Godzilla KOTM Movie Poll

[Terasawa]

Personally I'm baffled by how many people, both those that loved the movie and those that hated it, think it had bad writing, acting, and characterization, when in fact all of those things were handheld extremely well.

Bad writing: it was all tell, no show. Like Chandler’s character’s supposed drinking problem. We were told about it in the least subtle way when it would have probably been much more effective if it had been shown in some manner.

Spoiler:

The Oxygen Destroyer

, poorly implemented, not foreshadowed, mostly forgotten about until the post credits theme.

Spoiler:

Hollow Earth

, which was mentioned almost entirely in passing and then later shown to be somewhat true simply for Godzilla to have a place to regenerate.

In other words, the writers either told us everything we needed to know instead of allowing us to figure it out ourselves or they wrote in fantastic solutions to dramatic problems to simply advance the plot without considering the implications of doing so. I’m honestly surprised anyone’s defending the trash screenplay.

[GuardianGhido]

Agree about the bad attempts at humor, completely disagree about Emma. She's the best human antagonist the franchise has had since Katagiri.

I just thought her reveal as a villain and her justification of willingly and knowingly killing so many people just to "cure the infection of humanity" was just plain old insanity and completely out of the left field IMO. If you're gonna have a flat out batpoop crazy genocidal nutcase like that, don't build her up as a sympathetic character or try to make us feel sad about her, much less giving her a "noble sacrifice" for the mess that she willingly caused in the first place. Not to mention, Monarch's research showed that Monster Zero was a rival to the balancer of nature and what little said in history called him pretty dangerous so freeing him was a skreeonking stupid thing to do and you'd expect one of Monarch's higher ranked scientists to know better even if they were crazy.

Also Terasawa, I wouldn't call the whole screenplay trash IMO as it did have a few good parts here and there. And even if it does seem fully trash, one man's trash is another man's treasure. While GFan90's and I find Aladdin to be trash (with the exception of Will Smith's performance in my case), everyone else on this forum seem to consider it amazing enough to defend valiantly for several pages in a thread. yes, this is bait.

[Dv-218]

In the end of the day, it's all subjective. What one might consider to be a trash screenplay, the other might consider to be ok or even pretty good for completely different reasons. While I had my issues with it, I, in complete honesty, enjoyed the plot and how the characters were handled- for better or worse it was pretty tight (and, imo, there are Godzilla movies with plots much worse than this one). But, others have valid issues with the characterization, screenplay and writing- and that's perfectly valid! We are human beings, not machines. Divergence in opinion regarding certain things is expected, even proffesional critics throw an ounce of their own opinion in their reviews. Honestly, it's for the best to listen to what others have to say and simply find what you agree with, and with what you don't. If everyone liked/hated it there would be no discussion after all

However, if I had to express one thing is that I personally disagree with the whole "too dark to see" argument. The only fight that imo was barely visible was the underwater one in Mexico, and that was in daylight. Everything else, atleast in my opinion, was perfectly clear when on screen. I would have loved a fight during daytime, but to imply that everything was obscured in darkness is honestly pushing it

[Gigantis]

In the end of the day, it's all subjective. What one might consider to be a trash screenplay, the other might consider to be ok or even pretty good for completely different reasons. While I had my issues with it, I, in complete honesty, enjoyed the plot and how the characters were handled- for better or worse it was pretty tight (and, imo, there are Godzilla movies with plots much worse than this one). But, others have valid issues with the characterization, screenplay and writing- and that's perfectly valid! We are human beings, not machines. Divergence in opinion regarding certain things is expected, even proffesional critics throw an ounce of their own opinion in their reviews. Honestly, it's for the best to listen to what others have to say and simply find what you agree with, and with what you don't. If everyone liked/hated it there would be no discussion after all

However, if I had to express one thing is that I personally disagree with the whole "too dark to see" argument. The only fight that imo was barely visible was the underwater one in Mexico, and that was in daylight. Everything else, atleast in my opinion, was perfectly clear when on screen. I would have loved a fight during daytime, but to imply that everything was obscured in darkness is honestly pushing it

yeah, i found this movie just average. But even the people who have this movie a 1/10 probably still agree it was better than Godzilla's Revenge or The Anime Trilogy.

about the too dark thing, i thought it was fine. The shots i couldn't see were mostly because of the camera itself. some of the final fight scenes looked kinda wonky.

