Shin Godzilla (2016) : REVIEW

Overmind One said:

Okay the first copy I got was rubbish. But this new one has the English subtitles, and is beautiful with full HD sound. I am watching it now. Took a break to say that one thing that strikes me is the utter stoic demeanor of the Japanese councils and government operations have. The are like robots...on power save! The evolution of Godzilla in this actually works wit the story they are telling and I love it so far. The Godzilla without the front arms was too cute to be scary! It did a lot of damage, but those eyes made it look all Hello Kitty.

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I agree. Form one was let down a bit by the facial construction. The concept was really cool but that face let the execution down a bit.

Also, note the dialogue is politically charged from a Japanese perspective, and in part the movie is mocking the political culture for being too hidebound. This link may help a little to show the spiderweb of approvals needed to get things done in Japan:

I liked this movie. But many things in it stood out as being hard to take.

• Off the top...the cast is 100% Asian, with 98% of them being Japanese. Being American, and from a minority, this seemed extreme and jumped out at me.
• The scenes where there are committees and government conferences regarding Godzilla are stoic and boring to the point of being almost comical. People sitting around with perfectly stacked booklets of paper, identical notebooks, and copy machines set up with the regiment of a military unit.
• Godzilla in his second form. He had very large eyes and the face was...cute. Even cuter than Minya. I thought he was going to blow bubbles!

The story worked quite well. The evolution of Godzilla was logical and made sense, even with his existing history (which has now been rebooted). This is an origin story, and is very much the result of a more scientifically advanced audience than it was for the original post-war audiences who saw a more symbolic Godzilla than what Shin Godzilla gives us.

This movie is not dubbed. It has English subtitles, which in this movie seems to work because then you do not have to stare at perfectly arranged coffee mugs and boring lookalike suits. It's one of the most drab things to see in the movie. The subtitles allow a clear understanding of the story and the font used is pleasant and does not block the scenes.

Godzilla himself, well he starts out in an interesting fashion, and then "evolves" through several stages before becoming Godzilla that we know. The second form where he has rudimentary rear legs and gills is...disappointing. Although it is said that this film uses CGI, they manage to still make Godzilla look like a man in a rubber suit. The look is pure kaigu (OG style). I think that this look is in it's sunset. Like even the very best most sophisticated stop motion, there is a threshhold where the best is not good enough. Pacific Rim has raised the bar.

Overall, I give this film FIVE STARS for a kaigu film, but for a regular film, I will give it a 3.

Just to be sure we have our "forms" straight...

Form One - Slithers on belly with blood gushing out gills

Form Two - Form one stands up - rudimentary front arms break through. We only see it briefly then it goes back to sea.

Form Three - The really big form.

I think the "government scenes" worked better for me because I got what they were doing, which was mocking the sclerotic Japanese government and its response to the recent Tsunami and Fukushima disasters. Did you notice that the "young turks" research unit actually got things done largely by sidestepping the bureaucracy?

I agree that they could have gotten more bang for their CGI buck so to speak. For all the warts of G2014 (overlong second act - unnecessary characters in the Army family) the creature itself was VERY well realized. This Goji was much more "monster" but did strangely feel like a suitmation instead of a motion capture figure.

Overall I really liked this film.

Joelist said:

Just to be sure we have our "forms" straight...

Form One - Slithers on belly with blood gushing out gills

Form Two - Form one stands up - rudimentary front arms break through. We only see it briefly then it goes back to sea.

Form Three - The really big form.

I think the "government scenes" worked better for me because I got what they were doing, which was mocking the sclerotic Japanese government and its response to the recent Tsunami and Fukushima disasters. Did you notice that the "young turks" research unit actually got things done largely by sidestepping the bureaucracy?

I agree that they could have gotten more bang for their CGI buck so to speak. For all the warts of G2014 (overlong second act - unnecessary characters in the Army family) the creature itself was VERY well realized. This Goji was much more "monster" but did strangely feel like a suitmation instead of a motion capture figure.

Overall I really liked this film.

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Form one....lol. It was so cute!



