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Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:05 pm
by _JNavs_
They were absolutely not blatant and in your face.


The only one you can make a legitimate argument for is the Ghidorah Volcano shot.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:07 pm
by UltramanGoji
Maybe not blatant but holy fuck are they pretentious and clunky.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:09 pm
by _JNavs_
Pretentious would be "attempting to impress by affecting greater importance", which i figured was the whole thematic premise of the Monsterverse, so I was okay with it.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:18 pm
by KingKong2005
The whole "They are gods" thing got real annoying, real fast.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:19 pm
by Stump Feet
It got so bad in fact, there was a Cristian protest going on outside my theater when I walked out. Crazy stuff...

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:26 pm
by _JNavs_
KingKong2005 wrote:The whole "They are gods" thing got real annoying, real fast.
Why? It's not like they were actual gods, they were all prehistoric beasts that humanity decided to label "Gods", because the Titans were beings that couldn't be fully comprehended.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:49 pm
by G2000
Reminder

Godzilla is Jesus Christ, Mothra is the Woman Clothed in Sun, and Ghidorah is the Dragon of Revelation, while Rodan and the other kaiju are sinners led astray by the Dragon but saved from their eternal destruction by the resurrected King

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 7:51 pm
by LSD Jellyfish
G14 had a vaguely shinoistic message about nature and balance and impermanence.
KOTM takes that, "christian-fies" it and waters down it`s own predecessors message on balance.

Serizawa in G14: Godzilla is part of Earth`s natural ecosystem and should be respected.
Serizawa and pretty much everyone, including the Camera; "OH MY GOD GODZILLA IS DA FUCKING KING. LETS WORSHIP HIM"

That`s a very clear example of how it fails as a sequel as well.

One thing I really have liked about the Godzilla franchise, is while some monsters are literally worshipped as Gods, such as Varan, Kong and Mothra, (and even Godzilla in the 1954, it never has the audacity to tell you the audience that they`re either literal Gods, or that the monsters can do no wrong. Then there`s all sorts of protectors and guardian spirits and all sorts of things. But then we still have, giant insects, weird mutants, robots, aliens etc...Toho has always known not to broadly label or compartmentalize their kaiju. There`s also a great variety of monsters throughout the series.

Relegating Monsters to Gods, is damaging to the franchise, as it puts things out of control of the humans. KOTM is a fake environmental film, because it never actually addresses why the environment is fucked up to begin with, or how humans can change it. Instead its like,"Lol just let the monsters solve it, humans are powerless don`t you know?".

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:28 pm
by G2000
LSD Jellyfish wrote:G14 had a vaguely shinoistic message about nature and balance and impermanence.
KOTM takes that, "christian-fies" it and waters down it`s own predecessors message on balance.
That's what you get for the Martyrs of Japan

In seriousness though, I don't have that much of a problem with the Christian symbolism (if anything it's actually a pretty neat interpretation by my book) but they didn't go far enough. I don't mean that they should have overloaded the film with Christian symbolism or anything like that, but rather something more akin to complaints you and others have raised: you have a vaguely Christian-flavored kaiju apocalypse going on, complete with great beasts rising from the abyss and laying waste to the cities of man, led by a storm-creating multi-headed dragon from the Outer Dark, and we don't really get to savor the epic visuals such a scenario implies, nor does the film feel as "big" a film of it's scope really should.

We see Rodan level Isla de Mara, we get a few screens of Behemoth, Methesulah, and Scylla wreaking havoc in their respective countries, and we get a brief glimpse of Rodan and Ghidorah wreaking utter havoc on the the combined might of the US Armed Forces in Washington D.C., and that's about it. It's not allowed time to soak in. We also really don't see the human impact outside of the Isla de Mara attack and a glimpse of evacuations in Boston - something G'14 handled with it's many extras and scenes set in hospitals and evacuation centers.

The final battle is good fun in my opinion, but it suffers from much of the same. Some of the scenes that really should have been stand-outs (Ghidorah dragging Godzilla to the upper atmosphere before dropping him down to Earth) feel pretty rushed, and while I am loathe to complain about "cutaways" there were a few scenes where they cut to the human cast that really didn't serve much of a purpose ("Working out/juiced/damn right" and there are a few scenes near the Russel house where it cuts to the cast reacting to the fight rather than doing anything).

