Re: Legendary Pictures GODZILLA 2
I would honestly love to hear an explanation as to the thought process of killing Joe off, what message did they feel they were conveying doing that and why was that deemed more important than if he'd stayed.
When we first started hearing about characters, I thought a central part of the story would be an ongoing tension between Joe and Ford and I thought there would be a build up of clues around the MUTOs and Godzilla's existence and we'd be on a journey with them on two sides of the matter. Essentially the first act is almost one movie, then acts 2 and 3 are a different, less intricate film.
I was thinking about the shortcomings of the human story to the last film and thinking about the sorts of films that inspired it like JAWS, and one thing that occurred to me that makes the other movies work but where Godzilla felt short is interaction and relationships between the main cast. This is also where Joe getting killed off too early set the film off course. When Joe was in the movie, there was heavy interaction on screen between him and everyone around. As soon as he was gone, all the main people had their little niches and that's how we saw them. We saw Stenz running the military, Graham and Serizawa doing their science thing off by themselves in a corner of the room, we barely saw Ford interact with the soldiers he was with more than a short few words. The whole Ford racing to save his family plot was weakened by the lack of direct interaction after he went to Japan. Her seeing news casts and trying to call him, him leaving voicemails. The entire time they're apart there's one brief, but pretty solid, phone call between them.
Imagine how much more powerful the movie would have felt if Ford was trying to talk to Elle while monsters are knocking the world down around her and him having to deal with not being there to protect and other plot lines like that.
I love Godzilla 2014, and I can recognize the flaws, but I feel like it is a film where there was a lot of potential and if they can improve in a few areas with 2 and 3 we could be in for some really great films, I don't feel like it was a movie that had nothing to work with and was just awful all around. It's like getting a C+ on a test but having the smarts to actually get an A+. Edwards is a good storyteller, I really like Monsters but the sorts of things i mention lacking from Godzilla are what made that movie work with me and I'm curious why those got lost, maybe doing a big Hollywood production was overwhelming and he was trying to so hard to keep up and on track that he didn't even realize he was lacking some things.