Spoiler:
Well May 16, 2014 was a Friday here, so I went to work first thing in the morning. I spent the week already planning on watching Godzilla on its opening day. The last movie I saw in a theater was "Superman Returns", which was back in 2006. Not even the recent "Man of Steel" was enough to make me go to the movies. Why should I go to a theater when I can readily watch almost every movie in the world via internet or simply wait for a director's cut version of a movie with all the fun extras? It took "Godzilla 2014" to make me finally decide that it's time to go to a theater again to watch my favorite monster.
While at work, I was still trying to decide whether or not to go to the local K-Mart to find a Jakks Giant Godzilla because I really wanted one. My trip to K-Mart was the wildcard of the day because I've never been to that K-Mart before. When I checked mapquest and learned of its location, I figured that it's just 5 or 10 minutes away from the movie theater. I decided to go to K-Mart before watching Godzilla.
The day at my workplace passed by pretty fast. My lunch was just a simple ground pork sandwich. I drank lots of water at work and unloaded the liquid goodness on a regular basis. I wanted to be free of disturbances while watching Godzilla! As I signed out for work at 4:00 pm, I mentally prepared once again for my trip.
First was the K-Mart visit. The traffic from work was horrible due to massive trucks blocking the freeway. A lot of little cars kept zigzagging, trying to avoid the trucks in front of them. I decided to stay cool despite the clock ticking down as it got closer to my scheduled Godzilla viewing. "It's better to be alive and late than dead!" I thought to myself. A memory from the beginning of Superman Returns suddenly entered my mind. I remembered how long it takes for movie theaters to actually start the movie itself. The time you see displayed is actually meant to tell you when the trailers and useless stuff would be shown! I was relieved by this knowledge and calmly drove on.
I finally arrived at K-Mart, although its giant sign said "Big K-Mart" or something like that. There was a big dude smoking some weird stuff while sporting the classic Bob Marley look in front of a trash can. I checked my car's clock and it read "4:20 pm". I thought "How appropriate." I went inside and wasted no time. I asked the nearest store attendant where the toys were and she pleasantly showed me the way. I quickly searched the entire toy section for any signs of the Jakks Giant Godzilla but I never found one. There wasn't even a hint of any Godzilla toys there! It was all WWE toys, Barbie dolls, and some weird toys that never really appealed to me. I went back to my car. Bob Marley wasn't there anymore. Maybe he wanted to watch Godzilla while high?
"Fifteen minutes left!" I thought as I saw the clock in my car. That's still a lot of time to get to my local movie theater.
With just 5 minutes left, I finally arrived at the parking lot. There were LOTS of cars and I was forced to park far away. To compensate for the time I had to spend getting to the movie theater, I decided to power walk up a hill. At least I'm pretty sure that burned a lot of calories.
After the strenuous walk, I finally arrived at the front of the movie place. There were no people lined up. I was happy because that meant that I wouldn't have to wait in line at all. Somehow, my characteristic of always abiding by the rules took over me. I saw the two pretty ticket sales people looking at me in awe as I still decided to go through the "path" where people are supposed to line up. I followed this trail and finally got to one amused ticket lady. "Godzilla..." I said as I tried to catch my breath. "For how many?" she asked with a sparkle in her eyes. "One... just one please."
After receiving my ticket, I suddenly realized that I was already unfamiliar with how things worked at movie theaters. "Where am I supposed to go again?" I asked myself. I looked at my ticket and it all looked so mysterious to me. It didn't help that the ticket looked like one of those weird codes that people scan their modern phones over (I still don't own a modern phone). Finally, I found a hint. "Auditorium 9."
I held the door open for another fellow Godzilla fan. Since we were seeing the same movie, I just followed him from behind since he's probably a normal person who regularly watches movies. He seemed like he knew the place well. Thanks to this stranger, I didn't get lost in this massive place.
As I walked through the theater, there were lots of kids playing around. One kid screamed "Let's go, it's almost time!" and they all ran past me towards "Auditorium 9". Couples, from teenage lovers to decades old senior citizens, also made their way to Auditorium 9. After a short walk, I finally met the ticket man. He did his ticket duties and let me enter.
Inside the auditorium, it was very dark. Fortunately, since it was the 5:15 pm showing, there weren't too many people yet. My plan worked! I was able to choose my seat. I made my way up, but since it was too dark, I decided to use my primitive phone to serve as some kind of torch. Unfortunately for me, the phone was too weak to generate any sufficient lighting. I was blocked by some kind of railing but I wanted to get to a higher place. A man behind me said "Excuse me" so I moved to the side. To my shock, I didn't see that there was another path to my right that led upstairs! I followed the man to higher ground and finally decided on where I wanted to spend my time watching Godzilla.
