Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
RBX
Jan 2, 2011

It was the ground the throne was on top of.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Bootleg Trunks
Jun 12, 2020

DrDraxium
Dec 2, 2002




Plz state the nature of the medical emergency
My kingdom for a modern re imagining of Biollante. Either Legendary or Toho I don't care, although Anno could design and direct a loving excellent vs. Biollante film imo.

I think you could slap in some decent climate change messages too, why shouldn't the earth be fighting back when a gigantic mutant plant / Godzilla emerges through human tampering.



This art is good and definitely on track, but Biollante needs to be about 3 times bigger. I remember watching it as a child and the scale of Biollante was unlike any other kaiju Godzilla had faced at the time of release. Fitting his whole head in his gigantic mutant croc mouth was a terrifying sight to my 9 year old brain.

Halloween Jack
Sep 12, 2003

La morte non ha sesso
I want Gigan.

Ben Nerevarine
Apr 14, 2006

Halloween Jack posted:

I want Gigan.

:same:

teagone
Jun 10, 2003

That was pretty intense, huh?

Gigan, then Megalon. Then Jet Jaguar.

IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT.

Happy Noodle Boy
Jul 3, 2002


Brody Jr signs up for the Jet Jaguar program to face the imminent kaiju thread once Godzilla leaves the surface world to go help Kong with hollow earth poo poo.

Burkion
May 10, 2012

by Fluffdaddy

Happy Noodle Boy posted:

Brody Jr signs up for the Jet Jaguar program to face the imminent kaiju thread once Godzilla leaves the surface world to go help Kong with hollow earth poo poo.

Jet Jaguar would be the worst/best Jaeger

He'd just smile vacantly while humans tried to pilot him, but the moment they turn their backs he'd go off on his own and do some sick nasty stuff

Tekne
Feb 15, 2012

It's-a me, motherfucker

Pulcinella posted:

Also I guess I just have a question about the “lore” So is the “power source at the center of the hollow Earth that has the same energy signature as Godzilla” suppose to be the Kong civilization axes? And are the axes scales from dead godzillas? It was unclear to me if the axes were drawing energy from the (unseen) power source or they were the power source (and I guess randomly power themselves up but can also be powered by Godzilla

It reminds me of the Doom Eternal plot that just constantly retcons itself while tripping over a bunch of needlessly complicated lore it introduced for no reason.
About the energy, Ilene says that the axe is drawing power directly from the core after Kong places it into the indentation. While I don't if it can be applied to the cartoon physics in the movie, Earth's center is basically an enormous incredibly powerful dynamo, capable of generating an electromagnetic field strong enough to shield us from the sun's radiation. I guess that also implies Godzilla has an even more innate connection to the Earth than his role as the immortal protector and may draw power from the planet in a similar fashion to the axe.

Instead of Bagan, the kaiju terrorists could create Gigan from all the DNA they stole and some spare mecha parts.

Megaman's Jockstrap
Jul 16, 2000

What a horrible thread to have a post.
Most people don't know about the space alien stuff in Godzilla, so using that storyline and then marketing the trailer as a sort of Independence Day-esque sequel before the bait-and-switch has the invader's plan broken up by a surprise Godzilla appearance would cause people to lose their poo poo.

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

and god is on your side
dividing sparrows from the nightingales
I think a solution to the human part of this movie would be to completely excise the returning human characters, its distracting when Kyle Chandler is in the movie for five minutes and does nothing or when Millie Bobby Brown just follows someone else doing things

This would also sever the tenuous continuity that just makes it feel messy and unfocused when Godzilla and Kong are essentially different entities and everything interesting was retconned away, and it would let them truly cut loose and make the 'monkey king travels through 70s prog rock album to find the magic space axe to challenge the dragon god' film the director wanted to make and we all wanted to see

Bootleg Trunks
Jun 12, 2020

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Most people don't know about the space alien stuff in Godzilla, so using that storyline and then marketing the trailer as a sort of Independence Day-esque sequel before the bait-and-switch has the invader's plan broken up by a surprise Godzilla appearance would cause people to lose their poo poo.

The space gorillas weren't in league with the space cockroaches were they?

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

The Notorious ZSB posted:

If they'd added more people parts to connect the plot it would have dragged, but honestly I can't really think of a human plot in a Godzilla film I thought was good outside of Shin and the original really. The humans are just there to witness and occasionally interject, so that they basically just were pet sitting Kong to check out the action was fine by me.

People keep saying this kind of poo poo, so let’s isolate the ‘monster plot’ from the ‘human plot’:

Godzilla blows up a factory. Meanwhile, Kong is depressed because his cage is too small. He gets taken on a boat ride to Antarctica. Godzilla is now trying to murder Kong for no clear reason. Kong nearly drowns and passes out. He is now being flown to Antarctica by helicopter.

