If the Japanese had the atomic bomb they’d probably drop it on something they considered mundane, like China, considering the fact they used both chemical and biological weapons there too rather freely. They held both of those back against Western allied forces since they were fearful that the West would hit back and twice as hard.
The film premieres in Japan tonight and the first reviews are overwhelmingly positive.
Sounds like it evokes a very similar mood to Shin Godzilla, but with civilians as the focus characters rather than politicians. I’ll definitely be seeing it next month.
The nice thing about fiction, especially science fiction, that that you have plausible denability as to what your story is about. Is The Forever War just a story about soldiers in the future having to deal with time dilation and the alienation that comes from returning to Earth after decades or centuries of fighting? Sure. Is it also about Vietnam and the alienation many returning soldiers felt once they were back home? Maybe.
I mean, the version I read had a foreword by the author where he says that he knew when he was writing it that mankind having interstellar travel by the '90s wasn’t going to happen, but he needed to set it then so that the senior NCOs in the opening chapters could be Vietnam vets.
Trailer for the US release.
It’s early in the morning and I’m not completely awake, but watching the trailer. Ho-hum, same old same old. Then the switchblade spines go blue and pop out.
Uh-oh.
I’ll be seeing this, most definitely.
Well, a movie about the atomic bomb exploding not only hits a little too close rto home, but it’s over too fast and there’s no drama. I recall a panel discussion I once attended on monster movies, where one film critic observed that “there’s a reason monsters move slowly”. It gives people time to see the slowly advancing danger and react to it (mostly by fleeing), and to show different ways they can respond (firing guns at it, setting up electrical barriers, trying to come up with creative scientific countermeasures). Besides which the metaphor is interesting in itself. Even a giant, keloid-scar-covered radioactive destroying monster has more soul and charisma than a hard, steel-covered bomb casing.
Just saw this and it was very good. A little slow and a little simplistic but a well made movie. It made me very interested in learning more about Post WWII Japan as the movie is more a drama with a Monster than a Monster Movie but it does have some great Monster action clearly made to look like the old style Man in Suit but not silly or comical at all. It also has the great music from the original 1950s movie.
Anyone else see it?
Existing thread;
I meant to see it yesterday, but didn’t have time so I’ll be catching it on my next day off.
There was a pretty good crowd at my local theater, not bad at all for a subtitled foreign movie.
The movie is good but it’s maybe being overhyped just a little bit. I liked the period setting, the main character’s story, and the special effects. It’s well-paced, if a bit slow in a few places. The iconic monster theme plays like gangbusters. BUT: some of the acting felt like overacting (an East/West thing, to be sure), the Godzilla design is weird, and the proposed strategy to combat the monster seemed way overly elaborate.
But the movie is fun, the story works, and audience I was with seemed to love it.
SMOKING HOT TAKE; for an iconic character who’s been around for 70 years, the creators have yet to settle on a definitive creature design. There has NEVER been a good Godzilla costume/design/whatever in 70 years. The Big G always looks wrong somehow. The creature in this one was too spiky and his legs were too fat.
TOHO needs to fix this.
May I remind you that in the very first Godzilla movie the government’s plan to defeat Godzilla is to construct a doomsday device that shreds oxygen molecules at the atomic level and which will almost certainly provoke a new international arms race if its existence becomes known to the public.
They also used an oxygen destroyer in the 2019 movie, “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”. It kinda works.
The oxygen destroy was simple and cool. Wait’ll you see the freon method of taking care of the Big G.
I really enjoyed it. It checked all the boxes for a Godzilla movie, had a nifty Jaws homage, and all of the characters had well defined and differentiated motivations (and not a villain among them). Most of the beats were predictable, but so what?
I’m glad I saw it with subtitles. That kept reminding me that there were Japanese-centric metaphors and themes also on display. There’s a whole (rather naked) subtext about the transformation of Japanese cultural norms on a range of issues.
Does anyone know when it hits streaming?
Saw it in IMAX today. Was very good.
A solid film.
Godzilla returns to the Dark Side, in a big way (ha-ha).
He’s damn frightening, and is the unleashed fountain of rage and hate we have all come to love.
The Human characters are nuanced, and appealing. Sets & costumes are excellent.
FX–a tad spotty, in places. Closeups of his hide look a tad generated, for a second or two. But this is a quibble.
Very good, overall. 8/10, or perhaps better.
This represents my take as well. It’s an excellent -Godzilla- movie, not a movie for all times and all places. It’s less heavy handed than Shin Godzilla for example, and far less full of overhyped and overproduced combat like the modern American Godzilla movies. It isn’t super original (duh), and very predictable (equal duh), but it is plenty of fun. It also avoided the issues of most modern Godzilla (especially American versions again) of trying to make anything particularly -plausible- or overexplaining the origins and plans to defeat.
[Moderating]
Merged threads.
Some spoilers below.
I really enjoyed it, and thought the cinematography was beautiful and the soundtrack was nice. The ending was a little too telegraphed for me. Probably one of the most emotional-forward of all the Godzilla movies. I thought the main lead Shikishima was the weakest link, though. His big emotions didn’t work for me. The entire theater turned against him when he told the child to not call him dad, you feel the “oh no he didn’t” energy just surging from the seats.
It was fun to see Hidetaka Yoshioka grow from his child star start in Tora-san movies to the wild haired scientist. We joked that his hair should have gotten its own billing. And tokusatsu fans might enjoy seeing Yuki Yamada play something other than a pretty boy.
I actually really liked chunky boy Godzilla, and I liked how he was portrayed way more animalistic in this film than some others. I thought the CGI managed to capture his scale and horror pretty well.
I don’t know if they are setting it up for a sequel (Godzilla minus .5??), but the ending of DUN DUN DUN Noriko is Godzilla now was pretty funny if they aren’t going to do another.