Godzilla vs Kong *SPOILERS*

[Somecrazyaussie]

While I did certainly have a lot of fun with this movie I do find it disheartening that the emerging narrative around it in the last couple of days is that kaiju movies must always be very simple, silly, and have little human material (if at all) so as not to get in the way headlining monsters. This is simply not the case, as the best Kaiju movies are ones that have great characters, interesting stories, moodiness and suspense, etc etc etc... same things any good movie needs.

Which is why the Heisei Gamera films are the gold standard for me regarding the way they handled the human characters.

[Somecrazyaussie]

What are some examples of this?

The Heisei Gamera trilogy. The human characters there played a important part and had vital roles.

[choptop]

This movie didn't really work the ending fight was good the rest was just a bunch of things happening the humans were worthless the evil guy was evil for reasons MG looks silly the HE was odd so was the axe it was good but not great my rateing GKOTM GvK KSI Godzilla14 basically the 60s veson was better.

[CosmiComic]

I think in general a lot of daikaiju movies have forgettable human characters, but that doesn't mean they should, and many do have good human characters with interesting plots

[Nate Grey]

I made it a double feature with Kong: Skull Island since I had never seen it before. It seems more a sequel to that than a double sequel to both K:SI and G/G:KOTM. But, I guess that makes sense. Godzilla got his King of the Monsters title with the Titans bowing to him at the end of the last movie...this movie Kong gets his true kingdom and throne in the Hollow Earth. Godzilla rules above, Kong below. Kinda like the symmetry of it.

No real complaints...I mean I thought Madison and the other two snuck around a little too easy, taking the non-existent security trope a bit too far, but offhand that's all I can say bad about the movie.

I loved everything about Mechagodzilla. Everything.

Bout all I got. I'd watch it again.

[Angilasman]

Which is why the Heisei Gamera films are the gold standard for me regarding the way they handled the human characters.

I feel like the MonsterVerse freely "samples" from the Gamera Trilogy, with Godzilla's status as the protector of the balance on nature, the monster conflicts arising from ancient rivalries, and the opening to Godzilla '14 is an awful lot like the opening of Gamera 3.

And about the human characters in the trilogy: even tiny roles with people who have only one or two scenes are terrific. Those movies are just so well thought out.

[CosmiComic]

I feel like the MonsterVerse freely "samples" from the Gamera Trilogy, with Godzilla's status as the protector of the balance on nature, the monster conflicts arising from ancient rivalries, and the opening to Godzilla '14 is an awful lot like the opening of Gamera 3.

And about the human characters in the trilogy: even tiny roles with people who have only one or two scenes are terrific. Those movies are just so well thought out.

I never noticed it but it makes sense now that you say it.

Maybe someday Gamera will get his big Hollywood redo. Or even just a movie would be good. As long as there are no Kennys

[Username taken]

This movie didn't really work the ending fight was good the rest was just a bunch of things happening the humans were worthless the evil guy was evil for reasons MG looks silly the HE was odd so was the axe it was good but not great my rateing GKOTM GvK KSI Godzilla14 basically the 60s veson was better.

Agreed 100%.

[CosmiComic]

Did either this or KotM really need a human villain though? The monsters were villainous enough

Also, why is the only Japanese guy a 2-d villain who dies? A series based on Japanese movie characters could've at least featured a Japanese or Japanese-American hero, especially considering how limited roles for Asians in Hollywood are

[Username taken]

My final thoughts on GvK, the movie didn't really work for me for a number of reasons. These include (and some of them are nitpicks but heck):

1. The team and Kong needed to go through some form of wormhole or gravity sink or something to get to Hollow Earth....only for Godzilla to turn up and blast a hole straight to it. And for Kong to climb up the hole within seconds or minutes or something. This doesn't make any sense.

2. The Hong Kong fight seemed to change from night to day without any proper transition.

3. Mille Bobbie Brown and her group literally had no role in the film. They added nothing to the plot except the absolute silliness of them pouring alcohol into the controls to slow down Mechagodzilla.

4. The mute girl convincing Kong to fight with Godzilla was a little abrupt considering Godzilla beat him so badly his heart nearly stopped.

5. While the bad guys were "corrupt", their reasoning for the creation of Mechagodzilla was 100% right. Even moreso considering the events of this movie.

6. I'm not "jingoistic" at all but I'm not comfortable at all with seeing Godzilla and even Kong possibly kill so many American soldiers.

The only thing that worked for me were the monster fights, literally nothing else worked in the movie. Overall, I would give it a 6/10. KoTM was a stronger movie IMHO.

[Timothy Hunter]

Did either this or KotM really need a human villain though? The monsters were villainous enough

Also, why is the only Japanese guy a 2-d villain who dies? A series based on Japanese movie characters could've at least featured a Japanese or Japanese-American hero, especially considering how limited roles for Asians in Hollywood are

A human villain in this case was needed to explain the existence of Mecha-Godzilla

[CosmiComic]

A human villain in this case was needed to explain the existence of Mecha-Godzilla

They could've built him for fairly good reasons, i.e. a reliable defense against other daikaiju, like how he was in the Heisei and Millennium series

[The Cool Thatguy]

They could've built him for fairly good reasons, i.e. a reliable defense against other daikaiju, like how he was in the Heisei and Millennium series

They did.

Mecha-Godzilla wasn't built to go rampaging through the neighborhood. It was clearly built as a Titan defense system. It just turns out that plugging it into an alien Titan is a bad idea. Who knew?

[Agent Z]

I think in general a lot of daikaiju movies have forgettable human characters, but that doesn't mean they should, and many do have good human characters with interesting plots

The Iwi girl seems to be popular among critics and audiences.

[CosmiComic]

They did.

Mecha-Godzilla wasn't built to go rampaging through the neighborhood. It was clearly built as a Titan defense system. It just turns out that plugging it into an alien Titan is a bad idea. Who knew?

I agree. My point was there wasn't any reason to make any of the people building it into villains.

The Iwi girl seems to be popular among critics and audiences.

I liked her the most out of the new characters