How would you have edited King of The Monsters?

[Vibrio28]

Looking at the runtime for Godzilla King of The Monsters it clocks in at around 2 hours and 12 minutes. During the second viewing I was wondering what if the movie was trimmed down more to remove the excess exposition and unecessary diaglogue. I feel 2 hours and 12 minutes is bit too long for this film. The massive expossitions werent necessary.

G14 was 2 hours 3 minutes
K:SI was 2 hours

Perhaps if this film was trimmed down to say K:SI's length, I feel it might have been better recieved.

What are your thoughts on how you would have edited it?

[gottatalktothefake]

More breathing room

Most of the time I couldn’t hear the gorgeous music, that’s something I can’t believe they didn’t fix

[Mr_Goji_and_Watch]

More breathing room

Most of the time I couldn’t hear the gorgeous music, that’s something I can’t believe they didn’t fix

That was the Showa era love everybody was talking about, they brought back music being drowned out!

[daveblackeye15]

Not too much. If t here were a few more nice personal scenes I don't think it would have hurt. If there was first mention of the Oxygen Destroyer at the hearing I would have at least had Steinz allude to 'we've been working on something.'

[Chris55]

Most of the time I couldn’t hear the gorgeous music, that’s something I can’t believe they didn’t fix

I thought that was just my theater.

At the premiere, the audio glitched out at the beginning with the smoke alarm sound going off twice and Godzilla's classic roar almost playing on a loop. I thought it was normal until I saw it in a normal theater.

[_JNavs_]

Tbh I would've said skreeonk the general audience and extended it to 3hrs15Min.

[Komenja]

Not cutting to a different shot every three seconds whenever another character says something.

[BARAGONBREH]

Simple: cut less monsters scenes, cut more of the Star Trek-on-Ambien dialogue scenes.

[Troyal1]

Simple: cut less monsters scenes, cut more of the Star Trek-on-Ambien dialogue scenes.

This. Let the camera linger on the monsters.

Show rather than tell. For example when Rodan meets Ghidorah show him bowing instead of us seeing it on a monitor. Show the reactions of the humans afterwards.

Less characters as well. Kyle chandler did everything in this movie I’m surprised he didn’t pilot the ship himself

[BARAGONBREH]

Simple: cut less monsters scenes, cut more of the Star Trek-on-Ambien dialogue scenes.

This. Let the camera linger on the monsters.

Show rather than tell. For example when Rodan meets Ghidorah show him bowing instead of us seeing it on a monitor. Show the reactions of the humans afterwards.

Less characters as well. Kyle chandler did everything in this movie I’m surprised he didn’t pilot the ship himself

Yeah, I felt kind of bad for Chandler. He had to narrate, run around, freak out, calm everyone, invite exposition and have a marital dispute all at the same time, constantly. It really was putting too much on one actor. And what is the point of having all these characters if only two of them - Chandler and Watanabe - show any kind of actual dynamism?

[Vatarian]

Cut most of the weirdo conspiracy-theory dipshit’s screentime out.

Give Serizawa and other decent characters more screentime and chance to show chemistry/interpersonal dynamic.

Add a couple scenes/scene segments showing the leadup to Maddy realizing her mom is batshit crazy as opposed to just going along with her till she doesn’t.

More. Mothra!!!!!

A brief shot of Godzilla and Ghidorah being struck by the O.D. as the former maims and drowns the latter underwater. Details Godzilla taking the brunt/hit, Ghidorah mysteriously shrugging it off, and then struggling away from a wounded, sluggish Godzilla and kicking off of him to escape, pushing Godzilla further down and leading into the shot of Ghidorah exploding out of the waves.

[Olzh26]

would remove the concept of pack of titans and alpha titan

[Dynomy-DX]

- Focus the camera on the monsters more. The ground perspective is fine, but there were many points I wanted a better shot at seeing the Kaiju throw down. Maybe have a proper fight during daylight?

- Cut down a tad on the human scenes in the middle. It drags on a bit at that point, so maybe adding another monster scene or trimming down some of the filler would work fine here.

-

Spoiler:

Let Graham live. Her death kinda felt sudden and had little pay off. Having her continue Serizawa’s work would be nice. Plus, hell, having the two say their goodbyes before his sacrifice would be really emotional in general.

That would have made a movie a full 10/10 for me. I still love it, but it could use some extra improvements overall.

[MegaEvilSaurus666]

Well, I have a load of major, dramatic changes I'd make. Does this work for the topic?

Here are my changes to the plot and visuals.

Cut the jokes, so essentially get rid of Middleditch and Whitford's roles. Please cut Vivienne Graham's death and replace Whitford's character with Sally Hawkins' (that also makes Serizawa's death more emotional because there's someone close to him witnessing it)(her death was pointless as heck). Cut the Oxygen Destroyer (have Godzilla defeated in Antarctica because the OD was used so poorly). Give Charles Dance and Millie Bobby Brown more to do. Make Rodan a featured titan after Ghidorah's call instead of using the Orca to awaken him, have Rodan rebel and force King Ghidorah to attack him. Cut Washington D.C. and instead show people running from the detruction he brings on his way to Boston. Add more to the build up of the Boston fight.

