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briizilla wrote:But I suspect it will be another noisy piece of hollywood fluff with the Transformers name attached.

And how would it be any different? It's giant robots fighting a war, half of which are out for human blood, and above all, it's coming out in summer, which is Mindless Action Movie Season. What would you expect it to be?

They never had a choice but to make it a popcorn action flick. You're only making it harder on yourself for hoping otherwise.

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:

Shadowman wrote:Whatever. At least I know how to enjoy a movie.

Oooooh. ZING!

He has a point. Let me ask you, why do you feel the need to try and ruin the movie, or force your belief in a movie being bad on everyone else. Are you so awesome that your point of view is the only right one? Why can you not accept that some fans like this movie? That some people like Godzilla '98, and consider it far superior to what came before? Why are you so arrogant and prickish?

He can enjoy the film. Everyone has a right to enjoy whatever they want. But if he's going to try and validate Tristar's Godzilla as great by slamming the original series as cheesy while completely missing the point of the comparison people have made, then yeah, I'm going to call it for what it is. Practically everyone involved in the making of the Tristar Godzilla lost money and credibility over it. In failed because it didn't remain true to the original franchise in any way. It isn't an altogether unwatchable film and there was plenty of talented people involved but the mistakes that were made were huge and could have been completely avoided. Even the people who made the bloody movie will tell you that.

And if someone is going to go about insisting that it's superior to what came before it, fine, but they should at least have seen what they're comparing it to. Some of the Showa Godzilla films were cheap, yes, but to dismiss the Heisei films as 'rubber suits and cardboard buildings' it becomes obvious he hasn't seen them. The dialogue and the hokey mysticism are fair-game (they are made primarily for older children and young adolescents, after all) but the costumes are on-par, if not exceeding, what was done in films like Predator and the first 2 Alien films. The 'cardboard buildings' are intricate scale models that would put most special effects scale model builders here in the states to shame.

Do they have the dazzling cgi of the Tristar Godzilla? No, but apart from tradition they can't afford to invest $150 million on a film whose primary audience is a nation as small as Japan. Instead they're making entire films with the budget of what an American producer would spend to sign Tom Cruise.

Again, if you're going to come out all high-and-mighty and insist that your unpopular opinion is gospel then you'd best know what it is you're talking about.

AbsumZer0 wrote:And if someone is going to go about insisting that it's superior to what came before it, fine, but they should at least have seen what they're comparing it to. Some of the Showa Godzilla films were cheap, yes, but to dismiss the Heisei films as 'rubber suits and cardboard buildings' it becomes obvious he hasn't seen them.

I've seen damn near every Godzilla film. I know full well what I'm comparing it to. When you place the old against the '98 movie, the old is cheap rubber suits and cardboard sets.


Now, that doesn't devalue your rose colored vision of it, but its still a rose colored vision. Just because you read something into a franchise, doesn't mean everyone else will as well, and it doesn't make you superior to them for not having the same interpretation.

Milanion wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:

Shadowman wrote:Whatever. At least I know how to enjoy a movie.

Oooooh. ZING!

Shadowman's got a real point though. A lot of us are going to enjoy the movie, and a lot of us aren't (although I suspect almost all of us will see it regardless.) However, I think a lot (not all) of the people who aren't going to enjoy it, aren't going to enjoy it for the wrong reasons - because it isn't G1.

I laugh, because I know that thousands of movie-loving kiddies will be on their way to this forum soon to let everyone here know that TFM2007 roxxors!1!11! and is the "definitive" version of Transformers.

I didn't enjoy Van Helsing or The Mummy Returns not because I don't like classic Universal monsters, I didn't enjoy them because I'm not a real big fan of loud, obnoxious movies with mediocre SFX and rapid-fire cheesy one-liners. I didn't enjoy Godzilla not because it wasn't 'the Godzilla', I didn't enjoy it simply because it had nothing else going for it except impressive special effects and Jean Reno. If it were truer to the original Godzilla I admit I would have liked it slightly more, but I expect I'd have still been tremendously disappointed.

