As was foretold, we've added advertisements to the forums! If you have questions, or if you encounter any bugs, please visit this thread: https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/240191/forum-advertisement-faq-and-reports-thread/

Godzilla and other, less important Kaiju

1666769717293

Posts

  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Olivaw wrote: »
    Having seen KOTM again, it is somehow both more likable and more frustrating to me

    The parts that I like, I like more

    The parts I have problems with, I have even greater conviction about

    And it would be so easy to, if not solve them, then at least minimize or make them better with some very simple changes!

    Be interested to hear your thoughts on it! Just got to see it recently myself, and while i like the action, the dialogue had me cringing a loooot. Sad i never caught in cinemas though, just for the scale of the spectacle.

    Oh man

    It is too early for me to go into detail but put simply: there are numerous superfluous characters who could be eliminated or combined or replaced with other characters from previous MonsterVerse movies, and in fact the film seems to have an active disdain for its previously established characters in favor of wasting a ton of effort a bunch of new people we don’t have history with, so those are big problems number one and two
    Namely Kyle Chandler as Wolf Man and Ken Watanabe as Serizawa needed to have their lines swapped constantly; guess who should know Godzilla better than anyone and take charge in most situations involving him? Because it’s not the bland white asshole who hates him, that’s for sure

    Meanwhile the other characters from Skull Island don’t appear except for one who is a glorified cameo played by the great Joe Morton who is on screen for all of ten seconds, when he should be replacing the character who talks about the hollow earth constantly (his character’s own theory!!!)

    I also wouldn’t remove the only other supporting character from the first Godzilla in the first twenty minutes with no fanfare whatsoever, because I am in favor of keeping these characters around long enough for the audience to at least have the opportunity to care about them in some way. Sally Hawkins got shit all to do in two movies! Like come on! Combine her with the new scientist we’ve never met before who has a tearful goodbye to Serizawa which clearly belonged to Hawkins and who was almost definitely added explicitly to appeal to the Chinese market

    And if I really had my druthers? I wouldn’t have killed Bryan Cranston in the first film, and would have him play the Kyle Chandler role in this film. It would give a very compelling and watchable actor a central role that the audience could potentially attach to and fix potential problems with Vera Farmiga’s motivations

    Maybe her son and also her husband died during the attack in a way that she blames on people provoking the monsters rather than the monsters themselves. Maybe she and Cranston (who we have previously established is a scientist who also got way into sonar and bioacoustics!!!) worked on the Orca together in an effort for Monarch to control or drive away the monsters, maybe they sort of kind of had feelings for each other but they were both still hung up on dead spouses but the spark was there which provides extra emotional and internal conflict when her big turn happens, and maybe Cranston can have a hatred for Godzilla or monsters in general that is softened by the end of the movie by Serizawa and other events. You know, a believable arc! Unlike Wolf Man’s!!

    Okay maybe I went into detail anyway

    This also isn’t getting into the whole nuke angle and how I think that’s a thematic mess, but that’s a slightly more difficult knot to untangle. All of the other stuff? That’s easy street, man, it took me five minutes to think of all that because the blocks are just right there! They just don’t use them right

    Olivaw on
    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Oh and that rumor about Charles Dance’s character? Totally should have been true
    like honestly, of course Hiddleston would have been that guy, he was already bitter and disillusioned about human beings before he saw all that shit, after what happened on Skull Island you’re telling me he wouldn’t grow to think that maybe humanity sucked and monsters were cool and they kept a better balance than we did? It’s right there!! You have all these fucking characters already!! Why did you need to make up new ones we haven’t met before!!

    Aaaaaaaagh

    I swear the most frustrating movies are the ones where all the pieces are already there

    Olivaw on
    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
  • GustavGustav Friend of Goats Somewhere in the OzarksRegistered User regular
    Yeah the KoTM script is bafflingly fixable. So many redundant characters could be merged to great effect and so forth. And yeah I didn’t even realize the Skull Island cameo until long after the movie.

    aGPmIBD.jpg
  • StiltsStilts Registered User regular
    Olivaw wrote: »
    Olivaw wrote: »
    Having seen KOTM again, it is somehow both more likable and more frustrating to me

    The parts that I like, I like more

    The parts I have problems with, I have even greater conviction about

    And it would be so easy to, if not solve them, then at least minimize or make them better with some very simple changes!