[Dv-218]

In the end of the day, it's all subjective. What one might consider to be a trash screenplay, the other might consider to be ok or even pretty good for completely different reasons. While I had my issues with it, I, in complete honesty, enjoyed the plot and how the characters were handled- for better or worse it was pretty tight (and, imo, there are Godzilla movies with plots much worse than this one). But, others have valid issues with the characterization, screenplay and writing- and that's perfectly valid! We are human beings, not machines. Divergence in opinion regarding certain things is expected, even proffesional critics throw an ounce of their own opinion in their reviews. Honestly, it's for the best to listen to what others have to say and simply find what you agree with, and with what you don't. If everyone liked/hated it there would be no discussion after all

However, if I had to express one thing is that I personally disagree with the whole "too dark to see" argument. The only fight that imo was barely visible was the underwater one in Mexico, and that was in daylight. Everything else, atleast in my opinion, was perfectly clear when on screen. I would have loved a fight during daytime, but to imply that everything was obscured in darkness is honestly pushing it

yeah, i found this movie just average. But even the people who have this movie a 1/10 probably still agree it was better than Godzilla's Revenge or The Anime Trilogy.

about the too dark thing, i thought it was fine. The shots i couldn't see were mostly because of the camera itself. some of the final fight scenes looked kinda wonky.

I can see where you are coming from here, tho I honestly thought most of the fights were pretty fine. I agree that the Mexico battle was shakey as hell tho, imo they could have lit it up better and move the camera a little slower.

[MothraRocks]

Agree about the bad attempts at humor, completely disagree about Emma. She's the best human antagonist the franchise has had since Katagiri.

I just thought her reveal as a villain and her justification of willingly and knowingly killing so many people just to "cure the infection of humanity" was just plain old insanity and completely out of the left field IMO. If you're gonna have a flat out batpoop crazy genocidal nutcase like that, don't build her up as a sympathetic character or try to make us feel sad about her, much less giving her a "noble sacrifice" for the mess that she willingly caused in the first place. Not to mention, Monarch's research showed that Monster Zero was a rival to the balancer of nature and what little said in history called him pretty dangerous so freeing him was a skreeonking stupid thing to do and you'd expect one of Monarch's higher ranked scientists to know better even if they were crazy.

Honestly, I feel like they could have actually made Emma somewhat sympathetic. One of the consistent things that occurred through all five of my viewings of the movie is that when Emma explains why she is unleashing the Titans, the audience groaned or made some kind of comment about "crazy tree huggers". It most certainly did feel clumsy.

What the writers should have done is make it more apparent in the movie that Emma is still a mother grieving over her lost child. They could have written it and explored that losing Andrew resulted in obvious psychological and emotional torment, and her sense of loss was only furthered when she lost her husband, and furthermore, family structure. Wanting to stay strong, she pushes onwards in Monarch's research, and her grief, her psychological scars are never treated and only worsen over time. They could have even gone so far as to explore that grief twisted Emma's views of the Titans in a way that goes "hey, these things ended up killing one of my kids, but what if I could make it so that they end up saving the life of my other one?" to the point that she becomes hyper-fixated on it.

It's not perfect per se, but I think had they gone this route and a little deeper, it could have made Emma's reasoning and role a little more sympathetic while at the same time not excusing her actions of killing millions.

[GuardianGhido]

Agree about the bad attempts at humor, completely disagree about Emma. She's the best human antagonist the franchise has had since Katagiri.

I just thought her reveal as a villain and her justification of willingly and knowingly killing so many people just to "cure the infection of humanity" was just plain old insanity and completely out of the left field IMO. If you're gonna have a flat out batpoop crazy genocidal nutcase like that, don't build her up as a sympathetic character or try to make us feel sad about her, much less giving her a "noble sacrifice" for the mess that she willingly caused in the first place. Not to mention, Monarch's research showed that Monster Zero was a rival to the balancer of nature and what little said in history called him pretty dangerous so freeing him was a skreeonking stupid thing to do and you'd expect one of Monarch's higher ranked scientists to know better even if they were crazy.

Honestly, I feel like they could have actually made Emma somewhat sympathetic. One of the consistent things that occurred through all five of my viewings of the movie is that when Emma explains why she is unleashing the Titans, the audience groaned or made some kind of comment about "crazy tree huggers". It most certainly did feel clumsy.

What the writers should have done is make it more apparent in the movie that Emma is still a mother grieving over her lost child. They could have written it and explored that losing Andrew resulted in obvious psychological and emotional torment, and her sense of loss was only furthered when she lost her husband, and furthermore, family structure. Wanting to stay strong, she pushes onwards in Monarch's research, and her grief, her psychological scars are never treated and only worsen over time. They could have even gone so far as to explore that grief twisted Emma's views of the Titans in a way that goes "hey, these things ended up killing one of my kids, but what if I could make it so that they end up saving the life of my other one?" to the point that she becomes hyper-fixated on it.

It's not perfect per se, but I think had they gone this route and a little deeper, it could have made Emma's reasoning and role a little more sympathetic while at the same time not excusing her actions of killing millions.

I would have also made it so that Jonah tricks her by making a deal that they would test the ORCA on one Titan to see if it worked (Mothra, and it did), then warn the populace about unleashing titans before slowly unleashing and calming them one at a time to begin coexistence with no casualties, but after gaining her trust and persuading her to give him access to confidential Monarch stuff that he'd need to access the facilities, he'd just make her do things his way by holding her daughter at gunpoint.

(This is how it goes in my whole movie retool idea which I'm probably gonna post in full form or at least summarize later on)

[Smuggers]

Personally I'm baffled by how many people, both those that loved the movie and those that hated it, think it had bad writing, acting, and characterization, when in fact all of those things were handheld extremely well.

Certain things come out of nowhere and are abandoned just as soon as they were introduced, the Orca is literally a plot device, the concept of titans essentially being a multi-species pride of lions is poorly implemented (especially since they never make that comparison and instead chose to make stuff up about orcas and wolves) there's a bloat of human characters who get the bare minimum of what can be considered characterization and Charles Dance is wasted. I'm not surprised his fondest memory of this film's shoot was its catering.

[MothraRocks]

Personally I'm baffled by how many people, both those that loved the movie and those that hated it, think it had bad writing, acting, and characterization, when in fact all of those things were handheld extremely well.

Certain things come out of nowhere and are abandoned just as soon as they were introduced, the Orca is literally a plot device, the concept of titans essentially being a multi-species pride of lions is poorly implemented (especially since they never make that comparison and instead chose to make stuff up about orcas and wolves) there's a bloat of human characters who get the bare minimum of what can be considered characterization and Charles Dance is wasted. I'm not surprised his fondest memory of this film's shoot was its catering.

Yeah, I was gonna say, Dance didn't seem too thrilled with the film did he? Didn't he also say at one point after the premiere that he fell asleep during the movie or something and then try to just laugh off the comment? I mean, I can kinda get why he might be pissed, they could have really written his character up a bit more to be the big bad.

[Ivo-goji]

Spoiler:

The Oxygen Destroyer

I do agree with this.

Spoiler:

Hollow Earth

This, though, I have no idea what you mean. The Hollow World subplot was built up all throughout the previous two movies and the marketing material. It was hardly introduced in passing.

In other words, the writers either told us everything we needed to know instead of allowing us to figure it out ourselves or they wrote in fantastic solutions to dramatic problems to simply advance the plot without considering the implications of doing so. I’m honestly surprised anyone’s defending the trash screenplay.

Which brings us back to how many other Godzilla movies that have long been appreciated by the fandom could be accused of similar things, but for some reason this one is "trash".

Either way though, I don't think that the movie tells too much and shows too little; not on every plot point anyway. What it did with the broken family theme they carried over from G14 was handled pretty subtly. Joe and Ford became distant because they coped with the loss of Sandra differently; KotM has the Russell family split up over Andrew's death, adding another layer with Mark and Emma competing for influence over Madison. I actually like what KotM does more, it kind of magnifies the domestic conflict between Madison's parents into the conflict between the kaiju, integrating those elements together more tightly than G14 did.

I just thought her reveal as a villain and her justification of willingly and knowingly killing so many people just to "cure the infection of humanity" was just plain old insanity and completely out of the left field IMO.

It didn't come out of left field though, it was foreshadowed right from the start. Her motives are also more complex than just "she's crazy". Emma lost her son to a kaiju disaster, and like a lot people who experience personal tragedy, she tried to convince herself it was something that happened for a reason. She rationalized that this was part of the natural order of things the Titans would bring about- and that, conversely, if the Titans weren't going to restore balance to the world (for example if Monarch succeeded in killing or pacifying all of them), her son's death was completely pointless. She nicely deconstructs Serizawa's conviction that the kaiju should be in charge instead of humanity by taking his argument to it's logical extreme. I like that the movie worked with the idea G14 and KSI played fairly straight (mankind's inferiority before nature) and offered something more balanced.

[GuardianGhido]

I just thought her reveal as a villain and her justification of willingly and knowingly killing so many people just to "cure the infection of humanity" was just plain old insanity and completely out of the left field IMO.

It didn't come out of left field though, it was foreshadowed right from the start. Her motives are also more complex than just "she's crazy". Emma lost her son to a kaiju disaster, and like a lot people who experience personal tragedy, she tried to convince herself it was something that happened for a reason. She rationalized that this was part of the natural order of things the Titans would bring about- and that, conversely, if the Titans weren't going to restore balance to the world (for example if Monarch succeeded in killing or pacifying all of them), her son's death was completely pointless. She nicely deconstructs Serizawa's conviction that the kaiju should be in charge instead of humanity by taking his argument to it's logical extreme. I like that the movie worked with the idea G14 and KSI played fairly straight (mankind's inferiority before nature) and offered something more balanced.

That is a pretty good analysis of the character, but I don't think I got any of those vibes from the movie itself. Where was the foreshadowing that she thought Kaijus should be in charge no matter how many people die so that her son's death wouldn't be in vain? I did catch some foreshadowing that she was working with Jonah and that she did want to see the Titans live, but not any that she thought releasing the Titans was more important than innocent lives.

[Ivo-goji]

Where was the foreshadowing that she thought Kaijus should be in charge no matter how many people die so that her son's death wouldn't be in vain? I did catch some foreshadowing that she was working with Jonah and that she did want to see the Titans live, but not any that she thought releasing the Titans was more important than innocent lives.

It does come up in her speech about the damage that has been done to the planet by pollution and over population. In her mind she'd made the necessary sacrifice to healing the world by losing her son- if everyone else lost loved ones to the Titans too, then that was the price that had to be paid. Also recall that her original plan was to awaken the Titans gradually and guide them with the ORCA, and Ghidorah summoning all of them at once to instigate a full scale apocalypse was unintended.

What the writers should have done is make it more apparent in the movie that Emma is still a mother grieving over her lost child. They could have written it and explored that losing Andrew resulted in obvious psychological and emotional torment, and her sense of loss was only furthered when she lost her husband, and furthermore, family structure.

To me those things came across convincingly in the film we got. It used Emma's need to make sense of her son's death as a way to examine the downsides in Monarch's philosophy about the kaiju, how their attitude could be twisted into a Malthusian world view.

[Dv-218]

I honestly thought the whole "grieving depression because of losing her son" deal was rather clear in the movie, which imo made her nutjob plans sound like they have a legit root somewhere- as you said, her belief of the Titans restoring balance is basically her way of dealing with Andrew's death, and trying to make it seem as if it isn't pointless. If anything, I think that it's Jonah who should have been expanded upon- the entire Ghidorah problem and civilian casualties were caused by his extremist, misanthropic approach. I like how the novelization goes into his background in more detail, I just wish the movie did too.

[Terasawa]

Spoiler:

Hollow Earth

This, though, I have no idea what you mean. The Hollow World subplot was built up all throughout the previous two movies and the marketing material. It was hardly introduced in passing.

I haven't seen Skull Island so I can't comment on how it was handled there. I don't recall anything about "an intricate series of underground tunnels and vents that allows Godzilla to quickly travel from one spot to another" being referred to in G14 although I could be mistaken. The only thing like that I recall happens because the MUTO escapes from the underground fossils in Indonesia.

I didn't think it was very clear in this movie at all. Here it was introduced by a comic relief character (who almost never had anything serious to say) and then brought up again when they stumble upon Godzilla's hiding place, where same character basically says, "See, I was right!" That's just very awkward and not credible to me.

In other words, the writers either told us everything we needed to know instead of allowing us to figure it out ourselves or they wrote in fantastic solutions to dramatic problems to simply advance the plot without considering the implications of doing so. I’m honestly surprised anyone’s defending the trash screenplay.

Which brings us back to how many other Godzilla movies that have long been appreciated by the fandom could be accused of similar things, but for some reason this one is "trash".

I'm not trying to directly compare it to other Godzilla movies. It's part of a 35-film series but I'm trying to assess its strengths and weakness on its own terms.

Actually, in a previous comment I did mention that there are a number of earlier Godzilla movies with inept plotting, vague character motivations, and where the story is driven through exposition vs. characterization, etc. (like this movie). That doesn't excuse this film for also suffering from those faults.

That also begs the question: should these movies be held to what infinitely cheaper movies made on much briefer schedules are held to? Development time and modest (ha) budgets can explain if not excuse similar problems in the Japanese Godzilla movies. There should be no such excuse for it here. The filmmakers had roughly $200 million (!) and five years and they produced a screenplay equivalent to one written for any Japanese Godzilla movie on --at best-- $10 million and in a matter of months.

Either way though, I don't think that the movie tells too much and shows too little; not on every plot point anyway.

We're shown that Andrew is dead at the beginning of the film, and then after we flash to the present, we see Madison writing an email to her estranged father. This is all fine. But the screenplay goes wrong by having Mark explain that he's a recovering alcoholic; by having Emma explain that she's motivated to release the monsters because she's dealing with the loss of her son; by having Mark explain that he doesn't trust Godzilla/wants him killed because the Big Guy indiscriminately stepped on Mark's son. The screenwriters are holding the audience's hand.

However, if I had to express one thing is that I personally disagree with the whole "too dark to see" argument. The only fight that imo was barely visible was the underwater one in Mexico, and that was in daylight. Everything else, atleast in my opinion, was perfectly clear when on screen. I would have loved a fight during daytime, but to imply that everything was obscured in darkness is honestly pushing it

I honestly could only really follow the Rodan in Mexico sequence. The Antarctica fight is obscured by darkness and snow; Boston is obscured by pitch black night and rain. Someone else mentioned the shaky cam photography and sometimes schizophrenic editing that makes it hard to tell what's going on. I also thought the human POV low angles harmed the FX scenes because it just further obscured the action for me.

I only saw this once, sitting towards the back of a standard size multiplex screen. Maybe this is all more comprehensible in large screen formats, or after you've seen the move a half dozen times, but on the one viewing I was truly really struggling to keep up with the action.

[Dv-218]

Spoiler:

Hollow Earth

This, though, I have no idea what you mean. The Hollow World subplot was built up all throughout the previous two movies and the marketing material. It was hardly introduced in passing.

I haven't seen Skull Island so I can't comment on how it was handled there. I don't recall anything about "an intricate series of underground tunnels and vents that allows Godzilla to quickly travel from one spot to another" being referred to in G14 although I could be mistaken. The only thing like that I recall happens because the MUTO escapes from the underground fossils in Indonesia.

I didn't think it was very clear in this movie at all. Here it was introduced by a comic relief character (who almost never had anything serious to say) and then brought up again when they stumble upon Godzilla's hiding place, where same character basically says, "See, I was right!" That's just very awkward and not credible to me.

In other words, the writers either told us everything we needed to know instead of allowing us to figure it out ourselves or they wrote in fantastic solutions to dramatic problems to simply advance the plot without considering the implications of doing so. I’m honestly surprised anyone’s defending the trash screenplay.

Which brings us back to how many other Godzilla movies that have long been appreciated by the fandom could be accused of similar things, but for some reason this one is "trash".

I'm not trying to directly compare it to other Godzilla movies. It's part of a 35-film series but I'm trying to assess its strengths and weakness on its own terms.

Actually, in a previous comment I did mention that there are a number of earlier Godzilla movies with inept plotting, vague character motivations, and where the story is driven through exposition vs. characterization, etc. (like this movie). That doesn't excuse this film for also suffering from those faults.

That also begs the question: should these movies be held to what infinitely cheaper movies made on much briefer schedules are held to? Development time and modest (ha) budgets can explain if not excuse similar problems in the Japanese Godzilla movies. There should be no such excuse for it here. The filmmakers had roughly $200 million (!) and five years and they produced a screenplay equivalent to one written for any Japanese Godzilla movie on --at best-- $10 million and in a matter of months.

Either way though, I don't think that the movie tells too much and shows too little; not on every plot point anyway.

We're shown that Andrew is dead at the beginning of the film, and then after we flash to the present, we see Madison writing an email to her estranged father. This is all fine. But the screenplay goes wrong by having Mark explain that he's a recovering alcoholic; by having Emma explain that she's motivated to release the monsters because she's dealing with the loss of her son; by having Mark explain that he doesn't trust Godzilla/wants him killed because the Big Guy indiscriminately stepped on Mark's son. The screenwriters are holding the audience's hand.

However, if I had to express one thing is that I personally disagree with the whole "too dark to see" argument. The only fight that imo was barely visible was the underwater one in Mexico, and that was in daylight. Everything else, atleast in my opinion, was perfectly clear when on screen. I would have loved a fight during daytime, but to imply that everything was obscured in darkness is honestly pushing it

I honestly could only really follow the Rodan in Mexico sequence. The Antarctica fight is obscured by darkness and snow; Boston is obscured by pitch black night and rain. Someone else mentioned the shaky cam photography and sometimes schizophrenic editing that makes it hard to tell what's going on. I also thought the human POV low angles harmed the FX scenes because it just further obscured the action for me.

I only saw this once, sitting towards the back of a standard size multiplex screen. Maybe this is all more comprehensible in large screen formats, or after you've seen the move a half dozen times, but on the one viewing I was truly really struggling to keep up with the action.

I mean, you just answered your own question in regards to the Hollow Earth subplot. It was a pretty big point that was heavily built up as a major aspect of the Monsterverse and the Titan's nature in KSI. Besides, even without KSI it's not that big of a retcon since virtually nothing was said in regards to Godzilla's speed and swimming path in 2014.

[Terasawa]

I mean, you just answered your own question in regards to the Hollow Earth subplot. It was a pretty big point that was heavily built up as a major aspect of the Monsterverse and the Titan's nature in KSI. Besides, even without KSI it's not that big of a retcon since virtually nothing was said in regards to Godzilla's speed and swimming path in 2014.

If it was established in previous films (one of which I haven't seen) then I suppose chalk up my criticism of it to unfamiliarity. But besides that I'm not sure how I answered my own question.

[Dv-218]

I mean, you just answered your own question in regards to the Hollow Earth subplot. It was a pretty big point that was heavily built up as a major aspect of the Monsterverse and the Titan's nature in KSI. Besides, even without KSI it's not that big of a retcon since virtually nothing was said in regards to Godzilla's speed and swimming path in 2014.

If it was established in previous films (one of which I haven't seen) then I suppose chalk up my criticism of it to unfamiliarity. But besides that I'm not sure how I answered my own question.

I was referring to the fact that it wasn't just a random plot point that came out of nowhere and already had some background to it before, sorry if I worded myself incorrectly.

[gottatalktothefake]

It was a big point in KSI to establish hollow earth

[Ivo-goji]

I haven't seen Skull Island

Well, there you go. Houston Brooks discussed the Hollow Earth theory explicitly in KSI, and before that it was alluded to during the exposition scene in G14 where Serizawa and Graham talked about the kaiju migrating down to the planet's core in search of radiation. When Stanton brought up the subject he specifically mentioned it was Brooks' theory, calling back to KSI. Brooks actually appears briefly among the Monarch personal watching Mothra emerge from the waterfall.

