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So cold it can sting.
Say hello to my chocolate blend.
So cold it can sting.
So cold it can sting.
Ifukube lives!
Serj's vocal chords less so, and geez, the mixing on those chants... this one might be at home in the Nickleback thread. Still, as far as musical clusterfucks go, it's a catchy one:
This Cannot Continue
This is out on my birthday and i'm all kinds of excited
Active Member
this looks like they're gonna nail it.
Banned
If I'm not mistaken, Bear McCreary did the music for Battlestar Galactica, I loved that show.
Can't wait for this movie.
This Cannot Continue
If anyone is new to Godzilla (outside of the Holloywood films) this video has a pretty good run-down and suggested viewing for the films...
Active Member
Just heard the Serj Tankian track...CRINGE...(EDIT) Just heard the original...ok..got it. But WHY is this song a part of THIS movie?
I hope this isn't a reflection of the tone of the film. Also, definitely prefer the Alexandre Desplat score from the first one. Regarding the "Godzilla Main Title" track, it is a good new interpretation but the chants are annoying and what I loved so much about Desplat's is that is had some reminiscents of the original but was darker and spookier. Still need to give it another go, so I am not judging the score OR film yet obviously.
Last edited by Reznor2112; 05-29-2019 at 07:27 AM.
Active Member
Maybe they wanted to remind us of the actually quite nice soundtrack album to the 1998 movie.
Active Member
Waxwork is putting out the vinyl and rearranged the tracklisting from the digital which I like.
https://waxworkrecords.com/blogs/new...f-the-monsters
Active Member
Oh man, got out of the showing right now and I'm leaving quite disappointed. I don't know why really, but something just didn't fully click with me. I really really wanted to cheer for this movie.
Yet I LOVED Godzilla's revamped design, loved Gidorrah, Rodan and Mothra alike and fought that the fights played out very well. This movie delivers on all fronts where the first one didn't, BUT it doesn't make this one a better movie imho. The action is a little fast paced from time to time and some of the shots lack that scale the first one had. While the monsters and Godzilla himself only got bigger I didn't get that feeling of awe I had with the first. The human backstory is as negliable as it was in the first or even more so.
The score is nice overall although the chants throw me off a bit and I thought the original theme was missused as in/or overused. It's so imprinted with a black and white version of a man in a rubber suit that it felt out of place in a movie from 2019. A variation of the film like in Alien: Covenant would have served the purpose better.
Either way, it ranks on par with the first one as a movie full of flaws but with great effects and ridiculous monster action. Bring on Kong! The monsterverse is on the right track I think and it can only get better. 7/10
So cold it can sting.
I'd say it's basically everything the 2014 film wasn't, both in a good and a bad way. Here's some immediate thoughts I posted on Toho Kingdom last night. No spoilers:Originally Posted by dlb
Overall it wasn't tragic, but defo the black sheep of the Monsterverse so far. 6/10, I guess, might change upon the second viewing.note: I'm one of those mayflowers who still hold G'14 in high regards and among my top 10, keep that in mind reading this, your mileage may vary etc.
Just got back from my screening. Liked it. Didn't love it. The cinematography and the CGI are a major issue. Hardly any problems with main plot, I really liked the Russells and the Monarch crew really wasn't that bad, especially Serizawa - he gets one cringy quip (not the humanity's pet one) and a rather campy scene, but he pulls them off with dignity, Watanabe easily remains one of the highlights of the Monsterverse and probably the most compelling character here. (The less said about the script's treatment of Sally Hawkins, the better, though.)
The first act really sucks you in, awesome world building, excellent character introductions, fast pace, one really neat set piece, and the highest tension I've felt in the cinema in a long, long time, but once the sh!t really hits the fan, the titan scenes just... don't deliver. Part of it is the video gamey CG, part of it is how the fights are filmed. For me, it's not really about the elements and darkness obscuring the monsters, but the angles used, the chaotic close-ups, an insane amount of snap zooms and their reverse (negative zooms? zoom outs?) and things feeling somewhat weightless, plastic and almost mundane. There's plenty, plenty of monster scenes which must have sounded awesome on paper and probably looked even better in pre-viz, but on the screen they simply lack the OMG factor and the atmosphere that's needed here, and I can totally understand how some people will find them lackluster and still less than satisfactory.
As a positive counter-example, you'll all know what I'm talking about when I mention the tidal wave/airport sequence from 2014, the golden gate arrival or the atomic breath shots, but remember that scene where Cranston notices the male's cocoon in Janjira, takes a good look at it, we switch to an overhead total shot, Desplat's creepy choir kicks in, the countdown starts, and you have the sense that something big and foreboding is about to go down? Goosebumps all around, and if KOTM had moments like this to support the main plot and give some actual sense of dread it'd be so much better, man. The potential was really there for an amazing movie, but it doesn't quite deliver.
Catching it for the second time on Saturday. Really excited to read your thoughts.
Also, I agree about the classic themes sounding a bit out of place at times (I also love Desplat's score a great deal better than most of the fandom), but Jesus, that vinyl @Reznor2112 posted looks mouth-watering. My holy grail Godzilla vinyl would be the Shin OST, though, hope we get one someday.
