1godzillafan's Toku Corner (Ultra Q)

Shin Godzilla is the Japanese title for the movie, which from my understanding the word "Shin" translates to "true," "new," or "god."  So the title to this movie is either "True Godzilla," "New Godzilla," or "God Godzilla."  The title was retained for the American release, even though the word "shin" in English means a part of your leg.  "Leg Godzilla?"  The International title was meant to be Godzilla:  Resurgence, though it was probably passed over after Independence Day:  Resurgence underperformed.  Once again, Roland Emmerich ruins Godzilla.

Premise:  A sea creature is discovered to be inhabiting Tokyo Bay and destroying boats off the coast.  Japanese officials begin discussions on how to best tackle the situation but it soon becomes clear that the beast is evolving at a rapid rate, with the situation constantly changing and politics being too slow to effectively deal with it.  The creature soon evolves to the point it can walk on land and even stand on its hind legs.  Dubbing the creature "Godzilla," based upon a legendary creature from Odo Island, the appearance of the creature is soon deemed an international threat, and Japan has to cooperate with the United Nations in hopes of killing it.  But Godzilla's evolution is quickly making the animal unstoppable.

I'm not much of an anime watcher, so when Evangelion creator Hideaki Anno signed on to make a Godzilla movie, I had no real expectations.  He's co-directing with Shinji Higuchi, director of the live-action Attack on Titan movies, which are hilariously bad.  So I didn't have super high hopes, though I wasn't prepared for what resulted.  I'm not sure anyone was.  Shin Godzilla made huge waves in Japan, bringing in a powerhouse box office take (that topped what the 2014 American Godzilla film took in in the country, mind you), and was so beloved that it actually won the Picture of the Year Japanese Academy Prize, which is Japan's equivalent to the Best Picture Oscar.  Shin Godzilla was nothing short of a phenomenon in Japan.

Over here in the States, I think it's been a somewhat different story.  From my experience in the Godzilla fan community, Shin Godzilla has been quite polarizing.  Half the fanbase adores it for it's strong satire and epic kaiju destruction, and the other half doesn't care about the film's satire, and thinks it's an abomination on the same level as the 1998 American film.  The nays for the film seem to stem from it being alienated from the Godzilla characterization that the series evolved into, feeling that taking the beast back to an unknown mutant horror robs him of the personality and attributes that they wish the character to have.  I've never really understood the need for things to constantly be the same, especially when you have thirty prior movies under your belt already coddling your bias, but then again I wasn't outraged the reinvented 1998 Godzilla either.  I prefer a traditional Godzilla, but I'm always interested in different takes.

But it probably gets to a point where one questions "How different is too different?"  Does one draw the line at a giant crocodile-iguana that lays 200 eggs or when Godzilla is able to shoot lasers out of his back and tail for some reason?  How about if Godzilla can turn into a giant magnet?  Or if he can launch himself into the air and fly?  Oh wait, I guess those last two are "real" Godzilla movies and the former two aren't.

One thing that I think is interesting about the Godzilla in this film, which is probably something that turns certain people off, is that he shares attributes with Hedorah.  Godzilla is this new creature that doesn't really know what he is or what is going on, but he is here and he is constantly mutating into something more horrifying at each turn.  The mutations continue to the point where something needs to be done immediately or the monster will become a global threat.  I'm almost curious how this movie would have played out with the Smog Monster instead of Godzilla, because that's pretty much his entire arc.

But that begs the question, if I'm reminded of another monster while watching this movie, does that make me think lesser of it as a Godzilla movie?  No.  The thing about Godzilla in this movie is that he's de-evolved, away from that champion alpha predator that he would eventually become and the film takes a look at Godzilla as an idea presented in the original 1954 film.  In that film, Godzilla is an enraged monster that has been awakened and mutated by nuclear testing who is led to the mainland and creates havoc.  Shin Godzilla takes that concept and embellishes it.  The Godzilla in this film doesn't seem particularly mad about anything, just curious and confused.  Something is happening to it and it doesn't quite understand what, and it just so happens to stumble into a city as it's mutating.  When it reaches a form that is more recognizable as Godzilla, it continues a path of destruction mostly just because it's wandering around, and it only becomes
violent when threatened and it begins evolving a defense system, which becomes his atomic breath.  Shin Godzilla is a depiction of that horrifying unknown mutation that appears in the city and won't leave, just as the original Godzilla did in 1954.

