Quick Thoughts #2 - Legendary's Monsterverse Kinda Rocks!

Who knew that Japan would let Hollywood take another crack at Godzilla? I wasn’t totally clamoring for it back in the day, and this is coming from someone who thought 1998’s Godzilla was alright. Yeah, it really lacked the “GOD” part, but it was a fun monster movie at least. It even had a cool animated series.

Unlike what we got before, Legendary brought the might and power of the monster to the big screen in a cool way. I’ve seen both Godzilla films in theaters and would’ve seen GVK in theaters if COVID wasn’t a problem at the time. I held off on Kong: Skull Island though. While I like King Kong, I’m not as much a fan of the gorilla. So, here are some quick thoughts on Legendary’s Monsterverse movies. I just realized that I haven’t really talked about them here. I’m always been like that with Godzilla though, so it fits.

 

TV Talk - Godzilla: Singular Point

When I heard that another Godzilla anime series was coming from Netflix, I gotta say that I was a little worried. I don’t know if you’ve read my review of the first Godzilla anime trilogy from Netflix, but I and others thought that series wasn’t good. Now, I did have some good things to say about it, but overall, it just didn’t do it for me. Now, we get to this new one. Godzilla: Singular Point was released over 13 episodes between April and June of 2021. It made it over Netflix after its airing in Japan. This time, Toho teamed up with two animation studios, Bones and Orange, to put this all together. It’s a blend of 2D and 3D anime. So, how does it fare out?

The series revolves around an engineer and a young scientist trying to avert the end of the world. Yun Arikawa and Mei Kamino separately investigate a mysterious signal. They and the world then get pulled into some craziness. It turns out that the signal is linked to the sudden appearance of dangerous creatures that emit a dangerous red dust. It also turns out that their appearance could spell doom for the whole world. Insert a crapton of Toho monsters including the G-Man himself, metaphysical and technical gobbly-gook, big monster action, and Jet Jaguar.

Tales from the Trade! - Godzilla: The Half-Century War

Well,  this year is coming to an end quick. While I could say good riddance, this year hasn’t actually been as bad as it has been for others. Yes, it wasn’t a good year, but I can also look at the good that’s happened. One of those not-so-good things was that the new Godzilla movie getting pushed back into 2021. At least the WB may be releasing it on HBOMax, which was something that unfortunately needed to happen with COVID still going on. Which reminds me… I was in quarantine. I think my trip to the dentist last week did it. Thankfully, my quarantine has ended.

Anyway, onto the subject of Godzilla. I haven’t really read much of the G-Man in the comics. IDW has been producing comics for years now, but I’ve only read a couple here and there. I think one of them had Godzilla face the Greek Pantheon or something… yeah, I’ll have to search the bins for that. Today’s review is actually one that I ran into on a podcast some years ago. I want to say it was “Hey, Kids! Comics”, but I really don’t remember what podcast it was. All I know is that the review impressed me because I eventually added Godzilla: The Half-Century War, to my collection.

Half-Century War is an oddity with its concept. James Stokoe provided both the story and artwork for this 5-issue miniseries. It was published by IDW in 2013. Stokoe apparently got in with IDW thanks to Godzilla, and he’s also worked on a story called Godzilla in Hell. Yes, Godzilla goes to Hell at some point in the comics… you’d think running into Destroyah would be enough, but nah. The colors were done by Heather Beckel, and editing was done by Bob Curnrow, someone who I’ve ran into with the IDW Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series.

Favorites - 12 Favorite Opponents from the Godzilla Franchise

I couldn’t just stop at one post about Godzilla, couldn’t I? I also realized that while I like the big monster, I’ve barely talked about him here, so here we go for a bit of a stint. I could say that it’s RANDOM THOUGHTS’ HALLOWEEN GODZILLATHON or something. There is one story I definitely want to cover here (Godzilla: Half-Century War), but I gotta find the dang book. So, here’s something else for y’all.