Last edited by Microwave Jellyfish; 05-30-2019 at 05:18 PM.
BADGERS
This movie absolutely had the same problem as the first one where the director things his garbage plot and actors are more interesting than the monsters. But the then it has a contrasting problem where the monster action, in the rare moment we are actually allowed to see it, is not as good as the equally rare monster action from the last movie.
The plot is painful to sit through all the drama and the actors... Constant shots of spectrography any time I just wanted their submarine to fucking sink. It was infuriating.
Just not a good movie. This franchise is not in good hands
At one point there's an a quick shot of DC in ruins and it's like ..
I want to see these monsters ruin DC, I don't want to show up after the parties almost over.
Last edited by Wretchedest; 05-30-2019 at 09:27 PM.
Active Member
@Microwave_Jellyfish:
Couldn't have said it better. The fights are nice but they lack the gravity from the little glimpses we got in the first one. There were bits and pieces throught all of this madness that looked absolutely fantastic and great, yet the overall impression is that everything goes by way too fast and I missed shots like the one you described as well as Godzilla's arrival and the paratrooper scene.
@Wretchedest also has a good point. We always arrive amidst the action.
Any clues where a movie after Godzilla vs Kong will take us? I guess it's got something to do with the whole Spoiler: hollow earth theory, if that's something they don't already pull off next year.
Flaccid Member
They played their roles as always ... pretty boring. IMHO
BADGERS
Throbbing Member
Haven't seen the movie yet, but I have to disagree with the core philosophy of "we need to be showing all the battles all the time". While I get that the non-monster part needs to be able to justify its existence, which from what I'm getting is not the case here, this is different from saying "Hey, why the hell didn't you guys show me this city get wrecked?". After enduring roughly two decades of bombastic films with ultra-epic monumental fights for the salvation of the universe, and witnessing in detail the destruction of a host of vehicles, armies, cities, continents and/or planets, can we just please allow at least a couple of monster (or superhero or whatever) films to not be full of that as well? Again, this is not meant as a defense of this particular film, but as a general stance on the possibility of diversion from the non-stop cgi fest formula.
Active Member
I always wanted a Godzilla that felt grounded and scary, like the idea of giant radioactive monster coming to destroy the city you live in would be in reality. Cloverfield had that. Gareth Edwards Godzilla touched on it, but didn't fully nail. This movie seems like it has gone the opposite direction from what I'm hearing. I'm more of a fan of the original Godzilla. My favorite Godzilla is the 1984 one that plays as a sequel to the original. That one actually made Godzilla feel scary like the original movie. If I was the writer/director of an American Godzilla movie, I would use the 1984 Godzilla movie has my basis for how I would want my Godzilla movie to be. I want it to really put in the midst of the chaos in a city being destroyed. You don't need some big monster battle for it to be epic. You will need some good characters that you will follow and be like you're there with them.
BADGERS
I can handle cutting away from the action of course, but what you cut away from has to either compelling or funny... Entertaining in some way.
King of the Monsters cuts away to something boring and tedious, not even hoaky, just bad. But it also cuts away right when the action starts, after long stretches of drama, which is when it really stings.
Only By Night
Just watched Kong again, and man that movie is so dam fun with a perfect cast.
Saw this on Saturday it I was entertained. The CGI was amazing with some of the most beautiful shots I've seen in the past few years in a film. Cast was dreadful with not one likeable character throughout the entire movie, with the film following tropes, tropes, tropes. At least in the first film we got 5 to 6 solid minutes of Godzilla fighting the Muto's.
Active Member
I liked it. The human plot wasn't too bug of an issue with me. But the dialogue at times was cringy. 7.8/10
This Cannot Continue
I saw this (i'll post my review thingy in a bit) but i loved it! I can't fault people for not liking the story or characters, but as a fan of the original movies it all felt like a polished B movie with AAA looking monster effects and cinematography (some of the shots in this film were just gorgeous, Rodan over mexico, MG in the storm) and that was all i ever wanted from this! Hopefully Godzilla vs Kong will go full on with the monster action, but for me this was just what i was expecting.
And the post credits really threw my theory on GvK out the window
Active Member
This film was far from perfect, but I liked it a lot for what it was. The rotten tomatoes score is mind-boggling.
Active Member
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER
if you're gonna give me unlikable characters, cringey dialogue, a family crisis front & center that NO ONE CARES ABOUT & nonsensical, whirlwind plot devices that make me shake my head over and over, then you better deliver on the fight scenes like the first one did (somewhat) and Kong def. did. Instead, we got tons of rain, snow & smoke to hide things as much as possible, some insanely ridiculous thing where Godzilla rests in a temple built for him under the Bermuda Triangle, and that rest & subsequent dire radiation help given to him by Watanabe being the only reason Godzilla is able to get his act together (meaning Godzilla needed our help or he would have died....making him look weak as fuck imo).
how about the goofball shit that goes down in Boston? First of all, the action heads to Boston conveniently & clumsily heads to Boston only so they can have the girl use Fenway Park as her beacon (????) and then have an excuse for her to RUN INTO HER FAMILY HOUSE AWAY FROM THE SCARY BAD MONSTERS.