    Be interested to hear your thoughts on it! Just got to see it recently myself, and while i like the action, the dialogue had me cringing a loooot. Sad i never caught in cinemas though, just for the scale of the spectacle.

    Oh man

    It is too early for me to go into detail but put simply: there are numerous superfluous characters who could be eliminated or combined or replaced with other characters from previous MonsterVerse movies, and in fact the film seems to have an active disdain for its previously established characters in favor of wasting a ton of effort a bunch of new people we don’t have history with, so those are big problems number one and two
    Namely Kyle Chandler as Wolf Man and Ken Watanabe as Serizawa needed to have their lines swapped constantly; guess who should know Godzilla better than anyone and take charge in most situations involving him? Because it’s not the bland white asshole who hates him, that’s for sure

    Meanwhile the other characters from Skull Island don’t appear except for one who is a glorified cameo played by the great Joe Morton who is on screen for all of ten seconds, when he should be replacing the character who talks about the hollow earth constantly (his character’s own theory!!!)

    I also wouldn’t remove the only other supporting character from the first Godzilla in the first twenty minutes with no fanfare whatsoever, because I am in favor of keeping these characters around long enough for the audience to at least have the opportunity to care about them in some way. Sally Hawkins got shit all to do in two movies! Like come on! Combine her with the new scientist we’ve never met before who has a tearful goodbye to Serizawa which clearly belonged to Hawkins and who was almost definitely added explicitly to appeal to the Chinese market

    And if I really had my druthers? I wouldn’t have killed Bryan Cranston in the first film, and would have him play the Kyle Chandler role in this film. It would give a very compelling and watchable actor a central role that the audience could potentially attach to and fix potential problems with Vera Farmiga’s motivations

    Maybe her son and also her husband died during the attack in a way that she blames on people provoking the monsters rather than the monsters themselves. Maybe she and Cranston (who we have previously established is a scientist who also got way into sonar and bioacoustics!!!) worked on the Orca together in an effort for Monarch to control or drive away the monsters, maybe they sort of kind of had feelings for each other but they were both still hung up on dead spouses but the spark was there which provides extra emotional and internal conflict when her big turn happens, and maybe Cranston can have a hatred for Godzilla or monsters in general that is softened by the end of the movie by Serizawa and other events. You know, a believable arc! Unlike Wolf Man’s!!

    Okay maybe I went into detail anyway

    This also isn’t getting into the whole nuke angle and how I think that’s a thematic mess, but that’s a slightly more difficult knot to untangle. All of the other stuff? That’s easy street, man, it took me five minutes to think of all that because the blocks are just right there! They just don’t use them right

    Even as someone who really enjoyed KotM, there are just too many moments in the script that are indefensibly messy, and I have to agree with everything you wrote here.

    IKknkhU.gif
  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Stilts wrote: »
    Olivaw wrote: »
    Olivaw wrote: »
    Having seen KOTM again, it is somehow both more likable and more frustrating to me

    The parts that I like, I like more

    The parts I have problems with, I have even greater conviction about

    And it would be so easy to, if not solve them, then at least minimize or make them better with some very simple changes!

    Be interested to hear your thoughts on it! Just got to see it recently myself, and while i like the action, the dialogue had me cringing a loooot. Sad i never caught in cinemas though, just for the scale of the spectacle.

    Oh man

    It is too early for me to go into detail but put simply: there are numerous superfluous characters who could be eliminated or combined or replaced with other characters from previous MonsterVerse movies, and in fact the film seems to have an active disdain for its previously established characters in favor of wasting a ton of effort a bunch of new people we don’t have history with, so those are big problems number one and two
    Namely Kyle Chandler as Wolf Man and Ken Watanabe as Serizawa needed to have their lines swapped constantly; guess who should know Godzilla better than anyone and take charge in most situations involving him? Because it’s not the bland white asshole who hates him, that’s for sure

    Meanwhile the other characters from Skull Island don’t appear except for one who is a glorified cameo played by the great Joe Morton who is on screen for all of ten seconds, when he should be replacing the character who talks about the hollow earth constantly (his character’s own theory!!!)

