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K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
it's kind of sad that the rebirth of mothra movies call to mind a lot quicker than, you know, Mothra. i managed to snatch that up on DVD on an 'icons of sci-fi' set that included Battle in Outer Space and The H-Man, the latter of which is actually basically just a noir film with tokusatsu elements.

but Mothra is loving dope. it's really a fairly revolutionary film with regards to the godzilla films. for one, it kickstarts the trend of the monster living to the end of the movie. in movies before that point, monsters either got the shitstick at the end of man's 'superior intellect,' or, like, the wolf man finally really cured himself or some dumb poo poo. with mothra is was like, "okay, now the island jungle god really is an island jungle god, the paradigm of anthropocentrism is over, and after wrecking poo poo it just flies away righteously never having to answer to any of it. this immediately gets carried over into King Kong vs. Godzilla, followed of course by the one-two punches of Mothra vs. Godzilla and Ghidorah, The Three-Head Monster in 1964.

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K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
i can't believe i have to be stoop this low: Mothra vs. Godzilla is the '64 film, Godzilla vs. Mothra is the '90s one with Battra. The former is superior and, as Boogeystein says, probably (one of) the best giant monster movie(s) ever made.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

There's certainly plot continuity bridging the films, but Raids Again and King Kong Vs. Godzilla are extremely skippable.

King Kong vs. Godzilla, i still love it to death, but it's exactly what you get when everyone except the director gets on board with this idea that giant monsters are no longer 'scary,' but funny pro-wrestler types. honda eventually made the transition pretty smoothly in due time, but the battle scenes are so slowly paced, you see the learning curve of a guy who's really trying this pioneering kind of spectacle for the first time.

even the american version is superior just because it's faster paced, has a more lively score, and has the benefit of racist americans doing a meta-commentary on a spectacle of destruction that they themselves are responsible for.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Dylazodelan posted:

New (as of yesterday, the 18th) trailer is up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M89VLZgo1Vg

This is loving beautiful.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Gonna shamelessly promote a series of video essays I'm doing called Devotional Criticism which is giant monster-related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MCseZLVxBQ

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Uncle Wemus posted:

Even better is they wake up godzilla using lightning, like hes loving Frankensteins monster.

Actually, it's a reference to King Kong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebirah,_Horror_of_the_Deep#Production

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

And More posted:

I'll just quote this sentence from your video:
"Given that the British fantasy film Gorgo was not only released within the same year, but also preceded Mothra by several months, it is possible to hypothesise that this natural selection for monster survival was not coincidental, but rooted in a collective unconscious and universal renegotiation with dominant values in the wake of the Second World War."

Your delivery is stiff because you're clearly just reading the essay. Every second sentence is really long and filled with loaded terminology, which makes it hard to follow your train of thought. That sentence specifically is a loaded bombshell of a statement. It comes out of nowhere, and it goes nowhere. Please focus on one topic for more than ten seconds. I'd also urge you to make the subject matter seem less dry. Maybe focus on one thing you want to talk about, and really put effort into making it interesting.

Also, you let satan narrate your other video. :psyduck:

Fair enough. I retired the satan voice after the less than stellar response to it originally. I've got a lot of constructive stuff on my delivery needing to be more conversational in genchat, but what you're saying is also important: I need to tighten it up, cut some of the digressions.

Just so it's not only shameless self-promotion, Mothra is loving good go watch Mothra.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

mr. stefan posted:

You'd think after the billionth time a Godzilla movie is the subject of a "too much talking not enough stompy monsters" hot take, someone might realize that the monsters are traditionally there in a Godzilla movie to facilitate the characters, not the other way around

It's almost like Godzilla fans don't really like Godzilla.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Wizchine posted:

I watch movies about monsters fighting, but they're highbrow, you see, because they have plots and characters and everything...

You know what movies often have better plots and characters than Godzilla movies? Movies with no giant monsters in them at all. Giant monsters are clumsy metaphors - often literally clumsy because they fall on top of buildings.

What you're doing here is accepting this arbitrary delineation between 'high' and 'low' culture, which you further predicate on this vague conception of "clumsy metaphors."

So justify yourself: Why is Mothra a clumsy metaphor? Why is the geopolitical content of the film incidental to 'the real reason' (translation: the generic reason) we go to see Mothra?

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
I like it.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

GATOS Y VATOS posted:

Variety show from last Friday in Japan. Surprise! Shin Godzilla is all mocap, not a rubber suit at all (although there is some puppetry obviously with that shaking head/roar scene)

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

This movie is gonna be off the chain.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Crash74 posted:

The weird little shriveled up midget arms and the hugely out of proportion giant tail are freaking me out.

e: also lol looks like a good chunk of the movie is just watching people sit around a big desk looking befuddled. Are they just trolling tepco about fukushima for the entire movie?