The way I see the Transformers movie, I think I could forgive the change in appearance if it had something more than flashy special effects going for it. As it is, everything from the cast, to the director, to what we've seen of the script looks like another mediocre summer movie that may or may not bring in enough money to warrant a sequel. Will it look good? Probably, but if I want to spend 10 bucks on eye-candy (20 if I bring a date) I'll stay home and rent a couple striptease videos on cable instead.

Frenzy looks like it will fall apart when someone coughs in it's general direction.
Ironhide looks the least terrible of the bunch.

Meh,
I'll go torrent this stuf... Cause I am a Pirate

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:And if someone is going to go about insisting that it's superior to what came before it, fine, but they should at least have seen what they're comparing it to. Some of the Showa Godzilla films were cheap, yes, but to dismiss the Heisei films as 'rubber suits and cardboard buildings' it becomes obvious he hasn't seen them.

I've seen damn near every Godzilla film. I know full well what I'm comparing it to. When you place the old against the '98 movie, the old is cheap rubber suits and cardboard sets.


Now, that doesn't devalue your rose colored vision of it, but its still a rose colored vision. Just because you read something into a franchise, doesn't mean everyone else will as well, and it doesn't make you superior to them for not having the same interpretation.

Then Predator and the first two Alien films are crappy movies with cheap suits and cardboard sets, compared to the majesty of the special effects might of Godzilla or Van Helsing, right?

Godzilla flopped for a reason. Pretending it didn't doesn't change anything.

AbsumZer0 wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:And if someone is going to go about insisting that it's superior to what came before it, fine, but they should at least have seen what they're comparing it to. Some of the Showa Godzilla films were cheap, yes, but to dismiss the Heisei films as 'rubber suits and cardboard buildings' it becomes obvious he hasn't seen them.

I've seen damn near every Godzilla film. I know full well what I'm comparing it to. When you place the old against the '98 movie, the old is cheap rubber suits and cardboard sets.


Now, that doesn't devalue your rose colored vision of it, but its still a rose colored vision. Just because you read something into a franchise, doesn't mean everyone else will as well, and it doesn't make you superior to them for not having the same interpretation.

Then Predator and the first two Alien films are crappy movies with cheap suits and cardboard sets, compared to the majesty of the special effects might of Godzilla or Van Helsing, right?

Godzilla flopped for a reason. Pretending it didn't doesn't change anything.

I hope you aren't tying to suggest that the "effects" and costumes of the old Godzilla movies are on par with Predator and the Alien films, are you?

Spoon wrote:Frenzy looks like it will fall apart when someone coughs in it's general direction.
Ironhide looks the least terrible of the bunch.

Meh,
I'll go torrent this stuf... Cause I am a Pirate

Holy Sh*t... Best video ever!!!

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:And if someone is going to go about insisting that it's superior to what came before it, fine, but they should at least have seen what they're comparing it to. Some of the Showa Godzilla films were cheap, yes, but to dismiss the Heisei films as 'rubber suits and cardboard buildings' it becomes obvious he hasn't seen them.

I've seen damn near every Godzilla film. I know full well what I'm comparing it to. When you place the old against the '98 movie, the old is cheap rubber suits and cardboard sets.


Now, that doesn't devalue your rose colored vision of it, but its still a rose colored vision. Just because you read something into a franchise, doesn't mean everyone else will as well, and it doesn't make you superior to them for not having the same interpretation.

Then Predator and the first two Alien films are crappy movies with cheap suits and cardboard sets, compared to the majesty of the special effects might of Godzilla or Van Helsing, right?

Godzilla flopped for a reason. Pretending it didn't doesn't change anything.

I hope you aren't tying to suggest that the "effects" and costumes of the old Godzilla movies are on par with Predator and the Alien films, are you?

If they are, then they haven't seen any of the Alien or Predator movies.

I can see huge differences in quality between the Predator suit and Godzilla.

Predator comes out on top. By far.

What a spirited debate we have going here! To think, this is all over a few character designs. If a new trailer comes out, there might be blood spilled.

tomservo wrote:What a spirited debate we have going here! To think, this is all over a few character designs. If a new trailer comes out, there might be blood spilled.