I chose the higher center area so that I could see everything. Previews started to play. Since I haven't been into a movie theater in a long while, the loud sounds that seemed to cause even my heart to vibrate shocked me. "Holy crap, I think I'm too close to the speakers!" I thought to myself. I was hoping that there would be no horror trailers, not because I'm afraid of ghosts or monsters (I actually LOVE horror), but the high pitched surprising sounds they regularly make would probably tear apart my heart.
If there's one thing that I was right about this day, it was the LOOOOOONG waiting period before they actually started to show Godzilla. For some odd reason, I felt as if I spent 30 minutes of my time in my seat watching trailers and those "Please Turn Off Your Cellphone" reminders. People didn't heed the requests on the screen and continued playing with their modern phones. I just sat back, relaxed, and started thinking about when the 24" long Neca Godzilla would be mine, as well as the Monsterarts version.
As for the trailers, they were pretty interesting. There's one with Scarlett Johansson where somebody plants something inside her, which may sound sexy at first, until you realize the movie is actually about her character gaining super powers due to this. The other movie trailer was about horse racing. Yes, HORSE RACING. Actually, the trailer was pretty good because it made me consider watching horses running for a few minutes when normally, I would just close my eyes or click "X" on any forcibly playing internet ad that showed it. Another trailer is for the movie called "Interstellar". I remember the title even now because out of all the trailers shown, this was the only movie that I'd also love to watch in the future. The premise is simple. The world's about to end so humans build a rocket ship to survive. It's a simple story but what makes me interested is the human drama involved. A dad is going to leave his daughter but he doesn't know if he'll even see her again. The other trailer is a Tom Cruise movie (I think) where he gets killed, trained, killed again, retrained, and the cycle continues until he becomes a hero strong enough to fight off aliens or something. Looks interesting.
The room wasn't really packed, most likely due to the fact that most people at this time just got out of work or they're stuck in traffic. Luckily for me, I work very early so my day ends early as well. To the right from where I sat, a teenage lady seemed to be alone. She sat in a strange fetal position. I wondered how in the world she could be comfortable like that. Behind me was a whole family. A dad, a mom, a bunch of kids, grandpa and grandma as well. The grandma kept sneezing. Each time she sneezed, I held my breath so as not to inhale whatever germs she released. I don't want to die young.
In front of me were the students I saw earlier outside. There were probably 20 or so of them and they occupied the entire line of seats. I'm just glad that they were well mannered and stayed relatively quiet. You know how kids can be when they're together, but this bunch were really well behaved. I guess they're being taught something right at home or even at school.
A few more people entered the room, but from my estimate, we didn't really even fill up half of the place. We were all mostly in the upper section. The lower section was pretty much vacant aside from people who loved to watch movies looking up. I couldn't do that, I think my neck would stiffen to the point where I'd need doctors to fix me right back into normal position.
The movie finally started. Although I'm not really a vocal type of person, in my mind I was yelling "YEAAAAAAAAHHH GOOOOJJJIIIIRRRAAAA STTAAARRRTT!" lol! I enjoyed the opening credits because it was creative enough to be used to tell part of the movie's story. I tried reading those little writings but couldn't, but they seemed interesting.
When the scene showing the Philippines was shown, the family behind me began to react. They're a Filipino family. The grandma, upon seeing the massive destruction at the mines wondered aloud "Did they really destroy a huge mountain just to make this movie?!" before releasing another one of her epic sneezes (which unfortunately rained down on me). Actually, out of all the people in the theater, I'd have to say that the grandma was my favorite because she's the one who really reacts to everything that's happening in the movie.
During the dramatic scenes involving Bryan Cranston, the grandma behind me almost cried, especially during the reactor scene. The mom just laughed at her and said that she's "overly dramatic", to which she replied with another sneeze. When the mini love scene involving the hero and his wife started, the grandma told her grandkid to close his eyes, but the mom said "It's ok, we're not watching the x-rated version!" X-rated version of Godzilla? Is there even one?! What she just said distracted me from the movie a bit due to how ridiculous an x-rated Godzilla movie would be.
When the first Muto appeared, it was also the grandma who made the most impressive reaction. She let out a very loud "AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" before telling the characters on screen to run for it. The mom told her that it's pointless to run because the monster is too big, but then the grandma replied "You'd run too if you saw that thing!" Well, she's actually right!
