Kaiju Fan Confessions

For discussions covering more than one Toho film or show that span across more than one “era.”
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Chrispy_G
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Chrispy_G »

eabaker wrote:
Chrispy_G wrote:
eabaker wrote:
4 directors, one of whom had two relatively distinct takes.

I don't actually think, on the whole, that the Millennium series produced particularly good movies - only 2 out of 6 genuinely work for me - but I appreciate the spirit of invention and variety that set it in motion.
Yeah for me....the US cut of Godzilla 2000 and GMK are the 'good ones'....I like a LOT of things about the Kiryu duo....but I could absolutely do without Megaguirus and Final Wars.
G2K and GMK are definitely the winners in my book, as well.

Megaguirus has a few good sequences, and some very ambitious - if awkwardly executed - spfx moments, but the movie is a structural mess, and the overall tone and look of it really grate on me.

Against Mechagodzilla is better looking, and its first half is stronger on concept and story, but it really doesn't follow through with anything. Those problems are only magnified in Tokyo SOS.

And Final Wars... I mean, I find it outrageously, obnoxiously bad, but at least Kitamura and company were willing to commit to what they were doing. The movie definitely has its fans.
Definitely. My biggest gripe about the Millennium series as a whole is the sort of 'senseless reboot for the sake of reboot' repetition. It just never felt like they used the reboots or newly established timelines to do too much beyond just providing a clean slate to build off of.

Return of Godzilla, short of bringing in some of the original cast and characters, feels like a direct sequel to the original film in a lot of ways. All of the Millennium entries seem to just use it as a base by which to NOT do another Godzilla origin story. Just a roundabout of throwing different takes at the wall to see what would stick.
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HedorahIsBestGirl
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by HedorahIsBestGirl »

I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not, but I think the Millennium Series is a lot stronger than the Heisei Series. G2K and GMK are the definite winners, though I also like Megaguirus quite a bit and GXMG certainly has its moments, too. I think, although only two of six films stand out as being among the Godzilla franchise's best, on average the Millennium films are stronger than the Heisei films.

For one thing, the first four Millennium films are all conceptually interesting and tell their own stories. By contrast, Biollante and King Ghidorah are the only Heisei films which aren't formulaic and derivative, and I much care for the latter's "uniqueness". Even Destoroyah, up until Godzilla's death, feels the same as the last three movies. Space Godzilla aside, all of the Heisei films have at least some aspects I like, but I think they're all deeply flawed. The Millennium films have their flaws, too, but I think the first four are more good than bad.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I'd rather have a "series" of four stand-alone films and one duology, each with their own styles and ideas, then a continuity-sharing series of seven films which are, mostly, stylistically stagnant.
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Ivo-goji
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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I would argue on the contrary that the Heisei series executes the idea of having distinctive takes on Godzilla much better than the Millennium series despite having the opposite objective to the latter's self-contained storylines.

For example Godzilla vs Mothra and Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla II are very different films (if not necessarily good films) with the former having the down to earth struggling couple as its lead characters as well as depicting Godzilla as a straightforward villain while the latter focused on the scifi-military organization and shifted the audience's sympathies to Godzilla.

Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla reuses a lot of ideas from GvsMGII yet feels much more like a throw back to the kaiju movies of the late 60s and early 70s with its tropical setting and highly anthropomorphized monsters.

And before that the first three Heisei movies, although all using similar geopolitical themes and narrative devices, each possessed very different atmosphere and visuals that harkened back to previous eras of the Godzilla series in different ways. Like RoG is really reminiscent of the first two Godzilla movies while Godzilla vs King Ghidorah is a homage to the alien invasion stories of the mid 60s.

Almost every film in the Heisei series has a significant tonal shift from the previous entry, and all of them develop Godzilla's character in meaningful ways, so he is never depicted in quite the same light at any point in his history. Even when the Heisei series repeats itself by reusing the same characters and organizations, it's at least justified in setting; G-Force returns in multiple films because it's logical that it would.

