Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Godzilla (2014)

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Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 05-17-2014, 03:41 PM:

First I wanted to complement Frank Theatres. For the first time I drove up to their Delray Marketplace location and saw this in their "FDX" Auditorium. They really did a great job on this auditorium. Screen was about 60 feet wide and common height! The projector was Barco but don't know 2k or 4k not that it mattered for this film. The auditorium is equipped with Atmos and was played at a normal level instead of ear bleed level like I had heard at an AMC ETX. The best part...NO UPCHARGE! I also greatly appreciated them showing it in 2D even though the auditorium is 3D equipped so I could experience Atmos without 3D (which I can't stand).

Now for the movie. The special effects were great. The Atmos mix was good. Nice use of Atmos for flyovers and the surround field was used to fill the room but not filled with pointless distracting sounds.

The story, well...

It almost seemed like the first half hour was written and then they fired the writer but when the next writer took over they didn't read the first part of the script. The first half hour seemed to have a good setup and story developing and then suddenly the movie really had no story at all.

It was just action sequence after action sequence and the first half hour's setup had nothing to do with the outcome. I guess they wanted to give Brian Cranston something to do.

It was also about 45 minutes too long. I give it 2.5 stars out of 5 because the special effects sequences made it watchable and the Atmos mix was good.

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 05-17-2014, 05:23 PM:

CINEMA: AMC Council Bluffs 17, Council Bluffs, IA
AUDITORIUM: 1
PRESENTATION: AMC Recline-O-Vision, Mystery Meat Digital
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: Fucking chatty asshole and his three chatty kids sitting next to me
RATING: Two stars (out of four)

THE PLOT: We're up all night to get lucky. Wackiness ensues.

With a dark tone that seemed to draw from the 1954 Japanese classic and a plot that seems to draw more from the campy color films most are probably more familiar with, this version seems to want the best of both worlds, but doesn't really accomplish either.

I agree with Lyle on the movie setup. That was fine. But everything after that was a mess. The action sequences often seemed abbreviated, like the monsters would start fighting, then suddenly in the middle of it, we'd cut back to human drama. The monsters just look out of place in the middle of all the high tech effects. And who destroys Las Vegas without actually showing the destruction? We just cut to the aftermath?

It's certainly better than Roland Emmerich's 1998 debacle, but what isn't.

Posted by Geoff Jones (Member # 3668) on 05-17-2014, 07:53 PM:

You guys are being generous.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 05-17-2014, 09:24 PM:

I saw GODZILLA today and was expecting to enjoy it very much after it received good reviews from critics. The first half was good but the second part after Honolulu got trashed put me to sleep and that was when all the action was going on. The movie was not good in my opinion but the 3-D was excellent. It was a 2-D to 3-D conversion but was done by the best -Stereo D who also did TITANIC, JURASSIC PARK and PACIFIC RIM.

-Claude

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 05-17-2014, 11:06 PM:

Atmos doesn't require an upcharge as does D-BOX, where you fork over 8 bucks on top of your movie ticket..and watch it in 3D, for another 3 bucks while you're at it.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 05-18-2014, 03:04 PM:

quote: Monte L Fullmer
Atmos doesn't require an upcharge as does D-BOX, where you fork over 8 bucks on top of your movie ticket..and watch it in 3D, for another 3 bucks while you're at it.

It sure does in Canada, you will pay the up charge to watch a movie in Atmos.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-18-2014, 06:46 PM:

The room I've seen in it had all the modern gizmos enabled:

✔ Extra large unmasked silver common-height screen.
✔ Extra loud Dolby Atmos.
✔ Dual projector 3D.
✔ Irritating *EXIT* lights bouncing off the huge silver screen.
✔ Irritating roto-scan spotlights projecting Dolby Atmos logos on the walls and in your eyes.
✔ LED strip decoration with rotating colors, reminding me of the new lightning scheme of the local pita shack.
✔ Screwed up transition between single-projector 2D and dual-projector 3D.

I guess this movie delivers exactly what you ought to expect, especially compared to the ill fated attempt of 1998 by one-trick-pony director Roland Emmerich.

If I go see a movie named "Godzilla", I would expect:

✔ At least one monster destroying tons of stuff, like big cities all over the world and at least one big city in the U.S.
✔ Some more or less credible back-story involving nukes.
✔ Some more or less melodramatic side story.
✔ A bunch of gaping plot holes, some filled in with movie science glue.

