Why Ford's Character Suffers in Godzilla (2014)! (Does Ford's Character Suck?)

I agree dude, there was potential...hopefully the sequl rocks

Damn Gigan, extremely well written! I agree on all points. You know, I have consistently stressed about Max B coming back for the sequel. I'm probably just being negative. Hopefully he learns from his major mistakes in the first film and will write a clever yet emotionally incline script for the sequel. 

@InstinctiveGigan - For me there were three main problems with this movie, but I'm going to stick to your topic, which was one of the big ones; although I'll add to it. I pretty much agree with you about the Ford character. I think you're spot on about that. What I have to disagree with though is your opinion about the other characters. When I saw the the all star cast they had in this movie, and how many writers had a stab at the screenplay/script, I thought that part of the movie would be spot on. Of course, having that many writers should also have been a red flag. I liked Cranston and thought Watanabe was serviceable, but quite honestly the rest of the characters could have been played by anyone else and it wouldn't have changed a thing. There was no dynamic between any of the characters, and I couldn't have cared less about Ford's family. I wasn't emotionally invested in anyone but Joe Brody. For the most part I can't blame the actors. I don't think there was much to work with.

People constantly reference Jaws which sends my blood pressure through the roof! Please NO! Apples and oranges. I loved the characters in Jaws. I could watch a movie with the three main characters all by themselves. Great dynamic between the three of them. They were the Kirk, Spock and McCoy of Jaws. That movie moves right along in between the intense shark scenes.

Now, having said that, for me (and I know not for everyone), had there been more Godzilla in "Godzilla" the weak characters/story would have gotten a bit of a mulligan. If you're going to cut away from cool monster stuff (and when Godzilla was onscreen, he was awesome), you'd damn well better have some engaging stuff for the audience to latch on to and care about.

So, the characters (pretty much all) were one of three main problems with the movie. But yes, absolutely, Ford was the weakest link, and he's your main character. How different would those trailers and teasers been if the focus had actually been on Ford and not Joe Brody? Cranston's lines in them helped sell that movie big time.

Good points Gigan, but you do know that Ford isnt going to be a future installment character.

Gareth will most likely, follow the old Godzilla movie chain by changing the main cast in each film. Ford wont appear again due to the fan backlash.

@gorilla...

You're too much.

What Alx?

You really think he will come back?

I found it extremely funny Ford was only there to disable the nuke, and the nuke never got disabled. That's like hiring a chef and burning the food anyway.

Hopefully we're done with Ford. What more is there to tell? I'd like to see more of Serizawa and Vivien, and have their characters and Monarch fleshed out more. Here's hoping...

I really doubt they would have Ford in the sequel. If anything I could just see a small reference of him getting an award for bravery or something. 

I have to agree with this a lot. Ford wasn't the best character.

I like Ford, I feel identified with him and I hope to see him in the sequel.

Thank you for this, Gigan! I really dislike Ford in Godzilla 2014. A paperclip on a rice-cake is more interesting than his character. He could've been a very cool addition to the humans of Godzilla, but the writing shackled the potential for Ford.

I'm not saying that the Toho Godzilla characters are perfect either, but at least they were developed enough for me to care about them.

Time for a different opinion!, I actually understand why some people watch Ford like very bad characte... but, damn, he lost his parents and a soldier, He should not show much feeling.

Ok, kill me now but... I would like his return in the sequel.

@Darkchef Ha, no. It's perfectly fine, I don't hate Ford, I just want massive improvement. Like I said, having a dark backstory doesn't excuse his lack of character. If he's a tough, bruting soldier that hides his emotions, show that through character interactions. 

Again, the few interactions we get are great. But Ford just follows orders and makes small talk the whole journey. He needs to interact with, let's say, another soldier to show us why he's so silent. That there's more to him. You can't just come up with the excuse that "oh, he's a soldier, he's supposed to act like that", the characters are supposed to tell us that through their actions.

Show, don't tell. If they are bringing Ford back, all I ask, is more characterization. ;)

*speechless*

BBB! Wazzup! Also, speechless good or bad? haha

^Speechless as in wtf?

