Final Wars: Why all the Hate?

[GotengoXGodzilla]

According to the film, Godzilla was frozen in ice some time in the 60s, as indicated mostly by the Atragon that Godzilla was fighting. Because he was frozen, he wasn't around for nearly 50 years. Meaning any Godzilla films that happen after Godzilla was frozen did not take place. Thus, more than half of the franchise would be ignored without Godzilla being around.

As it's been said before, GFW takes place in it's own little timeline where no other Godzilla films happen, including the original. None of the films are directly referenced, therefore we have no proof as to wether or not they happened. But, seeing how this film changed the course of history by freezing Godzilla in the 60s, I think it's safe to say that none of the other Godzilla films happened in this universe.

And I agree with Legion, Kitamura would be a terrible choice to direct the 60th anniversary Godzilla film. He directed the biggest flop in Toho history, and quite possibly killed Godzilla in Japan. They're not going to bring him back.

[Legion1979]

How come every person who defends GFW on the grounds that it's a good movie - every single person - doesn't make a lick of sense when they try to justify their stance?

[TheSecondComing]

How come every single person who hates GFW can't just accept the fact that some people like it and move on? That's literally the only reason this thread is 56 pages long. Say whatever you want about it, but I like it and so do many others.

[Legion1979]

How come every single person who hates GFW can't just accept the fact that some people like it and move on? That's literally the only reason this thread is 56 pages long. Say whatever you want about it, but I like it and so do many others.

No one is saying someone can't like Final Wars, SC. That's fine. I love Megalon and it's a terrible movie. It's the people who defend it on the grounds that it's a critically good film is where the discussion is right now.

[Godzilla 1995]

*reads kpa's post*


There is a reason I respect kpa's opinion on Godzilla possibly more than any other person, and his post pretty much shows why. He is the man when it comes to Godzilla.

[BBanzai]

Just when it looked like some well thought out points were being made, we get the above three posts and are returned to childish name calling.

You have every right to the opinions you have posted above this, however, perhaps prior to making these opinions known, you would do well to take a look at the previous posts and see that, in fact, some very well thought out points were being discussed.

On that note, I shall respond to some of the previous points:

Firstly, to kpa: you have made some excellent points regarding the movie, and Toho's expectations and errors in your last post, but I would like to point out that Kitamura-san has had a Hollywood release with Midnight Meat Train, an adaptation of a Clive Barker story, which was in pre-production stages prior to the completion, or even commencement, of LoveDeath. The issue with this movie is that it was banking on all the wrong things as well, but that is beside the point. There are currently 2 more Kitmamura films to be released through US production and distribution as well.

Okay, I'll admit, maybe I'm trying a bit too hard to explain the Gigan bit, but I thought it was a pretty good explanation. That is my own interpretation, and really need not be discussed further, as it was, admittedly, an attempt to explain the unexplainable. Thank you for your rebuttal.

Further, to TokyoVigilante: I would strongly agree that the 16 year old, beginner driver is not entirely to blame for an accident, and you do point out that the parents of said driver should have had better judgement when allowing the car to go out in the first place. The same can be said for GFW. For those looking to lay blame for the movie, while it can be said that both Ryuhei Kitamura and Toho are to blame, I still stand behind my earlier statement that a large part of the fault can, and should, lay on the shoulders of Toho for the lack of success of the movie. While Kitamura-san may have had a greater amount of control than I have previously indicated, it still comes down to, as you say, "If he had a stronger vision then what the others offered, he should have played his role of Director stronger and pushed harder for it. " Unless we were there, or have access to his original ideas, we cannot be 100% sure that the movie that came out was truly is vision. Again, Toho as the studio, and the source of the funds, had, and has, final say over how the character is portrayed, and how the final film looks and is marketed. I suspect the lack success has more to do with marketing, than with the overall content of the movie. Without knowing Toho's original strategy, it is hard to say. As has been mentioned a few times, if the intent was to market the movie to a new audience, of younger viewers, than that, in itself, was he mistake. With that in mind, playing the blame game in this fashion really does not get us anywhere as a whole, so, for me, I am satisfied with the resolution to that portion of our discussion.

Now, to continue with King Caesar, and the control issue, you have quoted me directly, but at the same time also made my argument for me. In my original wording I stated that in order to control a golem all that one needs is the controlling device of object upon its creator (apologies, that was incorrectly entered as I was thinking somewhat ahead of myself when I typed it, and had several points planned, which I then decided to rethink prior to entry). The statement should have read "Find the controlling device or object USED upon its CREATION, control the golem." Hence, had I actually typed correctly, the "M-Base", being within the DNA, and thus a part of the creation of the creature, can be used to control the creature. A previous knowledge of the golem story and myth helps to identify this as probable, thus not really placing additional "baggage" on the film. Though, again, as with Gigan, I may be trying too hard to fit the movie into the way I see it.

