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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)

DesalationReborn wrote:

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!!!"

Forgive me. It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm not thinking correctly.

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

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

True, but it also had a ton of plot-holes (like how Waspinator managed to get to Cybertron), unnecessary retcons, Primal constantly rambling on like a hippie, an angsty teen character 100x more annoying than Cheetor ever was, Botanica, and the fire always looked like opaque plastic. For every 1 thing it did right there were 3 things wrong.

Riotflea wrote: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)

ROFL

AbsumZer0 wrote:

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

True, but it also had a ton of plot-holes (like how Waspinator managed to get to Cybertron), unnecessary retcons, Primal constantly rambling on like a hippie, an angsty teen character 100x more annoying than Cheetor ever was, Botanica, and the fire always looked like opaque plastic. For every 1 thing it did right there were 3 things wrong.

But it is still was light-years above anything from RiD and after.

DesalationReborn wrote:

AbsumZer0 wrote:

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

True, but it also had a ton of plot-holes (like how Waspinator managed to get to Cybertron), unnecessary retcons, Primal constantly rambling on like a hippie, an angsty teen character 100x more annoying than Cheetor ever was, Botanica, and the fire always looked like opaque plastic. For every 1 thing it did right there were 3 things wrong.

But it is still was light-years above anything from RiD and after.

Again with the hate for RID, I friggin' loved RID. But yeah, story-wise, Beast Machines was the last quality story we had.

To answer the question at hand, I do care. But, I've also come to realize this is something new. Loosly based on G1 or not, at the end of the day it's not G1, and in some instances thankfully so. The story so far, though mostly hollywood action-wank, actually isn't too bad. I went into this thinking is was gonna be horrible, like a real bad 2 hour toy comercial. That was the part of the shows from pretty much any one of the series' I despised, especially G1 and the Uni-trilogy. Instead of any real story we got conflict which went into introducing new characters that would if not already be on toy shelves. It was genuinely iritating. That's why I'm glad they're taking the X-men movie approach. New looks for characters(albeit some terrible ones), smaller core teams, and a story that will introduce us to the character's struggles that will continue into the inevitable sequels.

Sure, we have yet to see it, but I still think it'll end up being pretty good. But then again, I was expecting an action movie involving TFs, not something like Lord of the Rings. The only way we'd get that is if Peter Jackson got a hold this franchise.

Completly off-topic but I hated RiD too. If I wanted anime-crap I'd watch DBZ. Transformers did not, does not need to be Anime-ish and before anyone chimes in and says that G1 was anime. Im talking about those stupid japanimation "wild takes" (sweat Bubbles and other non-sense.)That plus there was too many humans. Beast wars and Beast machines had the right amount of Humes. NONE.

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"

First of all, Spiderman is Spiderman. Prime has changed appearance dozens of times (and had various alt forms). The success of TF is that everything changes to keep it interesting - that is not the success of Spiderman. Also, Spiderman is primarily a literary figure, and TFs are primarily toys. That argument is weak.

Secondly, even fans with high standards, as you say, can enjoy the movie, as Ryan and a few other legacy types have already made clear. In fact, anyone can enjoy the movie - some just refuse to... the same type that seem to think they alone are the "real fans" which is laughable.

A prime example would be the 3-4 guys from Ain't It Cool News forums that joined here around midnight Aug 30 2006 specifically to start a fight with Don Murphy, and then stayed on to complain about anything and everything related to the movie.

What were there names... Phategod, Horseflesh and Riotflea I believe.

Yeah.

As for Riotflea's comments. Blockbuster movies are about money. Take home is what makes a movie franchise ultimately successful - not reviews or fanboys. There is going to be a TF movie because Dreamworks knows it will make a ton of cash, not because they think it will win Best Picture. Godzilla98 was still the most successful Godzilla movie ever - even if you and Toho didn't like it.

Wow, this is a fun thread. Excellent debate. Better than that one time in my Literture Through Films class, where me and another guy would go "This movie sucked!" "No, it rawked!" "No, it sucked!" "No, it rawked, but that movie DID suck." "Yeah!"

Good show, to everyone on both sides of the fence. Keep up the good debatin'!

(Yeah, I know it's impossible to win, but damn if I won't make a stand!"

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"

Ah, so now that they've been backed into a corner, the haters are pulling out the "you're not a real fan if you like the movie" statement.

Who the hell are you to judge my standards?

And as for Spider-man. Before that movie hit, the fans were calling it the worst insult to Spidey ever, for two little reasons: organic web shooters, and the Green Goblin design. Now look at what they say.

G1 was nothing more than Decepticons looking for energon and Autobots trying to stop them. Had the standard cartoon story lines of that time thrown in. Anything else is just rose colored nostalgia that we've all thrown in. I do it to, the difference is that I can let it go and see it for what it really was.

The only possible deviation from the original source this movie has is the Decepticons. They don't get much story development however, so we don't really know. We'll have to wait for the sequel.