Nothing really new has been tried here, like the Cloverfield "found footage" approach and as such, the thing is more true to the original than the last attempt with the same name. The somewhat cartoonish look of Godzilla actually distracts a bit from the otherwise serious tone of the movie.

Although they already gave it away in the trailers, I liked the little twist on the atomic tests in the pacific, which didn't create Godzilla, but were done to destroy it.

The fact that those monsters ate nukes for breakfast was a bit dull though, even with most of your brain's logic functions disabled.

It seems that destroying Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge is out, destroying San Francisco and the Golden Gate is totally it. Also, the U.S. suddenly has a fully functional long term nuclear waste/monster storage facility, great!

The Dolby Atmos mix was OK as was the 3D. They didn't stand out, but also didn't distract.

What was distracting though, was the acting performance of especially Aaron Taylor-Johnson. I liked his role in the first Kick Ass but his performance in this one is lacking. Also, why does he look like a discount Shia LaBeouf?

The not-so-high expectations surely helped, but all in all, I wasn't disappointed.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-18-2014, 08:58 PM:

From friends in Denver... [Smile]

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 05-18-2014, 11:21 PM:

Japan doesn't get this Godzilla until 25 July - Toho is the distributor over there and they will hold opening it until the summer school break starts. But in the mean time lots of online chat based on the trailers and promo stills saying the American Big G is too fat... Godzilla is being fat shamed! [Smile]

quote:

The Hollywood Reporter - Hollywood's Godzilla Is an 'American Fatty,' Say Japanese Fans

While initial reaction to the Hollywood update has been mostly positive, some say the iconic Japanese monster has become too Americanized in one key respect: its waistline.

TOKYO -- Some Japanese film fans think Gareth Edwards' Godzilla character has put on too many pounds in all the wrong places, and they have been making their feelings known on the Internet.

The name "Godzilla" is a combination of "gorilla" and "kujira," the Japanese word for whale. For many Japanese lovers of their country's original monster, the upcoming Hollywood re-creation is not enough muscular primate and too much blubbery cetacean.

"Whichever way you look at it, he's an American fatty," posted one fan after promo images and trailers went online in Japan.

"He got fat in America on cola and pizza," tweeted another fan.

A common Japanese image of Americans is one of expanded waistlines - and not without some justification. Obesity levels in Japan are below 4 percent, versus around 36 percent in the U.S.

Comments have been rolling in all over social media, film fan sites and chat rooms this week.

"He's couch potato Godzilla"; "It's got no neck"; "He Supersized"; and "Marshmallow-Godzilla?" were just a few of the reactions from fans.

Some were less harsh about the new Godzilla but still unimpressed: "It's chubby and cute," wrote one.

"It looks like a seal," said another.

Others were simply more forgiving: "I'm looking forward to this. Well, everyone gets middle-age spread."

There was positive reaction too: "It looks better than the last Hollywood Godzilla," said one fan, while another observed, "He looks stronger than the original."

Godzilla turns 60 this year, having appeared in Ishiro Honda's original film in 1954, the first of 28 movies made by Japanese studio Toho featuring the monster.

The upcoming Legendary and Warner Bros.-backed Godzilla opens in the U.S. on May 16, but Japanese fans will have to wait until July 25 for the film to open in the land that birthed the beast.

Posted by Marcel Birgelen (Member # 6801) on 05-19-2014, 03:55 AM:

That LED sign is awesome [Wink]

. If it came as a warning label it should have read more like:

Warning: Does not contain Matthew Broderick, but contains high doses of discount Shia LaBoef and imitation Robin Williams.

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 05-19-2014, 08:07 AM:

As a Godzilla fan, I went in with middling expectations. The last USA made Godzilla was ... well, not a Godzilla movie at all.
This one hits the mark. If you don't like Japanese monster movies you won't like it.
The 'story" blends some "King of the Monsters" with a lot of the later "Godzilla VS" Toho movies. The tie-in with nuclear science is there, the incomprehensible/ludicrous back story explaining the "vs" monsters is there (but more than usually comprehensible, slightly) and some stuff with scientists, generals, and soldiers arguing. Finally you get to the the new monsters wrecking cities and trains (wrecking trains is absolutely required), screaming crowds running away, eventually Godzilla arrives to smash some more city and have an epic multi-round battle with the other things. The outcome is predictable - any plot spoilers wouldn't be spoilers to anyone who's seen the Toho movies.
All in all, a good Godzilla movie. What else can one want from it?

