5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

Godzilla 2014 was a pretty great entry into the Godzilla franchise, and here’s where the movie succeeded and failed.



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5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

As the first entry in the MonsterVerse, 2014’s Godzilla, directed by Gareth Edwards, managed to be a decent enough first step. It was a box office success, it had mostly favorable reviews, and it worked as a standalone movie while still making room for more to come. One thing was certain: it was a pretty marked improvement over the first American Godzilla film, the 1998 version by Roland Emmerich.

With Godzilla vs. Kong coming up in the future (now pushed to 2021 due to COVID-19), perhaps it’s time to see the starting steps that led up to the big climax and see what went right and wrong in Godzilla.

10 RIGHT: Godzilla’s Design

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

Unlike the disastrous 1998 Godzilla, the designers for 2014’s Godzilla actually made the titular character look like the character. A little creative license and tooling is fine, but completely redesigning the iconic kaiju would have been a fatal mistake.

In this film, Godzilla certainly is chubbier than usual, though it’s to make the weight distribution for such a massive creature look more realistic. The dorsal spikes were also tweaked, but they still kept their pointed look and spinal position. And of course, Godzilla’s roar was worked around with, but it still had the famous guttural rattle.

9 WRONG: Godzilla Isn’t The Focus

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

Despite being the titular character, Godzilla seems to be an afterthought in his own movie, which is pretty weird. Most Godzilla movies haven’t made that mistake, so 2014 pretty much stands alone in that sense. Most of the film’s action and motivation derives from the MUTOs, the two kaiju that Godzilla throws down with. That, along with the human stories, don’t really see Godzilla as a major focus, either.

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Often times, a complaint arises that Godzilla appeared too infrequently. However, Godzilla’s screentime is actually on par with most other films. The complaint shouldn’t be that there is “too little Godzilla,” but rather, too little focus on him, and thus, when he does appear, it isn’t as satisfactory.



8 RIGHT: Making A Self-Contained Story

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

As the first film in the MonsterVerse, Godzilla was clearly going to try and lead the charge to cash in on the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and serve as the first solid film in a franchise, as Iron Man did. That being said, the universe build-up was surprisingly toned down and not nearly as overbearing as other cinematic universes, like this year’s Scoob! or the 2017 Mummy film that tried to start and instead killed The Dark Universe.

Likewise, it didn’t even set up a sequel by any means. There was no post-credit scene and there were no loose ends, as Gareth Edwards himself said he wanted the film to work as a standalone film. The decision to do so worked very well and the lack of ham-fisted references and crammed storylines to set up another movie kept it neat.

7 WRONG: Having A Dull Human Story

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

Unfortunately, while Godzilla had a neat story, it wasn’t an engaging one. In many Godzilla films, the human storyline isn’t necessarily the spotlight or the thing that draws in audiences, but the best films in the franchise (usually) also have an engaging human story. After all, what’s the point of watching a 90-120 minute film if only 10 minutes will feature the big monster?

In order to care about the majority of the runtime, and the entire human element of the story, the side story needs to stand out, and sadly, the side story with Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s character was very generic.

6 RIGHT: Having Godzilla Fight Other Kaiju

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

While a Godzilla origin film (like the original 1954 film, Godzilla Returns, or Shin Gojira) doesn’t need another monster to brawl with, it was a nice addition to add two kaiju to the film, and two new ones at that. While the MUTOs aren’t the most creative kaiju designs, they are a good step in the right direction, and the fact that they are a duo is a neat choice.

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It can get a little tedious to see Godzilla destroy human armies with no real struggle, so him giving someone his own size to fight is always welcome. And while the MUTOs robbed Godzilla of some of his focus, at least they added to the kaiju action pieces instead of giving more boring human filler scenes.

5 WRONG: Teasing Fights

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

The Hawaii airport entrance in Godzilla is classic Gareth Edwards moment. After hours of build-up and suspenseful, tense atmosphere, the big moment finally happens, and it’s a really cool payoff. But it’s short-lived. Think of Edwards’ other film, Rogue One. The film spent a lot of time to get to the Battle of Scarif, and even then, the biggest moment is the Darth Vader scene instead, which was a one minute scene at the film’s very end.

Godzilla makes the same mistake, taking about an hour to finally show Godzilla, and his entrance is grand…then the movie cuts to a TV news channel showing the aftermath. At another point, Godzilla arrives in San Francisco, sees a MUTO…and a door closes on the character who is watching him. And yet again, Godzilla is fighting a MUTO, but it continually cuts to Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s solider running around on the ground instead. It’s very unsatisfying and downright annoying to have the main event people came to see get sidelined and teased over and over. It didn’t build the hype, it killed it.

4 RIGHT: Impressive Special Effects

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

Normally, Godzilla films featured people in suits brawling on top of small models of cities. The practical effects and somewhat cheesy nature of them were the most appealing part of the films, and the inevitable death of the costume era was a bit sad to witness.

However, Godzilla did a good job in its transition to bring the King of the Monsters to life in a new way, utilizing modern special effects to full effect. The use of the camera and the scaling was akin to Jurassic Park, as the creatures took up a lot of the screen, and were positioned cleverly, to make them look as large as possible.

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3 WRONG: Filming In The Dark

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

In one of the most irritating modern tropes in modern cinema, Godzilla made the unfortunate decision to show itself in a grim and dark setting. The lack of colors doesn’t make any film cooler or scarier, but for some reason, so many blockbusters have made this unfortunate decision.

Combined with the teasing of fights, it’s aggravating that when the kaiju are actually allowed to fight on screen, it’s at night, in the rain, covered in dust/smoke, and surrounded by buildings. Audiences want to see movies, not just hear them. If there weren’t so many films guilty of this trope, it wouldn’t be as egregious, but even then, almost every scene featuring the monsters are dark, rather than a few, or even a ratio of 50-50.

2 RIGHT: Casting Bryan Cranston

5 Things Godzilla 2014 Did Right (And 5 It Did Wrong)

In 2014, Bryan Cranston had just been christened by critics and audiences alike as one of the greatest actors of his generation due to the massive success of Breaking Bad. He had also been in the acclaimed Broadway play, All The Way, and would go on to win a Tony Award for his performance.

The demand for Cranston was (and still remains) enormous, and nabbing him for what was essentially a popcorn flick gave a new seriousness to the film and elevated the interest in the human storyline. And of course, he didn’t disappoint, with Cranston giving an incredible performance, which as per his style, reached the point of over the top, but never crossed it, getting the best intensity possible.

1 WRONG: Wasting Bryan Cranston

Cranston’s performance was a highlight of the film…for half an hour. Then, the film killed him off in a MUTO attack. It was very disappointing, as the death wasn’t even emotionally resonating since Cranston’s character had barely been around. Even Cranston himself was let down, noting he thought it was a mistake to kill the character when he was reading the script.

The decision to not just kill off an undeveloped protagonist, but simultaneously waste one of the best actors in history (in a franchise with sequels) was downright dumb.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/things-godzilla-2014-did-right-wrong/

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