    I also wouldn’t remove the only other supporting character from the first Godzilla in the first twenty minutes with no fanfare whatsoever, because I am in favor of keeping these characters around long enough for the audience to at least have the opportunity to care about them in some way. Sally Hawkins got shit all to do in two movies! Like come on! Combine her with the new scientist we’ve never met before who has a tearful goodbye to Serizawa which clearly belonged to Hawkins and who was almost definitely added explicitly to appeal to the Chinese market

    And if I really had my druthers? I wouldn’t have killed Bryan Cranston in the first film, and would have him play the Kyle Chandler role in this film. It would give a very compelling and watchable actor a central role that the audience could potentially attach to and fix potential problems with Vera Farmiga’s motivations

    Maybe her son and also her husband died during the attack in a way that she blames on people provoking the monsters rather than the monsters themselves. Maybe she and Cranston (who we have previously established is a scientist who also got way into sonar and bioacoustics!!!) worked on the Orca together in an effort for Monarch to control or drive away the monsters, maybe they sort of kind of had feelings for each other but they were both still hung up on dead spouses but the spark was there which provides extra emotional and internal conflict when her big turn happens, and maybe Cranston can have a hatred for Godzilla or monsters in general that is softened by the end of the movie by Serizawa and other events. You know, a believable arc! Unlike Wolf Man’s!!

    Okay maybe I went into detail anyway

    This also isn’t getting into the whole nuke angle and how I think that’s a thematic mess, but that’s a slightly more difficult knot to untangle. All of the other stuff? That’s easy street, man, it took me five minutes to think of all that because the blocks are just right there! They just don’t use them right

    Even as someone who really enjoyed KotM, there are just too many moments in the script that are indefensibly messy, and I have to agree with everything you wrote here.

    Yeah, i'm having such a strong wtf reaction because the bits that are good are REAL good! Mothra steals the show every time she's around. Burning Godzilla is fantastic, Gidorah is very well characterised. i actually like shoutout to mothra-twins scientists (...though the fact i had to freaking looking up that they were Twins and she wasn't just teleporting between vast geographic distances is a serious knock).

    But the dialogue is so cringingly bad - from the bad science on pack alphas (Which also just seems needlessly reductive/boring. Fuck, pick up and run with Zilla actually being a KING of monsters, and Gidorah being an alien outsider usurper pushing things into a non-natural order by inserting himself as some sort of "Alpha" and things get more interesting). Actually one bit that jumps out to me is how they seem to feel the need to have every character spoutoff at point, like they're running through an "A, B, C, D get their chance to talk".

    Also re Dance's character actually being Hiddleston's... Thanks.

    I hate it.

    It's a fucking GREAT idea, going by what a visceral reaction it just provoked in me.

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
    Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
    Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
    Switch: 0293 6817 9891
  • GustavGustav Friend of Goats Somewhere in the OzarksRegistered User regular
    I think you actually cut Dance’s character and put all of that plot into Farminga’s character if you go eco terrorist route. Which I have qualms with but it’s tighter.

    Or you make the Dance gang into fucking monster cultists and remove the eco arc entirely.

    Or Dance is aged up Hiddleston trying to fucking ruin the monsters

    Or honestly a hundred other things that don’t feel like tangents from both the themes or narrative of the film.

    aGPmIBD.jpg
  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    The dialogue isn’t great but honestly I don’t have as strong a reaction to its quality as I do to who it’s assigned to, most of the time

    These are silly concepts for a silly movie, I’m not expecting Mamet here! I just want things to flow efficiently and not be aggressively obnoxious like, say, a Roland Emmerich film

    I think the film generally succeeds at the latter, but not at the former

    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
  • jdarksunjdarksun Struggler VARegistered User regular
    As somebody who grew up watching the Shows era stuff almost as much as I watched Star Wars, I adored KotM.

  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    jdarksun wrote: »
    As somebody who grew up watching the Shows era stuff almost as much as I watched Star Wars, I adored KotM.

