Godzilla Reboot coming 2014

[W8taminute]

I believe in Godzilla_{Toho Productions version} and only Godzilla.  There is no Godzilla other than Godzilla_{Toho Productions}.

That being said I'll probably go see this new movie by Horrywood but I will most likely be cringing in my seat throughout the event. 


Now for my tribute to the greatest composer of Godzilla music:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDeU42u2s2Y


Sorry for the link but YouTube has disabled embedding.  This is the main title theme to the 1954 classic.

[JasonPratt]

The difference is that this film is made by dedicated fans of Toho Godzilla, instead of Roland Emmerich & Co.

Speaking as someone who owns every Godzilla movie from the three series on DVD (along with all the various comic series fwiw), I'm reasonably hopeful. Toho has set aside intentions to do another Godzilla reboot series for this purpose, so they clearly have confidence in it. My only worry so far is that someone prominently stamped a colorful stylized Godzilla logo on an old-style atomic bomb, which while that's quite Tohoish (especially by the standards of their 2nd and 3rd series) doesn't fit the rest of the tone of the trailer at all. I'm hoping this represents an attempt at the end of the movie to fight Godzilla, rather than something that purportedly happened in the 50s (where part of the plot is certainly set).


The guy who looks like Shia, by the way, is not Shia, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson who is playing Pietro Maximoff/Quicksilver in the upcoming Avengers 2 (not the X-Men version). The blonde girl is Elizabeth Olsen who will be playing QS's sister Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch in the same movie; oddly I think she's the boy soldier's love interest here. Cue the terrible more-or-less official incestuous crack-fics.  :P


I think I was able to embed the Ifukube video, btw.

[OJsDad]

My only worry so far is that someone prominently stamped a colorful stylized Godzilla logo on an old-style atomic bomb, which while that's quite Tohoish (especially by the standards of their 2nd and 3rd series) doesn't fit the rest of the tone of the trailer at all. I'm hoping this represents an attempt at the end of the movie to fight Godzilla, rather than something that purportedly happened in the 50s (where part of the plot is certainly set).

I took that scene to mean what it said, in that the South Pacific nuke tests were not tests, but attempts to stop/kill either Godzilla or one of his kind. 

[Centurion40]

My only worry so far is that someone prominently stamped a colorful stylized Godzilla logo on an old-style atomic bomb, which while that's quite Tohoish (especially by the standards of their 2nd and 3rd series) doesn't fit the rest of the tone of the trailer at all. I'm hoping this represents an attempt at the end of the movie to fight Godzilla, rather than something that purportedly happened in the 50s (where part of the plot is certainly set).

I took that scene to mean what it said, in that the South Pacific nuke tests were not tests, but attempts to stop/kill either Godzilla or one of his kind.

Me too.  But that Godzilla destroyed the Vegas Strip is going too far, dammit!

[OJsDad]

My only worry so far is that someone prominently stamped a colorful stylized Godzilla logo on an old-style atomic bomb, which while that's quite Tohoish (especially by the standards of their 2nd and 3rd series) doesn't fit the rest of the tone of the trailer at all. I'm hoping this represents an attempt at the end of the movie to fight Godzilla, rather than something that purportedly happened in the 50s (where part of the plot is certainly set).

I took that scene to mean what it said, in that the South Pacific nuke tests were not tests, but attempts to stop/kill either Godzilla or one of his kind.

Me too.  But that Godzilla destroyed the Vegas Strip is going too far, dammit!

Did you notice from the clip, that it looks like a beat up Statue of Liberty is sitting in LA.

[Centurion40]

No.  I just assumed that it was the statue in from of the New York, New York Hotel/casino on the Vegas Strip.

[mirth]

My only worry so far is that someone prominently stamped a colorful stylized Godzilla logo on an old-style atomic bomb, which while that's quite Tohoish (especially by the standards of their 2nd and 3rd series) doesn't fit the rest of the tone of the trailer at all. I'm hoping this represents an attempt at the end of the movie to fight Godzilla, rather than something that purportedly happened in the 50s (where part of the plot is certainly set).

I took that scene to mean what it said, in that the South Pacific nuke tests were not tests, but attempts to stop/kill either Godzilla or one of his kind. 

Yeah, that was what I got from it too.

[JasonPratt]

^^ If so (and I agree some of the evidence points that way, but not all of it), that's what would bother me. That little stylized logo seems like something a modern person would do.

Extra evidence pointing to that being the 50s: Ken Watanabe is looking at a grainy b/w photo of Godzilla's back rising out of the water, in what seems intended to be the same scene shown in color-life during the trailer. In the foreground, the little bomb tower can be seen (at least in the color-real-life shot) as Godzilla's back rises up in the background. (This is also part of a series of linked trailer footage culminating in a nuclear explosion -- I presume in any case Godzilla is missing due to fx not being shown yet -- with the voiceover talking about the tests not being tests. Weird that this would be plural, though... how many "tests" did they have to pull anyway??)

