So we are now at the tail end of October which is on the cusp of end of the year stuff, I feel it's a good time to look back on this year in movies. This is something of a problem for me because my viewing was limited and I only saw one movie in theaters this year: Godzilla, so it gets my movie of the year by default. I would like to talk about that having seen it twice in theaters and more on HD download and home video. This movie is essentially Fan Service Without Tits: The Movie for a Godzilla fan. There is the obvious one in playing with Godzilla canon via 1954, but also a plethora of minor fan service. Case in point, this extensive list from TVTropes:
Also, while I have noticed the weak characters and story complaints, I think I figured out where the budget there went: the cinematography. You could take so many individual shots from this movie and not have them look out of place in an art gallery. Don't believe me? Crane operator, trapped in his cockpit as it's dragged into the MUTO pit. Ford standing in front of the winged male as it climbs out of the hole that was meant to contain it. A Russian submarine suspended in a Hawaiian jungle canopy. The aftermath shots and many shots meant to take place inside, or on top of, buildings. I guess what I'm saying is they put so much of the budget went to the cinematography and what was left was put to get connective tissue to allow those shots to happen and for what it's worth, it got the job done.
What are your picks for film of the year? Feel free to add any movies that come out after this goes up here.
Edit: Okay, so after that one guy put up Vampire Academy as his pick despite hinting that he wasn't committed to it, I decided on a new rule: as long as the movie was released in theaters at some point this year, how you viewed it doesn't matter like DVD or download.
The boat on the dock in the final showdown is marked "Go Whale Tours." Godzilla's Japanese name is simply a combination of the word for gorilla, "Go," and "whale."
There's a shot of a hole right through a wide skyscraper, as if something dived through it ? similar to a hole Zilla made in Godzilla (1998).
The backstory involves a nuclear submarine disappearing and the Americans and Soviets blaming each other for it before finding out that a certain nuclear dinosaur was the real culprit. This brings to mind the early scenes of The Return of Godzilla.
In this film, Godzilla was first discovered in 1954, the year the original Gojira film was released.
The old high-tension wires with electricity pumped through them in an attempt to kill a kaiju is trotted out again.
Dr. Serizawa, the man who built the Godzilla-killing oxygen destroyer, is present ? but in actuality he fills a role similar to Dr. Yamane/Shigezawa/Hayashida, as scientific adviser to the military on all things prehistoric and deadly.
Godzilla being an ancient beast from a time when the conditions on Earth were severely inhospitable and his conflict with other monsters from the same time period references Godzilla Raids Again, more specifically the Gigantis cut. In both, the military attempts to lure fighting kaiju away with a fake-out plan, which falls apart.
Also somewhat similar from the original film, which Godzilla is believed to have evolved from a hybrid species of dinosaurs and prehistoric sea reptiles.
The kid getting separated from his parents on the train harkens back to when Fumiko and Kazuo were separated in King Kong vs. Godzilla. Even his getup (shirt, shorts and baseball cap) is evocative of the Showa films.
Joe's old house contains a moth cocoon marked, uh, "Mothra". More precisely it was in a tank labelled "Dad's Moth", with the label partly covering the marking "Janjira" - spelling out "Dad's Mothra".
The media dub Godzilla "King of the Monsters" at the end of the film.
There is a large red paper pteranodon in Ford's Japan classroom. Additionally, one can see a theropod dinosaur skeleton and a biology picture of a moth.
The echolocation poster in Joe's apartment has a bat and a moth communicating with each other.
The way Godzilla kills the female MUTO is the same way he killed the Gryphon in the script of Godzilla 1994. In the same vein, Godzilla is awakened to specifically fight two kaiju endangering the Earth - and one is winged.
There is a Stegosaurus toy on the table during the scene where Sam is watching TV footage of Godzilla kicking the crap out of the male MUTO.
The way Godzilla's spikes light up is VERY similar to Godzilla: The Series.
Godzilla's breath weapon is less a concentrated solid beam that explodes like the 80s-2000s movies but more of a whispier heat wave like his earlier Showa movies.
The Navy display on the Saratoga displays Godzilla's name as "Gojira," the Hepburn transliteration of the katakana.
