What didn't you like about the movie?

[Zilla103192]

Simple straightforward thread.

Yes. The movie was a pretty big success. Yes. Fans loved it. Yes. Sequels were greenlit...

But the movie wasn't perfect.



So I ask you. What DIDNT you like about GODZILLA 2014?

I personally was REALLY bugged when everyone just started calling him Godzilla. No explanation for the transition from Gojira. Which there was also no explanation for. That's just what they called him.

This is more of a nitpick but I also didn't like how Godzilla's tail fins lit up when charging his beam. I prefer it just being the main back find from his shoulders to his hips.

[Dr. Professor]

Mostly how they cut away from the airport and Vegas scenes.

[HannibalBarca]

Well, this ground has been tread many a time, but I suppose it'd be nice to get all the objections on the record together:

I agree with you on the Gojira > Godzilla mystery name change. G'98 handled it decently, but there's no explanation here.

As has been discussed ad nauseum, the script is poorly written and dull at times, and has more than a few glaring holes in its internal logic.

The best actors in the film are woefully underused, while Aaron Taylor Johnson gets the majority of the focus. Although the extent to which the bland character of Ford is his fault, rather than the natural result of a lackluster script, is debatable. Worth noting that, from the moment the HALO jump begins to the time the credits roll, Ford says something like five words. It takes a damn good actor to make us feel for his character when the script gives him nothing to do but silently react to green-screens.

Godzilla feels like he's a lesser concern, from a narrative standpoint, as compared to the MUTOs. This isn't another "Godzilla didn't get enough screentime!" complaint, but rather it just feels like Godzilla wasn't enough of a precense in his own movie. While this may have worked for something like Godzilla vs. Hedorah or Terror of Mechagodzilla (the 11th and 15th Godzilla movies, respectively), it doesn't work for what is supposed to be a franchise reboot, as well as being the first time anyone has seen Godzilla in almost a decade.

The cutaways were interesting when they actually made sense (ATJ parachutes past Godzilla fighting the MUTO, the shelter doors close, the MUTO flies away from Janjira, ATJ loses consciousness in the river), but the Hawaii cutaway felt very artificial and forced by comparison. Not saying we NEEDED to see the fight, but having a reason for our perspective to suddenly shift within the framework of the movie itself would have felt less jarring.

A fanboy complaint, sure, but the lack of any large-scale monster vs. military scenes, or really many destruction scenes at all, was very noticeable and disappointing.

The movie skirts around the nuclear issue while dropping references to it everywhere in a blatantly cynical effort to hedge its bets by appealing to hardcore Godzilla fans without saying anything actually controversial. The fact that Godzilla is awakened by a nuclear submarine, rather than by actual atomic tests (something that Awakening, for all its faults, actually did right by having the Hiroshima explosion awaken Godzilla) is the best example I can think of for this.

Everything felt a little too rushed; it seems like a good 10 or 15 minutes of potential material was left on the cutting room floor. Whether this was cut for pacing reasons, due to the fact that the monster screen-time was already at a premium, is something worth wondering about. That being said, even if deleted scenes didn't have any extra monster shots, I'd still probably enjoy them if it gave the plot a little bit more coherence and room to breathe.

All in all, it was a fun movie, but it came up short in a lot of ways. Hopefully they'll make the necessary adjustments for the next attempt.

[InstinctiveGigan]

- Not showing the airport fight.
- Mediocre writing/storytelling in the second act.
- Lack of interesting characters.

More or less, missed oppurtunities.

[KJ Corp]

---A lot of stuff---

Literally almost every complaint thrown around all the time: The sub-par script, some acting from Watanabe and Johnson, the teasing, and Godzilla being more of a secondary plot-device/character to name a few.

Things that dissapointed: the tone, the score and even the Mutos... Although all of these have their redeeming qualities.

[Xx_The_Masquerade_xX]

- Aaron Taylor Johnson as the lead
- Killing Bryan Cranston off to early
- Wasting both Elizabeth Olsen and Sally Hawkins characters
- The constant teasing (A big one)
- Cutting the Air-port Sequence (This is another big one)
- Lack of Godzilla or Godzilla feeling like a side character in his own movie
- The Score (Sorry it really seemed out of place esp in the final battle)

I struggle with the rating for this movie, I want to love it but honestly i can't give it above a 7 out of 10. A 6.5 would be more accurate.

[Underworld54]

- Aaron Taylor Johnson as the lead
- Killing Bryan Cranston off to early
- Wasting both Elizabeth Olsen and Sally Hawkins characters
- The constant teasing (A big one)
- Cutting the Air-port Sequence (This is another big one)
- Lack of Godzilla or Godzilla feeling like a side character in his own movie
- The Score (Sorry it really seemed out of place esp in the final battle)

I struggle with the rating for this movie, I want to love it but honestly i can't give it above a 7 out of 10. A 6.5 would be more accurate.

You hit the nail on the head and these are all things I didn't like. I also didn't like how the movie had a slightly different tone from what the marketing portrayed.

[Godzilla21]

Didn't like all the lapses in logic. (There were plenty)

Basically everything else that had been said.

[Rody]

Dr. Serizawa's film reel scene with Ford was really awkwardly placed. Godzilla's existence hadn't even been hinted at since the mine in the Philippines, so Serizawa's introduction comes out of nowhere. Perhaps the scene should have been rearranged, at least; or maybe it should have been saved until after the Honolulu sequence.

