I thought it was excellent. Not sure if I prefer this or Shin godzilla tbh
I loved it! Both the human and Godzilla elements were amazing.
Setting it immediately after WWII meant we literally saw people try to recover from the destruction of the war, both physically in the sense of rebuilding Japan and emotionally by rebuilding themselves, which allowed for some really beautiful storytelling. And they made Godzilla a genuine threat to all that progress who needed to be fought by the collective power of the common people if they were to retain all they had managed to recreate. Then, there were some feminist themes, ptsd, and critiques of war, corruption, and centralized state power.
It wasn't perfect but I'll definitely try to see it again some time.
Haven't seen Shin Godzilla, yet.
Very good although my biggest gripe was
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you're telling me noriko survived that blast the entire time but koichi didn't know...........
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I'm of two minds here. Firstly, Noriko shouldn't have died. Her character would've really been done dirty if she did. Secondly, she needed to "die" so that Shikishima falls into that deep depression and decides to die in a blaze of glory, giving up on Akiko (i.e. the progress he was making on recovering from his PTSD). Thirdly, this ties in perfectly with the ending of kamikaze pilots being bullshit and ejection seats being a good thing i.e. the sanctity of life, the stupidity of war etc etc.
BUT, the way the movie handled Noriko's supposed death and eventual return was pretty bad. There had to have been a better way to do both. Maybe Shikishima didn't manage to make it in time to Ginza and we just have Noriko there trying to survive and supposedly dying (trapped in rubble?). Then, after Godzilla's gone, Shikishima reaches Ginza and searches for her but doesn't manage to find her. Or he finds one of Noriko's work friends (established during the train scene before Godzilla) and they say they saw Noriko die or something. Either way, that's how Shikishima reaches the conclusion that she's dead. And near the end of the movie, you can have an injured Noriko at the welcoming party for Shikishima and the rest and we learn via flashbacks or something that she was badly injured, but recovered by help of some kind people she's helped save.
This is just off the top of my head. There's probably still a better way to do this.
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Honestly yeah, my gripe wasn't at all with Noriko living - but instead just the hamfisted way they alluded to her death with the blast & following scenes only to go 'yeah but actually its chill she lived' at the very end. She should've lost an arm/hand/leg or something similar to the idea like a 'holy shit what just happened, where are you Norik- holy shit is that your hairpiece/handbag/handstitched karl marx rosary that never leaves your neck...hanging off the knocked over streetlight?...you're dead
' moment & that should've been Koichi's reasoning behind thinking that she was truly dead up until the reveal at the end.
I thought it was really great, even though the director has some really sketchy politics.
Mind filling me in on the director? Is he one of those imperial japan apologist types?
He made a previous movie about Kamikaze pilots called The Eternal Zero that was accused glorifying militarism. He made another movie that was adapted from a novel written by someone who denies the Nanjing massacre.
Weird on that first point because I felt that Godzilla Minus One was a pretty clear rebuke against kamikaze pilots specifically and for cherishing human life generally.
Yeah, maybe he grew as a person (at least on the topic of kamikaze pilots). The movie is pretty anti-kamikaze.
I liked it about as much as Shin Godzilla, which I liked quite a bit. I'm not really big on giant monsters duking it out - show me humans realistically dealing with the problem! The rest of my thoughts will include spoilers for both films.
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The soundtrack was epic. Way better than Shin Godzilla which just relied heavily on (good) remixes of "Decisive Battle". Visuals were good too. Loved Godzilla's atomic breath and the explosion it causes. The scenes at sea were awesome, too. And when criticizing CGI, remember that this film and Shin Godzilla managed what they did with like one-tenth the budget of Marvel films which don't even look any better.
Politics wise... well, the floor is pretty low. Ultimately, the film rejects human sacrifice and makes it clear that we should cherish human life. There is a lot of criticism against both the wartime and post-war Japanese governments for disregarding human life. Godzilla is defeated by a "civilian" response, but in reality these are just ex-Navy guys. So as several other people online have pointed out, you could say there's a bit of "Clean Kaigun".
There were a bunch of things that annoyed me, though. Just fucking take cover, Noriko! My goodness!!! Also, are Godzilla's atomic breath explosions likewise atomic? Because that fight with the Takao should have killed everyone then. Earlier in the film, it is made clear that Godzilla is a deep sea diver that can ascend pretty darn quickly. So it was dumb for the supposedly smart scientist to try to kill Godzilla that way. Buuuut it did make for a really cool sequence... Noriko's survival was also unbelievable. Some people don't like how there was no government/international response, but I for one am thankful the US didn't intervene. I don't want bad international acting again like in Shin Godzilla lol. And Shin already covered the government response angle really well. Since it's immediately post-war, it's pretty believable that they're near useless, anyway. Finally, the very end was cheesy. Godzilla regenerates and contaminates Japan (Noriko is shown to be contaminated). Just like Shin Godzilla. You thought you won? Nope, Japan is screwed! At least it was kind of original when Shin did it. I think. I haven't seen enough Godzilla movies.