Nah. I think the major war was last year. These are just minor scraps.

Milanion wrote:

tomservo wrote:What a spirited debate we have going here! To think, this is all over a few character designs. If a new trailer comes out, there might be blood spilled.

Nah. I think the major war was last year. These are just minor scraps.

The biggest I believe ballooned to 50 pages in less than 2 weeks with the unvayling of "Megatron" and included scrappy comments by Don Murphy himself. I'll not go further than that.

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:

Ironhidensh wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:And if someone is going to go about insisting that it's superior to what came before it, fine, but they should at least have seen what they're comparing it to. Some of the Showa Godzilla films were cheap, yes, but to dismiss the Heisei films as 'rubber suits and cardboard buildings' it becomes obvious he hasn't seen them.

I've seen damn near every Godzilla film. I know full well what I'm comparing it to. When you place the old against the '98 movie, the old is cheap rubber suits and cardboard sets.


Now, that doesn't devalue your rose colored vision of it, but its still a rose colored vision. Just because you read something into a franchise, doesn't mean everyone else will as well, and it doesn't make you superior to them for not having the same interpretation.

Then Predator and the first two Alien films are crappy movies with cheap suits and cardboard sets, compared to the majesty of the special effects might of Godzilla or Van Helsing, right?

Godzilla flopped for a reason. Pretending it didn't doesn't change anything.

I hope you aren't tying to suggest that the "effects" and costumes of the old Godzilla movies are on par with Predator and the Alien films, are you?

Not the old Showa-era films. I'm still not talking about them. The late Heisei-era films. The ones immediately precluding the Tristar Godzilla, from the early to mid 90's. The ones with animatronics. Those films didn't have the careful editing or the darkness to make them look quite so superb, but in terms of detail and technology the suits were definitely on-par.

Spoon wrote:Frenzy looks like it will fall apart when someone coughs in it's general direction.
Ironhide looks the least terrible of the bunch.

Meh,
I'll go torrent this stuf... Cause I am a Pirate

thats funny. "HOORAY"

'98 Godzilla made a ton of money.
--However, the owners of "Godzilla" hated it.
--Most old fans hated it.
--Critics hated it.
--The people who worked on it lost professional credibility.
--And the company who'd made GREAT profits on releasing toys of the classic versions went under soon after taking a hit on the new version not selling for crap. (Read: No long-term new "fans", just disenfranchised old ones).

Is that a "success", or a case of MASSIVE, OVER-SATURATIVE ADVERTISING reeling in a bunch of newbies while ALSO reeling in fans by using a HOUSEHOLD name?
Godzilla 98 making money was due to "trickery", not because it was a good movie. So, despite my feelings of nostalgia, i agree the old ones did suck somewhat... but when a company pawns something off as something it's not, spending millions to do so and trick the entire world into seeing it... I get pissed.

As for godzilla 98 being an approach at "being more serious"... dude, it was the lack of seriousness that murdered it.
I threw up when I saw the leaked character design. But seeing it in action, I then LOVED that Godzilla in a different way than the original.

So why'd I and most others hate Godzilla 98?

The movie itself didn't know what it was.
It said "Godzilla", but he wasn't Godzilla.
The creature was well animated, more realistic, and physically more logical... but the BAD actors, with all their little one-liners and the constant dropping of pop culture references didn't jive.

If the "human aspect" of godzilla 98 had matched the serious new rendition of the creature, it would've been a GREAT movie.

That didn't happen.
And since elements seen in the leaked Transformers script seem to mostly be spot-on, it appears that Transformers is going the same way.

The movie itself doesn't know what it is.
It says "transformers" but they're not them.
The robots will be well animated, with a more serious approach to their physical transformations... but the BAD actors, with all their little one-liners and the constant dropping of pop culture references won't jive.

Oh, but I haven't seen the movie yet. I can't know that that's truly how it'll be, right?
Bullshit.
The script has thus far closely matched what has been released.
Likewise, if one reads the Godzilla 98 script, it is QUITE clear what to expect in the movie.

Anyway, slightly off-topic, ...Is it illegal to kick people in the nuts who say movies that make good financial returns MUST be "good"?

