Usually I will eat up giant monster movie slop, no matter how bad. You're talking to someone who adores even the badly dubbed English version of Godzilla vs The Smog Monster (Hedora).

I wasn't too impressed with 2014s American Godzilla, but it got a pass from me for at least trying to understand the anti-nuclear message. Hated the pro-US military stuff tho.

But holy shit, Godzilla KoTM was hot garbage. Which is surprising because it had all the ingredients to be great, it had Ghidorah, Rodan and Mothra, all with fantastic redesigns. However the story was just bad, not the fun kind of bad, bad to the point that was hard to sit through.

Never before have I seen the idea of Godzilla so missunderstood.

Godzilla as a concept is famous for being an allegory of nuclear weapons and a warning that using destructive technology can have unforseen repercussions. When Godzilla is the bad guy, he's a stand in for nature's wrath at man for daring to use something as perverse as nukes. When he's the good guy, it's usually to protect the Earth from anything from aliens to pollution.

In Godzilla: King of the Monsters, they make ecoterrorists the bad guys and a nuke saves the day. I'm not even joking. They nuke Godzilla to revive him so he can protect them from King Ghidorah. Oh, and the only Japanese character sacrifices himself to the nuke to make it happen. It's not saying anything important like an allegory Godzilla movie, nor is it goofy and fun enough to be a cheesy slop monster fight movie.

Thank god for Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One.

So yeah, I've never watched Godzilla vs Kong or the newest one. Are they any good? They look pretty bad, but I want to know if I'm missing out on good slop.

  • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
    ·
    3 months ago

    I bailed after the first Legendary Godzilla purely because the American troop deepthroating in that movie was so nauseating

    They kill off Bryan Cranston early on so you're left with his charisma vacuum troop son as the protagonist. He's also a HUSBAND and YOUNG FATHER and he feels like he's straight out of a propaganda poster

    • Redcuban1959 [any]
      ·
      3 months ago

      American Godzilla movies are always pro-US. Iirc when that awful 1990's US Godzilla movie was released, the Japanese producers were pissed off that they focus on the US army and that the army kills Zilla.

      • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
        ·
        3 months ago

        Shusuke Kaneko, who directed the successful 90s trilogy of Gamera films, stated:

        "It is interesting that the US version of Godzilla runs about trying to escape missiles. Americans seem unable to accept a creature that cannot be put down by their arms."

        At least in the 1998 movie the military spends most of the movie getting stomped on by Godzilla and the non-troop main characters have to work around them by teaming up with Jean Reno and his guys (who I think were French special forces troops shrug-outta-hecks)

        You can definitely tell the Legendary Godzilla was made after 9/11