What Gareth Edwards should have done for Godzilla & the MUTOs

CARL MAJORS

I do understand the movie business, and I'm not disappointed by the movie. But just for me, this is the best of all Godzilla films. But the real movie, and how Gareth pictured it, must have been a bit butchered.

WEAVER: I wasn't poking at you...

@carlmajors

The editing was crap... Hm, I've never told anyone that they didn't understand the movie busines...hell, who does?  But, btw, Edwards was over his head and the film was made too cheaply.

@CARL MAJOR

One last thing on this budget topic that I keep bringing up that you guys are tired of reading about...

With an additional $10 million, we could see longer kaiju battles and more destruction.

With another $15 million, on top of that,  maybe we could see Godzilla tackle the military in a knock down, drag out, battle for the ages. 

Yes, Those extended scenes would add on another 15 minutes,or so.  But there is nothing wrong with a longer movie.  Titanic, The Godfather, Gone with the Wind, The Dark Knight, Avatar, the Avengers, Lord of the Rings (do I have to keep going) all were at least 2:30 minutes

RATEDREX

That's why I keep mentioning about the Director's Cut, the movie was supposed to be much longer. (Even better)

@THE WEAVER

I can't imagine the studios shelving a better version of Godzilla 2014 because of running time.  It would make no sense.  Check out the all-time box-office money makers.  Most of them are longer than Godzilla.

@SOMETHING REAL:

Audiences love action and character developement:  Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Lord of the Rings did it best.  15 more minutes of Godzilla in action wouldn't have hurt a thing.

Yes, too much action can be boring (Transformers), but I bet if you polled movie goers, they would choose more Godzilla over ATJ. 

I have to make a clarification for DESTOROYAH-X here: Godzilla was never marketed as a "destroyer of worlds."

That was a fan misconception and a fan identification with memes and such, not a point of professional marketing.

When the 2012 teaser was released, Oppenheimer was making his speech about the atomic bombs in the 40's, which has nothing at all to do with Godzilla as a movie or a creature. Oppenheimer didn't even know Godzilla would exist when he made that speech.

It was the fans who plastered that line, "Now I am become death, the destoryer of worlds," onto Godzilla. Gareth Edwards only ever said he was a force of nature. Legendary never once, to the best of my knowledge, marketed him as a destroyer of worlds. It was the fans who labeled Godzilla as such, because in their excitement they failed to separate fact from fiction, in that Oppenheimer's speech had nothing to do with the movie. It was just an appropriate piece of dialogue Gareth had found to dub over his teaser trailer when he went to prove to Legendary he was on the right path in his movie vision.

Now, that aside, I do agree that both Godzilla and the MUTO creatures were underplayed just a bit. Godzilla's size and power versus the MUTO's teamwork was well done and I enjoyed the fight, but I too felt that Godzilla taking a beating was a bit overdone and that he should have put up more of a fight or felt less of their attacks given his hide and size. To the MUTO's credit, anything of that size will pack tremendous power given the laws of physics and motion behind such weight. Still, I think Godzilla should have been a bit tougher against their attacks.

The one thing I will say about Godzilla that defies your theory about him being "too nice" was that he was focused on the MUTOs. The military was just an annoyance. Most of the rockets and missiles just hit him and bounced off, save for one or two which made him retreat a step before continuing on his way. To him, he was more interested in the MUTOs than what the military was doing. If you're being attacked by flies who aren't hurting you, why bother wasting energy? At Godzilla's size, his body would expend energy at a tremendous rate, and he would have to pick and choose his battles very carefully.

Note that he collapsed at the end of the fight despite how short it was. That's a perfect example. If he'd wasted his energy blasting the military or chasing them down, he'd have been too exhausted to fight the MUTOs later.

As for the MUTOs having the ability to cuase earthquake... well an earthquake and an EMP are fundamentally different (as well as just different). To me, the MUTOs are there to remind us that nuclear power isn't all it's cracked up to be. If they were meant to be so powerful they could cause an earthquake, then they'd have been a lot bigger and their design would have reflected that ability. As it stands, their bodies were not shaped or designed in any way to focus a blast into the ground that would be powerful enough to cause an earthquake.