    Yeah, for as many problems as I have with the movie, there’s an earnest love for that silly shit in it that makes me all happy inside

    Even if it fumbles its metaphors pretty bad, its heart is in the right place, and that feeling I get absolutely makes me like a movie more than something soulless or mercenary

    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
  • GustavGustav Friend of Goats Somewhere in the OzarksRegistered User regular
    Oh yeah all my complaints aside I still kinda dig the hell outta the movie

    aGPmIBD.jpg
  • The Zombie PenguinThe Zombie Penguin Eternal Hungry Corpse Registered User regular
    Yeah, I wouldn't be complaining if I hadn't enjoyed it and seen potential in it!

    Ideas hate it when you anthropomorphize them
    Steam: https://steamcommunity.com/id/TheZombiePenguin
    Stream: https://www.twitch.tv/thezombiepenguin/
    Switch: 0293 6817 9891
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    I need some input

    My friends and I have a weekly movie night where someone picks a film for the entire group to watch. No vetos, but people don’t intentionally pick bad shit, it’s all in good faith and we try and pick something with a high chance of success

    My week is coming up and I was thinking of showing a Godzilla film. I don’t want to show the original though, and I already showed Shin Godzilla to a school group several months ago

    I was thinking of showing Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, Invasion of Astro-Monster, or vs. Mechagodzilla, but I’m not sure which would offer the best blend of monster stuff and goofy subplots. I also don’t want them to be bored. I’m leaning towards Mechagodzilla because I know the fights whip ass, but I can’t remember how the human plot actually holds up. I’m also worried Astro-Monster might drag a little, and I don’t actually remember Three-Headed Monster that well at all.

    Thoughts?!

  • Rorshach KringleRorshach Kringle that crustache life Registered User regular
    show destroy all monsters

    that'll keep everyone happy

    6vjsgrerts6r.png

  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    I need some input

    My friends and I have a weekly movie night where someone picks a film for the entire group to watch. No vetos, but people don’t intentionally pick bad shit, it’s all in good faith and we try and pick something with a high chance of success

    My week is coming up and I was thinking of showing a Godzilla film. I don’t want to show the original though, and I already showed Shin Godzilla to a school group several months ago

    I was thinking of showing Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, Invasion of Astro-Monster, or vs. Mechagodzilla, but I’m not sure which would offer the best blend of monster stuff and goofy subplots. I also don’t want them to be bored. I’m leaning towards Mechagodzilla because I know the fights whip ass, but I can’t remember how the human plot actually holds up. I’m also worried Astro-Monster might drag a little, and I don’t actually remember Three-Headed Monster that well at all.

    Thoughts?!

    Those are three good choices!

    Mechagodzilla has good pacing and doesn't drag much, I don't think, and the fights do indeed whip ass. Astro-Monster is probably the slowest one, but also has one of the sillier narratives, so might be entertaining in that right. But Ghidorah is probably the strongest of those three as, like, a movie, and while it has a sequence near the end that makes me laugh a lot every time I see it, it definitely has one of the most compelling human plots of that era

    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    edited August 2019
    Yeah and Ghidorah also serves as a good intro to the popular monsters so it has that going for it too... maybe I’ll go with that one

    GreasyKidsStuff on
  • OlivawOlivaw good name, isn't it? the foot of mt fujiRegistered User regular
    show destroy all monsters

    that'll keep everyone happy

    But only the American dub

    It cuts out twelve minutes of boring stuff

    signature-deffo.jpg
    PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    I don't think Destroy All Monsters is that great!

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    The rumble at the end is great, but the rest of the film is just okay.

  • GustavGustav Friend of Goats Somewhere in the OzarksRegistered User regular
    Those spacesuits though. They are dope.

    aGPmIBD.jpg
  • Andy JoeAndy Joe We claim the land for the highlord! The AdirondacksRegistered User regular
    XBL: Stealth Crane PSN: ajpet12 3DS: 1160-9999-5810 NNID: StealthCrane Pokemon Scarlet Name: Carmen
  • KwoaruKwoaru Confident Smirk Flawless Golden PecsRegistered User regular
    I finally watched the third Netflix Godzilla

    It was like half a dozen good ideas and then 50 dumb ones to pad out the run time

    2x39jD4.jpg
  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    I need some input

    My friends and I have a weekly movie night where someone picks a film for the entire group to watch. No vetos, but people don’t intentionally pick bad shit, it’s all in good faith and we try and pick something with a high chance of success

    My week is coming up and I was thinking of showing a Godzilla film. I don’t want to show the original though, and I already showed Shin Godzilla to a school group several months ago

    I was thinking of showing Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, Invasion of Astro-Monster, or vs. Mechagodzilla, but I’m not sure which would offer the best blend of monster stuff and goofy subplots. I also don’t want them to be bored. I’m leaning towards Mechagodzilla because I know the fights whip ass, but I can’t remember how the human plot actually holds up. I’m also worried Astro-Monster might drag a little, and I don’t actually remember Three-Headed Monster that well at all.