Godzilla is one monster that sits in an interesting position. He’s been a villain, a hero, and even something in between. The monster’s still gone up against a variety of adversaries. He’s gone up against other giant monsters, aliens, the environment, and humanity itself. So, who are my favorite Godzilla opponents? I have to go with this wording because the G-Man hasn’t always been the hero of the movie. It’s not in particularly any order, but the best ones will be up at top.

Favorites - Scariest Godzilla Movies

I think it’s time to break from superheroes for a bit. Besides, there are a lot of cool stuff out there, and one of them is the kaiju genre. The biggest of them (ha ha) is the G-Man himself: Godzilla. Now, I could do a list of my favorite Godzilla movies, but that seems too easy. Besides, the spooky season is upon us.

I started thinking about something recently: are there any scary Godzilla movies? I mean, Godzilla does kind of fit in the horror genre. Heck, his first film from 1954 was in a lot of ways a horror movie. Now, Godzilla didn’t stay that way after that first introduction. Heck, by the late 1960’s, he was a sometimes goofy friend to humanity. Also, it’s tough to make a guy in a rubber dinosaur suit scary. It wasn’t until the mid-80’s with the Heisei Era where Toho decided to make Godzilla a threat again. These days, he’s all over the place. He’s a god, a protector, an evolving and grotesque behemoth, a danger to all humanity, ghost, and an overall bad mofo.

So, here are what I could consider the scariest movies in the Godzilla franchise. These are ones where I kinda got a little creeped out. While most of these don’t creep me out as an adult, some movies are just weird enough to do it. It’s not in order from best to worst. In fact, I might as well handle this chronologically. So, let’s start with the legitimate horror that is Gojira.

Random Thoughts On... The Netflix Godzilla Anime Trilogy

In a couple of weeks, the G-Man will be returning to theatres. Yeah, it took five years, but Legendary Pictures has finally gotten another Godzilla movie out. From what I’ve seen and heard, this looks like it’ll be fun especially since a certain King will grace its head(s) once again. For this month, I was originally going to do a list of my favorite Godzilla films. I haven’t seen them all, so that’s gotta wait. Yes, I’m such a bad Godzilla fan. Instead of that, I decided to revisit and finish the anime Godzilla trilogy on Netflix. I can safely say that it’s… okay?

Alright, let me start off at the beginning. Toho Co., the ones behind the Godzilla movies, announced that they were going to do a trilogy of animated Godzilla movies. Toho Animation worked along with Polygon Pictures to bring these movies to life. The first movie, Planet of the Monsters, was released in 2017. Its sequel, City on the Edge of Battle, was released in 2018. The final movie, The Planet Eater, was also released in 2018. It didn’t make it to Netflix until 2019, though.

I was moderately interested in the movies. When I found out the first one was on Netflix, I immediately watched it. It took a while for me to get around to the sequel, though. As for The Planet Eater, I actually decided to re-watch the first two movies and it as well this week. I guess I felt I was missing something the first time around with the first two. I’ve also briefly talked about the first two here as well. I wasn’t a big fan of them and now that I’ve finished watching the trilogy,… eh.

Random Thoughts On... Godzilla in general and Shin Godzilla

So, we now have another Godzilla movie on our hands. Shin Godzilla aka Godzilla Resurgence was in limited release over here last week. I was only able to see it on Saturday which ended up being eventful on its own. I also had to fix a kitchen sink, I finally watched the new MacGyver (it’s alright), the Tennessee Vols embarrassed themselves, and my own alma mater (MTSU) lost in a double overtime. All in all, it was an alright day. I thought I’d take some time to talk about the new movie and to just talk about Godzilla himself. If anything, most of this is my history with Godzilla. If you want to hear my thoughts on the new movie, just scroll on down past my little history lesson.

Favorites - 15 Favorite Reboots/Rehashes/Reimaginings...You get the point.