I smiled when I saw it. It reminds me of a puppy with too many teeth, which plays with buildings and cars instead of dog toys. I mistook that first form for form 2 which has front arms (albeit tiny).

Fetch Goji! Fetch!

Joelist said:

Fetch Goji! Fetch!

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I liked the final form the best, but by the time it showed up the best part of the movie was over. I still can't get over the fact that they used CGI to create a Godzilla which still looked like a man walking around in a suit! One thing is that the cities being destroyed did not seem like miniatures or look like them. Perhaps that was the best use of CGI in the film. The cast was boring. I can't think of another word which would be appropriate. The characters other than Godzilla were forgettable. Yet, this is still a genuine OG kaiju film worthy of a place of honor in the Gojira saga. This might be the only true reboot of Goji there is.

I don't know about the best part being over when Final Form showed up. The futile military attack on Goji involved Final Form as well as the Nuclear Fire.

Of the human characters I liked the young minister who led the research team that ultimately found the solution.

OM, what were your thoughts on the very end?


Note the creatures beginning to come forth from the tail - what do you think they are?

Joelist said:

OM, what were your thoughts on the very end?


Note the creatures beginning to come forth from the tail - what do you think they are?

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not sure you saw this before. As a fellow Kaiju film fan, what do you think this scene was showing? They look like creatures spawning off of the tail of Gojira.

Funmation is working right now on the US DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming release of Shin Godzilla. They are providing both a subtitled version and an English Dub.

And....it came out that the voice acting in the dub is courtesy of the main cast of our favorite Star Trek fan production, Star Trek Continues! Small world.

Joelist said:

Funmation is working right now on the US DVD/Blu-Ray/Streaming release of Shin Godzilla. They are providing both a subtitled version and an English Dub.

And....it came out that the voice acting in the dub is courtesy of the main cast of our favorite Star Trek fan production, Star Trek Continues! Small world.

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I never told you what I thought about Godzilla's tail, and I just do not want to get started. But it appears they want to evolve some humanoid creatures from him. Setup for future characters of a new type of Kaigu? Smaller and people-sized? Never been done before.

The tail was weird no doubt. I think the creatures were about to spawn off his tail when he was frozen (I think). They look to be about 15 feet or so high given the height of Shin-Goji (390 feet tall).

The US Blu Ray and streaming release dates are 8-1. And we get both a dub and a subbed version. Nice because it means one can use the subtitles version to validate the dub.

The Blu-Ray arrived today, and it has a lot of nice features. One of them let me watch the film with the English dub on and the English subtitles from the original Japanese version on as well. It let me evaluate how accurate the dub is - historically Godzilla films have been plagued with terribly inaccurate dubbing which both changed the stories in the films and made them seem campier than they actually were meant to be.

So what is the verdict?

This is possibly the most accurate dub I have ever seen in a Godzilla film. Most of the dialogue is basically westernized versions of the Japanese dialog and the themes of the film and its plot points survive intact. It was also funny to me to hear the cast of Star Trek Continues voices as they were the ones who did the dub; and did it well.

Beyond the dub, this is a great BluRay. The transfer fidelity is excellent and you get lots of extras including the digital copy which you access online.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/haruo-nakajima-godzilla-dead_us_5988eb76e4b0d79373899f7b

Yep. The first of the "suitmation" actors. He will be missed.

Joelist said:

Yep. The first of the "suitmation" actors. He will be missed.

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The Japanese take Godzilla quite seriously it seems. He is as much of their culture as Mickey Mouse is here at home. There are protocols surrounding him and his presentation. I always saw the kaiju films as being a certain type of art form. When I was a kid, many of those films became play scenarios with my dinosaur toys in the yard.

Well, Toho has decided to go forward for now with Godzilla anime while the two upcoming Legendary Godzilla films play out, then they will return to feature films with Gojira. This means no immediate sequel to Shin Godzilla. And you know what? As much as I love this film it needs no sequel. It is standalone and to me it did its job in spades of getting Godzilla back to the proper tone and feel.

I remember seeing previews and thinking the film would be terrible. I even posted as such here. I am so happy to be wrong - it is in my Top 5 Godzilla films ever list and truly honored the original.