What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by MechaGoji Bro7503 »

When Conrad and his guys killed all the Monarch members at the beginning, he didn't say: "Kiss, you guys."
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

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MechaGoji Bro7503 wrote:When Conrad and his guys killed all the Monarch members at the beginning, he didn't say: "Kiss, you guys."
Conrad?
*Looks at GKOTM’s box office numbers*
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by MechaGoji Bro7503 »

Stump Feet wrote:
MechaGoji Bro7503 wrote:When Conrad and his guys killed all the Monarch members at the beginning, he didn't say: "Kiss, you guys."
Conrad?
Dammit I meant Dance's character :lol:
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by Dr. Professor »

MechaGoji Bro7503 wrote:When Conrad and his guys killed all the Monarch members at the beginning, he didn't say: "Kiss, you guys."
The ultimate callback. I knew Dougherty wasn't a true fan.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by Destoroyah of Worlds »

My biggest complaint? Not enough Mothra and Rodan. Seriously. What the hell? Mothra was barely in it. They should have done an in between film focused entirely on Mothra and Rodan.

Other complaints:
- Serizawa's assistant died pointlessly and wasn't there to make his death more impactful
- All of the new characters were unlikable
- Forced humor
- The Monsters fought during the night or in the middle of a dark storm
- King Ghidorah acted like a clumsy idiot like Zilla. He had trouble chasing down single people or destroying single vehicles.
- Rodan wasn't on Godzilla's side
- We didn't really get any cool shots from the perspective of people like Godzilla 2014
- The cities after mexico all seemed vacant and drastically lowered the stakes
- The hollow earth
Last edited by Destoroyah of Worlds on Thu Jul 18, 2019 11:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by goji89 »

King Ghidorah ......was my small complaint.

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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by Stump Feet »

goji89 wrote:King Ghidorah ......was my small complaint.
I outta slap you silly! What didn't you like about my Ghiddy boi?
Last edited by Stump Feet on Fri Jul 19, 2019 3:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by GuardianGhido »

Missing out on King Ghidorah demolishing Washington DC for some exposition dumping was a huge letdown. If we at least got to see the destructiveness of KG in action while voicovers in the background discuss his origins and background, I would love that. Kinda like the Azog flashback from The Hobbit while Balin discusses him. We'd get some fantastic monster discussion and see more of KG doing what he does best while also hearing more about his origins. A closeup on his faces as he flies through clouds before unleashing death from the skies happening during the revelation of him being an invasive terraforming alien would really make it more chilling.

Also:
Destoroyah of Worlds wrote: - King Ghidorah acted like a clumsy idiot like Zilla. He had trouble chasing down single people or destroying single vehicles.
For this, I really felt it was KG purposely letting humans live a little more to savor their terror before he finishes them. (The novelization even confirmed it with what he was doing in Antarctica, saying he could have easily chomped them up, but was being slow and scaring them) We saw how accurate he is with gravity beams when he's fighting Godzilla, so I don't think he was purposely aiming for Emma's jeep or Madison in the building, rather he was firing "warning shots" to give them some false hope before blasting her for real. He even broke the ORCA and grinned right at Madison before slowly charging up all 3 beams for some unnecessary overkill. Unfortunate for him, his game of cat and mouse on both occasions gave Godzilla plenty of time to interrupt him.
Last edited by GuardianGhido on Fri Jul 19, 2019 11:29 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by Destoroyah of Worlds »

GuardianGhido wrote:Missing out on King Ghidorah demolishing Washington DC for some exposition dumping was a huge letdown. If we at least got to see the destructiveness of KG in action while voicovers in the background discuss his origins and background, I would love that. Kinda like the Azog flashback from The Hobbit while Balin discusses him. We'd get some fantastic monster discussion and see more of KG doing what he does best while also hearing more about his origins. A closeup on his faces as he flies through clouds before unleashing death from the skies happening during the revelation of him being an invasive terraforming alien would really make it more chilling.