The tail is the best part, because from some spoilery stills I've seen, at one point Godzilla literally begins using his tail as a second atomic laser beam source. There's a decent chance of some mad apocalyptic poo poo going down here. It's looking to be the best Toho Godzilla film since GMK, and probably the most 'esoteric' one since the original. All the footage revealed in that second rings heavy of Akira.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

Most designs make him more intelligent looking, but this one has the malevolent gaze of a turkey, with needle teeth that don't quite fit his mouth.


Along with this and the spoilers revealing that Godzilla in this movie is being conceived of as some kind of amphibious, evolving muck-thing, more like a cross-pollination between GMK-zilla and Hedorah points to the real success of the production design. This is simultaneously the most audacious Godzilla design, as well as the most 'traditional':



This movie is gonna be so loving sick.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

wyoming posted:

Wanna hug that little Godzilla.

Literally me at the end of the first Godzilla: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLhfzjs69sM&t=20s

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

OneThousandMonkeys posted:

If I enjoyed Final Wars, what are the other Godzilla movies I should watch?

The 70's ones, that's the era it draws upon the most

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Jesus, relax everybody: http://www.scified.com/news/us-theaters-booking-shin-godzilla-for-october

quote:

UPDATE (08/30/2016):
"Insider sources" claim Funimation will make their official announcement September 9th with up to 3 times as many theaters currently listed by Astounding Beyond Belief. We'll see if this proves to be true a week from this Friday or if they decide to bump up the announcement.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
The number one thing you gotta worry about with US releases is dub-titles

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
I always liked the '84 suit - it's got the brutish vibes of the Kingu-Goji design.

My fave is GMK Goji

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
That sounds awesome, though.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Improbable Lobster posted:

Not if you like movies to look good

It's the same principle as when a Universal Studios ride breaks down while you're on it, the lights go up, and you see the apparatus - that poo poo is often more technically marvelous than the threadbare attempts to disguise it

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Improbable Lobster posted:

I don't watch movies in the hopes of seeing how they were made. That's what documentaries are for.

I can see we're never gonna see eye-to-eye on this, but you still ain't hearin' me out. You being able to "see the strings" in 1080p is the inglorious fulfillment of chuckleheads since time immemorial falsely claiming that they could "see the strings" on their pan-and-scanned, washed out VHS tapes and cable television monitors.

It would be one thing if you told me, "The film grain and color balance isn't being accurately reproduced," because that's a genuine issue of bad transfer. But being able to see the strings guiding Rodan or the flamethrower in Gamera's mouth actually adds to the mystifying power of the spectacle for me. It's particularly satisfying knowing that I'm actually finally keying in on something that as a kid I could never see, but all the kids who picked on me claimed they could see just to spite what I liked. It would be like finding out a midget really did commit suicide in the background of The Wizard of Oz.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Dylazodelan posted:

If anything, the 90s films live up more to the "cardboard buildings" stereotype; there didn't seem like much was done to make them look like read buildings and not mostly-hollow models.

Well, also, by then they blew up Godzilla to twice his original size, ironically to compensate for how much higher the average building height had gotten in major metropolitan areas. Trade off is less detailed miniatures.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Snowglobe makes and important point, in that it's all but certain that the entire pre-production stage of every significant tokusatsu eiga - or special effects film in general - comes down to an uphill battle between the filmmakers' imaginations and what they're functionally able to achieve not just because of technical constraints, but economic and creative (the 'vision' of the producer(s)/director) ones.

For instance, this is concept art from the 1961 Mothra:





Notes from Tomoyuki Tanaka: Make it more female-friendly.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
The biggest problem today with high resolution transfers is actually when they eliminate texture, tone, and detail for the sake of an arbitrary standard of "clarity" or "smoothness" or "immersion."



K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

One term that's often used to describe this is "open matte." A Boy Named Charlie Brown was also subject to this difference in presented aspect ratios between theatrical and home video, but you can also observe it with live action films such as Across the Universe (though please don't observe Across the Universe).


It might be a translation thing, but it's technically correct. In the '61 film Mothra is identified as a "he" at least once. At least that's what the Region 1 DVD subtitles would lead you to believe. I am aware, however, that traditional Japanese really isn't a one-to-one with Western gender constructions, so it's probably more appropriate to see Mothra as not having gender at all, particularly because it's a primordial God thing which is spawned asexually.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Mothra doesn't lay eggs, silly, they're spontaneously generated from the Earth.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
I think one thing is that Edwards kind of disappointed expectations by shamelessly flying in the face of the assumption that an American reboot of Godzilla, with access to such superior spfx "fire power," would be at least somewhat less subtle than the average Japanese kaiju movie.

But, no, turns out he wanted to be even more restrained than that.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Rough Lobster posted:

Neutering Godzilla? His very landfall brings tsunamis and floods islands.. When he swims, he brushes aside the largest warships in the world as if they are rubber duckies in a child's bathtub.

Ah, but does he ever quip?!

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Godzilla's pretty anti-neutral throughout the film, what with the being driven to exterminate the Muto with extreme prejudice and what-not.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

KiteAuraan posted:

I'd hope Anno has the hang of that, even given the differences between anime and live action, considering he's been directing giant robot and monster poo poo since 1988 (and doing some of the animation for the Giant Warrior in Nausicaa).