Posted by Mark Ogden (Member # 43) on 05-19-2014, 02:09 PM:

In 3D and Dolby Atmos at the AMC Garden State Plaza 16, Paramus, NJ.

Godzilla hasn’t fared very well on the big screen in quite awhile. Nobody was happy with the 1998 Devlin/Emmerich version, and Toho’s own Millennium cycle wasn’t much better, ending with the foolish Godzilla: Final Wars. So I had high hopes for this one, but they didn’t pan out. While this picture may have 100% less Mathew Broderick, it has also has 100% more Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olson, two wooden and uninteresting actors just going through the motions. The only really good performers in the movie have barely anything to do; Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche are both gone within fifteen minutes, and Sally Hawkins just plays a disposable background character (and frankly the star of the show, the Big G himself, makes what amounts to little more than a walk-on appearance). Even the monster beat-down that everyone wants to see is underplayed, what little action there is winds up hidden by smoke and soot, or taking place on TV monitors that everyone is sitting around gawking at. It’s all deadly serious as well; I wish they could have come up with even a moment of fun or humor, but no such luck. If you look closely and don’t blink there is a nice little Mothra tease, though. Maybe he will appear in the sequel with the two little sisters, and maybe it will be a little less leaden. We can hope.

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 05-20-2014, 06:47 PM:

I did not like anything about this version.

Not. One. Thing.

SPOILER ALERT -- I'm gonna ruin this awful movie

Agreed with the comment about the first half-hour feeling like it was from another unrelated draft. All that setup ultimately becomes irrelevant. To a lesser extent, the sailor's "family back home" doesn't serve much purpose either. If they edited out all of his "family" scenes, it would have no impact on the plot.

Heck, while we're at it, we could probably edit HIM out of the plot. He doesn't even disarm the damn bomb.

Another stupid thing is that the scientists start out in "we don't know what's going on" mode, and then jump suddenly into "we will now explain everything" -- including making assumptions about the genders and thought processes of supposedly-hitherto-unknown monsters.

And, really, after 14 years, would that "Happy Birthday" banner still be intact?

Bull. Shit.

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 05-20-2014, 09:46 PM:

quote: Dave Macaulay
This one hits the mark. If you don't like Japanese monster movies you won't like it.

Totally agree, Godzilla hits the mark. I don't really like summer movies all that much but this one delivered the goods IMHO. I can't think of a summer popcorn movie in the last few years that delivered like this one.

quote: Dave Macaulay
The 'story" blends some "King of the Monsters" with a lot of the later "Godzilla VS" Toho movies. The tie-in with nuclear science is there, the incomprehensible/ludicrous back story explaining the "vs" monsters is there (but more than usually comprehensible, slightly) and some stuff with scientists, generals, and soldiers arguing.

I haven't seen the original movies, but I want to now. So perhaps this version did the trick.

quote: Dave Macaulay
Finally you get to the the new monsters wrecking cities and trains (wrecking trains is absolutely required), screaming crowds running away, eventually Godzilla arrives to smash some more city and have an epic multi-round battle with the other things.

I thought the trestle bridge sequence was good and the battling in the city was a lot of fun.

I thought it was cool that the names Brody were modeled after the Jaws characters and it was wise that we did not see our buddy Godzilla until about 60 minutes into the movie (kinda like the shark in Jaws).

I would like to call out the sound as I thought it was a good mix and they made good use of sound for this movie. My presentation was not overly loud or ear piercing which was good.

quote: Dave Macaulay
What else can one want from it

The only thing I want for a sequel would be for them to film it in flat. It would make the monsters look taller.

I can't wait till they make a sequel.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-20-2014, 10:01 PM:

Cinema: Harkins Theatres Bricktown 16, downtown Oklahoma City
Screen: Cine Capri
Format: 2D, Dolby Atmos - $8.00 per ticket
+ $1 online purchase surcharge.
Still a lot cheaper than any other
premium priced big screen concept.
Presentation Problems: Nothing very serious
Rating: 2.5 stars out of 4

My girlfriend, two of her daughters, a son in law and myself checked out Godzilla this past Saturday afternoon. Overall, I thought it was an "okay" movie. It wasn't nearly as derivative as the blatantly Jurassic Park inspired Godzilla movie from 1998. But it didn't feel all that original either.