Give more impact in the monster fights, so essentially slow it down and don't replace genuine weight and force with visual shock waves. Add more to the troposphere/stratosphere drop. Don't have a redemption false twist for Emma Russell because that was so contrived (I wanted her jailed or worse for her crimes), but include more antagonizing scenes for her. Include a moral message against her willingness to allow hundreds of thousands to die because of the death of her son. The plot hinged so much on the family dynamic, it's almost as if the Ghidorah release would have never happened if not for the son's death, making the whole movie hung on one boy who died offscreen. Remove Titan bows, because first, no, and second, how did they get there in time?

Here are my changes to the sound mixing.

Better sound design and editing on all of that. The music was completely drowned out at times. Get the female MUTO sound off of Rodan when Mothra stabs him. In fact, remake the original roar and give it back to him. The sounds for Rodan and Ghidorah didn't have as much care put into them. I know that the Godzilla 2014 roar took about 6 months to make, but give more time to recreating the sounds for the others. We don't need reused 1960's sounds, because I'm happy enough with creating faithful new ones. Get the classic roar off of Godzilla, because those roars don't quite fit with the design. Finally, remove Mothra's chirp from the blasts that Godzilla does to finish Ghidorah. That took away from the scene.

Edit: no need for spoiler tags. I just felt my lists were overly long.

[MechaGoji Bro7503]

would remove the concept of pack of titans and alpha titan

Can you elaborate on why a little bit? I'm not the biggest fan of the idea either, but I would fix other problems in the movie first.

[LSD Jellyfish]

I actually have zero complaints with any of the monster stuff. I think that some of the moments in Antarctica with Ghidorah and Godzilla are fine, because it really adds to the chaotic nature of what’s going on.

Similarly, at the end, there’s a lot of ground level shots, and interesting camera work that really does show off the weight and size of the characters.

The issue is random weird moments that are pointless and detract from the monster action. Like for example, in scene with Ghidorah in Antarctica, there’s a scene where they’re trapped in wires or something. Not only is it incomprehensible who this is happening to, but it’s pointkess (they could’ve just had the shot that follows of them running away). The scene is already chaotic enough and you wouldn’t lose any Ghidorah action.

Likewise, I think that the final fight is really good, and the issue is all the cutaways reallt detract from it. It’s not too bad, and some of it works really well; like Madison running away from the monster action and screaming, but I couldn’t help but think some of the shots of the Argo could be cut down. There’s a random military personal, whose actress seems fine, but she randomly gets injured in the final fight which again is completely pointless. I don’t think we even see her after this.

While really cool and unique, I couldn’t also help but think much of the exposition and shots of Atlantis could have been skimmed down. I think time from that scene could’ve been added onto the oxygen destroyer to make it less random.

Like others said; cut Rick entirely, and slim down the exposition. Cut some of the really bad dialogue that undermines the film. Examples being “I read it in a fortune cookie” which completely undermines some of the best dialogue in the film.

[BlankAccount]

Spoiler:

Remove the Oxygen Destroyer completely. Seriously it's a pretty big deal of a weapon, even Godzilla vs Destroyer never brought it back, just mention it, and here it's just used like a random plot device.

King Ghidorah is supposed to be this huge threat even Godzilla struggles with, right? Have him injury Godzilla like 1974 Mechagodzilla did, and he has to retreat to recover. The Antarctica fight was the prefect place to have him be injured.

[MegaEvilSaurus666]

I'd like to mention that there's no breaks at all in the film for anything. It all feels like it's happening in one day, which doesn't really work. I'm not really sure how that would be fixed other than completely redoing the movie.

[BlankAccount]

I'd like to mention that there's no breaks at all in the film for anything. It all feels like it's happening in one day, which doesn't really work. I'm not really sure how that would be fixed other than completely redoing the movie.

Agreed.

I enjoyed the movie but I also got a headache from lack of breathing room or breaks and even missed stuff cause I'm reading posts and thinking "I don't remember that." It's not the movie doesn't have cool set-pieces, it's that they happen to close together to process them all at once.

[MegaEvilSaurus666]

I'd like to mention that there's no breaks at all in the film for anything. It all feels like it's happening in one day, which doesn't really work. I'm not really sure how that would be fixed other than completely redoing the movie.

Agreed.

I enjoyed the movie but I also got a headache from lack of breathing room or breaks and even missed stuff cause I'm reading posts and thinking "I don't remember that." It's not the movie doesn't have cool set-pieces, it's that they happen to close together to process them all at once.

To be honest, I preferred the pacing of the 2014 movie. People complained that it was boring, and I agree in some aspects, but it allowed you to get a chance to absorb what you had seen. Time passes in that film and it's noticeable. Here, it almost feels like we're seeing everything in real-time for some reason, and everyone has ADHD.

Oh yeah, I understand that they needed to fit more in this movie, but with a longer runtime, removed/trimmed scenes, and less characters, this film could have worked a lot better.