Would Godzilla (2014) Have Been Better With JUST Godzilla?

[InstinctiveGigan]

Yes, I know, everyone’s tired of critically analyzing the film and basically saying what’s wrong with it. The film has already announced its sequel and for the most part, the critiques are positive. We won, Godzilla’s back. So what’s the point of this discussion? Same as all others, to see what could have been improved upon, AKA an innocent study of a film. To get right with the point, yes, this discussion is based on the assumption the movie disappointed you, if not a lot than a little bit.

One of the biggest hitters for people in terms of disappointment with the film is basically how the marketing lied to us. Despite what all the trailers said, this was not a dark Godzilla movie with endearing characters and settings with a "Man vs Nature" message. This was a Mutos movie with the military trying to kill them, following your typical military tough guy trying to get back to his family (kinda similiar to that one military character from Transformers 1 trying to get back to his wife and kid, only with robots and less focus), and Godzilla just being there to give us cool fights/shots.

So with that in mind, it begs the question: would this movie have been better with just Godzilla as the threat of the film and no Mutos, no monsters to fight, just Godzilla and the beautiful man vs nature plot we were promised? I'd like to say yes, it would be weird to have Godzilla

Spoiler:

live at the end despite him being the threat to keep the whole sequel thing going, but regardless I don't see why they couldn't pull it off.

Just look back at all the trailers we were shown (besides the Asia trailer), you'll see the Mutos are barely in them and literally all the focus is on Godzilla. In fact, remove the Mutos glimpse scenes from the trailers altogether and nothing would change. There are even scenes in the trailer with just Godzilla, edited differently for the film: the doors closing, the HALO jump scene, etc. So I'd like to think if Godzilla were alone, we would get that movie the trailers showed us. Think of some dilemmas the current film has that would be fixed with Godzilla being the film's only focus:

- Lack of Godzilla (He's the main focus, literally impossible to not show a lot of him. And considering the amount Gareth shows the Mutos and Godzilla combined in the version we got, I think it's safe to say we also wouldn't be overwhelmed with the amount of his appearances.)

- No Man vs. Nature Conflict/Godzilla = Force of Nature, not a Savior (It's Godzilla vs. Humans. With that in mind, he wouldn't be a savior and the position of Godzilla would be forced to go back to the way the 1954 movie portrayed him; a force of nature, and symbolism for nuclear destruction.)

- Etc. (I could go on, but then we wouldn't have much to discuss about if I blabber on about everything, huh?)

This is all strongly opinion based, so as far as I know, you got exactly what you wanted. And no, I'm not saying the movie is bad. In my book, it's an 8/10. But going back and watching the trailers again, it depresses me that I never got that film; it feels like I'm still waiting for it. So yeah, I think it's the false advertising's fault. But that's not what this discussion is about.

Bottom Line: If Godzilla was alone in this film, would the movie have been better? Or at least, more like the movie we were promised?

Also, sidenote, this is talking about the quality of the film overall, not whether audience members would've seen it regardless. Would it have been a better film, not a better success.

Yes, we would have to sacrifice the monster fights, but I think it's a small price to pay for the glorious film the trailers showed us. And again, if you don't agree, a simple "I disagree, the movie we got was perfect" will do.

[MandaSaurus]

No, it would not have been. One of the coolest things about Godzilla, is him fighting other monsters. That's one of the ways that G98 missed the boat. Of course, there is such a thing as overdoing it, & GFW is a prime example of the opposite end of the spectrum - TOO MUCH of a good thing, can end up being a bad thing...

[Mr. Xeno]

It is totally possible, obviously, to toe the line between reintroducing Godzilla/portraying him like in G'54, and also introducing a new monster. This was something I thought Godzilla 2000 did well. A reboot of Godzilla that made him scary again, but it added in another (cool) new monster for him to fight, without taking the focus away from the main star.

In all honesty, I don't think the movie suffered just because it had little screen time for Godzilla. I think the biggest problem the film had was a meandering script that didn't know what to do with anything, and a director who was more focused on visuals and specific sequences than story and characters. Simply making Godzilla alone wouldn't instantly solve everything, although it would definitely solve the problem with the lack of focus on Godzilla himself, which was one of my biggest issues with this movie. It's called Godzilla, and it's a reboot/origin story that's reintroducing the monster to a whole new audience, most of whom only know about Godzilla through the stereotypes of ultra-cheesy/so-bad-they're-good movies like Megalon (without having seen an actual Godzilla movie), and it totally had all the right pieces to make THEE Godzilla movie to end all Godzilla movies, and it blew it by just being another random creature feature.

No, it would not have been. One of the coolest things about Godzilla, is him fighting other monsters. That's one of the ways that G98 missed the boat. Of course, there is such a thing as overdoing it, & GFW is a prime example of the opposite end of the spectrum - TOO MUCH of a good thing, can end up being a bad thing...

Wasn't the biggest criticism about Final Wars was that the movie DIDN'T show enough of the monster battles and instead focused on the lame human story too much?

[MandaSaurus]

^ Godzilla was fighting everbody! Even former allies like Anguirus & King Caesar. It was ridiculous! You gotta have SOME human story along the way, just about all kaiju movies do!