    Thoughts?!

    Just an update on this: I went with Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster. It went over alright! It's a lot slower in the first half than I thought, but it all pays off with great fight, and the scene where Godzilla and Rodan play volleyball with a boulder while Mothra watches on in bafflement really played well with my friends. Good stuff!

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    I just realized that Godzilla vs King comes out in six months and still has no trailer. That movie is totally getting delayed, isn't it.

  • BlankZoeBlankZoe Registered User regular
    I just realized that Godzilla vs King comes out in six months and still has no trailer. That movie is totally getting delayed, isn't it.
    Eh, maybe maybe not

    Movies not having trailers like a year out isn't really a red flag at this point

    Bad Boys 4 Life is out two months beforehand and just got its first trailer this week

    Similarly, A Quiet Place 2 is also out in March and has had no marketing.

    Folks just figured out there is no reason to start hype cycles so far ahead of release.

    CYpGAPn.png
  • Rorshach KringleRorshach Kringle that crustache life Registered User regular
    the turnaround time from trailer to home video is frighteningly quick any more

    6vjsgrerts6r.png

  • GreasyKidsStuffGreasyKidsStuff MOMMM! ROAST BEEF WANTS TO KISS GIRLS ON THE TITTIES!Registered User regular
    Man KotM had a teaser out nearly an entire year before it released, wow

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Finally got around to watching the KotM bonus features and I'm pretty disappointed there was no "in universe" stuff like with 2014 and Skull Island. :(

  • Metzger MeisterMetzger Meister It Gets Worse before it gets any better.Registered User regular
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Watching a few non-Japanese kaiju flicks.

    First was the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms. I liked the framing device of "guy saw something, spends the movie trying to convince others that its real" hook for a kaiju film.

    Second was Gorgo, which was a journey. Started out feeling like it was going to be a UK Godzilla movie, but then it briefly becomes Jaws a decade before Jaws, and then it becomes King Kong and THEN it becomes a UK Godzilla.
    I liked the twist of the creature turning out to be a baby. I feel like it's a common trope, but I can't think of another Kaiju flick that does it (or at least does it in a way that's relevant to the plot (I'm looking at you, Cloverfield).) Also I liked how the UK utterly failed to stop the big one and the carnage only stops after it frees its child and has no more reason to be on land.

  • GvzbgulGvzbgul Registered User regular
    The film was originally intended to be set in Japan as an homage to Godzilla; the setting was then changed to France, and then finally changed to the British Isles. According to Bill Warren's film book Keep Watching the Skies, southern Australia was also considered for a locale, but the producers supposedly decided that audiences "wouldn't care" if a monster attacked Australia; its alleged lack of worldwide recognisable landmarks for Gorgo to destroy was also cited as a consideration.

  • sarukunsarukun RIESLING OCEANRegistered User regular
    edited October 2019
    I definitely didn’t care when Australia’s kaiju wall crumbled like biscotti in Pacific Rim.

    sarukun on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited October 2019
    Also watched Reptilicus, which is a Danish Kaiju movie, though I watched the USA version. I wish it would have been the Danish version because there's US General (working for the UN) that basically takes control of the Danish military and it's just feels a little too "USA knows best" to me and I wonder if he's in the Danish version.

    The movie is pretty good, with a monsters that has a neat hook: it can regenerate, even from tiny fragments of itself (reminds me of the toho Frankenstein movies). It actually sets up an interesting opening where some miners find some blood and skin on one of their drills and the scientists assure them that there's no way they could be from a living creature and that it was mostly likely frozen underground area and they happened to thaw out some of it with their drill... and it turns out that is 100% what happens and there's no monster lurking underground.