The small tipped claw legs were a conduit for electromagnetic signals to travel through and stike the ground, causing the EMP. If you take that same design and make the legs bigger with a larger "foot," for lack of a better word, then you might get an earthquake because the increased volume of the conduit would provide more room for more power to travel and more length to build up before striking the ground and releasing the energy into a concentrated point. But as they stand now, they're not designed for it and they should not have that ability. Still, it's a cool idea that I think would definitely deserve some exploration in the future if anything like them is ever created for a movie.

My oh my, I woke up and logged in to see more than 60 replies to this topic. Interesting! :)

@Weaver - Somehow I very much favor the idea of Godzilla being the one carrying out Nature's Order to set things right as you've said, but then again if Nature had intended for these titanic creatures to be wiped out, similar to the Dinosaurs, shouldn't Nature have wiped out all these monsters including Godzilla to save that trouble? Then why has Nature decided to reserve Godzilla for her intended use as if Mother Nature could foresee the events of the future? Which is why I thought as far as the storyline is concerned, it detracts from the message that speaks of the horrors of nuclear energy. You do note that the trailers marketed Godzilla as: "In 1954, we awaken something. " - Which seems to point that the nuclear age sparked off by Mankind awoke Godzilla. This is Mankind's mistake, and retribution should be visited upon them to warn them of the horrors of harnessing Earth's energy for the wrong purposes. 

The inconsistency present here, lies with the fact that in 1954 we awakened Godzilla from his slumber. In fact we even tried to kill him. So if we go along this line, one would definitely think Godzilla is bound to take revenge on mankind. Instead, we are showcased brief events from 1954 and the story jumps to 1999 with the discovery of the MUTOs, and another 15 years later, the MUTOs become the new terror of Mankind. Godzilla is supposed to be Mankind's warning like you said. But now if you do realize the mistake here, a look back at the story timeline reverses the entire atomic horror message altogether now. It's now as good as saying that its actually the best thing Mankind has ever done. Ironically Mankind's mistake of awaking Godzilla is a blessing and it is Mother Nature's mistake to have allowed two MUTOs to slip past her radar, with a Male MUTO breaking out from a dead monster's corpse and heading for Janjira. 

@RatedRex -  I agree with what you've said. To me as a Godzilla fan, Godzilla 2014 is no doubt an overall good movie, but the aftertaste it leaves is somewhat unimpressionable, in fact it borders along being forgettable to a non-or-moderate-Godzilla fan (who also happen to form the majority of audiences) because of the inconsistent message it carries which leaves one wondering about the takeaway of the story. That dark tonality and message marketed by the movie somehow got lost in the process and we are now looking at a 'superhero' Godzilla. You can speak to any non-Godzilla fan and ask them about what they think of Godzilla now after watching the show. He's no longer that feared or reverred monster they thought of Godzilla to be. 

Even though the movie was 2 hrs, time seemed to whizz by rather quickly and I felt certain scenes were rushed. If little attention was paid to the human characters who were introduced hastily to us, and we were expected to empathize with them, then surely more time and resources could have been allocated to Godzilla and the MUTOs in action. Hence, the reason for my topic. I felt there was more room for improvements for Godzilla and MUTOs that could have made this movie a much bigger crowd-pleaser.  

@Twg_GFan2014:

 Actually I dun think its fair to blindly latch the blame entirely onto fans for having that "Destroyer of Worlds" idea by saying they made assumptions based on Oppenheimer's line used by Gareth as a teaser. You do note that even in the initial marketing phase of Godzilla 2014 by Legendary, some prominent trailer scenes that have been used over and over again e.g. the Halo jump scene, the underground shelter door-closing scene, depicted Godzilla as a stand-alone monster that appears to be wrecking havoc on humans. It was at a very late stage, almost close to the movie's opening before we started seeing trailers featuring hints of the MUTOs being the other antagonists of the film. 