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

The film could have been great with only Godzilla or with other monsters. They just need to do it right. True Godzilla would have had more focus if he was the only one, but that could have also been done by having Godzilla awaken first in the film, wreak havoc, and the mutos awaken as a byproduct of Godzilla awakening to feed off his radiation. Boom, more focus on Godzilla and it.could allow it to be darker with Godzilla destroying things.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

The film could have been great with only Godzilla or with other monsters. They just need to do it right. True Godzilla would have had more focus if he was the only one, but that could have also been done by having Godzilla awaken first in the film, wreak havoc, and the mutos awaken as a byproduct of Godzilla awakening to feed off his radiation. Boom, more focus on Godzilla and it.could allow it to be darker with Godzilla destroying things.

You need to relax and be calm.

What the hell are you talking about? That was completely relevant to the topic.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

You always get a little worked up and you need to be calm.
I can tell in your posts.

Clearly you can't. There was nothing"worked up" in that post.

[Mr. Xeno]

^ Godzilla was fighting everbody! Even former allies like Anguirus & King Caesar. It was ridiculous! You gotta have SOME human story along the way, just about all kaiju movies do!

Dude. Did you literally just imply that Final Wars had no human story? You've... seen Final Wars, right?

[JGAR]

They just needed to have Godzilla have few personal scenes, like him attacking the Navy in the ocean without the MUTOS around.

[Zillamon51]

Absolutely not. One of the main reasons this movie is a hit, and we will get a sequel, is that it gives the mainstream audience what they want to see: A "good" Godzilla vanquishing other monsters. Even my parents liked it, for crying out loud. Everyone knows enough about Godzilla that he doesn't need an angsty origin story.

[the24fan]

I thought the 1985 film was pretty cool actually. It just had Godzilla and was done well IMO.
I would be ok just seeing him against the military. I too was a little disappointed with the marketing. I was expecting way darker.

[KJ Corp]

Listen Instinctive i know you, and Picard are friends and he probably has connections as does Chriss55 so maybe pass along the Godzilla 2 and 3 should be filmed back to back to Edwards.

What?!

Picard has no connection whatsoever and all he cares about is the $$

[Janjira54]

Listen Instinctive i know you, and Picard are friends and he probably has connections as does Chriss55 so maybe pass along the Godzilla 2 and 3 should be filmed back to back to Edwards.

How do you think this works? A representative cannot tell a director "hey man, you mind pumping out 2 more Godzilla movies by 2016? My friend Paradise told me ask you that... So do it". It just doesn't work like that

[HannibalBarca]

Personal beliefs and interpretation to follow:

This is a moot question, because the film was always structured around the idea of having other monsters in the movie. Having other monsters in the movie allows them to do things that this new franchise-conscious Godzilla cannot do: be explicitly destructive to the point of killing people on screen. I think that G'14 would have been better with only Godzilla, then, if only because it would force them to take risks with the character instead of just having Godzilla be a counterbalance to the other monsters. Then again, I'm fairly sure my theoretical perfect Godzilla reboot would be impossible to make given the nature of Hollywood action movies.

[LegendZilla]

No, it would not have been. One of the coolest things about Godzilla, is him fighting other monsters.

Yeah right, because we all know that's what made the original 1954 film so disappointing right?

People, let's face it : Godzilla fighting other monsters whether you love it or not just turns the whole thing into eye-candy regardless of approach.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

Listen Instinctive i know you, and Picard are friends and he probably has connections as does Chriss55 so maybe pass along the Godzilla 2 and 3 should be filmed back to back to Edwards.

Paradise, please, enough with these kind of posts.

OT: No, the movie would not have been better with JUST Godzilla because then we'd all be bitching about how it's not trying to do anything new, and how it's just a retreading of '54 and '84.

And before anybody says that we wouldn't do that, I know this dang fandom too well, we would so totally bitch about that.

I remember actually being very worried when other monsters were announced. I thought it would've been too much for the origin film and I was expecting, and happy, when I thought it was gonna be a solo. I warmed up to the idea of other monsters later.

[Jatahaxe]

That feel when there will never be another Godzilla movie that's just him handing humankind its collective ass for its arrogance and crimes against nature.
I almost got this vibe from the promotional materials, especially the earlier ones, so finally seeing it was a little unnerving, but this movie was still the bomb. Just a different kind of bomb. For it to have been in my top 10 favorite movies of all time it would have had to be what I was expecting, though.

[Janjira54]

There is no winning. We would bitch about it either way

[Tohosaurus]

Well I think I was in the minority when we had a poll for this movie or just in general about wanting to see another solo Godzilla film. It might've improved the film since the focus would've been on Godzilla. But that's a matter of the people that made it than the film itself because G2K or GMK are focused on Godzilla despite not being solo films. Coincidence or not, G54 and G85 are two of my favorite Godzilla films.

[Lawsford]

It would of been a better film, but would be far less successful

The modern day audience prefer more action than anything, so while critics would like it, most of the general public would say it was an okay film, but took itself too seriously