This movie is the future of Transformers, weather the haters like it or not. All they can do is accept it and move on, or get out of dodge. This movie will do good, and there will be sequels.

Phategod1 wrote:Completly off-topic but I hated RiD too. If I wanted anime-crap I'd watch DBZ. Transformers did not, does not need to be Anime-ish and before anyone chimes in and says that G1 was anime. Im talking about those stupid japanimation "wild takes" (sweat Bubbles and other non-sense.)That plus there was too many humans. Beast wars and Beast machines had the right amount of Humes. NONE.

G1 wasnt anime. It was created here in the states. In order for it to be anime it has to be created and aired in japan first. Like DBZ, Gundam, and Robotech.

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.

We fans have been demanding quality. The movie assholes just didnt listen. Remember when they saide that Megatrons head would be changed because the fans were bitching? Well did it happen? No. They dont care about the fans. As long as the movie will make them money they dont give a rats ass about what the die hard fans think. If Bay wasnt directing it might have bee a diffrent story but since they got that idiot to direct he only wants to see what he wants on screen. Prime example: Pearl Harbor. That movie sucked but made money.

Megatron_Wolf wrote:We fans have been demanding quality. The movie assholes just didnt listen. Remember when they saide that Megatrons head would be changed because the fans were bitching? Well did it happen? No. They dont care about the fans. As long as the movie will make them money they dont give a rats ass about what the die hard fans think. If Bay wasnt directing it might have bee a diffrent story but since they got that idiot to direct he only wants to see what he wants on screen.

I think you're finally starting to see how movies are made.

It's been said before: If they made this specifically for the fans, which are a tiny piece of the population, it would fail horribly. Instead they're appealing to the larger crowd, which is the smart way to go.

Megatron_Wolf wrote:

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.

We fans have been demanding quality. The movie assholes just didnt listen. Remember when they saide that Megatrons head would be changed because the fans were bitching? Well did it happen? No. They dont care about the fans. As long as the movie will make them money they dont give a rats ass about what the die hard fans think. If Bay wasnt directing it might have bee a diffrent story but since they got that idiot to direct he only wants to see what he wants on screen. Prime example: Pearl Harbor. That movie sucked but made money.

No really? That's exactly what I said two pages ago. They only said changes were made to stop the bitching for five minutes. And it worked. Theres no reason to cater to a couple thousand fans or even ten thousand fans because the movie would explode and maybe pull in a couple million.

Megatron_Wolf wrote:The movie assholes just didnt listen.

And why should they?

Milanion wrote:Godzilla98 was still the most successful Godzilla movie ever - even if you and Toho didn't like it.

Tristar - who made a ton internationally but didn't break even domestically when you factor in the 22 million spent on domestic marketing- were unhappy enough with it to cancel planned sequels and give Toho the go-ahead to restart their franchise a year later (which, per their contract with Tristar, was supposed to be on hold for as long as the American series continued).

The professional critics- http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/godzilla/ - didn't like it either.

The theater companies- who couldn't fill seats and were only allowed to keep something like 15% of the per-ticket-sales the first few weeks- weren't all too happy with it.

Trendmasters and other licensors- who lost money after the tepid response to the film failed to move their product- weren't too happy with it.

The retail companies like Toys R Us, KB Toys, Wal-Mart, etc. and their shareholders- who lost money because they had to clearance the Godzilla merchandise to get it to move- didn't think too fondly of it.

Taco Bell- who signed-on as a licensor after Burger King passed only to find nobody wanted their Godzilla tie-in merchandise and it wasn't doing anything for business- was pretty disappointed with it.


At their most successful the traditional Godzilla films have grossed over 3 to 4 times over their meager budgets, and even after the financial flop of Godzilla: Final Wars they continue to rake in royalties from the thriving collectibles industry.

In what way does any of that amount to "Godzilla98 was still the most successful Godzilla movie ever"?

AbsumZer0 wrote:

Milanion wrote:Godzilla98 was still the most successful Godzilla movie ever - even if you and Toho didn't like it.

Tristar - who made a ton internationally but didn't break even domestically when you factor in the 22 million spent on domestic marketing- were unhappy enough with it to cancel planned sequels and give Toho the go-ahead to restart their franchise a year later (which, per their contract with Tristar, was supposed to be on hold for as long as the American series continued).

The professional critics- http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/godzilla/ - didn't like it either.

The theater companies- who couldn't fill seats and were only allowed to keep something like 15% of the per-ticket-sales the first few weeks- weren't all too happy with it.

Trendmasters and other licensors- who lost money after the tepid response to the film failed to move their product- weren't too happy with it.

The retail companies like Toys R Us, KB Toys, Wal-Mart, etc. and their shareholders- who lost money because they had to clearance the Godzilla merchandise to get it to move- didn't think too fondly of it.