My positive comment: this version of the Godzilla monster felt 100,000 times more authentic than the version that hit the screen in 1998. The creature seemed a lot more true to form. I did laugh a bit at the end when he was departing San Francisco to go swimming in the bay -he was a pretty damned fat lizard. But he still looked right in terms of how Godzilla is supposed to look.

Unfortunately the "film-makers" were trying to follow the Jaws formula of not showing the monster until the end of the movie. They didn't realize this is the year 2014. Movie presentation is a little different than that now. We had Pacific Rim in theaters last year -that movie showed a HELL OF A LOT MORE big scale robot vs. monster vs. city smashing spectacle than this movie. It was an 8 year old boy's wet dream, as if kids that age could have such things. No, their spazz out fantasies would be more along the lines of Pacific Rim. And that movie was even mixed in Dolby Atmos as well.

I can't help but wonder if Warner Bros., Legendary Pictures and the other production companies involved chose to hide Godzilla just too damned much as a means of hedging their bets and cutting costs. At least 60 minutes of this movie should have been giant lizard on colossal june bug smack-down. But maybe that would have cost too much money in terms of CGI animation, compositing and 3D conversion fees.

This movie obviously looked like a 2K movie to me. The Dolby Atmos mix was decent, but not really outstanding. I think the best Atmos moment was when the soldiers ventured into the giant June bug's nest and all its swimming lizard eggs were making squeaking frog noises all over the place. The room was just about as alive as it was during the Dolby Atmos "Unfold" trailer.

I'm pretty concerned this year old push for "open standards" in next-gen surround sound has pretty much killed advancement of better surround sound installations. Auro 11.1 is getting a lot more installs due to its agreement with Cinemark/Century. But title support for Auro is still just plain shit. There's nothing on the horizon in terms of DTS' MDA sound format. Nothing in terms of hardware for sure. Nevertheless, Dolby Atmos still has far superior title support. Auro is a distant second in terms of Atmos' use in big event movies. Atmos just needs more theaters. The pressure is definitely on Dolby to bring down the crazy cost of Atmos to make it more practical for a lot more movie theaters.

Posted by Lyle Romer (Member # 1266) on 05-21-2014, 06:15 AM:

quote: Bobby Henderson
The pressure is definitely on Dolby to bring down the crazy cost of Atmos to make it more practical for a lot more movie theaters.

Agree 10000%. There is no way to really get ROI on Atmos at the current cost. People like me notice all the subtleties of the surround field and go out of their way to try and attend Atmos screenings. People like my wife just think it sounds good and don't know why. If it wasn't for me she wouldn't know what Atmos was and would think that a well equipped and eq'd 5.1 presentation sounded good as well.

It just isn't different enough to warrant a $30,000 price tag. Maybe Atmos theatres need to do what AMC seems to be doing in the "Prime" auditoriums and doing lighting to point out the speakers. Perhaps Dolby could work with them on some type of old school IMAX style "explanatory" trailer that lights the speakers and does demos with a voiceover.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-21-2014, 08:37 AM:

At the very least, the price tag on the Dolby CP850 needs to come down a bit or Dolby needs to come up with a CP950 that boosts capabilities yet cuts the cost in half -kind of like what Dolby did with Dolby Digital when the DA-20 package was released to replace the DA-10.

I'm not sure what can be done to make all those speakers and amplifiers more affordable. I think that's really the thing that pushes the costs up pretty high.

On the surface it would seem to make sense for companies like QSC to release 8 channel or 16 channel amplifiers, that way a Dolby Atmos setup wouldn't require 3 or more huge cabinets filled with amplifiers. OTOH, what are the drawbacks with having one piece of rack mount equipment doing the job of a bunch of separate power amplifiers?

By its nature Dolby Atmos does require more powerful surround speakers and works better with at least a couple sub bass cabinets in the surrounds. This is more added expense.

Installing and setting up an Atmos system looks pretty freaking complicated to me.

