In regards to how often Big G appears in this movie I gotta say I didnt find myself all that bothered by it. The Movie is not a big action blockbuster its a typical disaster movie. Just with giant Monsters instead of earthquakes,tornados or giant killer waves. Keeping the Monsters in the background helped to convey the message of the film. These Creatures are a force of nature, they arent characters in the traditional sense. In Twister we didnt spend two hours with the Tornado or with the Volcano in Dantes Peak.

Godzilla not being in the Movie all that much is actually something all Godzilla movies have in common. I watched GMK and Final Wars in the last two days and Big G doesnt show up until the halfway point. Most of those movies focused on the humans and the villains. GMK showed how the three Guardians assembled to fight Godzilla and Final Wars had the X-Seijin and the other Kaijin as well.

And about the marketing...I guess it helped that I only watched two trailers before going in to the movie and to be honest I actually liked that we didnt get to see the MUTOs in the actuall trailers. We saw glimpses of them and that was it. I wished I wouldnt have known about them at all so I could be surprised to see them appear in the movie.

I don't think Final Wars is a very good measuring stick for what a Godzilla film should be like. :lol

But anyway, my problem isn't just the lack of Godzilla but how little Godzilla contributed to the overall plot. The only notable thing he really did was kill the MUTOs because they drove the plot far, far more. As a pseudo-reboot of the original Godzilla I would've liked Godzilla to be a bit more plot relevant. Seriously, think about it. Cut Godzilla out of the entirety of the film except the final battle and everything important would have happened exactly the same. You can keep showing off Godzilla in his full glory to the end, there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't see why that has to mean he doesn't really do anything until the end. That said, Godzilla himself was fantastic, he looked the best he ever has, the bigger budget did everything right for him and what we saw of the fight was just amazing. I just think he should've mattered more to the plot outside the third Act.

Don't get me wrong, the movie was good! I did enjoy it. It met my expectations but it didn't exceed them.

To be fair it has been years since I saw anything except Godzilla 1954, which I watched the night before the première of this one.

Thats a fair point but again I didnt find myself all that bothered by it. Maybe I just didnt have that high expectations and was satisfied with what we got.

A thing I think they could have explored more in this movie is the aspect of Godzilla being natures way to restore balance. They honestly should have had him destroy the City on Hawaii earlier in the movie and have the Airport fight in a different location. I liked the Alpha Predator angle they went with in the movie with trying to convey that Humanity was never the dominant species on Earth and never will be as long as these Creatures exist. If we had more Serizawa in the movie I think we could have gotten more of that.

While Days of Future Past will probably usurp it, I think this is possibly a good sign for the future of Godzilla:

"Godzilla" Roars, Scores Biggest Opening Day of 2014

Still super-duper excited for DoFP though...

Godzilla made almost more money domestically than Pacific Rim in its whole run time :lol

I expect DoFP to make around $120 mil and then Bayformers 400 to make around $160 mil and that is only if it has less than a 60% rating on RT. If it has a higher rating it will make $200 mil.

So I saw it yesterday. It was good, but it seem like atomic breath shouldn't be effective against creatures that feed off of radiation :lol. I was totally taken by surprise when there turned out to be two Mutos, and when Godzilla pried the female Muto's mouth open I thought they were just ripping off that scene in the 2005 King Kong movie where he broke the T-Rex's jaw, and then the atomic breath happened. It's weird to reboot the Godzilla franchise with a movie mostly about the Mutos, though.

Legendary confirmed that a Sequel is already in the works

http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/godz...areth-edwards/

Yes! Love love loved this one so a sequel is good news :D

Prepare for a rambling of a lifetime!

First off the movie was really good. Not perfect, mind you, but a lot better than the 98’ Zilla (it has no right to be called Godzilla, or the Beast from 20,000 fathoms the remake either) and gloriously better than Godzilla's Revenge. Or Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster.

I feel that it got a lot of things right like Joe being vindictive over an anomaly that cost him his wife and son's respect, and Ford's seeming lack of emotion. I mean when we first see him (adult Ford) when he is just getting back from a tour of (insert country here) and still has to adjust to "normal" life. Then things hit the fan and he has no time to stop being an Army (I really don't know what branch he was in) guy and grows some feelings other than what is in the moment motivation. The Brody family worked for what they essentially were. Plot fodder. Dr. Serizawa was good as the default Godzilla expert although I thought they would have given a wink and has Akira Takarada turn out to be Dr. Yamane, thus giving him the G-expert role and have the actor come full circle.