Seriously, Godzilla, probably like transformers will, made alot of money (initially) due to HEAVY marketing and household name recognition.
But it DID also suck.

Shadowman
Post Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 5:33 pm


EDIT:

Sorry, I didn't quite specify:
Three people just made large posts about why they should've made a sequel to a series most Americans aren't familiar with.

Very good. You're saying "Godzilla" wasn't an instantly-recognizable, generation-spanning household name over many decades. You're right. Keep up the good work.

And by that, I actually mean, "WHAT in the holy HELL?"

There's this image that I can't get out of my head.........of Skywarp, Thundercracker, and Rumble showing Starscream and Frenzy these movie designs while pointing fingers and laughing at them.

Riotflea wrote:
Anyway, slightly off-topic, ...Is it illegal to kick people in the nuts who say movies that make good financial returns MUST be "good"?

Seriously, Godzilla, probably like transformers will, made alkot of money (initially) due to HEAVY marketing and household name recognition.
But it DID also suck.

Actually, Godzilla made a lot of money in foreign release but barely broke even domestically and that was only due to Tristar's demanding an unusually large portion of the per-ticket sales. As a result Tristar is about the only one that really made money off the film. The theaters got shafted because they couldn't fill the cinemas, Trendmasters and the other companies who paid out the nose for licenses lost money because their product wasn't moving, the retailers selling Godzilla merchandise lost money because they had to clearance it. Apart from the poor reviews another reason Tristar didn't go ahead with a sequel is because they wouldn't have been able to sell licenses.

Zuko wrote:Woohoo for explosions, tiny plot and transforming robots beating the piss out of each other!

YEEHAW!!!!!!!

What a spirited debate we have going here! To think, this is all over a few character designs. If a new trailer comes out, there might be blood spilled.

I was thinkin' of a witty response to this, but hell, with the way things are going now you may be right.

@Down_Shift, recommended Godzilla viewing:

Gojira(they just released a 2-disc set with this and Godzilla:King of the Monsters. Gojira is far superior.)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla
Godzilla vs. Destroyah
Godzilla 2000
Godzilla against Mechagodzilla
Godzilla GMK

These are my personal favs. And do yourself a favor, stay far, VERY FAR away from Godzilla 98. Anyone out there see Final Wars, I have yet to?

I have a soft spot in my heart for Godzilla vs. Megalon.
It looks like it was done on a shoestring budget.
It has WONKY, physically impossible kung fu sequences. (godzilla AIR KICK?!? lol)
It had a robot who was a clear ripoff of Tsuburaya's 'Ultraman'.
A really cheesy car chase that utilizes even cheaper tape editing "action" effects.
And the kid had cool toys.

I dunno... I can watch it over and over. It's so fun and silly.

D-340 wrote:

Zuko wrote:Woohoo for explosions, tiny plot and transforming robots beating the piss out of each other!

YEEHAW!!!!!!!

What a spirited debate we have going here! To think, this is all over a few character designs. If a new trailer comes out, there might be blood spilled.

I was thinkin' of a witty response to this, but hell, with the way things are going now you may be right.

@Down_Shift, recommended Godzilla viewing:

Gojira(they just released a 2-disc set with this and Godzilla:King of the Monsters. Gojira is far superior.)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla
Godzilla vs. Destroyah
Godzilla 2000
Godzilla against Mechagodzilla
Godzilla GMK

These are my personal favs. And do yourself a favor, stay far, VERY FAR away from Godzilla 98. Anyone out there see Final Wars, I have yet to?

Isn't final wars the one that's supposed to have G2000 vs GINO(Godzilla in name only)?

I've so been wanting to see that.

Oh, & as far as Tristar's Gino is concerned....I didn't see much difference between it & another popular disaster movie: Twister...other than one was about a giant lizard in a big city, & the other was about tornados in the midwest. aside from a couple of obvious differences, they both pretty much have the same plot.

D-340 wrote:
I was thinkin' of a witty response to this, but hell, with the way things are going now you may be right.