I'm not advocating garish, ping pong, extreme surround use in movie mixes, but I do think movie productions really need to schedule in the extra time needed to create proper, immersive movie sound mixes -whether they're mixing in Dolby Atmos, using whatever DTS comes up with on their "Open MDA" thing or if it's just something a vendor like ProTools comes up with on their own. If audiences can't tell the difference between a conventional 5.1 mix and an Atmos mix that isn't going to do much in the way of selling Atmos to commercial movie theaters.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 05-21-2014, 09:16 AM:

Too damn dark. Why do they always make the biggest actions scenes of a movie at night? At least when we ran 35mm some studios still struck drive-in prints.

Posted by Scott Jentsch (Member # 1681) on 05-21-2014, 09:22 AM:

I saw Godzilla on Friday at the Marcus Renaissance Cinema in their newly-renovated UltraScreen DLX auditorium. The renovation brought large reclining chairs, reserved seating, and a Dolby Atmos installation. The movie was in Dolby Atmos, but Marcus was coy about advertising it universally, and there was no Atmos trailer preceding the movie.

I thought the movie was very good. I gave it a See Now! rating on our site, as it contained everything that one would expect from a monster movie. While I didn't dislike the 1998 version, this one was much more like the Godzilla movies I remember watching as a kid. There were definitely plot holes that were huge (how does an EOD soldier know how to do a HALO jump?), poor acting (Aaron Taylor-Johnson should not be a lead actor), and more, I was thoroughly entertained and cheered the ending fight scene.

The Atmos mix was good, but not spectacular. There were times when it stood out as off-screen voices came from a rear corner or Godzilla's roar was coming from just above the screen. I was most impressed with the sound system that was installed in the theater, as one of my main criticisms of Marcus' UltraScreens has been the lack of thunderous bass response. This movie contained quite a bit of bass, and this is the first time I've felt it in an UltraScreen.

Overall, I got my $10.50 worth.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 05-21-2014, 03:02 PM:

quote: Scott Jentsch
The movie was in Dolby Atmos, but Marcus was coy about advertising it universally, and there was no Atmos trailer preceding the movie.

That's really a bad move on the part of Marcus Theaters. I wonder if they're trying to do like Cinemark and others, hiding the sound system brand name as perhaps a way of fooling customers into thinking the fancy sound system is exclusive to just that brand of premium priced movie theater. Given how conventional sounding some Atmos mixes tend to be, playing the Unfold or Amaze Dolby Atmos trailers would at least give viewers a better idea of just what that sound format can do.

Honestly, none of these premium priced big screen theaters has anything truly unique that can't be utilized by a competing theater chain. So all this value they're putting into their dopey acronym labels, like "XD", "RPX" or whatever is badly misplaced.

I'm more interested in knowing if the show is being presented in 2K, 4K or some other projection format. The differences in laser or conventional xenon-based projection might be worthy of note. I want to know if the show is in 5.1, 7.1, Auro or Atmos. Saying the show is playing in XD, RPX or whatever tells me absolutely none of that. It's just pretentious bullshit.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-21-2014, 05:00 PM:

I thought it was a mixed bag, definitely better than the prior US attempt, but ugh... the human characters were so bland and boring: Aaron Taylor-Johnson in particular. 3D was sporadically good, but it was too dark to really convey the dimensionality. The Atmos mix was pretty good, not great, but it did heighten some scenes).

Posted by Terry Lynn-Stevens (Member # 7349) on 05-21-2014, 08:36 PM:

Jonathan, Godzilla is all about the lizard and who he fights with at the end. The human characters are just sideshows until we get to that point. The second installment can have whomever as actors, but it is Godzilla who matters. He is supposed to be our buddy.

Posted by Jonathan Goeldner (Member # 4854) on 05-21-2014, 08:58 PM:

well there was more Godzilla in the 1998 version than this - and what was all that extra weight / 'fatness' with him - he looked bloated ... [Wink]

Posted by Dave Macaulay (Member # 813) on 06-09-2014, 05:15 PM:

This Godzilla only looks fat beside that idiotic chameleon from the Ferris Beuller POS.

Posted by Terry Monohan (Member # 8285) on 06-27-2014, 12:17 PM:

They will be doing a sequel, so here are my thoughts to the director. Have a seen like in a classic 35mm Chinatown movie theatre that is showing the old Godzilla film. Have the God Z monster break thru the back stage screen wall into the cinema while the audience has 3-D glasses on and he comes thru the screen into the frightened crowd. Have one old fat lady yell 'That is what I call good 3-D' Turn up all the surround speakers in the sequel with people yelling and screaming all around you. I'll send my thoughts to the producers.