thing that changes the tone at all. The movie could have been Godzilla Jr from the Heisei turned into more of a jerk like his father was, dying and coming back can do that.

[Zarm]

I would have to agree that FW was not at all Showa in tone; for me, G2000 wasn't particularly, either. It did have a few stylistic elements in common with Heisei, to me- enough to make it a plausible extension of Junior's adventures in my headcanon (even though the world-building doesn't really match; it could only, at best, be a spiritual sequel)... but I don't feel like 2000 had a showa or heisei fell to it. That's part of why I loved it- it felt like something new.

[Dr. Professor]

I'd have to go with Godzilla 2000 simply because of the dub alone. None of the others really have any kind of Showa feel to them at all, in my opinion. Godzilla 2000, to me, feels like a perfect combination of aspects from each era of the franchise. I think that's why I love that film so much.

[PitchBlackProgress]

I'd have to go with Godzilla 2000 simply because of the dub alone. None of the others really have any kind of Showa feel to them at all, in my opinion. Godzilla 2000, to me, feels like a perfect combination of aspects from each era of the franchise. I think that's why I love that film so much.

Couldn't agree more. IMO, G2K's dub is the best in the entire series, with G84's coming in lose second.

[szmigiel]

For the people that have voted for Godzilla 2000, if you watch the Japanese cut of the film with subtitles does it still retain the Showa feel to you? Or is the dub cut the only version you watch?

Just curious if there is anything else about the film that gives it a Showa mood, any elements that was a call back to the older films?

[PitchBlackProgress]

any elements that was a call back to the older films?

Holy hell... It doesn't HAVE to have call backs to give off those creamy Showa vibes...

[szmigiel]

Holy hell... It doesn't HAVE to have call backs to give off those creamy Showa vibes...

I am just seeing if someone can go a little more in depth about what they think gives Godzilla 2000 so much of a Showa feel.
Earlier in the thread you said....

Godzilla 2000 obviously had the most Showa feel to it, really a no-brainer here..

I figured if it was such a no-brainer you would be able to give a few sentences of why that is.

I originally started the pull because many people where talking about how the Showa era kept showing up in the Millennium films. Whether it was call backs, elements from, storytelling style, etc.... in allot of the movie threads with some people saying the film had a Showa feel and others not really seeing it. So I was curious to see if put to a vote where people votes will fall.

[Mac Daddy MM]

I always felt G2K tried too hard to be a Heisei film than a Showa one.

[tbeasley]

There's definitely a Heisei quality to G2K as pointed out but it's not as overt in the sense that there's an anti-Godzilla military group, people in uniforms, super weapons and mecha, etc. (like in Megaguirus). There's a smaller real world tone in G2K with the Godzilla research team being this ragtag group of misfits, brining to mind the reporter-photographer-scientist trios of a lot of the early Honda films.

[szmigiel]

Early Heisei films still had that type of characters in them, RoG, GvB, and GvKG all had a more real world tune and characters with story arcs of their own. Things started to change with GvM, when they started pushing the films out every year, and the characters became much more one dimensional. GvSG tried to bring back more character focus, but this just caused the story to be more of a mess in the end.

[G1G4N_27]

GFW feels like DAM, but with some monsters before and after DAM. GFW had the cookie cutter Showa plot of aliens invading Earth (I am not saying that plot is bad, but it's just overused). The only thing I feel GFW is different from a Showa film is that I feel it's a darker film.

[Relair]

GMK, definitely. Put some film grain on that sucker and some cheaper suits and it would fit right in.

[Ivo-goji]

None of them honestly.

Not in any of the ways I find the Showa series distinctive.

You know what, I'll change my answer:

Godzilla X Megaguirus is the most Showa like Millennium film

Because you can see the wires.

[LockBite]

Godzilla 2000 stands out as the most Showa-esque, but not because of its plot beats or themes (its about the digital world and DNA, as far from Showa as you can get, really). No, what makes it so quintessentially Showa are the visuals. The image has this dirty, grainy look to it, the likes of which is also apparent in Biollante and King Ghidorah, but ultimately defines the Showa films. There’s a big focus on earthy textures, from the muddy prologue to the close-ups of Godzilla’s tail breaking apart the waterfront and getting smeared with dirt. The destruction scenes also have this dusty motif going on. You also have that scene with the tanks out in the dirt, again calling back to so many daytime Showa artillary scenes. Then you have the scenes with Shinoda’s flimsy house, the rice being cooked, the thin, wooden walls. Later we get a lot of industrial visuals, clearly reminiscent of late-Showa locales. Finally, the injuries sustained by our human protagonist as he escapes the tower are raw and cringe-inducing on a level most commonly seen in the Showa era.

It’s a very stark contrast to the cleaner look of post-Ghidorah Heisei and post-GMK Millennium.

[SuperPawnageGigan]

I say Godzilla vs Megaguirus. Because the Godzilla body slam is similar to the tail slide kick and Godzilla flying.