Tag Archives: godzilla minus one

Godzilla Minus Zero Trailer Reaction

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So, this trailer made me cry. Not because of anything actually in it but because my friend who passed away last year would have loved to see this. Even if it didn’t look as good as it does, I would still get my butt in the theater for that reason alone.

Coming off the incredible Godzilla Minus One, this sequel got me hyped with its first teaser where you got to see Godzilla walking past the Statue of Liberty before hopefully bringing the noise to NYC. “I’ll show you a Manhattan Project,” says Godzilla. It’s going to be fun because he’s never been to NYC before. Certainly not in 1998.

Get hyped

This new trailer showcases everyone really being upset that they didn’t kill Godzilla for good. There’s also a weather forecasting prodigy, which is a helluva thing to be a prodigy in. But she’s going to add to the cast of characters that are very good at their jobs. I loved the first movie for this and it’s the same thing I like about Star Trek. Competency porn. People finding the drama in dealing with an impossible situation as opposed to being pointlessly emotional and having fake or manufactured drama. Imagine how bad the Martian would be if there was some stupid love triangle between Command Lewis, Martinez and Watney where Martinez didn’t want Martinez to come back because he was in love with Lewis. It would be so god damn stupid. Instead, it’s just everyone trying to fight the true enemy: Mars.

That’s what this movie has, which is everyone is trying to fight the horrifying challenge of Godzilla. Also facing those challenges is Noriko and Koichi who seem to still be coming to terms with what happened in the first movie. Noriko is making it seem like after being caught in Godzilla’s atomic breath there are some lasting consequences like possibly cancer or radiation sickness. Godzilla has always been a metaphor for the dangers of nuclear weapons and the increase of cancer in the Japanese population after the dropping both atomic bombs on the country make adding this detail make more sense. I found this report citing it: https://www.rerf.or.jp/en/programs/roadmap_e/health_effects-en/late-en/cancrisk/

However the big draw for us Godzilla fans is the appearance of the yellow lightning in the trailer and the strange new roar that definitely does not fit big G himself. I haven’t found anything confirming it but it definitely seems like we’re heading for a showdown between Godzilla and his long running arch enemy: Ghidorah.

There’s a shot from the trailer where you see Godzilla falling from the sky. There are very few monsters that are strong enough to both pick him up and drop him like that. Ghidorah is definitely one of them. They made Godzilla truly look and act scary in the first movie. I can’t wait to see what they do with Ghidorah.

My only hope is that they don’t do anything like the American Godzilla films where Godzilla becomes a protector and ally to the humans. I think that he’s always worked best as a natural disaster that occasionally fights other natural disasters. I have faith though in the creators. They did a great job with the first one and I’m sure the second one will be just as good.

Cheap Doesn’t Mean Bad or Why I Don’t Feel Bad Shooting Fish in a Barrel

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Something that has always bothered me about being a podcaster is when we cover a bad movie that doesn’t have the advantages of its big budget contemporaries. It makes me feel like I’m punching down, which doesn’t make for good comedy. Comedians should always punch up at those in power. Even someone making a piece of trash is still putting themselves out there. And if it’s good, I’ll give the piece its roses.

But then there are the works that are just so bad and are the little engine that could that decided to just slam through a town at full speed. Leaving a wake of destruction in their path.

I mainly write about the Lifetime movies that we cover. They’re clearly cheaply made and seemingly mass produced so that all of them are roughly the same except for the part where the crazed killer character decides to go nuts for some reason or another. They have their own charm to them but there’s a part of me that always wishes they were a bit better.

The problem is that I know they could be. There’s always a lesser light in the world to show that it could be done for even cheaper. That’s not an excuse for these people to pay their people less, it’s for them to try harder.

Paranormal Activity is a horror movie that was made for 15,000 dollars and grossed about 194 million in 2007. Adjusted for inflation that’s 294 million today. It was made with a few cameras on tripods, about five unknown actors and just was well made from the jump.

Godzilla Minus One was made for ten million dollars. That is a drop in the bucket for studios like Marvel and Warner Bros and yet it’s stunning and well made. Look at the below image. You can tell they cared and wanted to make the best movie that they could.

It’s because these movies understood something. That poverty isn’t the death of creativity but where it’s born. There is a long tradition of this throughout the world of media. Monty Python wanted to make a movie making fun of the middle ages and Arthurian legends but couldn’t afford horses. What would be the funniest way to handle this? Have every knight have a squire that bonks two coconuts together. Have characters comment on it to make one of the funniest exchanges in comedy history. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqtS9xyl0f4&ab_channel=3qui1i6riM

Mystery Science Theater 3000(MST3K), had to constantly make a nearly two hour show on a minuscule budget. Their puppets and set were clearly made of found objects. The puppets could barely move on their own. How did they make up for all of this? With excellent writing that was clearly positioned in their own Midwest slice of life.

And that’s what it all comes down to. The money in the end doesn’t matter. Passion can make up for it. If you believe in your piece of media and you want it to be the best it can be, it will be. That’s what I’m attacking. The fact that the filmmakers don’t care. I want to love their movie but the fact that they turned in something that’s only worth a C+ at best is going to stop me from doing so and I’m not going to stop myself from calling it out.