During the Hawaii scene, the audience was pretty quiet, but when the flares lit up and showed Godzilla, people gasped. The kids at the front screamed. The dad behind me just said "OH MY GOD". The grandma behind me randomly asked "Ahhhh, is that the good guy?"
When it was revealed that the monsters were headed for San Francisco, the loveable granny exclaimed "OH NO, that's where your brother lives!"
When the final battle started and Godzilla finally appeared in full force, the granny was like a cheerleader! "KILL THEM!!!! KILL THE BAD MONSTERS!!!" she shouted as her grandkids and the other children were filled with excitement. The mom cautioned the grandma by telling her something about not getting too excited because she doesn't want another heart attack to happen to her. Actually in my head, I was also telling Godzilla the same thing. I wanted Godzilla to destroy those monsters and finally give us the massive fights we've all been waiting for!
At the end of the movie, people were talking about Godzilla and how nice the movie was. One man in front of me said that Godzilla's like a dragon, especially when he used his "flames". Some little girl was nagging her mom to buy her a Godzilla toy. The grandma behind me seemed to have stopped sneezing. The children were all laughing and jumping around. No more well behaved kids after watching Godzilla!
As I exited Auditorium 9, a bunch of men walked up to us, with some kind of strange device. I think it's what you call an "iPad" or something. Anyway, it's a black flat device with a screen on it, and you operate it by touching the screen. The men were actually survey takers for the Godzilla movie. One guy asked if I could answer a few questions about the movie to share my opinion, and since I was in a very good mood because I loved the new Godzilla movie, I decided to help this guy out.
The survey was just your typical "Please Rate Godzilla" type of questionnaire. It asked where I heard about the movie, what I knew about the merchandise, things like that. After giving the film an excellent rating (because I definitely want to see a sequel), I went to the toy shop inside the mall. I asked the guy if they had any new Godzilla toys, but he said that it's still only the tiny Imperial Godzilla that he has for sale. I thanked him and left and I decided to walk around the mall just for fun.
I went to Walmart because I felt like buying one of those little destruction packs of Godzilla because it's just around $8 or $9 anyway and I wanted to have a little Godzilla to play with while I'm waiting for Neca Godzilla (24" long version) and the Monsterarts one, but to my dismay, it seems that even Walmart's Godzilla toys were all sold that day. The last time I went to Walmart, they still had a lot of Godzilla toys, but that night, even the palette for Godzilla toys disappeared! I also wanted to visit Toys R Us, but since it was already 8:00 pm, I decided to just head home, happy with the fact that I was able to watch the new Godzilla movie and it's actually good.
While at work, I was still trying to decide whether or not to go to the local K-Mart to find a Jakks Giant Godzilla because I really wanted one. My trip to K-Mart was the wildcard of the day because I've never been to that K-Mart before. When I checked mapquest and learned of its location, I figured that it's just 5 or 10 minutes away from the movie theater. I decided to go to K-Mart before watching Godzilla.
The day at my workplace passed by pretty fast. My lunch was just a simple ground pork sandwich. I drank lots of water at work and unloaded the liquid goodness on a regular basis. I wanted to be free of disturbances while watching Godzilla! As I signed out for work at 4:00 pm, I mentally prepared once again for my trip.
First was the K-Mart visit. The traffic from work was horrible due to massive trucks blocking the freeway. A lot of little cars kept zigzagging, trying to avoid the trucks in front of them. I decided to stay cool despite the clock ticking down as it got closer to my scheduled Godzilla viewing. "It's better to be alive and late than dead!" I thought to myself. A memory from the beginning of Superman Returns suddenly entered my mind. I remembered how long it takes for movie theaters to actually start the movie itself. The time you see displayed is actually meant to tell you when the trailers and useless stuff would be shown! I was relieved by this knowledge and calmly drove on.
I finally arrived at K-Mart, although its giant sign said "Big K-Mart" or something like that. There was a big dude smoking some weird stuff while sporting the classic Bob Marley look in front of a trash can. I checked my car's clock and it read "4:20 pm". I thought "How appropriate." I went inside and wasted no time. I asked the nearest store attendant where the toys were and she pleasantly showed me the way. I quickly searched the entire toy section for any signs of the Jakks Giant Godzilla but I never found one. There wasn't even a hint of any Godzilla toys there! It was all WWE toys, Barbie dolls, and some weird toys that never really appealed to me. I went back to my car. Bob Marley wasn't there anymore. Maybe he wanted to watch Godzilla while high?
"Fifteen minutes left!" I thought as I saw the clock in my car. That's still a lot of time to get to my local movie theater.