3/10. Brutal movie with more spectrographs than you'll ever want to see again in your life.
This Cannot Continue
I've seen it twice now and still love it. Granted it could do with less cuts in the fight scenes, but i adored all the fights scenes regardless! I wanna get a HD screen grab of the GK storm for my desktop wallpaper, its SO DAMN PRETTY!
For anyone interested the director has been doing a Q&A on twitter since release and revealed loads of little details about the film, and how many tiny Easter eggs are there that i missed BOTH times! Mothra is indeed alive (i did say this to my friend who hadn't seen the originals when she got super sad she died, Mothra never really dies, but it was nice to have that confirmed) by all accounts he and the team did put a LOT of effort into keeping it in line with the old movies and i really appreciate that.
Active Member
Another thing that drove me insane was the redemption arc of Farmiga's character. This woman knowingly goes all in on the murder of millions of people under the vague auspice that it will "restore the balance" or some such (as does her daughter), but then the movie tries to portray her as sympathetic by the end? Please, she would've been tried in court for mass genocide if she had survived.
The dad swoops in and schools all those supposed scientific Titan experts for the rest of the movie because...he has a background in studying wolfpack patterns?!?
i'll stop.
This Cannot Continue
Yeah i won't argue the plot/characters are bad...but given what happened in the originals i found this mostly funny and had fun with it rather then getting annoyed about it. Doesn't excuse it, i'm just finding more fans of the original rubber suits films have been more forgiving of it. Personally i think they should have gone full camp/cheese with the story and acting but i imagine WB's wouldn't have been cool with that.
If they can hit the awesome visuals/fights and campy fun story of Kong Skull Island for Godzilla vs Kong we could be onto an absolute winner. My only worry is the director...
Throbbing Member
Watched King of Monsters for the second time with good OLED picture and sound, amazing. I'm no Godzilla freak and I'm sure I missed a ton of references, but this one worked just perfect for me. I love job well done including details, for example that news articles at the begin of ending titles (things like "corals getting better after Godzilla swim by"), with quickly "censored" words, or "digital artists" names after "Industrial Light & Magic" - I counted 5 pages full of names, then about 4 more FX companies, I think there must be thousand people involved. Which leads me to wondering how is project this big organized, I'd like to see that. You know, after some 25+ years working in IT, I'm not sure I once worked in an environment where we could pull out something this big and with hard deadline... whew, respect. But anyway, the result is one seriously immersive movie.
I also liked the previous one (2014), I seem to remember that around similar time there was Godzilla movie which was not about Godzilla :-) and Bond movie which was not about Bond, and both were good.
Then I also wonder what it says about me that the two best movies I saw this year are this friendly monster and then... Arctic, just very slightly cheaper one to make. :-)
<spoilers>
Edit: Or for example, I rewinded when... it was probably Rodan vs. Mothra? (had to look names up) That "bad" Rodan is winning, SNAP! SNAP! And going for the final bite, unexpected sound and it freezes with face like "FUCK..." :-D And at the end, Godzilla the Kings looks at one of them and it suddenly changes to submissive "yes master", just very minimal changes of face (?) mimic expression.
Note: Now I feel an urge to watch that golden dragon with tongs of gold from Hobbit for some reason. ,-)
Edit 2: Or on that submarine, Godzilla looks like "hey, sorry for killing your son, bro", and he's like "what the hell is this thing really...?" Not making fun, I loved that all. Sorry I can't remember names, e.g. after finishing a book I can't tell what was the name of main hero. ;-)
Last edited by Substance242; 08-25-2019 at 02:50 PM.
Active Member
I finally got to see Godzilla: King Of The Monsters yesterday and I am sad to admit that I really, really did not like this movie at all. I thought Godzilla 2014 was decent. I was honestly bored halfway through this one and thought the special effects were godawful and cartoony. I was bored by the fights and all sense of scale was absolutely lost. Their was no weight to the monsters like in Edwards' film. It seems they were inspired more by the silly Godzilla movies. The fights were handled much better in Edwards film. At least the monsters felt huge and threatening. This film went the complete opposite direction and was just mindless action. And many of the fight scenes were just handled poorly. Sure, in Edwards' Godzilla, the characters weren't as good, but he handled everything else good. In this one, the characters are slightly more interesting, but the rest was just loud noises and flashy images Where Edwards kept it grounded, this one went full cartoon. It honestly hurts me to write this because I was expecting more from this movie. I really wanted to enjoy it, but felt overly disappointed. I'm sorry, but I thought the CG looked like shit.
Last edited by neorev; 08-28-2019 at 06:46 PM.
Active Member
Has anyone checked out the massive Criterion boxset featuring all of the Showa era films? My local library finally got it in and I've been taking a look at some of the films I haven't seen in either a long time or ever. It's been cool to check them out in HD and Tohoscope.
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