I saw this in the theater yesterday. And I enjoyed it.

It was a period piece. Set just after WW2. The appearance of Godzilla was treated as an insult to injury to a country that had already been reduced to its lowest. That's what the Minus One meant.

The United States was treated as having its own issues in this movie. And was unable to help because of tension with the Soviets. So the Japanese were left to muster their ragtag self-defense militia to take on the crisis. They did a lot with what skeleton of military resources they had been left with.

Sounds like more victim playing by Japan.

If they had any guts they would show post WWII China cheering on Godzilla as payback for the atrocities Japan committed against China and got away with nearly consequence free.

A lot of people are saying that this is the best Godzilla movie ever. I'd agree that the human-bits are very good and I'd struggle to match it with any other. However, there isn't a whole lot of monster action. Overall though, it seems that they wrote themselves into a corner for setting up sequels. I hope that they make a Godzilla Minus Zero (or Godzilla Zero) because Toho has been making too many standalone Godzilla movies. Even the last one ended on the sort of cliffhanger that never got resolved.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on December 03, 2023, 01:11:19 PM
A lot of people are saying that this is the best Godzilla movie ever. I'd agree that the human-bits are very good and I'd struggle to match it with any other. However, there isn't a whole lot of monster action. Overall though, it seems that they wrote themselves into a corner for setting up sequels. I hope that they make a Godzilla Minus Zero (or Godzilla Zero) because Toho has been making too many standalone Godzilla movies. Even the last one ended on the sort of cliffhanger that never got resolved.

A lot of the older (60s and 70s) Godzilla movies have a lot of non-Godzilla story. My wife, when I watched the second or third movie, asked halfway through, "Doesn't Godzilla show up at some point?" LOL

Quote from: Omega on December 02, 2023, 06:45:19 PM
Sounds like more victim playing by Japan.

If they had any guts they would show post WWII China cheering on Godzilla as payback for the atrocities Japan committed against China and got away with nearly consequence free.

My circle of friends from college started an anime con in the 90's, and one of our staffers was of Chinese descent. He couldn't tell his mom he was going to a Japanese anime con. She was from Nanking.

The trailer reminds me a lot of the original movie, where Godzilla going through Tokyo was properly disturbing.

Quote from: Lurkndog on December 04, 2023, 09:26:54 PM
The trailer reminds me a lot of the original movie, where Godzilla going through Tokyo was properly disturbing.

It was very disturbing. Godzilla was portrayed as a horrifying monster throughout the movie.

The atomic breath set off atomic explosions. There was no downplaying of that. This was a horror film in the true sense.

Quote from: Tod13 on December 03, 2023, 01:20:09 PM
A lot of the older (60s and 70s) Godzilla movies have a lot of non-Godzilla story. My wife, when I watched the second or third movie, asked halfway through, "Doesn't Godzilla show up at some point?" LOL

That was fairly standard for Japanese movies for a long time.

H-Man comes to mind right off as it is more a crime investigation movie than a blob monster movie. Secret of the Teligan is another apparently. Still looking to get a copy some day.

I think it is partially that Japanese moviemakers, particularly in the 1950s, came from a moviemaking tradition where the establishing dramatic scenes were normally the entire movie. It's not a bad thing.

In modern-day media, you get genre movies made by people who have only ever watched genre movies, and they can be, frankly, kinda inbred. They tend to skip over the establishing stuff to go straight to the tropes, and then they hit the tropes way too hard.

For instance, it's pretty clear that a lot of modern day anime studios have only ever watched anime, and so they make entire series composed of nothing but boiled-down anime tropes. None of the characters has anything like a real personality, and EVERYONE IS SHOUTING ALL THE TIME.

I see it in American comics books too. Let's take ____ and make it r-rated and way too explicit. And all too often, they run out of steam after only a couple of years, because apart from rebelling against the status quo, and imitating their heroes, they've got nothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xubEPzbUUms

This is a fair review.

The original Godzilla movie had the right mix of people vs monster time. The new US made one felt way off balance.

H-man works too because the crime drama and the people mesh into the mystery of the monsters.

The thing with Godzilla is that it's a really great metaphor for nature or atomic power, or whatever and can be used to great effect showing people coping with the bad effects of it.

But at the same time, it's really, really cool to see giant monsters fight each other.

Hollywood has gone the latter route, while Japan has gone back to the roots.

It's a damn good movie, period.  And obviously a very solid Godzilla film.  One thing I really enjoyed is how they brought back lots of the score from the original film.  The way they got around the American occupation was a bit weak and contrived, but I understand why they did it. 

And the best part?  The utterly non-diverse, entirely Japanese cast.  No random BIPOC or half-Caucasian hero in a wheelchair or whatever.

Quote from: Omega on December 06, 2023, 05:02:46 AM
The original Godzilla movie had the right mix of people vs monster time. The new US made one felt way off balance.

For me the one film that had the best mix of human story and monster action was GMK. Both that movie and Minus One have a very similar ending as well.

I'm pretty sure that Godzilla and other giant monsters casually annihilating cities in their wake would terrify the US and Soviets so badly that they'd set aside their differences and work together.