Remakes, reboots, and re-imaginings… where do I begin? If you think I’m anti-remake, you’re somewhat right. Remakes of movies and TV rarely ever go so well. Don’t worry, I’m not that guy on the side of the street that’s yelling about Hollywood losing its way and being unoriginal. Remakes and re-tellings have been around at least since the 1930s. Did you know that Hollywood (Paramount and MGM) released two versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a decade apart? That’s not counting the other versions of that story Hollywood did in those days.

Don’t get me wrong. I do think Hollywood is a little too remake crazy these days. The problem that plagues a lot of them is that they aren’t really good. They don’t have what the original had, they go completely off base in a bad way, or they follow the original too much. Anyone remember The Omen from 2007? It wasn’t bad but I felt I should have just stuck with the original. If you thought movie reboots were bad, look at TV reboots… Man, there are rarely any good ones. I was going to do separate posts on this, but I might as well mix them together. Here are my 15 favorite rehashes from movies and television. I was going to go with 20, but I’m not that forgiving.

15. The Mummy (1999)

The Mummy was a reboot of the 1932 movie starring Boris Karloff. It sticks to the original pretty well. It’s just full of more action and funny moments. This is one of the Universal remakes that succeeded in actually being decent and even fun. I liked the characters, the villain, and the good special effects. What happened after the first movie with the third movie and the countless Scorpion King spinoffs is another thing entirely.

14. The Karate Kid (2010)

That’s right, folks. This movie is on the list. While it might seem like sacrilege to reboot the 1984 movie, that didn’t stop Hollywood. Luckily, it’s actually a pretty good one in my opinion. While the title actually needed to be something else (there’s no karate!) and it sticks to the movie a bit too much, it’s fine. I thought Jaden Smith (I know, I know) was fine in the lead role. The surprise of the movie was Jackie Chan as the mentor. The fight scenes were pretty good too. Even if you don’t like reboots, you do have to admit one thing: it’s much better than The Next Karate Kid.

13. Star Trek (2009)

I see you looking at me, Trekkies and Trekkers. I thought the Trek reboot was pretty good. While the story wasn’t the best, the cast made it work. Trying to recast the original crew sounds ludicrous but it works here. Bringing back Leonard Nimoy if only for a little bit was nice fan service even if how we got there didn’t make sense. I even thought Star Trek Into Darkness was a fine sequel when it wasn’t constantly reminding me of a better movie. Hopefully, the next movie can bring us good, NEW things. 

12. Dredd (2012)

Dredd is the reboot to the 1995 movie, Judge Dredd. While the 1995 movie might have some entertainment value, a lot of folk say that it wasn't good. I’m not a fan of the character, but I saw Dredd and thought it was pretty good for the most part.  I will say that The Raid: Redemption might be better, but that's a post for another time. I liked the dark atmosphere of the whole thing. Karl Urban was awesome as the Judge and Lena Headley was a nice villain. It brought enough stuff to the table to make me wish that a sequel gets made.

11. Godzilla (2014)

Just to reiterate, this is the 2014 version, not GINO (Godzilla In Name Only) from 1998. We finally got an American version of Godzilla and it was good. I thought the story, actors, and effects were pretty good. Gareth Edwards and the creative team did their best to stick to what made Godzilla work for 50 years. Even though the G-Man shows up for about 15 minutes, it’s still a good one. It may not the best Godzilla movie ever, but it did kick the 1998 version to the curb really fast.

Top 22 Villains - Part 2

Well, it's part two of this pretty big list. I got eight for this run.

16. The Predator from Predator

It’s the alien with the awesome dreadlocks, ‘mon! In Predator, the… Predator (he gets no name) hunts down a team of US soldiers in a South American jungle. What makes him cool and interesting is that so much about him is really hidden until the end. He’s mostly in cloak using some advanced weaponry throughout the movie. He’s still awesome when we finally see him in all of his ugliness and Arnold wasn’t lying about that. He’s not out for something nefarious. He just wants to hunt, prove himself over the soldiers, and be the best hunter.