The helicopter drops Kong in front of a hole. Kong is lost and has absolutely no idea what’s going on, but a little girl tells him his family might be in the hole. So, Kong jumps in the hole and finds a large building built by other Kongs. (The Kongs are all missing or dead for reasons unknown). The building is powered by dead Godzillas or something. Kong turns the power on.

Godzilla, who is basically on the other side of the planet, instantly blows up the building with the lizard equivalent of an airstrike. Because vengeance?

Kong climbs to Hong Kong and once again gets beaten nearly to death. When Kong wakes up, Godzilla is now fighting a robot(???). The girl from before says “Godzilla is not an enemy”, so Kong kills the robot and Godzilla leaves him alone. The end.


As a story, the basic issue here is that Godzilla is maybe drawing a deliberate parallel between the Kongs’ building and the robot. He evidently sees them as connected examples of “bad technology” - but Kong has no real way of making that connection. To him, the robot is completely random.

Kong is also basically asleep for a large chunk of the runtime - and he has no actual beef with Godzilla until his ancestors’ building gets shot.

In any case, there are simply way more effective ways to tell the story “King Kong searches for his homeland while being pursued by a deadly monster”.

Chronojam
Feb 20, 2006

This is me on vacation in Amsterdam :)
Never be afraid of being yourself!


Wolfsheim posted:

Millie Bobby Brown just follows someone else doing things

Sometimes she's driving an old van while vaporwave music plays because Stranger Things was successful.

vvvv that's the one

Chronojam fucked around with this message at 06:23 on Apr 7, 2021

Detective No. 27
Jun 7, 2006

Synthwave.

Vaporwave is a different beast.

GATOS Y VATOS
Aug 22, 2002


I believe Virtual Cat is more synthwave

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmb_s4_atjw

Vintersorg
Mar 3, 2004

President of
the Brendan Fraser
Fan Club



Yah Vaporwave is more 90s aesthetics and kinda slowed down.

Here’s the most famous song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkPcPqTq4M

The a e s t h e t i c is the most important part. Late 80s/90s advertisements, ancient statues, pinks, lovely mall music.

...I love it.

Synth/retro is pure 80s and more faster paced for the most part. Everything arcade games promised and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_4fQDZPutA

Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


Vintersorg posted:

Yah Vaporwave is more 90s aesthetics and kinda slowed down.

Here’s the most famous song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQkPcPqTq4M

The a e s t h e t i c is the most important part. Late 80s/90s advertisements, ancient statues, pinks, lovely mall music.

...I love it.

Hell yeah groovin' to mallwave

quote:

Synth/retro is pure 80s and more faster paced for the most part. Everything arcade games promised and more.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_4fQDZPutA

Basically the best Synthwave is the chill tracks to play driving around in your car in the city at night. I would basically recommend The Midnight to anyone, not just people who are really into 80's poo poo.

gohmak
Feb 12, 2004
cookies need love

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

People keep saying this kind of poo poo, so let’s isolate the ‘monster plot’ from the ‘human plot’:

Godzilla blows up a factory. Meanwhile, Kong is depressed because his cage is too small. He gets taken on a boat ride to Antarctica. Godzilla is now trying to murder Kong for no clear reason. Kong nearly drowns and passes out. He is now being flown to Antarctica by helicopter.

The helicopter drops Kong in front of a hole. Kong is lost and has absolutely no idea what’s going on, but a little girl tells him his family might be in the hole. So, Kong jumps in the hole and finds a large building built by other Kongs. (The Kongs are all missing or dead for reasons unknown). The building is powered by dead Godzillas or something. Kong turns the power on.

Godzilla, who is basically on the other side of the planet, instantly blows up the building with the lizard equivalent of an airstrike. Because vengeance?

Kong climbs to Hong Kong and once again gets beaten nearly to death. When Kong wakes up, Godzilla is now fighting a robot(???). The girl from before says “Godzilla is not an enemy”, so Kong kills the robot and Godzilla leaves him alone. The end.


As a story, the basic issue here is that Godzilla is maybe drawing a deliberate parallel between the Kongs’ building and the robot. He evidently sees them as connected examples of “bad technology” - but Kong has no real way of making that connection. To him, the robot is completely random.

Kong is also basically asleep for a large chunk of the runtime - and he has no actual beef with Godzilla until his ancestors’ building gets shot.

In any case, there are simply way more effective ways to tell the story “King Kong searches for his homeland while being pursued by a deadly monster”.

The champion of man refuses to bow down to God and gets smote. Man tries to usurp god by creating one of their own with the aide of the devil. The devil betrays man. Man's champion learns to submit to God and fight on his side to vanquish the devil. Champion is awarded the garden.

gohmak fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Apr 8, 2021

bushisms.txt
May 26, 2004

Scroll, then. There are other posts than these.