Yes, I consider this movie proper Godzilla, in case you can't tell.

Shin Godzilla is a fairly well done movie.  Like another film in the series which I've ranked higher (I won't say which at the moment), I like the political approach to a Godzilla attack, in which the main focus of the film is the way the government tries to counter such a threat.  The main satire of the film is that politics are too damn slow, and when faces with a situation that demands immediate reaction, the immediate response isn't always immediate enough.  And even still, sometimes the best brains in the world can work on the project, unanimously agree, and come to a hilariously wrong conclusion.  The scientists in the film get it wrong many times in the film, with one of my favorite moments in the film being an official announcement that Godzilla could never come ashore to threaten the public because it was deemed he wouldn't be able to survive, which is immediately followed by a scene of Godzilla crawling ashore.  Take THAT, brainiacs!

The approach comes with its cons as well.  I think the pacing of the movie is a tad askew.  The first half of the film is constantly amusing and exhilarating.  However, the third act of the movie stops dead in its tracks.  The second act Godzilla attack is so fucking spectacular that there is nowhere to go but down from there.  We're given some brief grieving sequences, some more satire, and extensive scenes of the third act battle plan being put together.  By the time the final solution to Godzilla is put into effect, Godzilla doesn't do much other than sit there and take it like a little bitch.  It feels like two acts should have built up to something a bit...more.

I'd also say this movie was built primarily with a Japanese audience in mind, which makes those who don't speak or read the language a bit in the wind.  The dialogue is very rapid, and the movie moves so fast that to introduce characters, it introduces them with subtitles of their character names.  This makes the English subtitle version of this movie a bitch.  The movie is subtitle on top of subtitle on top of subtitle, and a lot of the subtitles are blink and you'll miss them..  I'd be tempted to watch the English dub just so I don't have to deal with that shit. Another thing that is lost in translation is Satomi Ishihara, who plays the Asian-American representative of the United States in the film.  Despite her character apparently having been born and raised in the US, Satomi's nationality is never in question because her English language scenes sound like she memorized her lines phonetically.  I don't want to be too hard on her, because I'm sure every time Tom Cruise speaks Russian in a Mission:  Impossible movie it probably sounds like garbage to native speakers, but for us US Godzilla fans, the fact that she speaks English so often makes it very hard to ignore.

But with those flaws noted and accepted, Shin Godzilla is a wonderful film.  Godzilla's scenes are quite good.  This is the first fully CG Godzilla in a Japanese movie (not counting Zilla in Final Wars, or the dream sequence in Always 2), and most of the shots look pretty good.  I mean, they're trying to emulate the look of a guy in a rubber suit, and by god, he really does look like a guy in a rubber suit.  Some of the CG on the earlier stages of Godzilla's life cycle are less convincing, with morphing effects being a slight shimmer that never looks too eye-pleasing.  Plus the first land appearance of Godzilla is adorable and has googly eyes.  I want a plush of that lovable, cartoony guy.

When G hits full Godzilla mode for his second appearance, the film pulls out all the stops.  The action is incredible, up to and including the use of a reimagined atomic breath, which first fills the entire cityscape with fire, then turns into a purple death beam that slices everything in half.  The movie might go a bit too far later on when he shoots the same lasers out of his back and tail, which is a weird image, but the evolution theme is in full swing and I'm letting them have their fun with the character by then.

