It’s more than a teaser than a trailer, the “proof of concept” reel intended to demonstrate what the finished product will convey, but it’s our first glimpse at the latest incarnation of one of the classic characters of nineteen fifties science fiction cinema and the first Japanese character to lodge itself firmly in Western imagination, if a towering radioactive lizard can be called a character. Unlike many productions which have troubled shoots, this film has been beset with backroom bickering over rights and remuneration, with stories of producers being sacked and then suing the studio, none of which can have made life easier for master reptile wrangler Gareth Edwards, shooting his first major picture following the enormous acclaim of his low budget debut Monsters, which won critical acclaim and brought him to the attention of that most terrifying monster, Hollywood.
Michael Flett – It can only be regarded as a teaser, it doesn’t show much, but it has a sense of menace, and it feels serious. The mood is enhanced by the Oppenheimer voiceover, the quote being his comment on the detonation at Trinity, New Mexico, appropriate in that it refers to both the destruction, like an atomic bomb, and that Godzilla is a product of the nuclear age, at least traditionally. Nice soundtrack, too, György Ligeti’s Requiem for Soprano, Mezzo Soprano, Two Mixed Choirs and Orchestra, best known from its use by Kubrick in 2001 A Space Odyssey.
Monsters was my favourite film of 2010 (the year, rather than The Year We Make Contact), and when I heard Gareth had gone to Hollywood, for Godzilla of all things, I was appalled, but my hope is that it will not be a brainless monster flick, or one that alternately bores and insults the intelligence of the audience as did Roland Emmerich’s hideous 1998 version, that like Monsters it will be a film about people who find themselves in this situation, and try to survive.
I’m not a particular fan of Cloverfield, but one of the things which it got right was that the survivors we followed were just a bunch of folk who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time. Compare that with I Am Legend, where Will Smith is a virologist working with the military who just happens to have a fully equipped state of the art laboratory in his fortress like apartment, totally at odds with the original novel, where the key to the success was that Robert Neville was an ordinary man who just happened to be the last survivor of the apocalypse. He had nobody and nothing to fall back on, he had no skills, no special insider knowledge, he was just a man trying to survive.
That’s something which Emmerich’s Godzilla did – everyone was a specialist, everyone was an expert, and it just turns into a pissing contest, and the only thing that gets pissed off is the audience. One thing Gareth has done right is the casting – character actors rather than stars. Whoever thought Juliette Binoche would appear in a giant mutant lizard movie? And Aaron Taylor-Johnson may be best known to genre fans as Kick-Ass, but he is far more than that – he was unrecognisable as Count Vronksy in Anna Karenina, about as far removed from a spandex wetsuit as you can imagine.
As technically impressive as Pacific Rim was, it was an abominable film. No matter how you dressed it up, it was never going to be anything other than giant monsters fighting giant robots, which wouldn’t even appeal to me if I was a child, so while on the face of it this shouldn’t appeal, fingers crossed it might actually surprise me and have some substance. I just hope Gareth makes the transition across the pond more successfully than Duncan Jones did, moving from the haunting loneliness of Moon to Source Code, where the explosions failed to conceal the non-sequiturs of the script.
Stephen Sutherland – Just saw this! Looks epic, atmospheric and a return to form for the quintessential Kaiju. Pacific Rim looks to have been the warm up act…
Brian Robinson – Visually, very effective. Hints of something. Increasing in its bizarre devastation and moving towards genuinely disturbing, particularly the hundreds of bodies scattered by the train wreckage. And the final glimpse of the beast himself is great whilst letting us know that there is more than one kaiju at work here (maybe more than two by the look of one shot, but who knows how many limbs some of the suckers have).
It looks like Godzilla and he’s capable of taking out anything that comes his way, human or not. But the use of Oppenheimer’s speech as narration doesn’t sit too well with me. It’s reductive to what actually happened in 1945 and seems a bit crass when dealing with a Japanese catastrophe of those proportions. But otherwise, I am seriously looking forward to this.
Adam Dworak – They don’t show enough for me to judge or have an informed opinion, but I like that they are going back to the Japanese roots of Gojira in the design, it’s not a big lizard, like in the Emmerich remake.
I liked that film, I admit I cried when she died, but it wasn’t Gojira. Even Xander said it on Buffy – “That wasn’t Godzilla, that was just some dumb reptile.” At least they didn’t have a cameo from Godzooky.
Hopefully the story will also be closer to the Japanese origins, Gojira fighting other monsters – the carcass we see is certainly another creature. My only fear is that Hollywood will change this take the original theme, of man’s eternal fight against the forces of nature, and turn it into another Pacific Rim.
Godzilla is currently set for release on May 16th 2014
Godzilla trailer – reaction
Monsters was my favourite film of 2010 (the year, rather than The Year We Make Contact), and when I heard Gareth had gone to Hollywood, for Godzilla of all things, I was appalled, but my hope is that it will not be a brainless monster flick, or one that alternately bores and insults the intelligence of the audience as did Roland Emmerich’s hideous 1998 version, that like Monsters it will be a film about people who find themselves in this situation, and try to survive.
That’s something which Emmerich’s Godzilla did – everyone was a specialist, everyone was an expert, and it just turns into a pissing contest, and the only thing that gets pissed off is the audience. One thing Gareth has done right is the casting – character actors rather than stars. Whoever thought Juliette Binoche would appear in a giant mutant lizard movie? And Aaron Taylor-Johnson may be best known to genre fans as Kick-Ass, but he is far more than that – he was unrecognisable as Count Vronksy in Anna Karenina, about as far removed from a spandex wetsuit as you can imagine.
Stephen Sutherland – Just saw this! Looks epic, atmospheric and a return to form for the quintessential Kaiju. Pacific Rim looks to have been the warm up act…
It looks like Godzilla and he’s capable of taking out anything that comes his way, human or not. But the use of Oppenheimer’s speech as narration doesn’t sit too well with me. It’s reductive to what actually happened in 1945 and seems a bit crass when dealing with a Japanese catastrophe of those proportions. But otherwise, I am seriously looking forward to this.
I liked that film, I admit I cried when she died, but it wasn’t Gojira. Even Xander said it on Buffy – “That wasn’t Godzilla, that was just some dumb reptile.” At least they didn’t have a cameo from Godzooky.
Hopefully the story will also be closer to the Japanese origins, Gojira fighting other monsters – the carcass we see is certainly another creature. My only fear is that Hollywood will change this take the original theme, of man’s eternal fight against the forces of nature, and turn it into another Pacific Rim.
Godzilla is currently set for release on May 16th 2014
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