I mean quite honestly, i could care less for ford's character. Bryan cranston should have lived longer. *Sigh*

Oh well, i hope to god that the sequel delievers more hanging on the edge of your seat excitement though. :)

Well i've got to admit that i feel a little bit related with Ford , i mean i lost my mom at a young age , so i know how hard is that and i ran away from the past just like Ford did , but like Joe said : "You can't keep running away , and son you can't bury this in the past". I like to believe Ford's character goes like this : A terrible tragedy hits him when he was still a kid with the years he tries to deal with it as he watches how his father starts to be consumed by that tragedy and he slowly starts to escape from all that , he has been running away from the past , but now that past just found him and it's pulling him back again , he lets himself being pulled back just to discover that this horrible past he has been running away from its covered with secrets and my god those secrets are colossal , after that he has to go trough a lot of things , his father dies by the claws of one of those secrets .. just like his mom , he has to deal with the idea that those secrets are roaming free around the world and above that his family its in the middle of those colossal secrets , he doesn’t know what to do , he just wants to go home with his family to keep them safe  and after a twisted turn of faith ( Hawaii’s Reveal/Showdown scene) he just ends up trusting humanity ( The Army) and to make it worst he trusts his family to humanity ( “I’m gonna be at the hospital by sunrise , then I’m gonna get you and sam out , the military has a plan to deal with these things …I’m coming to get you both , okay?”)  … like if humanity knows what to do with these colossus (The Arrogance of man is thinking nature its in our control … and not the other way around)  …  at the end he ends up facing with these secrets , with his past and of course facing the King to do what humanity failed to do (Arrogance) , to protect his family to look for them and keep them safe … whatever it takes.    

That's the way i think Ford's character goes , but i agree that Borenstein's kinda got lost and ended up trying to make Ford look .. cool, so yeah like you said Ford has potential but it just needs to be developed , i also liked the other characters , specially Serizawa and Graham i also liked Elle a lot she was exactly that : a mother trying to protect her child but at the same dealing with the safety of others and not having any idea where her husband is and she tries to hold it up together so in that way she won’t make her child feel worried , sad , or scared … can you imagine how terrifying had to be for Elle and all people that were under a pile of debris to hear Godzilla's ROAR at the end , or just to hear the MUTOS and Goji fight? or just for Elle to know that there was a confrontation with a colossal creature on the bridge and that there were a lot of buses there and that her child was in one of those buses? … I just hope that Borenstein steps up his work in the next one.

P.D : Sorry to write a wall of words xD      

Excellent, thoughtful, and well-written post, Instinctivegigan.

I would agree with the poster who would see the next installment focus on Serizawa, Graham and Monarch. There's a lot of material to be mined there, IMHO. There was a lot of convenience involving Lt. Brody as far as the plot is concerned. He seems to have been a kind of monster magnet, if you will. It appears that a decision was made to make Godzilla as a vehicle for Anthony Taylor-Johnson. Was it due to demographics? I'm not at all familiar with his other work, so I'm guessing here. I was intrigued by the exposition carried and offered by Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham. Their interaction with Admiral Stenz felt real. I hope they return.

Your point about his interacting with other characters was spot on. Lt. Ford was at his best when confronting his father in Japan about his 'research.' "What are you doing?" "I don't think so." "In a quarrantine zone!" Taylor-Johnson was good at these moments. Conflict with some of the other personnel over whether to disarm the bomb or move it would have added tension and an element of danger to the climax in San Francisco. When the casing couldn't be removed and another officer, the one who asked at the briefing if there was a Plan B, yelled that it had to be moved, Brody could have confronted him with the other soldiers taking sides. They wouldn't have to have fought, but we would have had a crisis of sorts amongst the people responsible for disarming a nuclear weapon while giant monsters were fighting mere blocks away. 

Excellent, thoughtful, and well-written post, Instinctivegigan.

I would agree with the poster who would see the next installment focus on Serizawa, Graham and Monarch. There's a lot of material to be mined there, IMHO. There was a lot of convenience involving Lt. Brody as far as the plot is concerned. He seems to have been a kind of monster magnet, if you will. It appears that a decision was made to make Godzilla as a vehicle for Anthony Taylor-Johnson. Was it due to demographics? I'm not at all familiar with his other work, so I'm guessing here. I was intrigued by the exposition carried and offered by Dr. Serizawa and Dr. Graham. Their interaction with Admiral Stenz felt real. I hope they return.