Meanwhile, with the exception of Final War's off the wall Hollywood blockbuster esque take and Kaneko's unique occult interpretation of the character, the rest of the Millennium series films are all pretty aesthetically similar and all depict Godzilla in exactly the same way. Tezuka's movies even use similar characters in roughly identical roles across all three storylines.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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I'm not a fan of either to be honest. There's been individual films in the 90s and beyond that I like but overall everything since Godzilla vs King Ghidorah has been a huge letdown featuring mostly bland direction and uninteresting characters. For all GFW's faults it at least tried something different. Even GMK which I largely like is one of Kaneko's lesser efforts, though it at least has some good special effects and likeable characters.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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I don't know which group of films is better but I'd certainly rather watch the Heisei movies. The only Millennium film I revisit is GMK.
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HedorahIsBestGirl
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by HedorahIsBestGirl »

Gotta say, I watch Godzilla 2000 and GMK a lot more than any of the Heisei films. In fact, they're the only post-Showa Godzilla films I watch pretty regularly.
The wisest words ever spoken on TK: "When I Saw The Showa Movie's white My Friend's They seid WTF is This Your showing Me to Men Fighting In suit's they found At party city Butt when I Showed Them The Heisei film's they thoght They where pritty fun To Watch"

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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Terasawa wrote:I don't know which group of films is better but I'd certainly rather watch the Heisei movies. The only Millennium film I revisit is GMK.
Oh hey this is slightly off-topic but I think I found a way to enrage you with just one tweet
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Chrispy_G
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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I will say that the Millennium series having a one-off nature allows you to sort of enjoy the stand-alones more than the crappy ones. When it is all tied together...the weaker entries bring down the average.

Basically the thing that kills the Marvel Universe. The high points are high, but when most of the films fall somewhere in the 'okay' to 'pretty good' range....that can be a real slog. I can put up with one 'filler episode' to get to the great parts of a TV season. With Marvel, their filler episodes are entire movies, sometimes multiple movies. It makes the entire slate weaker.

With the Millennium series, I CAN jut pick out G2K and GMK as single movies and enjoy them. With the Heisei movies, the stupid time travel of King Ghidorah REALLY sucks the energy of the whole sequence of films down. You can pretty much skip Godzilla vs Mothra and Godzilla vs Spacegodzilla if you really wanted, but to introduce Junior you need MechaGodzilla II, which requires King Ghidorah, and the bullcrap time travel. If you could just slide from Biollante to Destoroyah it would be gravy.

But if we were to take the Heisei and Millennium films as one big sequence....my top 3 would be Return, Biollante, and G2K.
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Ivo-goji
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Ivo-goji »

I mean maybe I'm just a super human being but I can enjoy individual Godzilla movies and rate them on their own merits without thinking of them in light of other films they're connected to.

It's not like I watched any of the Godzilla films in order when I saw them for the first time, and that never hurt my enjoyment of them.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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G2000 wrote:
Terasawa wrote:I don't know which group of films is better but I'd certainly rather watch the Heisei movies. The only Millennium film I revisit is GMK.
Oh hey this is slightly off-topic but I think I found a way to enrage you with just one tweet
Because teal and orange? Otherwise I don't get it, but thanks for trying!
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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Terasawa wrote:Because teal and orange? Otherwise I don't get it, but thanks for trying!
Yes, teal and orange, it was meant as a joke
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Terasawa
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Terasawa »

G2000 wrote:
Terasawa wrote:Because teal and orange? Otherwise I don't get it, but thanks for trying!
Yes, teal and orange, it was meant as a joke
Don’t worry, I know it was!
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by DirektorSplennic »

I love Godzilla vs Gigan. Mostly because of the soundtrack even if it is all reused music. Although wasn't the use of "Storm" and "Volcano" the first time they were used in Godzilla movies?