    Monster also has acid spit, and I had to laugh at the fact that the movie ALWAYS cuts away right as the acid (represented via animation drawn on the frames) covers the screen, but before any of its effects are seen. Godzilla vs Hedorah this is not. :biggrin:

    There's a weird bit in the middle of the movie where the main cast does a night on the town in Copenhagen, which I think was done so they could point out to US audience "Hey, here's danish landmark so you know to "Oh damn!" when the monster destroys it later".
    Though one of the landmarks makes for the best set piece in the movie when a crowd of frightened people try to cross a drawbridge, but the operate freaks the fuck out before they can all cross and begins raising the bridge, and you see people at first make the jump and then start climbing on it, until it's too far out of reach and people (Especially those on bikes) start falling over the edge as just a MASS of people begin taking up every square inch of the half of the bridge the monster is near. Harrowing. Good stuff.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • NorgothNorgoth cardiffRegistered User regular
    Of course, both Gorgo and Reptillicus are available on Netflix if you don’t mind watching the MST3K versions.

  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    edited November 2019
    Says $209 for me, not eligible for coupons.

    Oh sick the 50% Criterion discount applies on checkout, not on the listed price. $122 after tax. Picking up this beautiful package of monsters on Saturday!

    Pinfeldorf on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited November 2019
    Just checked and it still says $112 for me, even on a new device.

    Edit: Awesome! Glad you figured it out.

    Undead Scottsman on
  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Happy 65th Anniversary to the big G.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    I got my copy of the Showa collection in recently and whoops, I thought this was going to be a blu-ray sized boxset. It's huge! It's a gorgeous collection, but damn, I have no idea where I'm going to put this thing!

    XxYEudV.jpg
    (Ultra Q/Ultraman shown for size comparison. Omega Supreme shown because I didn't want to both to move him)

    I'm a little bummed the Japanese version of King Kong vs Godzilla is an extra on the bonus disc instead of being an option on the disc that actually comes with King Kong vs Godzilla, but at least it's included.

    Also, as seen, I got my copies of Ultra Q and Ultraman in. Ultra Q is a weird little gem; it's Twilight Zone/Outer Limits (complete with a "We control the vertical" style of voice over where the narrator lets us know we'll be experiencing "a separation of mind and body" and frequent references to "the unbalanced zone") where the plot usually (but not always) revolves around a (typically giant) monster. It stars a trio of characters; Jun, a small aircraft pilot and amateur scifi writer, Ippei, Jun's flight partner, and Yuriko, a photojournalist (again with the lady photographer in Japanese kaiju product.) who get's damseled and patronized a lot, but also is shown to be a really good photojournalist and generally kicks ass and is great. The show is typically very straight-laced, with a few exceptions (there's a couple of kid-oriented episodes that come out of nowhere) to the point where I felt like they needed to not take itself quite as seriously. (There is an episode later on where SPOILER happens that I quite enjoyed)
    Yuriko get's shrunk to 1/8th her size and get sent to a tiny city to live in and you can kinda guess where this is going in regards to when Jun and Ippei show up.

    That said, I watched some Ultraman too and while it definitely doesn't take itself quite as seriously, it may be a little too kid oriented for what I was looking for. I'm also finding the formulaic nature to be a drag even this early in. Something monster related goes on, Science Pratrol is called in, science patrol fails to stop it, eventually it results in a giant monster rampage so the main character becomes Ultraman, fight until his chest starts blinking indicating he's going to run out of power soon, Ultraman beats the monster and flies off, everyone wonders where the main character has run off to right as he shows back up with an excuse about his whereabouts and the episode ends. Like, it's trite to say, but the time limit feels pointless. That might just be me being too damn genre savvy, knowing Ultraman almost always is going to win. Ah well.

    I'm on disc three and they've messed with the formula a little bit. (Episode where the monster basically gets defeated by humans so Ultraman spends his time putting out a massive fire was cool; another episode where Ultraman beats up a monster that was the creation of a bunch of kids, while all the kids are wailing and screaming at him to stop was kinda disturbing. Poor monster just wanted to take naps!).

    Overall, I dunno if I'm digging on Ultraman enough to pick up the Ultraseven collection when it hits next month, but I'll definitely finish out this set at least.

Sign In or Register to comment.