I'm sure many people, including you and me were definitely surprised that after watching the movie, we ended knowing that the MUTOs are the main antagonists of the story and Godzilla is the equivalent of Gamera. No one expected that. And I think that's what Gareth Edwards / Legendary had intended for us. - The unexpected twist. The fact that they intentionally featured Godzilla alone in some trailer scenes, only to later add the MUTOs battling Godzilla in that same scene shows that intention. 

SO MUCH TO RESPOND TO!!!!

Godzilla just didn't care about people.  He doesn't care if they live or die.  Going under the boat is not a sign of compassion.  If you ask me, he's just taking proper care of his spikes.  There's no need to ram a boat when he can just go underneath.  Besides, he kills thousands of people in the next shot with that tsunami.  And a dog too!  Those windows cracked under the waterpressure.  The dog is dead. 

I see everyone's point on how weak Godzilla appeared when versing both MUTOs.  What I think everyone ignores is the whole two on one scenario.  One on one, Godzilla annilated both of them.  When they attacked together, Godzilla could not keep up with them.  Every time he aimed for one, the other would knock him over.  You can even see the annoyance in his face at constantly being whacked whenever he turned his head.  That alone made the battle very hard.  Now take into consideration that he has been fighting these creatures all day.  In San Francisco, we see Godzilla begin to attack the MUTO at what looks to be noonish, maybe give or take an hour or so.  By the time the soldiers Halo Jump into the city, Goji is still in the middle of that same fight.  Based on the sky, it could have been be anywhere from 7 - 9 o'clock (assuming late-spring or summer season).  That's five to eight hours of non-stop fighting.  So not only was he battling two pain-in-the-ass monsters, but he was literally exhausted while doing it.  NOW add the power of the EMP attacks, and it becomes clear why they overpowered him so easily.

As far as my tastes go, I thought the movie was fine as is.  Would I like a director's cut?  You bet your sweet ass!  But I didn't feel rushed, and I certainly did not need to see any more of the Kaiju battles, nor a Godzilla vs Military battle for the ages.  I was teased throughout the entire movie, but when I got my dessert, man was it good dessert.  And the waiting made it that much better. 

WEAVER, if you are right about some of the explanations and exposistions and such being somewhat cut by the editors, then I agree that the "real movie" would be that much better, and that perhaps the editors took some control from Gareth.  However, I'm fairly certain that almost all of the monster action Gareth wanted in the film was actually in the film.  He wanted to tease us, make us thirst for more and more untill the very end, where he finally quenched our thirst.  I know I wanted more Godzilla during the movie, but I feel like if I had gotten it, I would have been spoiled, and then the ending would have lost its entrancing effect.

I'm done rambling.  Bye.

Ah how lost you are Destroyah-X. There were so many issues that wern't even real issues its just you not opening your eyes and getting the right idea. Throughout your whole post I just wanted to scream because of all the issues you had that have been explained ALREADY. Stop focusing so much on the monsters and more on the story. Even godzilla 1954 wasn't focused mainly on the monster(s). I don't know with all due respect I just feel like your just picking on this movie by picking out minor issues that don't really count as issues.

@Gojira 2014:

Dear Gojira 2014, I should be the one who should be tellling with with ALL my due respect that you for a start, need to get a hold of yourself and stop acting as if you are on a high-horse and saying that I am lost.

I rarely have to tell people off, and you can go ahead and choose to be blind to anything negative there is about Godzilla 2014 for all I care but this does not give you the right to diss somebody off just because they do not like all aspects about the film. If you love it 100%, that's good for you. Do open up your eyes and ears and hear what other non-fans have to say about the movie via social media. Not everyone is impressed. Period.

The fact that I bothered to type out a whole long wall of my thoughts about the movie and how it could have been improved, shows I have as much passion about Godzilla 2014 as any other people out there which includes YOU, which gives you no right to diss me if you have nothing constructive to add to the conversation. 

Thank you!