God eats man, woman inherits the earth.

ungulateman
Apr 18, 2012

pretentious fuckwit who isn't half as literate or insightful or clever as he thinks he is
Characterising Kong as a 'champion of man' sure is a Take

Gatts
Jan 2, 2001

Goodnight Moon

Nap Ghost

ungulateman posted:

Characterising Kong as a 'champion of man' sure is a Take

The world needs him

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

gohmak posted:

The champion of man refuses to bow down to God and gets smote. Man tries to usurp god by creating one of their own with the aide of the devil. The devil betrays man. Man's champion learns to submit to God and fight on his side to vanquish the devil. Champion is awarded the garden.

You’ve already constructed a better story by having Kong be the aggressor in the first battle, and then having Robo-Godzilla be a product of Kong’s failure.

Also, simply characterizing Kong as “the champion of mankind” and Robo-Godzilla as “the devil” is doing more than the film does. There is zero explanation of what “Monster Zero” is in this movie, or why it’s important.

Mantis42
Jul 26, 2010

Actually, King of the Monsters went out of it's way to frame Ghidorah with the cross in it's most famous shot. Now, in this one, he rises from the dead. Clearly, King G is a Christ figure, not a Devil.

bushisms.txt
May 26, 2004

Scroll, then. There are other posts than these.


Mantis42 posted:

Actually, King of the Monsters went out of it's way to frame Ghidorah with the cross in it's most famous shot. Now, in this one, he rises from the dead. Clearly, King G is a Christ figure, not a Devil.

But we know better now, don't we? Devils don't come from hell beneath us. They come from the sky.

GATOS Y VATOS
Aug 22, 2002


bushisms.txt posted:

God eats man, woman inherits the earth.

:hmmyes:

Vinylshadow
Mar 20, 2017

Easter Sunday, but it's APEX wondering where Ghidorah's head has gone

Chronojam
Feb 20, 2006

This is me on vacation in Amsterdam :)
Never be afraid of being yourself!


SuperMechagodzilla posted:

There is zero explanation of what “Monster Zero” is in this movie, or why it’s important.

Monster Zero Exposition

ptkfvk
Apr 30, 2013

I think not having the monarch people to tell us about the general destruction going on was kind of a bummer. the previous 2 movies spent a lot of time telling or showing us the destruction. in this one you only hear or see whats right in front of you. not many satellite shots or shots from planes and stuff.


i dont think people would respond to mechagodzilla losing that well. or even the existence of mechagodzilla. some billionaire was able to create a robot that could throw godzilla through the air and nobody knew about it?

Mokelumne Trekka
Nov 22, 2015

Soon.

https://twitter.com/Luiz_Fernando_J/status/1380189691748696068

Maybe it's common knowledge that King Kong is more popular than Godzilla in China? News to me. Huh.

this makes me think another standalone Kong movie is likely (Kong: Hollow Earth?), I assume Legendary does not have to renew its license for the character (unlike with Toho for Godzilla)

Karloff
Mar 21, 2013

There's this assumption I keep seeing crop up that the original Godzilla films all have lovely human stories aside from the first and that it's just a cornerstone of the series but I'm not sure that's really true. Off the top of my head Godzilla, Mothra vs. Godzilla, Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, Godzilla's Revenge, Terror of MechaGodzilla, The Return of Godzilla, GMK, and Shin Godzilla all have decent human stories, and most reach a level of passable. True, they're often not complex, or would stand up to scrutiny if removed from the context of the monster picture they're in but they do often complement and re-enforce the monster drama and themes of the film. I'd include Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters in that category, I think in both those films the human characters reach their dramatic catharsis through the actions of the monsters, an element entirely absent from Godzilla vs. Kong.

Magic Hate Ball
May 6, 2007

ha ha ha!
you've already paid for this
I kind of appreciated how eyewateringly dumb this movie was, every few minutes there was something that made us both go "what? oh my god", which was fun. My main weird nitpick is that the hollow earth land is two parallel planes, as opposed to a sphere. Big monsters fighting isn't really something I enjoy, but the Geostorm-esque stupidity kept me going.

Ben Nerevarine
Apr 14, 2006
What GvK had for me over KotM—besides action you could actually follow—was it didn’t waste time trying to justify why it was doing what it was doing. The reasons were often dumb but at least they made sense as a logical sequence of events, and trusted the audience to follow them. KotM is all breathless characters overcomplicating inherently silly stuff interspersed with quips that didn’t land, and ugh

Lurdiak
Feb 26, 2006

I believe in a universe that doesn't care, and people that do.