With just 5 minutes left, I finally arrived at the parking lot. There were LOTS of cars and I was forced to park far away. To compensate for the time I had to spend getting to the movie theater, I decided to power walk up a hill. At least I'm pretty sure that burned a lot of calories.
After the strenuous walk, I finally arrived at the front of the movie place. There were no people lined up. I was happy because that meant that I wouldn't have to wait in line at all. Somehow, my characteristic of always abiding by the rules took over me. I saw the two pretty ticket sales people looking at me in awe as I still decided to go through the "path" where people are supposed to line up. I followed this trail and finally got to one amused ticket lady. "Godzilla..." I said as I tried to catch my breath. "For how many?" she asked with a sparkle in her eyes. "One... just one please."
After receiving my ticket, I suddenly realized that I was already unfamiliar with how things worked at movie theaters. "Where am I supposed to go again?" I asked myself. I looked at my ticket and it all looked so mysterious to me. It didn't help that the ticket looked like one of those weird codes that people scan their modern phones over (I still don't own a modern phone). Finally, I found a hint. "Auditorium 9."
I held the door open for another fellow Godzilla fan. Since we were seeing the same movie, I just followed him from behind since he's probably a normal person who regularly watches movies. He seemed like he knew the place well. Thanks to this stranger, I didn't get lost in this massive place.
As I walked through the theater, there were lots of kids playing around. One kid screamed "Let's go, it's almost time!" and they all ran past me towards "Auditorium 9". Couples, from teenage lovers to decades old senior citizens, also made their way to Auditorium 9. After a short walk, I finally met the ticket man. He did his ticket duties and let me enter.
Inside the auditorium, it was very dark. Fortunately, since it was the 5:15 pm showing, there weren't too many people yet. My plan worked! I was able to choose my seat. I made my way up, but since it was too dark, I decided to use my primitive phone to serve as some kind of torch. Unfortunately for me, the phone was too weak to generate any sufficient lighting. I was blocked by some kind of railing but I wanted to get to a higher place. A man behind me said "Excuse me" so I moved to the side. To my shock, I didn't see that there was another path to my right that led upstairs! I followed the man to higher ground and finally decided on where I wanted to spend my time watching Godzilla.
I chose the higher center area so that I could see everything. Previews started to play. Since I haven't been into a movie theater in a long while, the loud sounds that seemed to cause even my heart to vibrate shocked me. "Holy crap, I think I'm too close to the speakers!" I thought to myself. I was hoping that there would be no horror trailers, not because I'm afraid of ghosts or monsters (I actually LOVE horror), but the high pitched surprising sounds they regularly make would probably tear apart my heart.
If there's one thing that I was right about this day, it was the LOOOOOONG waiting period before they actually started to show Godzilla. For some odd reason, I felt as if I spent 30 minutes of my time in my seat watching trailers and those "Please Turn Off Your Cellphone" reminders. People didn't heed the requests on the screen and continued playing with their modern phones. I just sat back, relaxed, and started thinking about when the 24" long Neca Godzilla would be mine, as well as the Monsterarts version.
As for the trailers, they were pretty interesting. There's one with Scarlett Johansson where somebody plants something inside her, which may sound sexy at first, until you realize the movie is actually about her character gaining super powers due to this. The other movie trailer was about horse racing. Yes, HORSE RACING. Actually, the trailer was pretty good because it made me consider watching horses running for a few minutes when normally, I would just close my eyes or click "X" on any forcibly playing internet ad that showed it. Another trailer is for the movie called "Interstellar". I remember the title even now because out of all the trailers shown, this was the only movie that I'd also love to watch in the future. The premise is simple. The world's about to end so humans build a rocket ship to survive. It's a simple story but what makes me interested is the human drama involved. A dad is going to leave his daughter but he doesn't know if he'll even see her again. The other trailer is a Tom Cruise movie (I think) where he gets killed, trained, killed again, retrained, and the cycle continues until he becomes a hero strong enough to fight off aliens or something. Looks interesting.
The room wasn't really packed, most likely due to the fact that most people at this time just got out of work or they're stuck in traffic. Luckily for me, I work very early so my day ends early as well. To the right from where I sat, a teenage lady seemed to be alone. She sat in a strange fetal position. I wondered how in the world she could be comfortable like that. Behind me was a whole family. A dad, a mom, a bunch of kids, grandpa and grandma as well. The grandma kept sneezing. Each time she sneezed, I held my breath so as not to inhale whatever germs she released. I don't want to die young.