I thought the Monsters worked as what they were supposed to be. Animals and by association an extension of nature and its unpredictability. The Mutos were all right, although I'm still going to believe that they are this universe's Destroyah. Godzilla was Magnificent. I love how they took a seemingly impossible creature and make him look about as real as Bruce Camble's chin. That along with a believable atomic breath (which to me looked more like cobra venom that has a chemical reaction to the air rather than FIRE BEAM) was what made it all the more like actual animals.

I'd give this movie an 8.9/10.

Also to those who want Mothra in this, how would that work? Mothra has an entire religion and tiny twins that I really don't see fitting in this universe. Unless they pulled a cult of Cthulu thing where there is a small group of people who had a muto egg hidden on an island (with TV) that they thought would bring about the end of the world, then this movie happened and all the while they were watching this with there egg and when the female was killed, twin girls were born thus ushering in the idea that the end of days monster will awaken soon, happens.

... Wait. Y'all can go a head with the muto queen thing. I done goofed in my thoughts. Plus, How would Ghidorah work?

Saw Godzilla again. Still 8/10.

I liked this movie. However, once that Honolulu cocktease of a fight happened the movie made me pissed and I was angry at it for the rest of the movie.
Another annoying thing about it was that they could never go 15 seconds without having a human in the visual of the monster fight at the end. Seriously, I know Godzilla movies don't have a lot of Godzilla in it, but at least keep your human bullshit out of Godzilla's way when he shows up.

That roar though. Considering I saw this in 3D IMAX, that roar was glorious. Godzilla just standing there for a good 20 seconds just roaring. Fucking glorious.

7/10. Would have been a 9 if the movie didn't piss me off.

They dont have to do the twin fairies for Mothra to appear. Mothra in GMK didnt have the Twins with her. She was still kinda supernatural in origin but the new movies could still do Mothra and just dont do it the supernatural way. They could do her as this ancient creature that was worshipped as a god in the past and then was forgotten and just exists in legends. This way Mothra wouldnt really be a supernatural creature but still retain her backstory.

Personally I would love to see them do more original Monsters. The old ones are awesome but I always like when new ones are introduced.

Godzilla was awesome, the human story was well crafted even if the human lead was simply ok, the action was awesome, but they could have showed more of the initial encounters, music and visuals were great, and having such an heroic G was a bold choice, but it paid, everybody was rooting for him.

Agreed , just watched it and I thought it was very well done.

I'll be sharing my thoughts on our podcast, but it was a 9/10 for me. The loss of a point came from the loss of Bryan Cranston.

Was the Zilla better than the kaiju in pacific rim??

I can't be the only one who wants Mothra in the sequel. Right?

I think when I saw it with my mates yesterday one of them pointed outba insect tank and it read mothra on it

I quite enjoyed the movie. Like most people on here, Ford bothered me in that I never really cared much if he got back to his family or not. Definitely could have used more Bryan Cranston!
I also liked the build up of Godzilla...only seeing a foot or the tail amidst smoke or flashing lights. It made him feel more ominous and impressive. And his spine lighting up blue for the atomic breath...nothing short of awesome.

But I can't HELP it if I kept hearing "Up from the depths. Thirty stories hiiiigh. Breeeeeathing fire. His head in the skyyyyy. GODZILLAAAAAAA!! " in my head when he would rise up out of the water. :D

I just dont see what the big deal about Cranston was. He was attached to the film yes. But it was clearly obvious from the 2nd trailer onward he wouldn't be the main character or focus of the film. He was barely shown in anything past the initial teaser trailers. He was never purported to be the "hero" of the film. He and his dead wife in the film served as devices to set up Ford as our protagonist, I think they served they purpose accurately and enjoyably.

The problem is that he was a much more interesting character then Ford. I wouldn't say it was "clearly obvious" either because his conspiracy dialogue was featured on (unless I'm mistaken) every single trailer and definitely one the most common one which shows up on TV and Youtube commercials. Ford in comparison was barely in any of the trailers. Hell, did he even speak a line in a single trailer?

Why? What is so great about him? He would have had nothing to do had he not died.

I really don't get what the big deal is. Nobody complained before about an actor dying but suddenly "OH NO HOW DARE YOU KILL CRANSTON!!" is posted all over the internet. I'm sure he was a good actor in that Breaking Bad show, but people are treating him like he should be invincible. Plus, I was thankful to finally have a movie that was not abridged in the trailer like nearly every movie I have seen this year has been. Both Transcendence and Spider-Man had their entire movie told to us in a 2 minute trailer. Godzilla did not.

I have not ever seen Breaking Bad and I still can see the problem with killing off the movie's most interesting character in the first Act, especially when the movie then proceeded then on with an incredibly dull main protagonist.