Ben Nerevarine posted:

What GvK had for me over KotM—besides action you could actually follow—was it didn’t waste time trying to justify why it was doing what it was doing. The reasons were often dumb but at least they made sense as a logical sequence of events, and trusted the audience to follow them. KotM is all breathless characters overcomplicating inherently silly stuff interspersed with quips that didn’t land, and ugh

There was some of that in this one still and it was horribly painful. Just people yammering on and on about Titan biology and history and why monky is fighting lizard. You don't have to create a weird complicated set of rules and bad lore to explain why monsters run around loving poo poo up.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe
The main thing for me that makes GvK a major upgrade over KotM is the Hollow Earth stuff is just so wacky and entertaining compared to Dad and Vera Farminga talking about frequencies or whatever in KotM. If I'm watching crazy hover ships and ridiculous sci-fi landscapes in between the monster fights that's a huge point in the movie's favor.

Ben Nerevarine
Apr 14, 2006

Basebf555 posted:

The main thing for me that makes GvK a major upgrade over KotM is the Hollow Earth stuff is just so wacky and entertaining compared to Dad and Vera Farminga talking about frequencies or whatever in KotM. If I'm watching crazy hover ships and ridiculous sci-fi landscapes in between the monster fights that's a huge point in the movie's favor.

Agreed, when they got to Hollow Earth and those synths kicked in I was all in

GATOS Y VATOS
Aug 22, 2002


The third episode of Godzilla Singular Point is on Netflix Japan and it's really great. Compelling characters: check. New ideas: check. High tension and also comedy: check. I really look forward to it being released in the US- the 1st episode has been fansubbed and can be found in the usual places. There apparently is work being done on episode 2 now.

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Yeah Singular Point has been good so far.

The Notorious ZSB
Apr 19, 2004

I SAID WE'RE NOT GONNA BE FUCKING SUCK THIS YEAR!!!

Karloff posted:

There's this assumption I keep seeing crop up that the original Godzilla films all have lovely human stories aside from the first and that it's just a cornerstone of the series but I'm not sure that's really true. Off the top of my head Godzilla, Mothra vs. Godzilla, Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs. Monster Zero, Godzilla vs. The Sea Monster, Godzilla's Revenge, Terror of MechaGodzilla, The Return of Godzilla, GMK, and Shin Godzilla all have decent human stories, and most reach a level of passable. True, they're often not complex, or would stand up to scrutiny if removed from the context of the monster picture they're in but they do often complement and re-enforce the monster drama and themes of the film. I'd include Godzilla 2014 and King of the Monsters in that category, I think in both those films the human characters reach their dramatic catharsis through the actions of the monsters, an element entirely absent from Godzilla vs. Kong.

I think it's less that they're "lovely" per se and more that they are often threadbare vehicles to transport the viewer from one monster fight to the next. Which imo is really all the people in this film are here to do. If anyone but maybe the little girl got stomped I wouldn't care, and I didn't care when (oh name drop you're related to the bad guy/good guy) gets got in this film. I feel like it has less to do with the quality of the story than their place in us engaging with it.

You've mentioned multiple films where the human plot is certainly serviceable, esp in the showa era where it was basically "chase down the aliens/uncover the mysterious information". That doesn't equate to good for most viewers because you still have no real attachment to the humans and what they're doing. A lot of those plots were literally just tools to transport the characters to a new place to see the monsters appear again (Sea Monster, Terror of Mecha G, at least one of the Ghidorah films).

Return, Shin, the Original, all have human plots which play in parallel to the monster stuff and often independent of the monster action which you engage with. I don't need the humans parts to be more than ways to get me to the monster punching, i'll enjoy a Kaiju film with just that in it. when they can craft a more layered story for the humans, I think the films are stronger for it.

I really do feel like there are just different sorts of kaiju films and depending on what kind you want to consume there are good examples in both camps. Thoughtful examination of humanity through the horror of uncontrollable monsters and big thing punches other big thing and this is entertaining. I feel like Shin is a great example of the first while GvK is much more the latter camp. I am good with both.

I feel like its okay to say "the human parts of this were lacking but that's okay because it delivered on this other part of the genre I also enjoy".

Then there is the US Godzilla which does not meet either criteria for a quality kaiju film.

The Notorious ZSB fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Apr 8, 2021

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Name Change
Oct 9, 2005


A movie should be interesting all the way through. For the most part the new Godzilla movies are an absolutely inessential snore when it comes to human characters, and more concerning yet is that this is a feature and not a bug. The strategy is clearly to hire a bunch of working actors you've seen in better stuff for paycheck roles. This is cynical enough that they used Bryan Cranston as a marketing bait and switch.

It doesn't have to be Shin Godzilla or anything serious, you're allowed to be Final Wars-level of just some parallel genre movie earnestly happening next to the kaiju movie. Doing a no-effort Michael Bay plot ripoff is not it, although these movies don't have racist baby godzillas pissing on people and the meat and potatoes action sequences are satisfying, so baby steps I guess.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply