Post by 1godzillafan on Jan 13, 2019 1:08:37 GMT -5
I'm so done with this anime trilogy. I tried watching Godzilla: The Planet Eater several days ago, but after about twenty minutes of philosophical/spiritual double talk I took a deep breath and shut it off. I simply did not have the patience for another one of these at the time. And I've sat through a lot of bullshit philosophy from the franchise that gave us "But WHY? Why does he keep protecting us?" "Maybe because Godzilla is inside each one of us!" But just being assaulted by the film's own analysis of it's own theme for twenty minutes like a skipping record was just overbearing and pushed my buttons.
Today I sat through the rest of it. I was less pissy at it, but while it wasn't as bad as I was fearing I'd hesitate to say it ever really got better. Hell, the film's biggest selling point is it climaxes the story it's telling by introducing King Ghidorah and having a climactic bout with Godzilla over the fate of the evolved Earth. This climactic fight consists of Ghidorah now portrayed as three sky serpents coming out of black holes and strangling Godzilla for a half an hour while the film's main character goes in a dreamlike trance while the alien companion who summoned Ghidorah prattles on about how the only way for life to be meaningful is to embrace destruction.
Movie. SHUT. UP.
Seriously. Are you even listening to yourself? Every single word uttered in this scene is DOGSHIT. And it's repeated on loop. We have to hear this nonsense rephrased many times over until the film decides it has padded itself out enough and decides to just let Godzilla win, even though he's just been standing in one spot the entire movie and wins by continuing to do so.
It becomes increasingly clear that this anime trilogy was made by people who felt like what was holding the Matrix trilogy back was all those action scenes and felt they should have concentrated more on jibbering philosophy, and when you run out you must repeat yourself. That's the path to true film greatness.
It might have been more helpful had I watched the first two anime films in much closer proximity to this one. But I really didn't want to prolong the experience so I just left it to my sketchy memory. The storyline of this film has the alien priest of the series or whatever the hell he's supposed to be using mankind's hate for Godzilla to call Ghidorah to Earth to destroy it and destroy mankind. Whether this makes sense or not I'm not sure, but I can safely say his motivation is utter garbage. He is a surviving member of a planet Ghidorah once destroyed and he claims to have survived because the only way to find comfort in a finite universe is to help bring destruction to it, which is utter nonsense. Now, the thing is that alien races in Godzilla movies can never really be trusted, but the cackling invaders who invade for the hell of it are much better motivated than this asshole.
And that's really the fatal flaw of this anime, it's so busy analyzing itself and not letting the audience think about its themes that it never bothers to characterize anyone. The main hero is just angry. The movie even admits that's his only character trait really, as the final scene in this movie just embraces that's all that he is. Alien priest exists to merely count off that spiritual dialogue, and do so nonstop. Everyone else just exists, not as a character but as something there to talk to. And what's painful about this is that this trilogy has a great concept at its core, and its themes are interesting. They're executed poorly as they bloat this thing to three films when they could have made something much tighter and maybe superior in telling this story in two hours. This is just excess without ideas for content other than your basic premise.
In the last twelve months I've gotten three brand new Godzilla movies. I should be on cloud nine right now. Instead I'm just shrugging.
Today I sat through the rest of it. I was less pissy at it, but while it wasn't as bad as I was fearing I'd hesitate to say it ever really got better. Hell, the film's biggest selling point is it climaxes the story it's telling by introducing King Ghidorah and having a climactic bout with Godzilla over the fate of the evolved Earth. This climactic fight consists of Ghidorah now portrayed as three sky serpents coming out of black holes and strangling Godzilla for a half an hour while the film's main character goes in a dreamlike trance while the alien companion who summoned Ghidorah prattles on about how the only way for life to be meaningful is to embrace destruction.
Movie. SHUT. UP.
Seriously. Are you even listening to yourself? Every single word uttered in this scene is DOGSHIT. And it's repeated on loop. We have to hear this nonsense rephrased many times over until the film decides it has padded itself out enough and decides to just let Godzilla win, even though he's just been standing in one spot the entire movie and wins by continuing to do so.
It becomes increasingly clear that this anime trilogy was made by people who felt like what was holding the Matrix trilogy back was all those action scenes and felt they should have concentrated more on jibbering philosophy, and when you run out you must repeat yourself. That's the path to true film greatness.
It might have been more helpful had I watched the first two anime films in much closer proximity to this one. But I really didn't want to prolong the experience so I just left it to my sketchy memory. The storyline of this film has the alien priest of the series or whatever the hell he's supposed to be using mankind's hate for Godzilla to call Ghidorah to Earth to destroy it and destroy mankind. Whether this makes sense or not I'm not sure, but I can safely say his motivation is utter garbage. He is a surviving member of a planet Ghidorah once destroyed and he claims to have survived because the only way to find comfort in a finite universe is to help bring destruction to it, which is utter nonsense. Now, the thing is that alien races in Godzilla movies can never really be trusted, but the cackling invaders who invade for the hell of it are much better motivated than this asshole.
And that's really the fatal flaw of this anime, it's so busy analyzing itself and not letting the audience think about its themes that it never bothers to characterize anyone. The main hero is just angry. The movie even admits that's his only character trait really, as the final scene in this movie just embraces that's all that he is. Alien priest exists to merely count off that spiritual dialogue, and do so nonstop. Everyone else just exists, not as a character but as something there to talk to. And what's painful about this is that this trilogy has a great concept at its core, and its themes are interesting. They're executed poorly as they bloat this thing to three films when they could have made something much tighter and maybe superior in telling this story in two hours. This is just excess without ideas for content other than your basic premise.
In the last twelve months I've gotten three brand new Godzilla movies. I should be on cloud nine right now. Instead I'm just shrugging.
