I agree that it's a smart film, just not in the way I think you're taking it.Rodan wrote:so much of the fanbase characterizing it as the first smart film for a long time in the series
I think it's "smart" in the way that it handles the genre tropes, the way it juggles the feels, and the entire way it approaches the monsters. "Smart" in the way that, through a combination of color gradings, angles, pacing, outright homage, and straightforward structure the film achieves exactly what I think it was going for; "elevated" 60's era kaiju film.
"Smart" in its elegance of set-pieces, even if I think the ending drags a bit. I think of Godzilla's foot smashing the cabin, the first breath use, the wide shots used in the jet battle; smart takes on standard stuff we've seen before. Hell, even the typical "monsters colliding and falling into the ocean at the ending" gets rethought and repackaged.
I mean, it even seems to be a conscious attempt to put the "evil destroyer" Godzilla from Gojira into a 60's era "save the Earth" monster romp, which is a high-concept that, while I don't think is particularly "smart" on its own, IS a clever new approach that we hadn't really seen. And...actually, come to think of it, I believe that's probably the term most people were really searching for when they call it "smart"; high-concept. It was the first time in awhile that a Godzilla film wasn't simply built around Godzilla fighting off a bad monster and being all misunderstood, which, in its own way, is "smart".