Your point about his interacting with other characters was spot on. Lt. Ford was at his best when confronting his father in Japan about his 'research.' "What are you doing?" "I don't think so." "In a quarrantine zone!" Taylor-Johnson was good at these moments. Conflict with some of the other personnel over whether to disarm the bomb or move it would have added tension and an element of danger to the climax in San Francisco. When the casing couldn't be removed and another officer, the one who asked at the briefing if there was a Plan B, yelled that it had to be moved, Brody could have confronted him with the other soldiers taking sides. They wouldn't have to have fought, but we would have had a crisis of sorts amongst the people responsible for disarming a nuclear weapon while giant monsters were fighting mere blocks away. 

This was very well written Gigan! I agree; Ford was really boring and emotionless in the film. I wouldn't mind seeing him in the sequel, but only if he was better written.

Great insights IG! I think part of the problem comes with killing off Joe Brody. They had set up a relationship that needed to be repaired, and should've tried to make that one of the arcs of the movie. Ford starts off estranged from his father, perhaps blames him for surviving when his mother doesnt, and through this adventure the two of them reconcile. Because really, the only other arc we have is the "I just wanna get home to my family", which is just not enough. We know he's gonna make it; what, is his family gonna die? Is he not gonna make it back to San Francisco? The stakes just aren't that high.

And you're absolutely right about him not interacting with anyone. Perhaps they wanted him to be more of a blank slate, more of an avatar for the audience to see the movie through. But maybe situations like the bridge scene with the MUTO or with the nuke in SF could've had more tension with some additional character interactions; arguing with the soldiers about the nuke, joking with the soldiers on the train; something to help us feel like these are real people with real lives.

Also yes about the contrivance bit, you could almost say that in this movie, without Ford the whole world would've been destroyed. The soldiers just forgot about that nest! The nuke blowing up 20 miles offshore certainly wasn't going to take care of that problem.

I'm just realizing now, they had a goldmine of tension there. "Should we leave the nuke and destroy the nest, but as collateral ourselves and san francisco? Or should we move it and hope we find a way to deal with the 10000 baby mutos?" Missed opportunity. 

But anyways. Ford ended up being savior of Godzilla (by distracting the mother muto, blowing up her nest), savior of San Francisco (my setting that nuke carrying boat out to sea) and savior of humanity (by eliminating probably extinction in destroying the nest). Part of this I believe has to do with the insistence that we see these monsters from characters' perspectives; they wanted a more subjective movie and that means they had to stretch believability by putting the characters physically in the middle of every big event. Admirable to adhere to a set philosophy, but in this case it is actually to a fault.

That said, I would be happy to see Ford down the line as a grizzled nuke expert with "experience dealing with MUTOs", maybe more of a supporting/cameo role.

In a nut shell, I think the character of Ford Brody was somewhat undeveloped to put it diplomatically. There could have been a great deal more to his character. I would also like to point out that I'm not against Aaron Taylor-Johnson; I personally think he is a good actor, and he is still young so there is plenty of time for him to develop his skills. At the end of the day he is given a script and he has to adhere to it, even if he had the same facial expression throughout most of the film; one of bewilderment and uncertainty! lol 

With time, Taylor-Johnson's Ford Brody has grown in terms of appreciation with me. He's not the typical over-the-top action hero who's the main protagonist. He does heroic things, but they're understated, as is his performance. There are no great speeches, no dramatic pronouncements. Rather, we have a military man, a husband and father, a son who's lost both parents, confronted by answers to things that no one can comprehend. Lt. Ford seems stunned, a bit dazed, even when having to get about the business of finding and disarming a nuclear weapon mere blocks away from where giant monsters are fighting.  

This understatedness makes it easy to follow him on his journey across the Pacific. And Godzilla is a 'journey' film: you travel with it narrative-wise, and follow it, physically, from Japan to the American West Coast.

Taylor-Johnson's Lt.Ford is, for me, a character within reach, plausible enough to identify with and root for.

I agree with Jamaal to some extent. Ford is very low key in the things he does. That makes his logical for the most part, but not necessarily human. 