There was talk about a Shin Godzilla 2 a while back, but I suppose that idea has been shelved in favor of Toho trying their own hand at one of those "cinematic universes."  This might be for the best, because I'm not certain where a sequel to this movie would have gone given the way this film ended (and alluded to in its final scene).  Though it might have been fun to Anno and Higuchi play with more Godzilla staples like monster brawls and/or alien invasion in this 'Zilla lore they've created.  However, it has been recently announced that Anno and Higuchi will be following this up with Shin Ultraman.  Dudes, you have my attention.

Shin Gamera next, please.

Premise:  Joe Brody, an American scientist living in Japan, seeks answers for the mysterious destruction of the power plant he worked at, which also led to the death of his wife.  His soldier son, Ford, becomes tired of Joe's conspiracy theories and tries to bring his father back to America with him, but not before Joe sucks Ford into one last ditch effort to prove there was a cover-up, which leads them into the heart of the supposed "nuclear meltdown."  They discover an organization called Monarch, that is secretly studying a cocoon where the nuclear reactor used to be.  Soon a giant creature hatches from it, a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism (MUTO), which destroys most of the facility, killing many people with it, including Joe.  With the MUTO on the loose, Monarch tries to contain the creature while Ford tries to reunite with his wife and son, before being swept up into the military countering the creature.  It is soon discovered that the MUTO has a mate in Nevada, which makes its way to San Francisco so the creatures can build a nest.  But Monarch's biggest secret, a giant prehistoric beast named Godzilla, has surfaced and is hunting the MUTOs, which leads to a confrontation in San Francisco.

I've already gone over my primary problem with this movie in my write-up on King of the Monsters, and while it would probably be redundant to repeat myself, it's relevant so it would probably be wise to post it here.  My one issue with this movie is how irrelevant Godzilla is with the entire thing.  In 2014, Godzilla had been absent from the silver screen for ten years, after Final Wars bombed at the box office.  It was the big guy's 60th anniversary, and he was overdue for a Hollywood makeover after the world unanimously rejected the last one.  Finally, he's back in a major franchise kickoff to a brand new Godzilla series...and the movie is about the MUTOs instead.  Godzilla just hovers in the water for the majority of the film, then appears in several spots to fight them off.  The plot doesn't revolve around his existence, which is only incidental at best.  If Godzilla weren't in the film at all and the military had killed the MUTOs themselves in the finale, the film's plotting wouldn't be any different.  The only real difference is we wouldn't have a kickass fight at the end.

Of course, that's not really what gets harped on.  So much of the bitching revolves around "DEM CUTAWAYS!" and "MUH BREAKING BAD GUY!"  The cutaways aren't too irksome to me, though the one that completely cuts out the fight in Hawaii is the big "Why the fuck would you do that?" moment in the film.  You can point to the minimalist tendencies of Jaws all you want as proof that less is more, but Jaws never cut away from conflict.  Conflict was always onscreen in the film, even if that broken ass mechanical shark wasn't.  By contrast, this film goes through great lengths to set up an action scene, then trolls its audience.  I hope you got a good laugh out of that, Gareth Edwards.

As for Bryan Cranston's role in the film, I feel his character has been woefully overrated by most who claim "he was the best character in the movie."  I mean, eh...I guess he is by default, but that doesn't really make him that great of a character in general.  He was a plot device to introduce the audience to the idea of the Monarch organization, which would in turn introduce us to the Titans and Godzilla.  His plot arc was finished, and the movie didn't really have anything else for him to do.  I guess he could have joined Monarch, and maybe we could have gotten a reaction shot of him seeing Godzilla or something like that, but his death serves a purpose to Aaron Taylor Johnson's storyline, which gives him the complete loss of his parents to give him even more of a drive to reunite with what family he has left.  Whether or not you respond to Johnson's acting in the film is up to you, though personally I think he's fairly underrated and the story of a soldier trying to march through the chaos, do his duty, and just return home is pretty interesting to me.

Largely the response to this movie is going to be based on whether that human story grabs you or not, which it's not surprising if it wouldn't.  Unlike King of the Monsters, Godzilla doesn't have an arc in this film, which means the human characters have to carry some of the burden.  The one plus side is that they don't have to carry too much of it, because Godzilla 2014 is a plot-driven movie and not a character-driven one, so a lot of the human scenes are simply based upon reacting to events that are out of their control.  If the movie favored character more, then weak characterization would be a bigger problem for me than it is.