So, at the end of all this, have we answered the core question of this thread? Doubtful.

I will say that, as a movie GFW is very entertaining, has some beautifully shot, and technically stunning, scenes, and contains enough action and character interaction to keep it going steadily for the 125 minute run time. As a part of the Godzilla "franchise" I personally feel that it succeeds, though possibly not as the intent of a 50th Anniversary Celebration film. In an homage sense to what has come before it, I feel that it succeeds there as well.

I do have to question Legion1979 regarding your statements in both of your posts. Firstly, if there is something that does not make sense to you, a simple request for clarification would be appreciated. If it's not clear to you, perhaps others are also struggling to understand and, as I mentioned earlier, mistakes can be made when entering one's post, so the misunderstanding may simply be that a word was left out, or phrasing was off. In response to your question, what can we clear up for you so it makes sense?

I am also confused by your statement; "It's the people who defend it on the grounds that it's a critically good film is where the discussion is right now", in that, I don't recall anyone saying that the film was a success either financially, or through any acclaim from critics (though I doubt most movie critics would even consider a Godzilla film as worth their time), and would ask for some further clarification on this point, if you would be so kind?

Now, I have a question which may come across as a bit odd, but what is "GINO" that some are referring to? I have checked over my collection, quickly, and can find no movie that seems to match these initials.

Thank you again, and I look forward to the next set of responses.

[Legion1979]

That's it, I'm out.

Thank you and goodnight.

[Rody]

GINO stands for 'Godzilla In Name Only'; it's the fan title for the Tristar Godzilla.

To be fair, I don't think the last few posts sounded insulting at all. Legion1979 was not name calling; he simply doesn't understand how someone can call GFW a critically good film. Personally, I think I agree with him.

[BBanzai]

Thank you for clarifying that.

Also, I never said that other posts were insulting. Just that the thread had returned to childish name calling. I have no issues with Legion1979, I don't know him/her outside of a screen name, which is how I like to keep forum stuff. My only issue with the posts is that they have interrupted some well considered points with one liners rather than adding anything to the conversation. It's great that Legion1979 has posted, and continues to post, in this conversation, I had only hoped that something to further the conversation may be added.

Legion1979, if you were in any way offended by my post, I apologize, however I still stand behind what was said.

[Rody]

I see; I apologize for the misunderstanding.

[BBanzai]

No worries. I re-read my post and can see how it may be construed in that manner.

[Legion1979]

Just that the thread had returned to childish name calling.

But...it didn't.

[Godzilla 2000]

Just that the thread had returned to childish name calling.

But...it didn't.

It's easier to make yourself sound intelligent by demeaning others instead of actually being intelligent.

[Rody]

Actually, I was just going through a bunch of the old pages of this thread, and things did get pretty heated at times.

[Godzilla 2000]

Actually, I was just going through a bunch of the old pages of this thread, and things did get pretty heated at times.

Your point?

The same could be said for any topic of 5 pages, lol.

[TheSecondComing]

^^Wrong form of "your."

Don't pay attention to Legion, Banzai. I don't know him all that well either, but I've seen a pattern of nerdrage pretty much anytime somebody disagrees with him on pretty much anything. If he's finally done with this thread, I'd suggest it's 56 pages too late.

I appreciate your thoughtful write ups and though they're sometimes not on the same page with how I see GFW, it's nice to read something other than "ZOMG BEST MOVI EVA!!1" or "LOL your opinion is wrong" for once.

Is GFW flawed? Absolutely. So what? Virtually every movie has flaws of some kind and in many cases they add to personal enjoyment of a movie or show.

Was it a success at the box office? Nope. So what? There's a lot of factors at play there such as over-saturation of the market, 6 Godzilla movies in 6 years is too many and the most consecutive years with a Godzilla movie since the 1960's, back when demand for monsters was much higher than it is now. If you think about it one way, there only needed to be three: Godzilla 2000 (Toho made it in part from huge fan demand to refresh the character after GINO did so much damage to it), GMK (the first metaphorical/artsy Godzilla movie in decades, which in part led to the biggest box office success in recent Godzilla history) and GFW (50th anniversary). It's entirely possible that if Toho hadn't bothered producing Megaguirus or the Kiryu duology that GFW would've been a much bigger financial success. Even though this is all my own speculation, it still begs the following question: How the heck does the argument "it didn't make any money!" interfere with my enjoyment of it? That's a damned stupid reason to hate a movie and I'd suggest that a lot of our DVD collections would be much smaller if we only liked movies that made money.

I don't have to explain why I like GFW if I don't feel like it. It should be good enough for you if I just said that I did. You can argue with me about it if you want, but that will be just as much a waste of your time, and what is infinitely more important, my time just as it has been for the last seven and a half years. I attended the world premiere and maybe that skewed my opinion of it.

