Godzilla Minus One OWNS Godzilla 2014!
Before seeing the film, I was pretty much “done” with Godzilla.
I remember all the endless summer hype for the big budget Americanized Godzilla remake in the late 90s, which was notoriously bad. THEN, I remember the hype for the 2014 America version, which was supposedly “MUCH better” than the 90s version and “much more faithful” to the Japanese original. I watched BOTH American Godzilla’s back-to-back a decade ago. NEITHER ONE was “good”, but the ’98 version was at least entertaining for how ridiculously over-the-top goofy it was. The “serious” 2014 version had better special effects, and yes, Godzilla “looked” much more like the original 1950s Japanese design, but that’s about it (and he was originally designed that way in the 50s so they could fit a human into a bulky rubber suit, whereas the ’98 version looked more like a real life giant mutated reptilian creature would actually look). The 2014 version went downhill after Bryan Cranston died. Godzilla showed up an hour into his own movie and had 15-20 mins. screentime in a movie called “Godzilla”. The creatures he fought in that movie (called MUTOs) were really cool looking, too bad the movie wasn’t just called MUTOs, and tried to trick us into thinking it was about Godzilla.
On the other hand, THIS new movie (Godzilla Minus One) is an ACTUAL Japanese movie, which pretty much proves my point since the 1990s that if you want a real Godzilla movie, you need Japan to make one! Godzilla shows up five minutes into this movie, is the MAIN focus of the story, and is EXACTLY what he is supposed to be: a horrible, unstoppable monster slaughtering people! What’s more, this is the only Godzilla movie where I actually CARED about the human characters. There is a real human drama here, the backstory is great, and it gives the action movie some depth and emotion, as you genuinely care what happens to the people involved in the story, instead of just focusing on “kewl” destruction scenes.
No need for slick Hollywood CGI, A-list stars, “kewl” quippy dialogue, or diversity quotas, it’s all Japanese cast in a period drama set right after World War II (late 1940s), (the whole movie is in the Japanese language, with English subtitles) and they did some REALLY amazing and breathtaking battles and carnage for a film with a tiny budget of only $15 million.
Gareth Edwards (director of the "much better", e.g. much OVERRATED 2014 Godzilla) has even ADMITTED this fact, and stated that he is "jealous" of the 2023 movie being SO good. He must have sat in there in the theater, discovering what an ACTUAL Godzilla movie SHOULD be like. Dude needs to take notes next time!
Gareth Edwards, you just got OWNED! So much for gloating about much "better" you can do Godzilla.