Sure, there are a couple standouts (Ghidorah on the volcano with the cross in the foreground, the Titans bowing at the end, etc) and overall I did have fun, I did enjoy it, but it's not nearly as much as a spectacle as it really should have been for Mothra, Rodan, and Ghidorah's Hollywood debuts.

Stump Feet wrote:It got so bad in fact, there was a Cristian protest going on outside my theater when I walked out. Crazy stuff...

All jokes aside was there, and was it specifically against KoTM? I can't recall any sort of mobilization against this movie for any reason; might it have been about Rocketman? That had some controversy and came out about the same time

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:29 pm
by Stump Feet
I was joking :lol:

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:43 pm
by BlankAccount
I'm not offended by the cross being in this movie. Why? Because there's fucking huge crosses in several cities in Mexico and the U.S.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 8:46 pm
by _JNavs_
Crosses being in both crowning sequences are a really gorgeous touch on 2 fantastic moments in the film.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 9:07 pm
by G2000
LSD Jellyfish wrote:One thing I really have liked about the Godzilla franchise, is while some monsters are literally worshipped as Gods, such as Varan, Kong and Mothra, (and even Godzilla in the 1954, it never has the audacity to tell you the audience that they`re either literal Gods, or that the monsters can do no wrong. Then there`s all sorts of protectors and guardian spirits and all sorts of things. But then we still have, giant insects, weird mutants, robots, aliens etc...Toho has always known not to broadly label or compartmentalize their kaiju. There`s also a great variety of monsters throughout the series.

Relegating Monsters to Gods, is damaging to the franchise, as it puts things out of control of the humans. KOTM is a fake environmental film, because it never actually addresses why the environment is fucked up to begin with, or how humans can change it. Instead its like,"Lol just let the monsters solve it, humans are powerless don`t you know?".
Okay, further thoughts: I feel there's still a pretty nice variety to the monsters in this universe, in terms of design. If you mean in terms of origins and motives and allegiances, perhaps so, as with the exception of Ghidorah they all seem to be naturally-born creatures who originated at varying points in prehistory (though the mystical implications surrounding Mothra do cause her to stand out somewhat); but even still a sizable portion of the Toho bestiary/pantheon are oversized prehistoric monsters themselves. Anguirus, Varan, Gorosaurus, Baragon, etc. It's also worth noting that while Toho has had nearly thirty movies to introduce new monsters and portray them however they wish, so far the Monsterverse has had only three films.

The movie never says the kaiju are literal gods. It's pretty clear that they're still animals, albeit big, intelligent, indestructible, and incredibly powerful animals whose very existence has an effect on their environment; it only makes sense that ancient civilizations worshipped them as gods. Even in the modern-day setting, the creatures being compared to gods makes sense; humanity, having previously thought themselves the ruler of the world, has found themselves laid low by creatures far older and more powerful than themselves, atomic-age weaponry just as powerless as the spears and stones of their ancient ancestors.

As for humans being powerless in KoTM, that's patently false. Humans in this film do take an active role in both dooming the world and saving it. It's a human plot that sets Ghidorah free, just as it is a human who (as much as you loathe the scene) carries a nuclear warhead to Godzilla's lair to revive him to help save the world, just as it was a human weapon that incapacitated Godzilla in the first place. It's human who lures the monsters into Boston for the final battle, and a human who distracts Ghidorah long enough for Godzilla to get his third wind and finally destroy the beast. If anything, the film shows that rather than being akin to ants scurrying to avoid being stepped on in a war between gods, mankind has the means and the will to take an active role in deciding the fate of themselves and their world.

I won't deny that KoTM is a deeply flawed film with a muddled message that misses numerous opportunities to give the film greater symbolic weight in regards to nuclear issues, climate change, and/or war, but some of your criticisms seem gross oversimplifications.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Wed Jul 31, 2019 11:38 pm
by LSD Jellyfish
^^^Fair enough on pretty much everything you said.

Re: Godzilla: King of the Monsters PHOTO THREAD

Posted: Thu Aug 15, 2019 3:52 pm
by GFAN198423
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