But again, so what?

My screenname is TheSecondComing and I am an unabashed appreciator of Godzilla: Final Wars. I like it.

So sue me.

[kpa]

Firstly, to kpa: you have made some excellent points regarding the movie, and Toho's expectations and errors in your last post, but I would like to point out that Kitamura-san has had a Hollywood release with Midnight Meat Train, an adaptation of a Clive Barker story, which was in pre-production stages prior to the completion, or even commencement, of LoveDeath. The issue with this movie is that it was banking on all the wrong things as well, but that is beside the point. There are currently 2 more Kitmamura films to be released through US production and distribution as well.

I'm aware of MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN -- and that it was in development off and on for years-- but Kitamura didn't sign on to direct that film until 2006, after both FINAL WARS and LOVEDEATH. The point I was making was that, before being asked to do FINAL WARS, Kitamura was already planning to make films in America. When we spoke the day before the GFW premiere he told me that his next film would be a Hollywood production. MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN was not what he was talking about, since Patrick Tatapoulos was slated to direct that film at the time.

I know Kitamura directed a music video in 2010 (a cover of "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), and have seen his name attached to various films listed as "in production" over the years (like the VERSUS sequel/remake), but can't think of any films he's directed that were released after MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN in 2008. Does anyone know if he's actually made a movie since then?

Regarding your take on Kitamura's vision, I have to disagree... and that comes from talks with numerous people involved with GFW, including Kitmaura, who all said the film is as Kitamura intended. And he's a very independent person, but I've never seen him contradict that assertion in any interview, or heard otherwise from anyone else (I've only spoken with him at the premiere but we have a few mutual friends). Don Frye has joked that the moved "sucked" but Kitamura has said more than once he's proud of the movie. The idea that the film compromises his vision simply isn't true.

I think Toho was right to want to make the 50th anniversary film and event that would draw a wider audience but their mistake was in choosing the absolutely wrong director for the job. GFW's critical and commercial failure bears that out... it utterly failed at everything it was meant to accomplish (it hasn't even caught on as a cult film the way VERSUS did). Kitamura focused on what interested him, so there was more emphasis on stuntwork than story or FX... for example, the FX budget was doubled from TOKYO SOS, but the crew had to make 15 monsters (rather than 4 like the previous film) which meant they could only afford to create one suit or prop for most of them. And that made shooting the monster scenes extremely difficult... the end of the Rodan/Caesar/Angilas battle couldn't even be shot because the crew couldn't risk damaging the monster suits. Godzilla is the biggest star in the daikaiju eiga, FINAL WARS had the highest budget in the history of the genre, it was the 50th anniversary celebration of the genre, and yet the film's FX don't match the quality or consistency of GAMERA 3, a move made for less than 1/3 as much. And it wasn't that Kitamura tried and failed to deliver on that... it's that he wasn't interested in even trying. And that's one of the many decisions Kitamura made that resulted in a movie that gets (to quote the title of this thread) "all the hate". And I don't even hate the movie.

*reads kpa's post*

There is a reason I respect kpa's opinion on Godzilla possibly more than any other person, and his post pretty much shows why. He is the man when it comes to Godzilla.

That's high praise. Thank you.

[Legion1979]

Is GFW flawed? Absolutely. So what? Virtually every movie has flaws of some kind and in many cases they add to personal enjoyment of a movie or show.

Was it a success at the box office? Nope. So what? There's a lot of factors at play there such as over-saturation of the market, 6 Godzilla movies in 6 years is too many and the most consecutive years with a Godzilla movie since the 1960's, back when demand for monsters was much higher than it is now. If you think about it one way, there only needed to be three: Godzilla 2000 (Toho made it in part from huge fan demand to refresh the character after GINO did so much damage to it), GMK (the first metaphorical/artsy Godzilla movie in decades, which in part led to the biggest box office success in recent Godzilla history) and GFW (50th anniversary). It's entirely possible that if Toho hadn't bothered producing Megaguirus or the Kiryu duology that GFW would've been a much bigger financial success. Even though this is all my own speculation, it still begs the following question: How the heck does the argument "it didn't make any money!" interfere with my enjoyment of it? That's a damned stupid reason to hate a movie and I'd suggest that a lot of our DVD collections would be much smaller if we only liked movies that made money.

I don't have to explain why I like GFW if I don't feel like it. It should be good enough for you if I just said that I did. You can argue with me about it if you want, but that will be just as much a waste of your time, and what is infinitely more important, my time just as it has been for the last seven and a half years. I attended the world premiere and maybe that skewed my opinion of it.

But again, so what?

This sounds like a lot of very pointless blah blah-ing meant only to shut up the people on the other side of the argument.