A lot of what I've said so far are pros and cons of what are conveyed as weaknesses, but this film wouldn't be upper tier on my list if I didn't enjoy it more than at least half of the other Godzilla movies ever made.  There are some unquestionable strengths to the film, one of which is Godzilla himself.  While he isn't as relevant as I would like him to be, Godzilla is well portrayed and those on the CG team didn't skimp on giving the giant lizard a personality, which is greatly appreciated.  There are little subtleties to his character in the film, where you can tell he's thinking, anticipating, and contemplating.  It's wonderful that they created a film where he's not simply another mindless beast.

The antagonist monsters are the MUTOs, which are an original creation, though they are interesting inductions into Godzilla lore.  Certain physical attributes of the beings remind me of Orga from Godzilla 2000, mixed with a little Battra or Megaguirus in the case of the male.  The one thing I find curious about these creatures is that the movie basically uses them to retell the story of the 1998 American Godzilla movie, where the giant beast is building a nest and the military had to find it and destroy it.  I noticed the film began to mirror that film as I was sitting in that theater seat watching it for the first time on opening night, absolutely stunned the movie had the balls to do anything in common with that film, right down to the moment where the grieving mama looks over the remains of her nest only for her gaze to meet a remaining soldier and immediately (and correctly) blame him.  I mean, wow, this can't be coincidence at this point, right?

There are some technical details I'd like to give a shout-out to.  The cinematography by Seamus McGarvey is breathtaking, coupled with director Gareth Edwards idea of shooting the film mostly at angles of how humans would see the monsters, which is a pretty brilliant visual idea.  The thing about Godzilla movies is that so many of them utilize a dude in a rubber suit, so the camera is usually pointed at the monsters as if they're the actors in the film.  With the way McGarvey and Edwards frame the image it allows the audience to feel the full scale of Godzilla, and it is glorious.  I always get chills during the beautiful photography on Godzilla's first appearance in Hawaii, as panicking people on the top of a building shoot off flares, which reveal the monster's torso as it moves in between the buildings.  I also quite love Alexandre Desplat's score for the film, and I could listen to his opening credit theme all fucking day.

I was a little torn as to whether I should rank this movie or Shin Godzilla higher than the other.  I think what it boiled down to was that Shin had some glorious highs, though I think Godzilla 2014 was a more consistent movie that stuck the landing a little better.  I just about like both movies equally though, for entirely different reasons.  I'd feel more confident in ranking this movie higher if Godzilla had more of a role in it.  I remember watching this movie at my mother's house one day, while when the MUTO first appeared my step-father commented "That's the weirdest son-of-a-bitchin' Godzilla I've ever seen."  I had to point out that it wasn't Godzilla, to which he responded "I thought we were watching Godzilla?"  I think a lot of people asked that question.

Yes, that title is ridiculous.  Yes, it's the original Japanese title.  Unfortunately it was retained as the English and International titles also, and the entire world in unison just said "Let's just call the fucking thing GMK."

Premise:  It's been fifty years since Godzilla's attack in 1954, and the monster hasn't been seen since.  But when a nuclear submarine is destroyed, identifying Godzilla as the attacker, Japan prepares for the worst.  At the same time, monsters begin to awake across Japan, soon identified as "the Guardian Monsters," also known as Baragon, Mothra, and King Ghidorah.  It becomes theorized that Godzilla is the physical embodiment of the anguished souls of Japanese soldiers from World War II, and the Guardian Monsters are awakening to subdue him.  When Godzilla surfaces in Hakone, Baragon awakens to challenge him, but the beast is unable to take down Godzilla by himself and is killed in battle.  Godzilla then makes his way to Yokohama, where he enters an epic battle with Japan's Self-Defense Force, as well as Mothra and King Ghidorah.

