G. H. (Gman)October 17, 2013[i]Having him be vengeful souls would be fine if they didn't also go with the Radiated dinosaur. Having both, but not being clear on which it is was a dumb idea. If he's the souls leave it at that, if he's the radiated dinosaur then there. You can't throw both in the mix when they are 2 completely different things and then not be clear as to which he is.[/i]
I don't really understand this logic. Godzilla IS a radiated dinosaur, but what he stands for and symbolizes is typically something different. This is like saying it's okay for Godzilla to only be a force of nature, but not a dinosaur. That doesn't make any sense. The issue is that Godzilla has always been used to represent more than what he is. Simply saying he should've only been a mutated dinosaur dumbs down the character. It's not fair to either fans or filmmakers to make him so one dimensional.
[i]There was so rivalry between Ghidorah and Godzilla in that move as Godzilla was always winning. There was never 1 second that it even seemed Ghidorah had the upper hand. Giving some1 a new role isn't necessarily a good idea if it doesn't work and this one didn't. Putting in 2 popular monsters who don't fit the plot over the originals is a very dumb idea from a story telling standpoint. Sure it made no money, but at the expense of 2 known monsters getting dragged through the mud, and put in roles they didn't fit.[/i]
Not true. When King Ghidorah gained the ability to fly he launched an energy blast that scarred Godzilla's neck and gave General Tachibana the edge to drill through. He also dragged Godzilla underwater and was smothering him until one of the Satsuma subs accidentally fired a missile into King Ghidorah's face. So there was easily screen time where King Ghidorah had an edge on Godzilla. Granted the roles may have not fit (although Mothra has always been a mystical creature), but Kaneko made the most of it by building King Ghidorah up as the top guardian beast. Besides, it's not the first time King Ghidorah has had a vastly different origin. The Heisei King Ghidorah and [i]Mothra 3[/i] King Ghidorah have very little in common with the Showa version. Not that the fight is what makes the rivalry so intense. King Ghidorah was the last of the beasts Godzilla took on and he kept coming back for more.
[i]This movie tried to do too many things. Throw in mysticism while not being clear about it. Throwing in the most overused Godzilla enemies in yet another movie despite plot and director views going against it, and trying to honor the original with a sacrifice without actually sacrificing the character and having Godzilla die in the stupidest way thus far, granted his hearts still beating in the end despite just being a heart and having no blood to direct, but just overall so many problems with this movie. If I saw 0 other Godzilla movies and watched it then I probably wouldn't have had as much of a problem with it but as some one that's seen all of them this was underwhelming especially as a movie that it hailed as 1 of the best.[/i]
I have to disagree with a lot of the final assessments here. While the movie has some flaws they're certainly not enough to overshadow what it does well. Granted Toho's decision to use their most popular monsters in this was crude, but hardly a deal breaker. I don't, however, believe Kaneko was ever trying to "honor" the original film with a sacrifice by General Tachibana. If that were the case he would've sacrificed him, otherwise there's nothing there to assume that was the original intent.
The thing is, as a person who has also seen the entire series, I felt [i]GMK[/i] was very refreshing. The Heisei series hasn't aged very well and those same stories were practically being revamped by the Millennium series which failed to be as creative as [i]GMK[/i]. [i]GMK[/i] took risks that [i]G2K[/i], [i]Megaguirus[/i] and the [i]Kiryu[/i] movies didn't. It dared to do things that might piss off fans at the expense of telling a fresh story in the series. It paid off. The movie stands out of the last 30 years of redundancy. So if it's only a "middle of the pack" movie, then it's pretty high in the middle.
"'Nostalgic' does not equal 'good,' and 'standards' does not equal 'elitism.'" "Being offended is inevitable. Living offended is your choice."