@Down_Shift, recommended Godzilla viewing:

Gojira(they just released a 2-disc set with this and Godzilla:King of the Monsters. Gojira is far superior.)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla
Godzilla vs. Destroyah
Godzilla 2000
Godzilla against Mechagodzilla
Godzilla GMK

These are my personal favs. And do yourself a favor, stay far, VERY FAR away from Godzilla 98. Anyone out there see Final Wars, I have yet to?

I bought Final Wars as soon as it came out. The references to past films (like the alien antagonists, Minilla, and GINO) are there and it doesn't take itself seriously at all which is kind of nice. I've heard people complain about all the human scenes but there really isn't any more dialogue or less kaiju action than previous films and Ultimate Championship Fighting 8 winner Don Frye is pretty amusing. The martial-arts scenes beat the cheesy dramatics any day. The Gigan redesign (by famous Japanese pop artist Yasushi Nirasawa ) is a thing of beauty. The only drawback I can think of is how brief each Kaiju's scene is due to the number of them that appear. For awhile it was my 3 year-old nephew's favorite film and he has no attention span whatsoever.

@Down_Shift: My personal fave is vs Destroyah, but unless you can find a decent fansub the domestic release is pretty bad with awful dubbing (no subs) and the screen cropped all to hell. Other than that the entire 200x series is pretty easy to get into but they all vary to the point where your enjoyment would depend on your preferences. GMK is a pretty serious film with a lot of asian mysticism and a Godzilla who serves as a demon whose purpose is to remind the people of modern Japan of the sins commited by their Imperial ancestors. The Mechagodzilla films have an updated Mechagodzilla who is obviously heavily inspired by the EVAs from Neon Genesis Evangelion and Final Wars is all about action and self-deprecating humor.

Other than Godzilla you may also want to check-out the Heisei Gamera trilogy done by the director and sfx head who did GMK immediately after. They're great. I'd avise you to watch them in order though because the quality of the special effects improves incrementally by each film to the point where the 3rd installment makes the 1st look cheesy by comparison.

can I ask a question? How can someone be a fan of something for 20 years, and not be care about how its treated on celluloid. How can you invest hundreds of dollars on toys, Spend hundreds of hour on websites dedicated to it, but when it comes to the movie you don't demand quality? What if you spent $200.00 for MP prime and it fell apart the minute you took it out of the box? Why is Spiderman treated like the Holy Grail? It has nothing to do with how popular one series is over another It has to do with Director and Writer Competency. The thing is a lot of the "Fans" don't demand quality. But at least they (fans with low standards)can "enjoy the movie"

Phategod1 wrote:can I ask a question? How can someone be a fan of something for 20 years, and not be care about how its treated on celluloid. How can you invest hundreds of dollars on toys, Spend hundreds of hour on websites dedicated to it, but when it comes to the movie you don't demand quality? What if you spent $200.00 for MP prime and it fell apart the minute you took it out of the box? Why is Spiderman treated like the Holy Grail? It has nothing to do with how popular one series is over another It has to do with Director and Writer Competency. The thing is a lot of the "Fans" don't demand quality. But at least they (fans with low standards)can "enjoy the movie"

Because we haven't had quality in a Transformers show since Beast Wars.

Zuko wrote:

Phategod1 wrote:can I ask a question? How can someone be a fan of something for 20 years, and not be care about how its treated on celluloid. How can you invest hundreds of dollars on toys, Spend hundreds of hour on websites dedicated to it, but when it comes to the movie you don't demand quality? What if you spent $200.00 for MP prime and it fell apart the minute you took it out of the box? Why is Spiderman treated like the Holy Grail? It has nothing to do with how popular one series is over another It has to do with Director and Writer Competency. The thing is a lot of the "Fans" don't demand quality. But at least they (fans with low standards)can "enjoy the movie"

Because we haven't had quality in a Transformers show since Beast Wars.

Beast Machines at least had a plot besides "OH NOSE--IT'S UNYCRONE!!!"

I bought Final Wars as soon as it came out. The references to past films (like the alien antagonists,

That reminds me... Final Wars inspired me to make a gif of it back then.
In 2 ways, i feel it is appropriate for this topic.


(spelling error intentional)