In front of me were the students I saw earlier outside. There were probably 20 or so of them and they occupied the entire line of seats. I'm just glad that they were well mannered and stayed relatively quiet. You know how kids can be when they're together, but this bunch were really well behaved. I guess they're being taught something right at home or even at school.
A few more people entered the room, but from my estimate, we didn't really even fill up half of the place. We were all mostly in the upper section. The lower section was pretty much vacant aside from people who loved to watch movies looking up. I couldn't do that, I think my neck would stiffen to the point where I'd need doctors to fix me right back into normal position.
The movie finally started. Although I'm not really a vocal type of person, in my mind I was yelling "YEAAAAAAAAHHH GOOOOJJJIIIIRRRAAAA STTAAARRRTT!" lol! I enjoyed the opening credits because it was creative enough to be used to tell part of the movie's story. I tried reading those little writings but couldn't, but they seemed interesting.
When the scene showing the Philippines was shown, the family behind me began to react. They're a Filipino family. The grandma, upon seeing the massive destruction at the mines wondered aloud "Did they really destroy a huge mountain just to make this movie?!" before releasing another one of her epic sneezes (which unfortunately rained down on me). Actually, out of all the people in the theater, I'd have to say that the grandma was my favorite because she's the one who really reacts to everything that's happening in the movie.
During the dramatic scenes involving Bryan Cranston, the grandma behind me almost cried, especially during the reactor scene. The mom just laughed at her and said that she's "overly dramatic", to which she replied with another sneeze. When the mini love scene involving the hero and his wife started, the grandma told her grandkid to close his eyes, but the mom said "It's ok, we're not watching the x-rated version!" X-rated version of Godzilla? Is there even one?! What she just said distracted me from the movie a bit due to how ridiculous an x-rated Godzilla movie would be.
When the first Muto appeared, it was also the grandma who made the most impressive reaction. She let out a very loud "AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" before telling the characters on screen to run for it. The mom told her that it's pointless to run because the monster is too big, but then the grandma replied "You'd run too if you saw that thing!" Well, she's actually right!
During the Hawaii scene, the audience was pretty quiet, but when the flares lit up and showed Godzilla, people gasped. The kids at the front screamed. The dad behind me just said "OH MY GOD". The grandma behind me randomly asked "Ahhhh, is that the good guy?"
When it was revealed that the monsters were headed for San Francisco, the loveable granny exclaimed "OH NO, that's where your brother lives!"
When the final battle started and Godzilla finally appeared in full force, the granny was like a cheerleader! "KILL THEM!!!! KILL THE BAD MONSTERS!!!" she shouted as her grandkids and the other children were filled with excitement. The mom cautioned the grandma by telling her something about not getting too excited because she doesn't want another heart attack to happen to her. Actually in my head, I was also telling Godzilla the same thing. I wanted Godzilla to destroy those monsters and finally give us the massive fights we've all been waiting for!
At the end of the movie, people were talking about Godzilla and how nice the movie was. One man in front of me said that Godzilla's like a dragon, especially when he used his "flames". Some little girl was nagging her mom to buy her a Godzilla toy. The grandma behind me seemed to have stopped sneezing. The children were all laughing and jumping around. No more well behaved kids after watching Godzilla!
As I exited Auditorium 9, a bunch of men walked up to us, with some kind of strange device. I think it's what you call an "iPad" or something. Anyway, it's a black flat device with a screen on it, and you operate it by touching the screen. The men were actually survey takers for the Godzilla movie. One guy asked if I could answer a few questions about the movie to share my opinion, and since I was in a very good mood because I loved the new Godzilla movie, I decided to help this guy out.
The survey was just your typical "Please Rate Godzilla" type of questionnaire. It asked where I heard about the movie, what I knew about the merchandise, things like that. After giving the film an excellent rating (because I definitely want to see a sequel), I went to the toy shop inside the mall. I asked the guy if they had any new Godzilla toys, but he said that it's still only the tiny Imperial Godzilla that he has for sale. I thanked him and left and I decided to walk around the mall just for fun.
I went to Walmart because I felt like buying one of those little destruction packs of Godzilla because it's just around $8 or $9 anyway and I wanted to have a little Godzilla to play with while I'm waiting for Neca Godzilla (24" long version) and the Monsterarts one, but to my dismay, it seems that even Walmart's Godzilla toys were all sold that day. The last time I went to Walmart, they still had a lot of Godzilla toys, but that night, even the palette for Godzilla toys disappeared! I also wanted to visit Toys R Us, but since it was already 8:00 pm, I decided to just head home, happy with the fact that I was able to watch the new Godzilla movie and it's actually good.