Well, I did just come from seeing it, so my feelings were fresh and heightened, I admit. But I was really very frustrated that they teased us with so many monster fights and didn't carry through. When they show G and Muto engage, then cut to the kid and his mom, the movie is saying to me "these people are more important." But they were not more important than watching two giant monsters fight. It's the contrast between "monsters fight" and "people doing things" that kills it. I don't mind watching people do things, but I don't want to watch that when you just showed me that there are two monsters about to go at it. I've got more, but I'll leave it at that. Pacific Rim literally ended in a bang: a nuclear bomb exploding! lol But I did really like the final fight in Godzilla. It's just that it was all too little too late for me to be interested. I'd like to watch that last bit again, but there's no way I'm sitting through the whole movie again in the theater.
Pacific Rim was extremely fun and I enjoyed it but Godzilla I enjoyed far more as a story, and I even genuinely liked the acting in it. And yeah, the teasing was annoying but it only made that finale even sweeter. I think in general though, I prefer monster vs monster over robot vs monster. Still love both though.
I really didn't like PR. None of the characters held my interest in the least, and the movie pretty much bored me to tears. Sure, lots of robot/monster fights, but they had no substance or sense of scale. Also, the acting was painful. Godzilla was the perfect Godzilla reboot. I enjoyed every second of it.
Godzilla. First, I actually enjoyed the human element more. In Pacific Rim I found the "scientists" incredibly annoying. I cringed everytime they were on screen "drifting" with kaiju or claiming dinosaurs had two brains. I realize that these movies center on animals that couldn't even exist on Earth due to their body size and gravity, but in PR it felt almost obnoxious. I preferred Godzilla's theme of humans dealing with the fallout of trying to control nature, and ultimately being too weak in the end to restore a natural balance. Second, it's just more fun when you get to cheer for the monster. When Godzilla shows up, you feel like shouting for joy at how awesome he is. For the PR kaiju, they're hideous and ugly and you root for their destruction at the hands of machines. Gipsy Danger is a cool mech, but not as much as Godzilla.
I like both, but over-all I would have to say that I prefer Godzilla. Pacific Rim was good, but I couldn't get interested in most of the human story. Especially the two main characters. Godzilla on the other hand had a great human story to ot. It also had a suspesfull build-up to the plot that was amazing to see unfold. The end battle was also very satisfying, but didn't drag on too long. There's also a familiarity with the brand that, unfair as it is, does help a bit. Ultimately I'm looking forward to both potentially getting sequels, but if I could only go to one, it would be the Godzilla sequel.
I honestly found Godzilla to be an insanely boring and aggravating movie that I will probably never see again. Like I wanted more of Ken Watanabe and Heisenberg, they were the fun interesting characters that I wanted to follow, I couldn't give two shits about the bland-son and his recycled every 90's disaster movie storyline about reuniting with generic wife and son #1645, and the constant cock tease cut-aways when the battles were about to happen made me more and more annoyed and angry to the point that when the fight did come I just couldn't give a shit anymore I just wanted the movie to be over with. Also MUTOs are super lame monsters. They are Cloverfield monster 2.0 is America REALLY that unable to create a fun movie monster that's not the Cloverfield only a bit different? Plus Godzilla really was just a secondary character in his own movie who's motivation really don't make a lick of sense in the movie narrative. The movie was more about MUTOs than about Godzilla anyway. The final fight was fun tough. I just wish it was in a better movie. Pacific Rim on the other hand is still the single most fun movie experience I ever had and I still re-watch the movie on a weekly basis.
I love how you adore Pacific Rim and it's characters but loathe the soldier in Godzilla. It makes no sense.
Good god, Pacific Rim ANY day. It has good guys vs. bad guys with clear motivations and a plot. Fuck, the main theme of Pacific Rim gets me so pumped up. There was never a heroic, or desperate, or suspenseful moment in Godzilla outside of them parachuting in. Which was in the trailer and in the context of the movie, we don't care because we already know what's happening. There were no stakes for me to care about. Godzilla was a flatline. Maybe his 'badass' moment at the end I would have cheered for if they had actually made me care for Godzilla outside of asian guy from Inception liking him for no reason. In Pacific Rim, they've all lost something and become stronger for it. They at least try to have personality. Soldier guy loses his dad, doesn't really impact him and the dad doesn't really do anything important anyways, he gets to do stuff because he's the only bomb guy the army has apparently, but then the bomb doesn't matter anyways.
Uh, I'm pretty sure the death of the dad impacted him quite a bit. Ford is not the most interesting character in the world but you do get the sense that he regrets not listening to his dad before the Muto hatched and that he needs to do what he can to help others and his own family to avoid the same pain and loss happening to them. The character elements in PR are more in your face, while the ones here are more subtle. Also, are you saying Cranston's character didn't do anything important? Without his findings they wouldn't have found out what the Mutos were up to until it was too late. Only bomb guy in the army? I guess you must have missed the scene were the female Muto ate everyone else for dinner.
I thought that was made clear after it hatched and he pretty much says "you were right, I am sorry I called you crazy" right before his dad dies. And that's it. I don't think it influenced his behavior at all. The movie failed to make me care, and honestly, to me it seemed like he was the type of person who would have done what he eventually did anyways even without reconciling with his dad. There is almost no difference between the character at the start and the end of the movie. And far less interesting and satisfying. I don't even know if I'd call it subtle as opposed to nonexistent. How so? They were already about to wake up when they got him. One of them was already smashing around when they discover the echo stuff. They would have pieced together that 3 monsters are going to meet up in a certain location. They make no difference in the final battle other than the female Muto getting distracted by a boat for no reason when there's a monster of equivalent size trying to kill her. They kill the eggs, but they would have known about that anyways (and they were just going to leave them too). I find it hard to believe every single EOD expert was on that train. Why were they even using a train? I'm not going to sit here and say Pacific Rim is perfect, lolno it isn't, but I actually cared. They tried to make their own little lore filled world, with each character having varying types of chemistry with eachother, we have reason to root for the Jaegers, and I thought the Kaiju designs were way cooler than the Mutos. The Mutos to me looked like the Cloverfield monster with G1 Ravage's head spliced on.
And way easier to watch than Charlie Hunnam in PacRim. I love PacRim, it's really fun, but come on, the the characters are practically caricatures of every anime character ever and the acting was pretty awful. I'm not saying Godzilla had better characters, I'm saying they're easier to watch.