I've never really heard people say that no one is allowed to like this movie just because it may or may not be a good film. I don't think anyone is saying that here. So this defensive attitude I'm getting from this post doesn't make a good deal of sense. People are entitled to like whatever they want to. I like a lot of pretty terrible films but I'm also not going to sit here and say they're actually quality movies, nor am I going to sit here and say things about their production or filmmaker intent that isn't supported by facts.

This brings us to where we are now. I don't think any of us care that BBanzai likes this movie. That's fine, I like Godzilla's Revenge. Most of this recent discussion is stemming from him saying things that don't really make sense or can be disproven with a little inside information, which is what Keith did yesterday. Additionally, saying that GFW would have done better if all the Tezuka films weren't made and the Millennium series only consisted of G2K and GMK doesn't make a lot of sense either. This was a huge film, very expensive, very well promoted, given a US premiere and meant to celebrate Godzilla's 50th anniversary. If this had been a good film I know it would have done gangbusters. GMK bounced back after GxM, which also bombed. It's failure speaks more to it's quality than to burnout. But it did worse that SOS on several times the budget. That's just mind-boggling. The reaction from people in Japan was simply that it was a terrible film. I don't think you need to be suffering from franchise burnout to know that something sucks.

My screenname is TheSecondComing and I am an unabashed appreciator of Godzilla: Final Wars. I like it.

So sue me.

That's terrific. But someone who says "I like it and I shouldn't have to explain why" - on a DISCUSSION FORUM - also shouldn't be the one telling people to ignore the opinions of other members.

[Living Corpse]

I add nothing new to the table so feel free to just skip all my mumbling.

By all accounts Kitamura did the movie the way he wanted and is pleased with the finished film.

did the movie the way he wanted and is pleased with the finished film.

and is pleased with the finished film.

...Why? I may not be an "expert" on film making but even I know when I've made a decent/meh/OK youtube video and when I've made a shitty youtube video. I don't need to go to film school to know this flick is a mess. Hell I manage to enjoy some, some things about this film like Rodan's attack on New York or Monster X's entrance and fight and still think it's a mess. You can make a bad film and still have fun and I'll admit I had some fun with this film but it's still a bad film.

Hell I LOVE Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla but I would never call it a good film and I can see with no trouble why fans tend to hate it.

he next did a smaller film because his plans to work in Hollywood in 2005 fell through.

Damn, who's the fan who was so angry he used voodoo to keep him out of Hollywood for a few years? Nah they probably just weren't impressed by GFW and decided not to take him in right away. I never saw his other films except for Midnight Meat Train (yeah, yeah, I know it sounds like a porn but it's really a slasher flick) and I gotta say from what I've seen and heard from his fans he's much better at making martial arts and slasher flicks then he is giant monster films.

Ticket sales were lower than the previous year's TOKYO SOS, and the box office take was only about half the film's budget making GFW by far the biggest financial failure in the entire series.

I knew it did bad but I had no clue it lost that much money.

Sony was considering a US theatrical release; after screening the film at the studio they passed on theatrical and only optioned the TV and video rights.

Thank whatever deity exists, if any, because GINO already did enough damage when it was released in theaters that the franchise is still recovering from and some of that damage will never go away. The last thing we needed was this film to get released in theaters in the state and just reenforce the stereotypes that "all Japanese monster films are bad".

Toho was extremely disappointed, and sees the film as a costly mistake (they could have made three movies from the money lost on GFW's production).

...

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!

While I never say never, I'd put the chances they'll ever let Kitamura direct a major Godzilla film in Japan at about 1%.

I hate to be that guy but Toho has made so many mistakes that I can only hope they learn from this one never let this guy make a kiaju film, only hire him for martial arts and horror slasher flicks.

Why yes, I am still bitter about what they did to Hedorah. They could have used him in the final battle as a partner for both Gigan and Monster X. Hell the fact he was killed mere moments before the final battle adds insult to injury/salt to an already burning wound.

Just when it looked like some well thought out points were being made, we get the above three posts and are returned to childish name calling

????????????????????????

What insults? The very early posts yeah but that's old news and the last few posts have been surprisingly civil all things considered.

[Cimmerian Dragon]

I add nothing new to the table so feel free to just skip all my mumbling.

By all accounts Kitamura did the movie the way he wanted and is pleased with the finished film.

did the movie the way he wanted and is pleased with the finished film.

and is pleased with the finished film.

...Why? I may not be an "expert" on film making but even I know when I've made a decent/meh/OK youtube video and when I've made a shitty youtube video.

It's no different than the fans who think Final Wars is "good". It appeals to them in some subjective way that seems totally mind-boggling to everyone else. For whatever reason, Kitamura thinks that FW is what a "good time at the monster movies" looks like. I neither agree, nor understand, why that is. At the same time, if he thought he was making a decent film, it doesn't surprise me that he continues to be satisfied by the final product.