Also:
Destoroyah of Worlds wrote: - King Ghidorah acted like a clumsy idiot like Zilla. He had trouble chasing down single people or destroying single vehicles.
For this, I really felt it was KG purposely letting humans live a little more to savor their terror before he finishes them. (The novelization even confirmed it with what he was doing in Antarctica, saying he could have easily chomped them up, but was being slow and scaring them) We saw how accurate he is with gravity beams when he's fighting Godzilla, so I don't think he was purposely aiming for Emma's jeep or Madison in the building, rather he was firing "warning shots" to give them some false hope before blasting her for real. He even broke the ORCA and grinned right at Madison before slowly charging up all 3 beams for some unnecessary overkill. Unfortunate for him, his game of cat and mouse on both occasions gave Godzilla plenty of time to interrupt him.
I've had a few people explain to me that it's not a problem with the film. Ghidorah being a sadist is part of his personality. ...They do little to demonstrate this in the actual film though. I think it's very sloppy writing to rely on out of film explanations.

I agree with your first point. We should have seen him terrorize D.C. and hunt people down. We should have have seen him take pleasure in causing pain to other monsters.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Okay here we go, here`s why I don`t think KOTM is such a great movie, or good Godzilla film. Some of these reasons are nitpicky, and some are definitely fan based, but when you add everything up together as a whole it makes sense why I don`t like it too much.
Spoiler:
-Generic Hollow Characters
-Too many characters (no one gets any real development)
-Strange/inconsistent/weird motivations behind Emma`s character
-Way too much exposition, and screens of what monsters are supposedly doing.
-The pointless usage of the Oxygen Destroyer
-When Mothra emerges from her cocoon it feels rushed, after that we barely get to see Mothra except as this really washed out being of light.
-The Rodan scene is great, but what proceeds it, what should be a very destructive scene, is very underwhelming. We get none of the chaos that was present in G14 or any of the other films.
-Ghidorah not having an extended scene of it destroying DC/fighting the military(if this was something they could not do for financial reasons, then they should have just cut the other titan scenes from the film.
-While I appreciate Rodan and Mothra appearing, I wish they actually contributed just a little more to the climax.
-Too many dumb jokes (if the film was better this wouldn`t be a major complaint).
-Killing off Dr. Serizawa`s assistant, in the dumbest, and most pointless way possible.
-Film introduces a lot of interesting concepts, like the undersea civilization, only to literally blow it up without much thought.
The film has this very cheapo vibe to it, where most of the scenes take place in very artificial locations, and we never get any normal scenes in cities or people running away from monsters. The film has a barren feel to it.
-Godzilla running, isn`t a real complaint, but Godzilla, and the other monsters, lack a sense of weight, and it`s due to the overusage of CGI, and speed. We never get a good scale of the monsters, with the exception of the moment when they leave the helicopter during the big end fight, and when Godzilla pushes Ghidorah through a skyscraper.
-The ending is really anticlimactic, Godzilla straight up would`ve lost if it weren`t for the burning form, and we know the instant they say he`s going to go thermonuclear in X mins how the final fight is going to play out. It`s also not original, it`s the exact ending to Godzilla vs. MG2, except done worse.
-The Nuke
-The ending shot
Last edited by LSD Jellyfish on Sun Jul 21, 2019 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

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I gotta agree with a lot of what LSD stated.

I will say I really did like how Dougherty introduced Mothra, Godzilla, Ghidorah, and Rodan. They all had what I thought were proper nostalgic introductions. I was okay with the minor plot mistakes through that sequence as well, everything was going fine for me up until Rodan clashed with Ghidorah over the Gulf of Mexico. After that I don't think the movie could have finished any worse than it did from that point on for the multitude of reasons that LSD just ran through. There was just so much done wrong and lazily slopped together in the last half of the movie it really just ended up pissing me off by the end. I will say that at the end of the day KOTM really made me appreciate Godzilla 2014 much much more.