Mr. Funny Pants posted:

If you hadn't figured it out, I've never seen any of his other stuff. :)

Giant God Warrior Appears in Tokyo bodes well, and is only 10 minutes: https://vimeo.com/64987176

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

SpaceWolfPurrp posted:

on the other hand that movie also has that whole Major Spielberg bit.

This is one of the best moments in Godzilla history.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
I'm seeing it today - always nice to take a train into the city, even if alone and sick.

I'm really trying to temper my enthusiasm but y'all and my predisposed love of Godzilla are making it super hard.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Shin Gojira is dope. It's a black comedy of the most audacious kind. Like the '54 film married to that Arabian Nights trilogy from last year.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:

It's really, REALLY funny. G14 only has a handful of morbid jokes, overall it's much more awestruck and mournful. But this was just plain quirky.

The key line in the whole thing is that the Americans coined the monster's name, and for a bit everybody's like, "Well, that's an interesting name," but then they're eventually like, "Ok, let's just call it Godzilla, it's not like it matters."

It's interesting, because bits and pieces of the movie seem obviously very votive of Gojira and its place in Japan's national cinema, but there's this undercurrent throughout the movie which is bitter and resentful. And not just about the obvious bureaucratic nonsense, but the pretense of "Godzilla." This great pop cultural metaphor and icon is trivialized. You can change him a million ways, but there's no 'mystery' anymore. In fact, the metaphor is already, always imminently in the state of being totally and thoroughly unpackaged and 'deconstructed.' So what's the point?

It's very poignant that it's actually the American film which comes off with this naive "New Sincerity" vibe, of 'reviving' a classic monster. But Anno and Higuchi go full-on post-modern with it. 'Reviving' Godzilla is pointless, the whole movie is actually about putting him back into stasis so Japan can soldier on into the unknowable, eternal "post-war era."

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
The soggy noodle scene really is one of the better bits I've seen in a long while. This film is incredibly nuanced in terms of tone. Even in this already overtly satiric style, there manages to be this well-timed "comedic relief" from the morbid absurdity of everything that's going on. The film really ropes you into the 'cosmic joke' of what's happening.

Like, basically, the closest way I would approximate it, explaining to someone who'd never seen it, is like the original film, but with all of the "human interest" removed. The chemistry between Hasegawa as Yaguchi and Ishihara as Patterson is like this constant, unstated joke at their chaste, conservative expense. There's this subtle self-consciousness about Ishihara basically playing into the post-war trope of "the foreign woman," who's this exotic, 'forbidden fruit' to Yaguchi. But the most intimate behavior which we see paralleled between Patterson and Yaguchi, and Patterson and President Ross, is hands touching: a handshake for the former, a paternalistic caress in the latter. All melodrama is just another part of the advancement of ideology.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
The movie ends with the two love interests sarcastically conspiring to create a globalist, neoliberal equivalent of the Clinton dynasty. There are definitely fascist undertones to Shin Gojira, but these are juxtaposed with a "monument" made of immolated citizens. It's no Pacific Rim, that's for sure.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
Specifically, the target of the film's satire is that Japan's post-war occupation and humiliation by the Allied superpowers persists only as to perpetuate their infatuated desire to participate in contemporary, globalist, "legitimate"/"legal" imperialism. As Mechafunk points out, this humiliation does not yet have anything to do with Japan's own imperialist atrocities. Rather, the characters are also burdened with remembering their proud, empiric history - with having this self-infatuated desire to emulate the successful, bureaucratic imperialism of the now, also, post-Cold War superpowers.

Mechafunkzilla posted:

They aren't just "immolated citizens" or casualties of war -- they've become twisted, nightmarish things, bursting forth among a host of fanged maws. Atonement means being devoured.

If the sins of the past were to truly catch up to us, that reckoning would destroy the world. The only option is to try and keep it frozen in the past -- but it isn't going away. We can only try and outpace it.

Right. The imagery even seems to be an overt callback to Godzilla vs. Hedorah.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
They're already going in the direction of an animated feature, so in-between that and Godzilla possibly sprouting deformed mutant-people-monsters as his next evolution, it's anyone's guess.

It's also going to be really interesting to watch the parallel between these and Legendary's films.

K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.

Maxwell Lord posted:

Glad this is going down well in America. Given that Godzilla 1985 kinda flopped here and Godzilla 2000 barely made acquisition costs, that may make this the first successful US release of a Toho kaiju film since the Seventies.

There's way more home media options for Godzilla movies and classic Japanese genre cinema in general now than there was in 2000. I'm sure the overlap with Eva helped, too.

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K. Waste
Feb 27, 2014

MORAL:
To the vector belong the spoils.
I still haven't quite wrapped my head around the fact that there was a Godzilla movie in 2016 where one entire scene was done in a single shot, from the point-of-view of a MacBook.

This movie ruled.

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