Toho Kingdom

The plan was for him to direct a trilogy of films. He went off to direct one of the greatest Star Wars movies of all time (Rogue One). We got Michael Dougherty for the sequel. And the rest is history. Edwards seems to have parted ways with Hollywood.

Do you think the MonsterVerse would have been better or worse had Edwards stayed?

I think we might have seen Aaron Taylor Johnson's character back and more low angle shots on the monsters, which we didn't get a lot of in KOTM..

I don’t think rogue one was that great.

Even though I disliked KOTM, I’m glad that Micheal Dougherty had fun making the movie and he seemed way more enthusiastic then Edwards ever was.

The main take away, is actually if Edwards was still on, there’s a chance Shin wouldn’t exist.

LSD Jellyfish wrote:I don’t think rogue one was that great.

Even though I disliked KOTM, I’m glad that Micheal Dougherty had fun making the movie and he seemed way more enthusiastic then Edwards ever was.

The main take away, is actually if Edwards was still on, there’s a chance Shin wouldn’t exist.

Or would have just happened later. Toho would have brought in the Japanese Godzilla sooner or later.

Anyway,if Gareth stayed...ugh,this would have been a terrible trilogy. His style of film making plus considering the stupid monster cutaways would just be awful. The versions we have now probably wouldn't even have been that unique!

Also,GVK probably wouldn't have happened either.

Edwards was a great director, unpopular opinion, I know, but I gotta say it.

I feel like we might not have THAT large of a difference?

Dougherty mentioned Edwards and Borenstein came up with the same basic plot for their Godzilla 2 as his and Shields's KOTM (Monarch scientist kidnapped by eco-terrorists in the wake of 2014, with the intention of awakening the other MUTOs/Titans as a reckoning). Also, KOTM struck me as the same basic style of Edwards but with a bit of sequel actionization and escalation. Something Edwards got some experience with in Rouge One.

So, no, I wouldn't mind if he stayed and wouldn't see a huge difference. However, I'm happy with what we have, so it's just an interesting different line of thought.

SoggyNoodles2016 wrote:Edwards was a great director, unpopular opinion, I know, but I gotta say it.

Yeah, I agree with that assessment, and I haven't seen Monsters or Rogue One yet. But he has a great idea for how to film monster scenes in a way that gives them mass. One may disagree with his Jaws approach to kaiju eiga, but he has a good style and knows how to bring a strong sense of immediacy to the proceedings.

I liked Edwards style. The pacing and atmosphere of the 2014 film were its strongest attributes for me.

Writing could have used a little punch up (IE, don't kill Brian Cranston in the first act) but I liked the overall presentation of the film, and Edwards' directing had a lot to do with that.

This might be an unpopular opinion too, but Rogue One has been my favorite of the Disney Star Wars films thus far. That might be damning it with faint praise when you consider one was a rehash of A New Hope, one was a poorly constructed Solo prequel that was destroyed by on set turmoil, and the other was, you know, The Last Jedi, but hey I'll take the successes where they came. As a simple "Dirty Dozen in Space" style story that looked great, captured more of a gritty look to it, and sprinkled in some fun fan service, I felt, at the very least, Rogue One turned into a nice companion piece to Episode IV and felt like an EU novel come to life, more so than I would have ever expected out of a Star Wars film, so kudos for that.

What could he have done with other MonsterVerse films? I don't know. Would the slow burn style have worked multiple films in a row?

What I think I would have liked from him is to direct a movie he didn't write. Far too often, we see the writer/directors in big movies, and I think maybe issues could be avoided if somebody else was writing it and the director was just finding the best way to capture someone else's words and translating it onto screen.

Like lets say Edwards had to adapt a screenplay written for Godzilla Cataclysm, a post apocalyptic Godzilla story, that might work out really well. Who knows?

I miss Edwards. KotM would have been just that much better.

I think he would have handled Mothra differently.

Don't know how much he could have improved upon Rodan's introduction. It's very nearly perfect as is.

Wouldn't trade Shin for it, though.

I don’t think we would’ve gotten all the crazy referenced and fan service with Edwards that we did with Dougherty, but I think Edwards probably would’ve been able to give us a much more cohesive story overall. While I think he didn’t do the best job with Johnson and Cranston in 2014, I think he was able to keep the primary story pretty focused. Dougherty, I felt, tried doing too much with too many people. One other thing I hunk Edwards did better, which might’ve worked better, was to make the monsters feel bigger. Dougherty had moments of that, but even though we had a lot of low angle shots, the way Godzilla and a Ghidorah moved at times gave me Pacific Rim 2 feelings. That being said, I’m glad we got two different perspectives.

Gareth would've given us a more story driven KOTM, likely with Ghidorah raining havoc on cities. Don't know if he'd pull the ol Jaws maneuver twice, i think he'd know better. (Loved the approach to 2014, but i'm sure he would've known not to "Jaws" the sequel.), less action, less characters, more Serizawa. I probably would've preferred his version tbh. But the crowning sequences are unmatched and i doubt he'd do them.

His third film would have been Destroy All Monsters, i think he confirmed that somewhere.

tyrantgoji wrote:

LSD Jellyfish wrote:I don’t think rogue one was that great.

Even though I disliked KOTM, I’m glad that Micheal Dougherty had fun making the movie and he seemed way more enthusiastic then Edwards ever was.

The main take away, is actually if Edwards was still on, there’s a chance Shin wouldn’t exist.

Or would have just happened later. Toho would have brought in the Japanese Godzilla sooner or later.