I just hope Godzilla vs. Kong is done the right way.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

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LSD Jellyfish wrote:Okay here we go, here`s why I don`t think KOTM is such a great movie, or good Godzilla film. Some of these reasons are nitpicky, and some are definitely fan based, but when you add everything up together as a whole it makes sense why I don`t like it too much.
Spoiler:
-Generic Hollow Characters
-Too many characters (no one gets any real development)
-Strange/inconsistent/weird motivations behind Emma`s character
-Way too much exposition, and screens of what monsters are supposedly doing.
-The pointless usage of the Oxygen Destroyer
-When Mothra emerges from her cocoon it feels rushed, after that we barely get to see Mothra except as this really washed out being of light.
-The Rodan scene is great, but what proceeds it, what should be a very destructive scene, is very underwhelming. We get none of the chaos that was present in G14 or any of the other films.
-Ghidorah not having an extended scene of it destroying DC/fighting the military(if this was something they could not do for financial reasons, then they should have just cut the other titan scenes from the film.
-While I appreciate Rodan and Mothra appearing, I wish they actually contributed just a little more to the climax.
-Too many dumb jokes (if the film was better this wouldn`t be a major complaint).
-Killing off Dr. Serizawa`s assistant, in the dumbest, and most pointless way possible.
-Film introduces a lot of interesting concepts, like the undersea civilization, only to literally blow it up without much thought.
The film has this very cheapo vibe to it, where most of the scenes take place in very artificial locations, and we never get any normal scenes in cities or people running away from monsters. The film has a barren feel to it.
-Godzilla running, isn`t a real complaint, but Godzilla, and the other monsters, lack a sense of weight, and it`s due to the overusage of CGI, and speed. We never get a good scale of the monsters, with the exception of the moment when they leave the helicopter during the big end fight, and when Godzilla pushes Ghidorah through a skyscraper.
-The ending is really anticlimactic, Godzilla straight up would`ve lost if it weren`t for the burning form, and we know the instant they say he`s going to go thermonuclear in X mins how the final fight is going to play out. It`s also not original, it`s the exact ending to Godzilla vs. MG2, except done worse.
-The Nuke
-The ending shot
You summed up my feelings pretty well and I agree with pretty much everything. Just add my own thoughts here, regarding the generic characters: I had never paid any attention to Bradley Whitford's career, but I'm finally getting around to season 3 of Handmaid's Tale -- he's prominently featured -- and I was pretty shocked to find out that not only do I not outright hate the guy's acting, he's actually pretty good! And he has some sarcastic one-liners that actually add levity to scenes without being cringe-y. I just think it says a lot (A LOT, a lot) that they would name his character "Rick" and then design the character to be a rip-off of the actual Rick from Rick and Morty. That is, IMO, incredibly lazy, cynical and borderline intellectually dishonest. And I'll just stick to this one example before I digress, but I think it's a telling example.

The near-constant exposition, watching people watch monsters on monitors, etc, was grating as well, like you mentioned. Don't even get me started on the OD. Basically: I'm thrilled some company decided to burn 170 million on a Godzilla film with classic monsters. That alone was worth the price of admission. But I'm not going to pretend like this is a well-made movie, because it isn't. It deserved the middling reviews it got, and I wouldn't recommend it to non-genre fans. I'm concerned that too much capital will be spent on cramming a bunch of monsters into Godzilla vs Kong at this point, instead of truly satisfying battles and destructions scenes. At least I'll have my expectations properly tempered this time.

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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by attilagodzilla »

My biggest complain is the cutting away.
And I know how it sound, it sounds as if I just want monsters fighting and nothing more, but here is the thing. Cutting away in Toho movies haplens aswell ofcourse, let's take ghidorah the 3 headed monster, where during the battle it cut's away too the bodyguard fighting the assasin. But the thing is begore that and after that we got a few good minutes just fully focused on the monsters fighting, getting clear shots of the monsters. In this movie it felt lile we didn't even get one minute fully centered on the monsters save when Rodan destroyed the jets. I felt lile you saw the monsters do things for a few seconds, then cutting back to the humans, another few seconds of the monsters slamming in to eachother, and back to the humans, with here and there a leg or tail in the background.
I just wished we got a few minutes or atleast one minute of the monsters fighting without any cutting away.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by Terasawa »

vibramrunner wrote:That is, IMO, incredibly lazy, cynical and borderline intellectually dishonest.
I wouldn't recommend it to non-genre fans.
At least I'll have my expectations properly tempered this time.
Very well said. :applause:
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by BlankAccount »

The fight with Rodan and King Ghidorah and later the fight with Rodan and Mothra could have been better, like the dogfight we see with Gamera and Iris.