The fact is the MUTOs havee ruined Fords life, they killed his mother, which in turn caused him to have a strained relationship with his father thinking he is a madman for most of his life. Then only after realizing his father was right all along, he dies as well. Now the MUTOs are endangering his wife and child with their nest in the city. Ford doesn't really ever seem like he has a personal vendetta against the MUTOs though. He destroyed the nest not because he wanted revenge but just because it was logical. I would have liked some fleshed out instances that make it clear how much he hates the MUTOs, how much they've done to ruin his life, and how much they threaten everything he has left, for all the time the MUTOs get it and the amount of times Ford runs into them directly, there could have been something. Literally right after it kills his dad he runs into it again and there's no sense of hatred there. I mean literally within probably 12 hours of his dad dying he sees it, and there's nothing. He could want to go to San Francisco to save his family but it could be made clear he has some underlying want to actually stop these monsters.

Jut really wasted potential to me that something like that wasn't ever really shown.

I know some others said this but Ford is very uninteresting, he didn’t have any development nor did he have a completed story arc (if he had one in the first place). Elle is there as a damsel in distress and to be honest it feels like the kid is just there to make us want Ford to come back alive. I still like these characters but not as much as the characters from Godzilla X Mechagodzilla. King Of The Monsters may be different because Michael Dougherty said that he was trying to make us love the characters while balancing the monster action. But overall the MonsterVerse so far has mostly underdeveloped characters. If you want a real feel for these characters then I recommended reading the official movie novelizations.

While I agree with some of what's being said here I also disagree with it at points. While I will never argue that Ford got "enough" character development, I think he got what he needed for the story. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like some on here would have liked to have seen a more archetypal heroes journey for Ford. But I don't think that was the arc they ever had intended for him. Ford Brody goes through just enough character development to give us a sense of who he is. Pardon the following synopsis. When he is young we see he loves his parents and is disappointed that he can't surprise his father with the sign that he made him. Then when the nuclear plant is being destroyed we see how it terrifies him and we can relate because we would all be in the same frame of mind watching our parents place of work be destroyed. Cut to Lt. Brody EOD tech and US Navy... I think it's not ever really stated. Or I missed it. Either way he is asked if has family waiting for him and he says I hope so, meaning he is hoping that his family is there and he can come back to a normal life. But also having seen what we just saw it also hints at a possible underlying worry that he will be left alone again. We see how much he loves his wife and child and get a pretty good scene of them together in my opinion then he's off to Japan. With his father he finally comes to the realization that he can't keep running from what has happened and we get a hint that he doesn't like destruction, he specifically tells his dad that his job is stopping bombs not blowing them up.

When in Japan, he starts to reconnect with his father and encounters his past both mentally and physically. Then when the male MUTO escapes and Joe Brody dies, we get a call to action for him that he refuses. instead of joining the hunt he elects to get back to his family. Then he's not really given the choice once once the events in Hawaii happen. While I admit the whole thing with the kid is a little short and could have been better showing that he can still speak broken Japanese and that he hasn't completely buried his past. That would have been a great scene but we didn't get it. G-man throws down with the MUTO and it's off to San Francisco. At this point he's too deep and we get to see soldier Ford. He's serious about his job and he's good at it. He makes a mistake telling Elle to stay put with his son as he thinks he'll beat the MUTO's and Godzilla there to get them out because of the train. This fails and while he knows his son is safe he continues to ask for his wife. At this point he may think she's dead we don't know. Then to serve his country he embarks on the mission into the city.

I have a great memory don't I? Now that's not the point of that WALL OF TEXT, just being dramatic there. As an amateur writer seeing the beats of story is becoming more easy for me. Again I would have liked to see more growth from Ford, but I don't think that was the point of the story being told. The story was of an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation. I'm no soldier, but put in that same situation would I have reacted differently? I don't know and I think that's the beauty of Fords character. We can see ourselves in him. He is relate-able enough that we can sympathize with him within the story that he is placed into. Compare this if you would to Ian Malcolm in Jurassic Park he doesn't change at all in the movie. We meet him as a snarky mathematician and that's how he ends the movie. That's very similar to Ford, we meet him as a soldier/family man with an estranged father and he ends the movie basically the same. And people love Ian Malcolm. So while I agree more character development would have been good, I can't say he sucks because in my opinion he doesn't. Thanks for reading