Godzilla Reboot: What can we expect?

Just when humanity had recovered from Roland Emmereich’s (Independence Day) Godzilla in 1998 and fans of the series were just starting to get used to a life without Godzilla after 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, Hollywood has decided to try their hand at Japan’s favourite monster yet again. Being released in Australia later this month, Godzilla (yeah, what an original title) seeks to retell the same story Ishiro Honda’s legendary 1954 film Godzilla, except this time being set in contemporary New York, as opposed to 1950’s Tokyo. With the release date slowly approaching, I thought I’d try to wade through the hype and use my mutant ability to sense terrible movies to see if this Godzilla will destroy my expectations, or yet again be defeated by Matthew Broderick.
First, a little history. Godzilla was released in 1954 and is considered to be the first “Kaiju” film ever made; the word “Kaiju” being a Japanese term for giant monsters. Following Godzilla, Toho studios would go on to release a wide array of Kaiju films including Rodan, Mothra, and my personal favourite, Gidorah, the Three Headed Monster. With Godzilla being heavily based of of the Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Dragon, many of the other Toho monsters were similarly based off of dinosaurs and other animals; Rodan is a large mutated Pterosaur, Mothra is a enormous Moth, Anguirus is an Anklyosaurus, and King Gidorah is an armless, three-headed golden dragon with two tails from outer space, which is probably the most Disco thing in the history of the universe. Godzilla’s Atomic Breath (often misrepresented as flame breath) was originally supposed to tie him to his atomic roots, which featured heavily in the first film, which painted Godzilla as the looming menace of Nuclear weapons. This was dropped in subsequent films in the series as they became more action oriented, but Godzilla’s revival in the 80’s brought it back to the forefront.

None of the other films performed as well as Godzilla, so after Rodan  all the Kaiju were added to the Godzilla series, which led to Godzilla vs Mothra vs Rodan vs King Gidorah vs Zilla vs Mechagodzilla vs Minilla vs Hedorah vs Predator, and all the other movies in which Godzilla went up against other monsters. The franchise had its ups and downs but it was definitely the cornerstone of the giant monster movie genre. Eventually the series became so popular overseas that an american adaptation was made in 1998. After months of excellent build- up and a truly extraordinary teaser marketing campaign the film was released.
It sucked. Hard.
It was two hours of bad action sequences, a random love story between two characters that served only to divert attention away from Godzilla, French secret service agents being eaten by Velociraptors (because THAT’S what the original was missing), and a bunch of scenes ripped straight from the original film done with no charm or effort. It is a poor Godzilla film in almost every respect, and goes to show you what trying to do a carbon copy remake can do to a film, because yes, the original Godzilla did have a very slow start, and it did have a love story inserted into the film; the difference is that one film had meticulous pacing and a deep seated message that was enforced throughout the film, and the other had a bunch of explosions and a generous helping of bad jokes and poorly written dialogue.
Now that we’ve summed up the history, let’s focus on now; Godzilla 2014. What do we know about it?

WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

 
From the cast list we can see that the film’s human protagonist will most likely either be a soldier played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, or a scientist played by Bryan Cranston. A lot of the early Godzilla films had strong segments focusing on human characters, so you can’t make a judgement on the film based on the inclusion of some big name actors, and a strong human supporting cast is essential for keeping the audience interested in-between the action sequences. That being said, if the film starts to lean too heavily on the human characters, much like the Transformers movies, it’ll stagnate quickly and become a boring ‘splosion fest.
Speaking on Godzilla himself, scientific fanboy analysis has revealed that Godzilla is much larger than any previous incarnation, both height and size wise. In fact, Godzilla is so much bigger than before than Japanese fans have taken to twitter to laugh at the fact that Godzilla seems to have gotten much fatter, probably due to his time in America. Godzilla is estimated to be about 100 metres tall, roughly the same height as the 80’s Showa era films, and nearly double the height of Godzilla in the original films.
But possible the biggest possible spoiler lies in the film Asian Trailer, which gives a few too many details about the film away, namely the appearance of a Rodan type flying monster which Godzilla will apparently fight. Check out the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1pX97_0rxU
Does this mean that Godzilla is in fact good in this film? Is he fighting with or against the humans? Questions have been raised and hopefully the answers wont be bad.
As someone who’s often pessimistic when it comes to new releases, especially sequels, remakes, and reboots, I’m surprised to say that I’m actually looking forward to seeing Godzilla. After a few thoroughly disappointing Godzilla films, it’ll be nice to see the giant monster properly put in a new setting. The director, Gareth Edwards, has confirmed that the film will have Godzilla represent the dangers of nuclear weaponry, in a throwback to the original film. There’s is a ridiculous amount that could go wrong, but If a decent amount of effort and forethought is put in, this could turn out to be a great Godzilla film.
Or not.
Looking forward to seeing the new Godzilla movie? Lining up to throw your popcorn at the screen? Give us your opinion in the comments.