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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

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delete
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

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I think perhaps the movie's biggest sin is the failure to adequately explain Dr. Emma Russell's motivations to release the monsters.

I think ultimately there was a misanthropic viewpoint that could've been really interesting if it had been better explained. The problem is that the movie brings up "war, overpopulation and pollution" as her motivation to essentially kill a bunch of people, but doesn't really provide a meaningful argument as to why those things are bad. Rather, those reasons don't really resonate with the audience and only end up confusing people.

I'll compare it to Thanos in Infinity War (because I think the 2 characters have similar motivations).

Thanos believes half of all life needs to be wiped out in order to avoid the cataclysmic danger of overpopulation (i.e. there are finite resources in the universe for a growing population, thus population growth is unsustainable). While we as an audience are meant to disagree with Thanos' methods, it gives Thanos more depth than your average villain. It's the fact that he believes he needs to make an immoral choice for the greater good that makes Thanos compelling as a character.

Dr. Russell's motivations are a bit more convoluted. Instead of simply worrying about overpopulation being her motivation, she lists multiple reasons as to why human civilization is flawed (although overpopulation is one of them). She doesn't want to destroy humanity for it's sins (which honestly, might have been a more easy motivation for the audience to understand, especially with more development which would make the audience understand her and Alan Jonah's viewpoint). She wants humanity to co-exist with the titans. Maybe if she simply wanted to destroy modern advanced civilization (but had human society exist in a more primitive state) because of humanity's sins the audience would have more easily bought that (and maybe that was what she ultimately wanted). But during the exposition dump of her plan it's not really clear as to what exactly she wants or why she is choosing such drastic measures. It comes off as muddled and underdeveloped. When I was first watching the movie people were snickering in the theater during the scene on the Argo when she reveals her plan.

I guess to put it simply, if her motivations had been explained as a difficult and painful choice that would lead to a more positive future for the world as a whole (with Alan Jonah arguing against any doubts she might have had about the plan) I think one of the most major criticisms of this movie would have been solved. Like, there is a kernel of a better movie in this screenplay and if it had just gone through another draft maybe this movie would have gotten better reviews (and thus better box office numbers, a certified fresh rating with Rotten Tomatoes can really do wonders with audience members who are on the fence about seeing a particular movie). Godzilla (and kaiju movies as whole) have always had an apocalyptic undertone to them given their themes of nuclear weapons or natural disasters. That is how they are relevant to our real world. And it is really too bad none of the American films have yet to really explore those kind of themes like the best of the Japanese films are able to do.

Now, I am not saying I didn't enjoy the movie. I saw it 8 times in the theater for a reason (because it did get the characterization of the monsters right). I just think it is easy to see that this movie has flaws and probably isn't too impactful on the average viewer beyond spectacle entertainment. Which that is fine, but perhaps it is disappointing to those of us who wanted the movie to popularize Godzilla and the other Japanese monsters to the general public (like how the Marvel movies* were able to popularize comic book characters only Marvel fans had heard about/had interest in before). If the Monsterverse is to continue beyond Godzilla vs. Kong it needs to appeal to a general audience and not just Godzilla fans. I think it's safe to say due to the box office numbers this movie didn't really do that.

*Anyone else notice how this movie seemed to try to be like a Marvel movie? From Monarch essentially being Shield to the lighter tone and quippy humor this movie definitely took a lot out of the MCU playbook beyond the obvious sequel baiting post-credits scene and the fact that this movie is in a cinematic universe. I just don't think this movie was as successful at it as the MCU or even Kong: Skull Island (which was also trying to imitate Marvel, but I feel it did so more successfully because it had more charismatic actors). Both Skull Island and KotM stand in stark contrast to the more serious and rather humorless 2014 Godzilla film. While I think that Skull Island was the best of the Monsterverse films so far, I do wonder if by copying Marvel so much these movies aren't able to really form their own identity (which criticize the 2014 film all you want, you can't say it's not it's own movie).