Actually, in a previous comment I did mention that there are a number of earlier Godzilla movies with inept plotting, vague character motivations, and where the story is driven through exposition vs. characterization, etc. (like this movie)

But you don't think those films were trash, right? They were just flawed, whereas this film is supposed to be uniquely awful, to the point that you can't understand why anyone would defend it's merits.

But the screenplay goes wrong by having Mark explain that he's a recovering alcoholic; by having Emma explain that she's motivated to release the monsters because she's dealing with the loss of her son; by having Mark explain that he doesn't trust Godzilla/wants him killed because the Big Guy indiscriminately stepped on Mark's son. The screenwriters are holding the audience's hand.

It didn't really come off to me as the film beating these things over our heads or anything. There's just a lot going on and the script attempts to get the point across clearly. Granted that it's far less graceful than, say, the Gamera trilogy, it never felt like the film was talking down to the audience in a condescending fashion.

Long answer short, other than your comment about the Oxygen Destroyer (which I agree with) most of these criticisms seem like minor points against the film's execution, rather than huge and glaring faults that completely ruin the movie.

[Terasawa]

Actually, in a previous comment I did mention that there are a number of earlier Godzilla movies with inept plotting, vague character motivations, and where the story is driven through exposition vs. characterization, etc. (like this movie)

But you don't think those films were trash, right? They were just flawed, whereas this film is supposed to be uniquely awful, to the point that you can't understand why anyone would defend it's merits.

They're not good movies, and actually I've said as much in probably two posts in this thread earlier today... That said, I don't try to defend liking Godzilla vs. Megalon by claiming it's well written when it very obviously isn't. In short, it's not a good movie. That's as objective a statement I can make about it. But I like it despite being a pretty bad film. On the other hand, KOTM was a similarly flawed film but I couldn't enjoy it anyway because it just wasn't up my alley for a number of reasons I've already addressed. That's my much more subjective view.

One other point I'd like to make is that it's really difficult to compare something like KOTM to the '70s Godzilla movies. Their filmmakers had different goals and were largely trying to accomplish very different things. I'm not saying we should grant one more leeway than the other, just that for my own personal enjoyment, I can excuse a shoestring-budgeted Godzilla movie with a lousy screenplay and which resorts to stock footage. For me it's much harder to forgive the makers of this film when taking their resources into account.

But the screenplay goes wrong by having Mark explain that he's a recovering alcoholic; by having Emma explain that she's motivated to release the monsters because she's dealing with the loss of her son; by having Mark explain that he doesn't trust Godzilla/wants him killed because the Big Guy indiscriminately stepped on Mark's son. The screenwriters are holding the audience's hand.

It didn't really come off to me as the film beating these things over our heads or anything. There's just a lot going on and the script attempts to get the point across clearly. Granted that it's far less graceful than, say, the Gamera trilogy, it never felt like the film was talking down to the audience in a condescending fashion.

Long answer short, other than your comment about the Oxygen Destroyer (which I agree with) most of these criticisms seem like minor points against the film's execution, rather than huge and glaring faults that completely ruin the movie.[/quote]

Well I'll admit my thoughts are a bit unfocused now because I only saw the movie once close to two weeks ago and I obviously wasn't very fond of it then. In fact, I was checked out for most of the movie's last act because it just didn't do anything for me. I wrote down a few notes after viewing it, which I've shared elsewhere, but I don't think they'd do any good here, lol. I'm not out to try to sway anyone's mind on this movie and I think it's cool that people enjoyed it; I know I went into it hoping I would, and I really thought that would be the case. I think I've said enough about this movie. The only reason I continued as much as I did today was because someone else said "I don't get how people can trash this movie and unironically praise Godzilla vs. Megalon". In short, it's because there are different ways to look at the same moviev: objectively, I think they're both bad movies, but subjectively, I'm able to find a lot more to like in previous Godzillas vs. the latest entry.