[Pacfanweb]

Bryan Cranston died too early.

Cutting away from the airport scene.

Not having practically ANY of what was in the trailers be in the actual movie. In the meeting on the carrier, they could have really set the table with a short discussion of the history of the monsters and the past efforts to kill them, and maybe a little more explanation of their purposes. Wouldn't have taken much, just a minute or two from Serizawa.

[Zilla103192]

Pretty sure a majority of these threads could be merged together.

I think this one serves it's general purpose. It's meant for people to discuss the faults in the movie. The review thread isn't really meant for discussion, just giving your review. But of mods feel it needs merged, then so be it.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

-The script. Except Cranston, the film had bland and boring characters that I didn't give a crap about and underused the majority of its cast to just gawking and staring in horror or giving exposition.
There was some bad dialogue choices as well.

-ATJ. Either it was the script, him, or both, but he did a bad job in this film. He showed no emotion throughout. Even during big emotional moments like say, watching the corpse of your dead dad being zipped up in a body bag. People say that maybe that was the point, he's a military guy who was trained to not get very emotional. Well then that's a crap choice to make your main character then.

-Too much restraint. While the idea was admirable, it wasn't executed well enough and instead focused too much on boring characters and I'm left just sitting there thinking "Where the fuck is Godzilla?". Even during the big monster battle that we were ball-tickling teased with throughout the film, it still cut back to Ford waaaaay more than it should've.

-Godzilla's lack of focus in his own origin story/reboot. For the first hour of the film the focus is all on the male Muto while Godzilla is mentioned TWICE before he appears: once by Sally Hawkins during the mine scene, again during the power point presentation. Godzilla finally has his reveal scene, which lasts about a minute where it then cuts away from the fight and Godzilla goes to swim in the ocean for half an hour. The plot then shifts to focus on a new female Muto that awakens, with Godzilla not getting any real attention. In the end it just made Godzilla feel like an anti-Muto plot device rather than an actual character in his own film.

-The score. While it was fine on it's own, it really didn't fit in this film and was over-the-top at times.

-Godzilla not fighting the military. More of a fan opinion, but I still didn't like it.


This next bit is smaller territory but

-How the atomic breath was revealed. How and when it was revealed with the addition of no foreshadowing made it feel like a deus-ex machina.

-The ending. I thought it was cheesy and too cheery and I didn't believe there was any reason for people to think he should be cheered as a hero.

-The Godzilla looking at Ford scene. It felt out of place and cheesy.

[DesuGojiFan]

-Serizawa and Graham felt underused
-Joe Brody dying too early into the film (I can understand why they did it from a plot perspective, but still.)
-Lack of the original theme (They couldn't have maybe placed it somewhere in the ending credits?)

[junkerde]

-ATJ
-The cut away during the 2nd fight with teh flying muto in daylight when it's raining
-Mediocre human story (writing in general)
-Some acting bits were not great, some even cringey (excluding cranston)
-Misleading marketing campaign

[JAGzilla]

The nuke doing no damage whatsoever to San Francisco is probably the worst offense, for a Godzilla movie specifically. I personally don't care much, but Godzilla was born to warn against the horror of these weapons. I can't imagine that the creators of Gojira would've reacted well to seeing them rendered harmless.

[HannibalBarca]

The nuke doing no damage whatsoever to San Francisco is probably the worst offense, for a Godzilla movie specifically. I personally don't care much, but Godzilla was born to warn against the horror of these weapons. I can't imagine that the creators of Gojira would've reacted well to seeing them rendered harmless.

This made me uneasy too. Goes back to what I was saying earlier, about the movie seemingly knowing that it needs a nuclear subplot to placate the die-hard, but completely mishandling it in a lot of ways.

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

The nuke doing no damage whatsoever to San Francisco is probably the worst offense, for a Godzilla movie specifically. I personally don't care much, but Godzilla was born to warn against the horror of these weapons. I can't imagine that the creators of Gojira would've reacted well to seeing them rendered harmless.

Agreed.

[InstinctiveGigan]

I blame the "not kilotons, megatons" boo-boo on Borenstein. Just cuz it seems he's the only one flawed in writing enough to make that error. Something tells me each writer more-or-less handled an act, Borenstein did the second act and the next writer had to deal with the third with Borenstein's shitty second act established.

[InstinctiveGigan]

At times it seemed like it was trying to respect that Godzilla started off as a metaphor about our destructive ways with war and power and did a good job in some parts like Janjira, other times I forgot it because the movie seemed to forget it or completely undermined it with the nuke going off and no fallout. They're on the west coast, the wind current blows east.

Hell I think they dropped the ball on showing Godzilla get nuked in the first minute of the film instead of showing it in a flashback later on, there was no build up, no suspense.

Also I feel not showing more of the military or cities get stomped by the monsters is missing the point. I mean Godzilla is war, that's why this character was made in the first place, to be a metaphor about how we keep presuing more and more dangerous ways to destroy each other in war.

I think the problem, plain and simple, was too many writers. It turns into 3 versions of a movie instead of just one. One thing's for sure though, whoever the hell wrote the first act of the movie should've written the rest of it. (Also change the soundtrack)

[GR8GODZILLAGOD]

I think the problem, plain and simple, was too many writers. It turns into 3 versions of a movie instead of just one. One thing's for sure though, whoever the hell wrote the first act of the movie should've written the rest of it. (Also change the soundtrack)

Darabont practically did the first act. He definitely should've done the whole film.