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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by Tyrant_Lizard_King »

G14 is very much Gareth's movie and I feel KSI is very much Roberts' movie but KotM does not feel like it was Dougherty's movie to me. There's was hardly anything stylistically or aesthetically that seemed unique about it. Now I'm not familiar with Dougherty's other films so I can't say that with any certainty but it didn't really do anything to differentiate itself like G14 and KSI did.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by LSD Jellyfish »

Tyrant_Lizard_King wrote:G14 is very much Gareth's movie and I feel KSI is very much Roberts' movie but KotM does not feel like it was Dougherty's movie to me. There's was hardly anything stylistically or aesthetically that seemed unique about it. Now I'm not familiar with Dougherty's other films so I can't say that with any certainty but it didn't really do anything to differentiate itself like G14 and KSI did.
This so much.

And I can say, I’m very familiar with Doughterys work. Despite my dislike for KOTM, I feel bad for disliking it, because I absolutely love Trick-R-Treat and Krampus. If you look at my posts way back when, when he was announced as director, I was ecstatic that he was chosen as he’s one of my favorite directors.

I don’t want to speculate too much, but I do feel that KOTM might have been dumbed down and made safe to what Legendary/Wanda thought might work and took some of the dumbass criticisms of G14 too literally (not enough monster action) and made the film factory produced.
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Re: What Are Your Complaints About KOTM?

Post by GuardianGhido »

Gojira-Fan wrote:I think perhaps the movie's biggest sin is the failure to adequately explain Dr. Emma Russell's motivations to release the monsters.

I think ultimately there was a misanthropic viewpoint that could've been really interesting if it had been better explained. The problem is that the movie brings up "war, overpopulation and pollution" as her motivation to essentially kill a bunch of people, but doesn't really provide a meaningful argument as to why those things are bad. Rather, those reasons don't really resonate with the audience and only end up confusing people.

I'll compare it to Thanos in Infinity War (because I think the 2 characters have similar motivations).

Thanos believes half of all life needs to be wiped out in order to avoid the cataclysmic danger of overpopulation (i.e. there are finite resources in the universe for a growing population, thus population growth is unsustainable). While we as an audience are meant to disagree with Thanos' methods, it gives Thanos more depth than your average villain. It's the fact that he believes he needs to make an immoral choice for the greater good that makes Thanos compelling as a character.

Dr. Russell's motivations are a bit more convoluted. Instead of simply worrying about overpopulation being her motivation, she lists multiple reasons as to why human civilization is flawed (although overpopulation is one of them). She doesn't want to destroy humanity for it's sins (which honestly, might have been a more easy motivation for the audience to understand, especially with more development which would make the audience understand her and Alan Jonah's viewpoint). She wants humanity to co-exist with the titans. Maybe if she simply wanted to destroy modern advanced civilization (but had human society exist in a more primitive state) because of humanity's sins the audience would have more easily bought that (and maybe that was what she ultimately wanted). But during the exposition dump of her plan it's not really clear as to what exactly she wants or why she is choosing such drastic measures. It comes off as muddled and underdeveloped. When I was first watching the movie people were snickering in the theater during the scene on the Argo when she reveals her plan.

I guess to put it simply, if her motivations had been explained as a difficult and painful choice that would lead to a more positive future for the world as a whole (with Alan Jonah arguing against any doubts she might have had about the plan) I think one of the most major criticisms of this movie would have been solved. Like, there is a kernel of a better movie in this screenplay and if it had just gone through another draft maybe this movie would have gotten better reviews (and thus better box office numbers, a certified fresh rating with Rotten Tomatoes can really do wonders with audience members who are on the fence about seeing a particular movie). Godzilla (and kaiju movies as whole) have always had an apocalyptic undertone to them given their themes of nuclear weapons or natural disasters. That is how they are relevant to our real world. And it is really too bad none of the American films have yet to really explore those kind of themes like the best of the Japanese films are able to do.
My goodness, someone finally put it into words! Thank you so much for this analysis man! This perfectly sums up all the problems I had wiith Dr Russel's character and motivations. This pretty much completely lines up with my thoughts that I couldn't really type out in a cohesive way, but you managed to do so. Thanks again.
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