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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Chrispy_G »

This is going to all at once make it seem like I'm some weird flip-flopper AND like I'm some kind of neanderthal.

But on my most recent marathon I have found that watching the films with subtitles REALLY hinders my absorption into the material. I noticed this when I recently watched a few episodes of my favorite anime Subbed vs Dubbed as well.

I'm an avid reader, and I'm an avid movie watcher. Hell, considering my internet-based hobbies and my work, I READ a heck of a lot more than I watch anything.

But when I'm watching a movie, for me, I think I'm just very much an audio-visual type of viewer in that I want to SEE and HEAR the movie, I don't prefer to read the movie. I don't like to pull even 1% of my attention away from the visual or audio elements of the film, even for 1 second...and reading subtitles does require that.

Maybe I'm going through a stretch in my life where my attention-span is in the gutter, or MAYBE I just wasn't in much of a 'reading the subtitles' mood when I watched some of the movies those days....but getting through the Showa films, all subbed, on this most recent re-watch was surprisingly a little annoying, and I switched to the Dub on Return of Godzilla, EVEN THE OMNI DUB, and it was like a night and day experience. I found it to be so much more fun and enjoyable...and Return of Godzilla is not a very light-hearted film.

Maybe I'm just at a stage where I really want to see and hear Godzilla movies the way I see and hear virtually EVERY other movie or show I watch, in my own language. Maybe the dubbing, good or bad, just sort of feels congruent with the films. By nature, even when serious, this movies are ridiculous. Even the Citizen Kane of Kaiju movies is NOT Citizen Kane. So the dubbing largely just needs to be there, and the hiccups and weirdness just sort of feel right at home with the outlandish nature of the films.

But then again, it isn't really Dubbing as a whole I've ever come down hard on, but more-so the weird English-Language versions and edits of the movies that I just didn't care about.

Either way, I'll gladly be tarred and feathered now for souring on the subtitles a bit.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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DirektorSplennic wrote:I love Godzilla vs Gigan. Mostly because of the soundtrack even if it is all reused music. Although wasn't the use of "Storm" and "Volcano" the first time they were used in Godzilla movies?
Most those tracks were never previously used in other Godzilla films. When I originally watched it as a kid I just figured it was music original to the film. It probably wasn't until my late teens that I learned otherwise (largely do to TK and the internet).
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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"Storm" and "Volcano" were composed by Ifukube for the 1970 World Expo (Osaka). Prior to Gigan, "Volcano" was used in the Godzilla vs. Hedorah trailer but not the film itself.

Last edited by Terasawa on Mon Apr 13, 2020 10:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

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Terasawa wrote:"Storm" and "Volcano" were composed by Ifukube for the 1970 World Expo (Osaka). Prior to Gigan, "Volcano" was used in the Godzilla vs. Hedorah trailer but not the film itself.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6c_LuvJRuQ
Now I really want to see a version of the movie with an Ifukube soundtrack because that trailer just gives off a totally different vibe
I like the movie as is but goddamn this just felt so right
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Terasawa »

I think the Ifukube pieces work for what's being shown in the trailer but wouldn't work in the movie as it is. Godzilla vs. Megalon's trailer also has stock Ifukube cues tracked in but they absolutely would be out of place in that movie.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by KaijusHunter »

DirektorSplennic wrote:I love Godzilla vs Gigan. Mostly because of the soundtrack even if it is all reused music. Although wasn't the use of "Storm" and "Volcano" the first time they were used in Godzilla movies?
One of the very first tracks from Godzilla vs. Gigan was originally composed two years earlier for Seiji Maruyama's historical drama, Will to Conquer. That movie is about the rise of the Mitsubishi company, in a climate of Christian conversion. So it's odd to see it linked to a monster movie through re-use of music.
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Re: Kaiju Fan Confessions

Post by Cryptid_Liker »

I'm prefectly fine with Rodan's role in KOTM and the only thing I would change is making him fight Godzilla.

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