Saturday, May 24, 2014

Godzilla... or am I ruining the fandom again?

Over the last week, since the movie's been out, it seems like there is a lot of (non) controversy about this movie.  At least in the tiny Godzilla fandom that exists in this country.  I've read a lot of reviews now, and it seems some fans think if you don't love the film you just aren't "getting" it.  It also seems to go the other way, if you like the movie then you hate Godzilla.  What if you are ambivalent to it completely?

This makes no sense at all to me, in either direction.  I enjoyed about half of the movie and gave it what I modestly think of as a pretty fair review, pointing out what I liked and disliked.  Yes, the negatives outweighed the positives and I really have no desire to pay to watch the movie again.  I'd rather not see a "director's cut" unless it's to make the movie shorter.  Does this make me a bad fan?  I highly doubt that.

After thinking about the tone of the movie and the tone of the trailers, I find it highly amusing that some fans have now turned apologist for Godzilla being the hero of the movie.  It seemed like that first trailer (the only one I watched) was making Godzilla out to be the death of humanity.  It was very misleading, but I have no problem with that.  I like hero Godzilla.  Some fans have claimed he was just hunting the MUTOS because he's the alpha predator, or he wanted revenge for them eating the "other" Godzilla.  Denial is not just a river in Egypt.

He doesn't attack the people on the bridge.  After that, the military didn't even try to fight Godzilla.  The people in the movie knew he was the "good" monster.  It makes me laugh at how fans will twist things (and believe me, I'm just as guilty of that as anyone) to fit their own agendas.

Oh,  I will amend my view that the MUTOs didn't have personality- they got more than Godzilla, actually.  I'm still not very impressed with the way they look.

By the way, does anyone else think that Legendary bought up the rights to four other Toho monsters so no other studio could use them if this was a big hit?  Smart thinking, there.  I'm sure monsters in the sequel are a probability, but it can be both, ya know.

I still give the movie a "C" - it's passable, good but not great.

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