I felt with Ford it was less the acting and more what he was given to work with. I think if he was more central to the story it might mean more. For the most part he seems relegated to the role of observer, which might not be bad in the context of the movie, but makes for a less interesting character (in my opinion).

Bryan Cranston is a great actor and alot of people fell in love with him after Breaking Bad. So knowing he would be in this movie and the trailers having his monologue all over them gave them the assumption he would be in this movie alot longer than he actually was. I´m one of those people that were fooled by the first trailers in thinking that and when he died I was pretty surprised.

But I gotta say I was suprised in a good way by Bryan Cranstons character dying. Now I knew that all bets were off and that the movie most definitely wouldnt turn out what I imagined it to be. The same goes for everything else the trailers "promised" that wasnt in the movie. I really appreciate a marketing campaign that doesnt spoil the entire movie before you even sat down and watched the damn thing :lol

I believe the problem with Ford was that he was paired up with Cranston in the beginning. Cranston is no doubt a better actor than Johnston and his character was written really well so you got attached to him and his situation. People got invested in Joe Ford and when he died they were just left with his son Ford. And the thing with Ford was that he really wasnt as involved with the actual story than Joe was. Joe actually researched the Kaiju activities and tried to uncover the secret behind it all and Ford just wanted to get home to his family.

That said I still think Ford was sympathetic enough so you could care about him. He was pretty much thrusted into the same situation his father was in fifteen years prior. He now knew what they were up against and what danger his own family had to face. If there is one thing he wanted was his family to be safe and his own Son to grow up with both his parents still being there for him.

Bingo, not only is he a great actor with enough popularity to sell tickets but he was the character shown the most in trailers, leading most to believe he was in fact the protagonist, his death was a genuine shock for most people.

But I liked the twist, and felt his son was strong enough to lead the movie even if the progression felt kinda dsiconnected at times.

Its pretty much the same situation with Godzilla. People thought going in they would get more Godzilla and less MUTOs. Some didnt even know they were MUTOs in the movie. So when they didnt get that they were disappointed. And to be honest that is not an invalid complaint. A marketing campaign like that is a double edged sword. There are those in the audience that appreciate this (like myself) and those that dont.

I know I got impatient halfway through the movie because I had completely different expectations about what it was going to be. I thought it was all Godzilla, and the relative lack of him made me say "about time" when he finally appeared in full. I did realize what they were going for, and let myself enjoy it, but like you said, it was dangerous marketing it that way.

Of course, with such a lovely final act, all is forgiven. :D

As soon as the airport scene happened I knew what I was in for the rest of the movie :lol

I gotta say what I think made the whole thing work was the way the Kaiju were presented. They just seemed so bigger than life and it always felt like they gave you just enough of them to be satisfied and yet sitting there wanting more.

I liked how in the shadows everything was, the people I went with only knew two things: Cranston and Godzilla, and when the first act took one out and showed another monster as the main antagonist they were genuinely shocked.
For once it's good to get into a movie witohut knowing the general plot due to trailers.

They should ahve showed more of the battle in Honolulu, that would have helped quench the monster thirst. :lol

Dat finisher! It's Orga's death done right!

Agreed, the kaiju were simply breathtaking.

The kaiju were so perfect. Is this the new age of monster movies? :D

I loved that scene. At first I thought they were going to do the classic King Kong finishing move but then they were all like nope Atomic Breath down your throat :lol

Especially those sceneswhen theyshowed them from far away so you could take in the full scope of their size and the destruction they caused.

I hope so. I love Kaiju :lol

Pacific Rim, Godzilla, a new Gamera coming out soon.
Sounds likely!

Me too, I was fully expecting a jaw rip, but what we got was 100 times more awesome.

They were both terryfying and majestic monsters, I specially loved Godzilla's eyes, it was something that bothered me in the reveal (since I expected an antagonistic Godzilla) but it worked so well, showed him as an old and battleworn creature, one filled with feeling.

Don't forget the new Power Rangers movie could potentially end up doing this too! :lol

Godzilla had tons of personality in this movie. Especially the scene at the airport were he was surrounded by flames and looked directly at you before he let out this beautiful roar. To me it felt like him announcing to the world "Daddy's home."

The MUTOs also got that great scene with them showing affection for each other and I couldnt help myslef but let out a big awwwww :lol

True!

He is the King of Monsters for a good reason. :lol

Yeah, the courtship and their grieving over the loss of their eggs were great moments.
All they wanted was to survive...

Something about this movie that really took me by surprise was how incompetent the military in this was :lol

It really gave you that classic Godzilla feeling of the military not able to do anything.

I felt they were surprisingly smart. :lol

Everytime the MUTO got ahold of a nuke I was like "Seriously? Did you really think the MUTO wouldnt find you?" :lol