Saturday, May 24, 2014

simple

this entry is solely for the purpose of me ranting about Godzilla (the new movie) and nothing to do with my art. i'm trying to get my angry rage monster under control. so if ur not really about this kinda stuff, please feel free to ignore. but if u feel like reading, then yays! 
also, if u haven't seen the movie, please don't read this cuz it has SPOILERS! i'm writing this under the assumption that anyone that cares to read it already has seen Godzilla and formulated their own opinions about it.


from http://edskudder.tumblr.com/  (i would've drawn my own version of what i felt about this movie but i think this image pretty much does the trick. he apparently thought Godzilla sucked too. go follow this dude's tumblr!)

so, i'm a simple gal with simple needs, especially when it comes to my fun movie entertainment with fantastical premises. u tell me there's giant monsters fighting giant robots, i say great - bring it on! u tell me there's dragons and nazi zombies and what appears to be a cute school girl kickin all their asses, i say let's do this! if u tell me that scientists found a way to bring back dinosaurs and there's an entire island of them now, i say hell yes! and when u deliver that which u tell me i'm about to get myself into, then i say that's a win.

here's my biggest beef with Godzilla. they told me there was gonna be Godzilla and history tells me Godzilla fights with the people OR it fights with other monsters. they also said "hey, bryan cranston is the star!" problem is, Godzilla was basically the 3rd-stringer in the Godzilla movie and bryan cranston died like 20 minutes in. what the what?!? now i don't know much about Godzilla history, i will admit i don't think i've ever seen an entire classic Godzilla movie (i did see the Matthew Broderick one). but i'm pretty sure Godzilla is supposed to be the main focus of the Godzilla film, right? yet i only see him (or her) in the last third of the movie and even when i do see him, they keep cutting back to the flippin humans! i came to see a giant monster fight stuff, but it seemed like the running gag was "let's follow this human soldier dude and see what he thinks of all this. meanwhile, there's an epic battle between giant monsters happening outside and ur totally missing it!" of course i'm simplifying the premise and purpose of the dude (who's name in the movie escapes me at the moment cuz i really didn't care about the character. i must now IMDB it, which makes me upset even more!) but again, i'm a simple gal and i just wanna break down what i saw simply. (FORD! the soldier dude is Ford. got it.)

so yeah, Ford. i don't care about this guy. i don't care about his childhood. i don't care about his wife & kid. i don't care about the random kid he saved who served no purpose nor furthered my respect for this dude. am i supposed to understand he's a caring soldier cuz he thanklessly saved a kid? is that not what good soldiers (and people, in general) do? i think i knew that in the first 5 minutes of him coming home from being deployed and tucking his son into bed. the only thing i cared about Ford was that his dad was Bryan Cranston, who they told me was the star of the dang movie! but turns out he dies and never even actually sees/interacts with Godzilla. and though the whole thing with him losing his wife and feeling like he left her at the plant really broke my heart, because Bryan Cranston is a heck of an actor and he made me feel his helplessness. but all that coulda been told in a flashback sequence IF it were to be sacrificed so i could get more Godzilla later on in the movie. oh and Ken Watanabe, the main scientist dude who i was super excited was casted as a scientist and not some bad-ass Japanese dude with a sword, was just as shocked and confused as i was at every turn. i'm sorry, were u not brought in as the expert in this? u can't be as confused as me, i'm just a layman with some college experience.

but really, my main beef was there wasn't enough Godzilla. not enough people fighting Godzilla. not enough Godzilla fighting Mothras. cuz when i break down this movie, the main characters are Ford (or Kick-Ass which kinda surprised me), Mothras 1 & 2, and then Godzilla. i can't have Godzilla be that low in the hierarchy of characters to care about.

oh, and let me not forget to mention the absolutely useless application of a nuclear bomb that went off for no good reason. it didn't kill monsters, it didn't kill people, it only served to get other soldiers killed in the retrieval of it. Ford's only usefulness in the entire movie was killing Mothra babies, which he really shoulda told his higher-ups about but didn't. his other purpose was supposed to turn off the bomb and he didn't.

what i did love was what Godzilla looked like. it was epic, really. when i finally got to see him in all his entirety, i was so excited! he wasn't the abomination that was the Matthew Broderick iguana lizard. he looked like the classic, only real! the spikes were so great! and his nuclear firey breath - awesome!!! but the fact that he looked so totally fantastic made me even more upset at the movie cuz i only got to see him fight off and on until the very end. and though that finishing move he did right at the end was almost enough to forgive that i missed most of the fighting, i just spent like an hour and 45 minutes being told to care about people. it just left me wanting.

this is why i feel like everyone else that loved Godzilla saw a different movie. they must've gone into the movie with different expectations. that's the only explanation. cuz anyone going in to see great big giant monsters fighting other great big giant monsters would probably be as disappointed as i was. for me, Pacific Rim is still the best film i've seen of the genre. acting in there was fairly bad, with the obvious exception of Idris Elba. BUT WHO CARES! cuz i came to see giant robots fight giant monsters and by golly Guillermo Del Toro delivered with probably the best visual and sound effects i've ever experienced.

ahh...now i feel better. thanx for listening, vast internet universe. it's like my version of screaming at the top of my lungs in the middle of nowhere, except i didn't have to leave the comfort of my chair. =)

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