This is a tricky one for me, because I've been in a weird place with this movie for quite some time.  I don't entirely know where I'd rank it, so I'm just going to dump it here.  I'll preface this by saying this is a fan favorite, and when it first came out, I loved it too.  Easily a top five flick back then.  In the years since, I'd watch this movie and think to myself "Eh, this thing about it kind of bugs me" and those moments began to grow and multiply.  It's gotten to the point where I don't have a desire to revisit it at any point in the future, because it keeps soiling itself a little more every time, and I'm afraid I'm going to grow to hate it.

GMK is the only Godzilla film to share a director with the Gamera franchise, Shusuke Kaneko, who directed the acclaimed Gamera trilogy from the 90's.  Furthering a disconnect between myself and my fellow fanbase, I'm not a huge fan of those films either.  I think the first is mediocre, the second is boring, and the third is actually pretty good, but it doesn't make me reevaluate the films before it.  GMK at the very least is better than the first two films in the Gamera trilogy, though my favorite films that I've seen from Kaneko are actually his two part adaptation of the Death Note manga.

(*Minor uninteresting note of coincidence:  Kaneko directed Azumi 2:  Death or Love, a sequel to a film directed by Godzilla:  Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura.  The first Azumi is saved by Kitamura's hyperactive violence, which is something Kaneko abandons entirely.  Very bad.  Do not watch.*)

There are creative choices in this film that just kind of nag at me.  Kaneko seems to like a lot of mysticism in his kaiju features.  The movie is a full-blown fantasy film, which is okay enough.  The film uses a spiritual story to embed a new allegory within Godzilla, which separates the creature from the atom bomb and latches onto a different aspect of World War II that haunts Japan, specifically the men who died for/or were abandoned by their country in a conflict that they were on the losing side of.  It's an interesting idea, but I don't fully think it pays off at any point in the film.  It mostly just comes off as a reason for Godzilla to be pissed off.  Godzilla can be pissed off for many reasons, and this comes off as needlessly overthinking it.

Since Godzilla the villain of the film, Kaneko needs three monsters to counteract him.  Strangely enough, one of them is King Ghidorah, who has never been a hero in any movie before or since.  There is a reason for his use in the film, in that Toho insisted the character be in the film and forced him on Kaneko.  Kaneko initially wanted the Guardian Monsters to be Varan, Anguirus, and Baragon, and while Toho would compromise on letting Baragon be in the movie, but since the box office of the Godzilla Millennium series had been middling up until this point, they insisted that the most prominent monsters be the box office draws of Mothra and King Ghidorah.  To be fair, mysticism has always been in Mothra's background, so her use in the film isn't too out of character, though Ghidorah feels...wrong.  In Ghidorah's defense, his design inspiration of Chinese dragons and the Hydra myth do work in his favor, but it is somewhat difficult to just let go of the creatures entire mythology just because Toho wants a few million Yen.

I'm not saying the movie would have been any better or worse had the film featured it's original kaiju lineup.  Personally, I'm always keen to see Anguirus in a movie, or Varan in any movie (Varan is so underused, it's not even funny).  But the film does have something of an uphill battle to even convince me Baragon has a place in it.  Like Varan, Baragon isn't featured in many films and doesn't have much of a history.  His only prominent feature role was in Frankenstein Conquers the World, in which he was merely an excuse for a dinosaur antagonist for a kaiju sized Frankenstein monster.  But still, using a character that those of us were familiar with in Ishiro Honda's films growing up in a way that abandons their character entirely in favor of just using their likeness for what should have been a brand new character entirely is somewhat irksome.

I would much rather have seen an alternate reality version of this film where Mothra, Ghidorah, and Baragon were cut out entirely in favor of original creations and designs, something Kaneko could have built from the ground up and worked in more organically into the movie.  But that probably never would have happened anyway, since the film had a tight schedule (Toho was strict with their one annual Godzilla movie a year routine at this point) and money was to be made.  New monsters Orga and Megaguirus didn't draw in crowds in the previous two entries, so familiar faces is what we got.  And they couldn't have picked a worse scenario to force that on.  It all winds up a detriment to what probably could have been a great monster movie, in my opinion.