Anyway,if Gareth stayed...ugh,this would have been a terrible trilogy. His style of film making plus considering the stupid monster cutaways would just be awful. The versions we have now probably wouldn't even have been that unique!

Also,GVK probably wouldn't have happened either.

Personal opinion is that Shin Godzilla had to be made in that moment.

While of course Godzilla would come back, not to the same degree. If Shin Godzilla was made in 2021 or something, then it would have been ten years after Fukishima. While the issue would still be relevant, it would lack the same impact, as Fukishima is fresher in people's minds. 10 years is a generational gap.

Also, there's a good chance Anno wouldn't be directing, or at least the film wouldnt be made with the same team. From what it seems like everything got lucky and happened very quickly.

The success of G14 also most likely played into the pressure to produce something high quality and not something generic like Tokyo SOS.

An entire trilogy of cardboard cutouts being pushed around and voiceacted by the people pushing them while a TV shows blurry footage of godzilla or the other monsters 20 feet away from the camera.

-no “MonsterVerse,” something tells me Edwards wanted a standalone trilogy much like Nolan with Batman.

-no Russell family, I think Edwards would’ve continued with the Brodys. Ford would be hired by Monarch as a soldier (Sgt. Barnes role), but get killed off in the first act, causing Elle to be the main character from there on. Sam would be recast with a better actor and have a larger role (much like Madison).

-the action in KOTM would’ve been much more exciting. Say what you want about Godzilla 2014 but Edwards knows how to make audiences feel the scale of the movie. 2014 felt like the end of the world at times and Rogue One had this urgency as well. Some shots from the final film like Godzilla shooting the Atomic Breath into the sky or Mothra opening her wings behind the waterfall could have stayed but the action would probably be from a human POV much like 2014.

-no cutaways though, I think he would’ve learned his lesson

JGAR wrote:-no “MonsterVerse,” something tells me Edwards wanted a standalone trilogy much like Nolan with Batman.

-no Russell family, I think Edwards would’ve continued with the Brodys. Ford would be hired by Monarch as a soldier (Sgt. Barnes role), but get killed off in the first act, causing Elle to be the main character from there on. Sam would be recast with a better actor and have a larger role (much like Madison).

-the action in KOTM would’ve been much more exciting. Say what you want about Godzilla 2014 but Edwards knows how to make audiences feel the scale of the movie. 2014 felt like the end of the world at times and Rogue One had this urgency as well. Some shots from the final film like Godzilla shooting the Atomic Breath into the sky or Mothra opening her wings behind the waterfall could have stayed but the action would probably be from a human POV much like 2014.

-no cutaways though, I think he would’ve learned his lesson

This except the Monsterverse would've likely expanded and I would've loved to see more of the Brody's.

I don't think the way he did the 2014 movie would translate well into pretty much the majority if not all of the Monsterverse mostly because the way he took the Jaws approach if he stayed on. I mean it worked for the 2014 movie since the world wasn't yet aware that monsters existed but afterwards that same tactic wouldn't be as effective. You can only pull the same trick a number of times before people get sick of it. I know KOTM gets flack for certain things but that has the right idea of delving more into the history of it's universe after being introduced to it in the 2014 movie at least.

Don't get me wrong I don't think he'd be the kind of guy to recycle the same tropes over and over since he did Rouge 1 to be different even from other SW movies do that but still.

I enjoyed what Edward's did in Godzilla 2014, but it hasn't aged all that well to me. The same might happen with KOTM in due time, but each are completely different and good for that reason. I am hoping Wingard will either strike a good balance in-between them or do something entirely different.

That being said the Monsterverse now probably wouldn't work with Edward's at the helm, while I don't think he would pull the cut-a-ways like he did in G-2014 he did say in an early interview that he wanted to keep the restraint on the monsters for the sequel. That really wouldn't work when your introducing 3 new titans and especially with Kong added after that.

Both of the Monsterverse films suffer from poorly written characters. One is dull and boring, the other is dull and cheesy.
I personally don't think Edwards would have made a better film, although I do think the sense of scale would have been handled better.

Dougherty might have been partially to blame for KotM shortcomings but I feel Wanda/Legendary played a pretty big part in it. From what I've heard KotM lacked a lot of Dougherty's usual style and flair. It's one thing I've really grown to love about KSI, how "stylish" it is. G14 felt too much like imitation Spielberg and KotM was too much of a standard modern blockbuster. For its shortcomings KSI at least felt like it was Roberts' film.

Gareth all the way. I simply prefer his sense of scale, grit and the more “realistic” tone.

Destroy All Monsters would’ve definitely been his third and final film as well. Who knows if he was turned off by the idea of a cinematic universe aside from his “work stress” from working with Disney and Star Wars.

Come tot hink it after hearing about how the Monsterverse was cobbled together perhaps it would've been better at the end if Legendary let Gareth do his Godzilla trilogy and not created the Monsterverse at all since from the looks of it the GA seems to love G14 better then KOTM which is looking to be and more of a train wreck by people as the days are coming...At least people would have more respect for the Godzilla brand here in America.

kaijuguy19 wrote:Come tot hink it after hearing about how the Monsterverse was cobbled together perhaps it would've been better at the end if Legendary let Gareth do his Godzilla trilogy and not created the Monsterverse at all since from the looks of it the GA seems to love G14 better then KOTM which is looking to be and more of a train wreck by people as the days are coming...At least people would have more respect for the Godzilla brand here in America.

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