Evidence pointing to the bomb being modern-day: the stylized logo on the bomb, and the super-large size of Godzilla's back.

Bear with me a moment on this.

We know from leaked production/promotional information that Godzilla grows in size from 120 to 150 meters during the film. This could be explained any of a number of ways of course. However, many of the poster-promo shots show Godzilla being vastly much taller than the 230 meters of a San Francisco landmark. Yet many of the in-footage shots seem to indicate he isn't quite that tall either.

Normally I would dismiss that as classic poster-art magnification, except that some in-footage shots being released (including one based on a promotional painting) suggest a Godzilla much more on the scale of the super-huge poster shots.

Note that some of the new footage shows scientists wandering down a line of bones and between teeth of a pretty standard Godzilla-sized kaiju -- which from the alignment of the bones is most likely the original Godzilla anyway (the present-day reptile being a child). This creature is VERY MUCH SMALLER than whatever is shrugging off destroyers, or rising up out of the background atoll lagoon next to the old-style nuke tower. Those trees on the spit of land next to the tower would be 5 to 15 meters tall themselves: the backspines BY THEMSELVES look ten times bigger than that.

It's possible of course that whoever did the fx simply couldn't keep the computer gfx in proper scale from sequence to sequence -- although that would be weirdly incompetent for a big-budget movie after literally decades of CGI industry experience on this topic (is this movie really less capable at keeping scale for its dinosaurs than the first Jurassic Park movie?? After the same studio produced Pacific Rim just recently??) -- but it seems strange to me, that the larger fx in the footage match pretty well with the scale hinted at on the posters.

[RooksBailey]

Stumbled across this article. Thought it was funny and interesting:

The Science of Godzilla

Still, what would happen if a 100-meter tall "dinosaur" stepped out of the sea and went on a rampage? I predict it would be a very short rampage. Short as in milliseconds.

Interesting stuff.  Guess I can stop fretting about that particular disaster.   ;D

[Staggerwing]

Is that the whole twice the size means 4 times the volume and 8 times the mass thing?

[RooksBailey]

Is that the whole twice the size means 4 times the volume and 8 times the mass thing?

Pretty much:

So, as things get bigger, their weight (which is a function of their volume) increases dramatically faster than does their surface area. This has a number of important consequences. Not least of these is that if you double something's size and keep its proportions the same, its weight doesn't double or even quadruple – it increases by a factor of eight!

So, an animal the size of Godzilla would weigh something like 60,000 tons! That's actually a rather conservative estimate. In any event, you're talking about an animal that literally weighs as much as a battleship. What would happen to a battleship if you could take it out of the water that supports it and stand it on its stern? Within a few seconds' time, you'd have a very large pile of scrap metal – that's what would happen!

I don't care if Godzilla's skeleton is made of solid titanium – the instant he steps out of the water, it's going to collapse under his enormous weight. So, downtown Tokyo is quite safe, though they might have a rather large mess to clean up in the harbour.

[W8taminute]

Good article Rooks.  This part of the piece sums up exactly how I feel about this whole Hollywood Godzilla:

"Sure, they're ridiculous, but that's part of the fun! The Japanese understand this, but the people who made the recent American "Godzilla" – you know, the one with Ferris Bueller pretending to be a scientist – apparently didn't get the memo."

What's also odd is the weak attempts that the American version of godzilla movies make in trying to "feel Japanese" by inserting some random old Japanese guy from New York City shining a lighter in his face and watching him babble 'Gojira' over and over again.   ::)

[Centurion40]

We know from leaked production/promotional information that Godzilla grows in size from 120 to 150 meters during the film. This could be explained any of a number of ways of course.

Clearly he gobbled down every buffet on the Vegas Strip.  This can explain it.

[BanzaiCat]

Considering the obesity rate of Americans, the "buffet" is likely highly fattening to the giant lizard crowd.

[JasonPratt]

We know from leaked production/promotional information that Godzilla grows in size from 120 to 150 meters during the film. This could be explained any of a number of ways of course.

Clearly he gobbled down every buffet on the Vegas Strip.  This can explain it.

That might explain how the MUTOs get so big -- the Vegas damage is almost certainly from one or more of them. (From various leaked plot/trailer details we know the military was hiding them in an underground bunker in the desert and they escape, meeting Godzilla in San Francisco.)

Also, freeze-frame enthusiasts found what looks a lot like Mothra's twin fairies (except human size) watching over the Vegas destruction aftermath from the corner room of a damaged building. I don't know whether those are intended to be the Cosmos/Shobijin, but if so it's likely an Easter Egg hidden by the fx team rather than a part of the actual plot.