Taco Bell- who signed-on as a licensor after Burger King passed only to find nobody wanted their Godzilla tie-in merchandise and it wasn't doing anything for business- was pretty disappointed with it.


At their most successful the traditional Godzilla films have grossed over 3 to 4 times over their meager budgets, and even after the financial flop of Godzilla: Final Wars they continue to rake in royalties from the thriving collectibles industry.

In what way does any of that amount to "Godzilla98 was still the most successful Godzilla movie ever"?

Because, as even you said, "worldwide" it earned about 25 times more than any other movie in the franchise.

Taco Bell, Trendmasters, whatever - that's not the movie. The movie is the movie. It was successful as a movie. It was the most successful of the Godzilla movies.

I love that TF isn't my Star Wars. I love it yes, but I don't have the fanboy mind for it. Basically I'll just watch this movie with an open mind. It'll still suck, but not because the TF's don't look like their cartoon conterparts or their names were changed. As a matter of fact I'm loving these new design elements and think they work well for the screen.

I feel for alot of you though, I guess if they ever made a Star Wars TV show and Jabba was blue, thin, and had legs, I'd be pretty pissed too.

Milanion wrote:
Because, as even you said, "worldwide" it earned about 25 times more than any other movie in the franchise.

Taco Bell, Trendmasters, whatever - that's not the movie. The movie is the movie. It was successful as a movie. It was the most successful of the Godzilla movies.

Milanion wrote:
Because, as even you said, "worldwide" it earned about 25 times more than any other movie in the franchise.

Taco Bell, Trendmasters, whatever - that's not the movie. The movie is the movie. It was successful as a movie. It was the most successful of the Godzilla movies.

It also cost about 250 times more to make. Toho's most successful films typically cost around 10 million and earn 18-20 million, nearly twice what they spent on it and their low production costs mean lower investment risks. They, like most big-budget films in the U.S., make a large chunk of their profit off of licensing and royalties.

You can proclaim Godzilla a genuine success based solely on it's worldwide earnings, but you'd be looking at it with blinders on. The risk the investors took eventually paid off but after the negativity the film spawned and the failure of the licensors to generate a profit they wouldn't have touched a sequel. If it were a genuine success it would have spawned sequels as planned, not been the mocked stillbirth of a planned domestic franchise. It was a critical and financial flop and everyone but Tristar got hosed by it.

EDIT: By those same standards, Burton's Planet of the Apes would have been the most successful Planet of the Apes film.

AbsumZer0 wrote:Toho's most successful films typically cost around 10 million and earn 18-20 million, nearly twice what they spent on it and their low production costs mean lower investment risks.

So 10 million profit is better than 150 million?

AbsumZer0 wrote:The risk the investors took eventually paid off

So again, you point out that the movie was successful. What happened as far a future investment in a sequel is irrelavant.

AbsumZer0 wrote:It was a critical and financial flop and everyone but Tristar got hosed by it.

So the movie was a success for the company that made it, but that should be overshadowed by the bad profit margins experienced by third party merchandise licensors that had nothing to do with the actual movie itself?

You are trying to make a point by attempting to make irrelavant factors overshadow relevant factors.

Milanion wrote:
You are trying to make a point by attempting to make irrelavant factors overshadow relevant factors.

Of course. He's one of the ones running around trying to tell people that they arn't real Transformer fans if they like the new movie.

Milanion wrote:So 10 million profit is better than 150 million?

To an individual, no, but to a company, yes, because you're doubling your investment without the huge risk.

Milanion wrote:So again, you point out that the movie was successful. What happened as far a future investment in a sequel is irrelavant.

No, it isn't. If it were a small independent picture then yeah, it would be a success. When you're producing major big-budget summer blockbuster and everyone whose put trust in your property gets screwed while you make a profit primarily because you demand an exceedingly large percentage of the box-office take in the first two weeks (after which nobody is going to see it anyway because of poor word-of-mouth) you've screwed-up. Consider how many merchandise tie-ins Tristar has managed to get since Godzilla. Their biggest budgeted film since then has been what... Silent Hill with 50 million? They made their money but they screwed themselves and they're back to small-budget independent films because of Godzilla.

Milanion wrote:So the movie was a success for the company that made it, but that should be overshadowed by the bad profit margins experienced by third party merchandise licensors that had nothing to do with the actual movie itself?

You are trying to make a point by attempting to make irrelavant factors overshadow relevant factors

The movie was a financial success for the company that made it. It was a financial flop as far as anyone else involved was concerned, making it a commercial flop, and the damage it did to Tristar in terms of their reputations and corporations willing to work with them probably wasn't worth it.

They're not irrelevant. The licensees are a huge part of the movie industry as a whole. If you can't grasp the relevance of critical failure and the financial losses of the 2nd-party companies then you're probably the sort who still doesn't understand why a sequel was never made and thinks a Planet of the Apes sequel is going to be announced any day now.