New trailer....so excited and Infuriating!

There was a formula with the original Toho versions. That was we usually got to see Godzilla's foe at the beginning. About a half hour in we got to see Godzilla. Then the rest of the film was a good mix of human drama and monster mashing.

it's cheaper and looks more realistic when some of the detail is obscured by darkness, fog/clouds/dust or rain.

and I dont think that's what audiences complained about most. "not enough Godzilla" was the chief complaint.

"at this point you have to consider, they have to be doing to HIDE CGI flaws"

That's maybe not a bad guess. It's not directly the same thing, but in my Gear VR the best experiences get over the 'screen door' effect by incorporating it into the experience, i.e. scenes at night, scenes with fog, etc.

This might be in a similar vein. Large scale CGI still looks 'unreal' so using darkness, smoke, etc is a way to get around that.

You pointed out exactly why I couldn't stand the 2014 Godzilla. I literally scratched my head anytime someone gave it an exceptional review. To me the movie looks nice as does Godzilla when you can see him but it's just a giant tease.

Thing is I can deal with slow films. I love Alien, Jaws etc. People are always like you just wanted a mindless transformers film. No I wanted an engaging movie. Alien and Jaws are slow but have characters that are memorable and engaging. I'm sorry but in my opinion Godzilla's characters were bland and dull. So since the movie is slow and a tease I'm stuck with characters that are just boring, therefore I don't care about them.

Pacific rim had bland characters but know the difference? It knew it was a cheese monster movie where you want to see giant monsters fight. So you got plenty of that. So pick one either be that or be an engaging slow movie like Alien or Jaws which had great characters.

I think the climactic fight in the first Godzilla film could have used more light, but the flip side to that is how effective Godzilla's atomic breath was when he used it the first time. I could definitely follow the action, though when I watched a second and third time I picked up on new details each time. I can find merit in arguments to both sides-- perfect as is or needs more light. I definitely disagree with regards to the human side. I found the characters to be quite interesting.

The new trailer looks like it addresses all the above. Contrary to what Bill wrote in the OP, the action seems quite visible. Rodan's twirling maneuver to avoid the rockets was pretty dope, and those claws closing in on a jet was pretty amazing as well. The final scene in the trailer, with Godzilla and Ghidorah charging one another seemed perfectly lit, and it almost felt like that snippet in the trailer was as awe-inspiring as any scene in the first film. Color me overly optimistic, but I think we're in store for a series of kaiju battles that will top anything heretofore shown on the silver screen.

Yeah I noticed that also, the dark action sequences. It's WB though, where they like "dark and gritty" all the time now!

I think maybe (just maybe), some of the darkened action sequences is due to monster fights happening during an electrical storm (likely caused by Gidorah), volcanic eruptions or (yes) battles at nighttime.

There was a scene in the first trailer where Rhodan was flying up against jet fighters during daylight, so maybe there's more scenes during day.

We shall see. In the meantime it looks pretty good.

It's not even nearly as bad as your description suggests. Definitely not the same category as the G'2014 home transfers.

Personally I still haven't made friends with the visual direction here, especially the generic-ass over-saturated color grading and the somewhat baffling CGI moments (the way Godzilla moves now, without any resemblance of actual weight or that "I'm too old for this shit, but still more badass than any other living creature on this planet" attitude he conveyed in the first movie, is especially disheartening), and I could really use a plot that's slightly less inspired by Carnosaur of all things, but hey. It's still potentially the Godzilla movie we've been waiting for for decades now. Come opening day, I'll be there, hyped and ready.