There are a few aesthetic touches to the film I don't really get behind.  I think the monster puppets and costumes are a bit overly plastic and mechanical looking (especially Mothra and Ghidorah).  I like the idea behind Godzilla's design, but I think it lacks in execution.  The white pupils of his eyes aren't as intimidating as the film wants them to be and it just makes him look even more fake.  Eyes are an important tool in acting, and they can also be an important tool in puppeteering and suitimation, and the look robs him of that.  The film also has a couple sequences of unfinished effects work, which was a result of a locked in release date that Toho wouldn't move.  I'm also not a fan of Kow Otani's score.  I usually don't enjoy overly synthesized music in my films (there are some exceptions, but it's an uphill battle), as I tend to prefer music that at least attempts to sound more like an orchestra.  The music in GMK is definitely the work of a synthesizer, and I'm definitely not into it.

If it seems like I'm riding the film too hard for a film that's ranked this high on a list of thirty-five films, that's because most Godzilla fans would rate it higher and a part of me has to justify why I put it as low as I did.  There are too many aspects in this movie that just don't gel with me, even though I still concede that it's a good movie.  The monster fights in the film are quite incredible, and if Kaneku earned a reputation in the kaiju community for any reason, it's because he can direct a monster mash with style and flair.  Godzilla has one of his coolest death scenes ever, as a soldier travels inside the beast with a little mini-sub and blows a hole in his shoulder, which ignites as Godzilla uses his atomic breath which concludes in blowing up the monster.  The film ends on a deliciously stupid note, as Godzilla's heart is seen on the ocean floor, still beating, implying that the creature will regenerate and return.  Maybe in another fifty years.

The film has a fun human protagonist in Yuri, a young reporter hopeful that follows the creatures around with her camera and uncovers the lore of the Guardian Monsters as she tries to build the story of the century in Godzilla's attack.  The human element can get a tad cheesy with it's other human characters, especially when it comes to her father, who is an Admiral in the SDF (who concludes the film in the most groan-worthy way possible, by giving a monologue and saluting the sea in honor of the Guardian Monsters), but Yuri is always so enthusiastic and charming when she's onscreen and I can't help but enjoy her company.

And she has a great drunk scene.  I'm a sucker for a good drunk scene.

Elements of the film's themes are quite powerful too. I quite like the portrayal of a generational disconnect between those who lived through a tragic history against those who have not, and have either forgotten it, or ignore it to the point they choose not to believe it. It's a relevant thought that can be related to, as it's easy to say "Never Forget" to a situation such as 9/11, but the outlook of the event means something entirely different to those who didn't witness it, and only know of it as a history lesson. GMK portrays a Japan that has moved on from the original attack, though those that lived through it are disgruntled by the fact that their nation would so willingly leave it behind.

It's honestly been a while since I've seen this one, and it'll probably still be a while before I watch it again.  The idea of the film almost works spectacularly, just little things about it hold it back and become annoying in their own way.  It's placement here is more of a guesstimation than anything, because I've been constantly second guessing where exactly I should rank it, as I've flipped it up and down the next four films on the basis of "Well, this movie works better than those...or does it?  GAH!  I DON'T KNOW!"  Ultimately I put it below each of them on the basis that if I had to choose which of these five movies I'd watch right this second, this one would come in last, only topping others because I need to refresh my memory on it.  But it seems to degrade every time I watch it, so a part of me knows that if I were to watch it again, I'd drop it's ranking anyway, so I might as well just accept the inevitable.  Maybe one day I'll watch it and it'll recreate that glee that I felt the first time I watched it, but I was a kid in those days, and I'm a bitter old man now.  Maybe that day has passed.

But do I recommend it?  Sure.  A lot of people really dig this one, and even if I'm hard on it, I do admit that it's worth watching.  It's worth a go just to see if you're into it.