Likely unintentional, but in Janjira, we see a giant millipede and a giant cockroach.
Just like in Godzilla (1998), the final act of the film features the human characters setting fire to the villainous monster's nest, but at the cost of invoking the mother's wrath. The only difference is that it's not Godzilla who's angry this time.
The prequel comic Godzilla: Awakening has a location called "Moansta Island", a reference to Monster Island.
There's a shot of a hole right through a wide skyscraper, as if something dived through it ? similar to a hole Zilla made in Godzilla (1998).
The backstory involves a nuclear submarine disappearing and the Americans and Soviets blaming each other for it before finding out that a certain nuclear dinosaur was the real culprit. This brings to mind the early scenes of The Return of Godzilla.
In this film, Godzilla was first discovered in 1954, the year the original Gojira film was released.
The old high-tension wires with electricity pumped through them in an attempt to kill a kaiju is trotted out again.
Dr. Serizawa, the man who built the Godzilla-killing oxygen destroyer, is present ? but in actuality he fills a role similar to Dr. Yamane/Shigezawa/Hayashida, as scientific adviser to the military on all things prehistoric and deadly.
Godzilla being an ancient beast from a time when the conditions on Earth were severely inhospitable and his conflict with other monsters from the same time period references Godzilla Raids Again, more specifically the Gigantis cut. In both, the military attempts to lure fighting kaiju away with a fake-out plan, which falls apart.
Also somewhat similar from the original film, which Godzilla is believed to have evolved from a hybrid species of dinosaurs and prehistoric sea reptiles.
The kid getting separated from his parents on the train harkens back to when Fumiko and Kazuo were separated in King Kong vs. Godzilla. Even his getup (shirt, shorts and baseball cap) is evocative of the Showa films.
Joe's old house contains a moth cocoon marked, uh, "Mothra". More precisely it was in a tank labelled "Dad's Moth", with the label partly covering the marking "Janjira" - spelling out "Dad's Mothra".
The media dub Godzilla "King of the Monsters" at the end of the film.
There is a large red paper pteranodon in Ford's Japan classroom. Additionally, one can see a theropod dinosaur skeleton and a biology picture of a moth.
The echolocation poster in Joe's apartment has a bat and a moth communicating with each other.
The way Godzilla kills the female MUTO is the same way he killed the Gryphon in the script of Godzilla 1994. In the same vein, Godzilla is awakened to specifically fight two kaiju endangering the Earth - and one is winged.
There is a Stegosaurus toy on the table during the scene where Sam is watching TV footage of Godzilla kicking the crap out of the male MUTO.
The way Godzilla's spikes light up is VERY similar to Godzilla: The Series.
Godzilla's breath weapon is less a concentrated solid beam that explodes like the 80s-2000s movies but more of a whispier heat wave like his earlier Showa movies.
The Navy display on the Saratoga displays Godzilla's name as "Gojira," the Hepburn transliteration of the katakana.
Likely unintentional, but in Janjira, we see a giant millipede and a giant cockroach.
Just like in Godzilla (1998), the final act of the film features the human characters setting fire to the villainous monster's nest, but at the cost of invoking the mother's wrath. The only difference is that it's not Godzilla who's angry this time.
The prequel comic Godzilla: Awakening has a location called "Moansta Island", a reference to Monster Island.
Also, while I have noticed the weak characters and story complaints, I think I figured out where the budget there went: the cinematography. You could take so many individual shots from this movie and not have them look out of place in an art gallery. Don't believe me? Crane operator, trapped in his cockpit as it's dragged into the MUTO pit. Ford standing in front of the winged male as it climbs out of the hole that was meant to contain it. A Russian submarine suspended in a Hawaiian jungle canopy. The aftermath shots and many shots meant to take place inside, or on top of, buildings. I guess what I'm saying is they put so much of the budget went to the cinematography and what was left was put to get connective tissue to allow those shots to happen and for what it's worth, it got the job done.
What are your picks for film of the year? Feel free to add any movies that come out after this goes up here.
Edit: Okay, so after that one guy put up Vampire Academy as his pick despite hinting that he wasn't committed to it, I decided on a new rule: as long as the movie was released in theaters at some point this year, how you viewed it doesn't matter like DVD or download.
