General Godzilla Discussion

His first apperance in Skar King's base was to lend a hand to a struggling ape and punch out the guy yelling at him.

Shows that he is a very noble guy for a kaiju.

That too, I'll be honest Kong is a pretty great leader. He even led Suko away from a violent life and was willing to spare one of Skar King's goons until the ape made the mistake of being an ungrateful bastard.

Kong's a pretty good king... keeps to himself, mostly.

Ahh yes the meme.

It was fairly obvious that Skar King had enslaved his own people in service of his vendetta against the surface. Of all the character arcs in the story, Kong has by far the most interesting one, and indeed gets most of the narrative focus. I'm going to chalk that up to the writers understanding their jobs. We're here to watch the monkeh, not a bunch of dopey humans.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 7th 2024 at 2:24:23 PM

So I finally saw the new Godzilla x Kong yesterday, and while I did enjoy it (hey, I'm easy to amuse), I can't help but think about how millions of people that got involved in all those monster attacks are definitely dead, and the survivors are now either homeless or jobless, or both.

I pointed that out earlier. It must suck to live in a city in the Monsterverse.

I'm suddenly reminded of that episode of The Powerpuff Girls (1998), I forget what led to the issue, but the monsters ended up moving to Townsville instead of remaining on their island, which caused issues with the humans with their huge size. At least the monsters weren't trying to kill anyone in that episode.

Also I forgot the OTHER issue of 'Zilla being a walking radiator core.

By the way, it's been 10 years since I saw Godzilla (1998) (via RiffTrax Live) so can someone remind me how much of the movie we actually SAW the monster, compared with the newer movies where we see him in action more often?

Edited by wooden-ladybug93 on Apr 10th 2024 at 10:42:10 AM

Don't worry, Godzilla is a hero to those people he didn't step on.

What's insane is that in this movie, we see the military attacking Godzilla. Why? So they can give him target practice? I feel like we've learned that lesson by now.

I wouldn't be surprised if they do the same thing as Captain America: Civil War in that they reveal the casualty numbers, and are ridiculously low

Edited by Luisdalas on Apr 10th 2024 at 3:37:30 AM

One thing I find funny about the trope page is the entry on Accidental Aesop regarding Suko and Kong acting as a positive role model.

Not because it's wrong, but I don't think it's accidental? Father Figure Kong is sort of the emotional core of the movie that parallels the human arc between Ilene and her adoptive daughter Jia?

Speaking of, can I just say the human characters in this are fantastic? Unlike, say, every other movie before Godzilla Vs Kong that tries to convince us how important and cool the human characters are the human cast in this works partly because they act as a good support crew to the Kaiju instead of trying to outshine them. Jia is the Kaiju whisperer who facilitates communication between us ant-sized beings and the titans. Trapper is a Kaiju veterinarian, which is maybe the funniest and coolest vocation you can get outside Mecha pilot in this genre. Bernie's the outside-the-box thinker and exposition machine. And Ilene holds the whole crew together and acts as the viewpoint character. And this is all without mentioning they're all acted great and have fun personalities. How the hell other kaiju films haven't nailed a core crew like that almost seems silly by comparison. This movie makes it look so simple and easy.

Yeah, I pointed that out in my mini-review. The humans are actually useful in this movie and so earn my grudging appreciation, whereas in the prior ones they were little better than caricatures, doing useless stuff and providing reaction shots.

Edited by Fighteer on Apr 10th 2024 at 10:01:36 AM

I think the planes that shot godzilla were just drones.

Even so, it's a colossal waste. When did shooting him ever work?

To be fair, Kaijus' durability is pretty inconsistent.

In past films it is assumed that they are capable of surviving nuclear explosions and the gravitational pressure exerted by the portal to the hollow earth.

Here Kong's traps, and falling from a great height can kill them normally. (So if a Kong trap can kill a Kaiju, I don't see why a bunch of missiles can't.)

Generally speaking conventional weapons aren't meant to actually kill Godzilla once the military has some experience with him, and are only meant to redirect him. Although I figure the shots taken at him in the movie are more out of spite.

Those where just kaiju Mooks though.

even if they were Mooks, they must not be that different from Kong in durability.

Kong's always been one of the least durable among Kaiju. Relative to Kaiju anyway.

He's always been more vulnerable to conventional firepower and falling from great heights.

That's how he died in his debut movie.

To be fair, in his Debut Movie is was only around 20 feet tall.

Here he's full Kaiju size, though still being vulnerable to falls and sickness (As shown with his infected tooth).

Granted, even in the Skull Island Kong movie, Vietnam War era munitions were enough to hurt and possibly kill him.

He did recover pretty fast from them, though, if he's not too outwardly durable he sure as hell is resilient and more tolerant of pain and injuries than he looks like

Kong in general is kind of the Weak, but Skilled among Kaiju. Again, relative to Kaiju. He lacks the raw physical might of Kaiju like Godzilla and Ghidorah (and tbf most other Kaiju can't match those two either), but he's a giant primate. And that means higher reasoning ability.

Kong and the other great apes are the only Kaiju who really need bonafide weapons to gain an edge over other Kaiju, but they're also the only Kaiju who are intelligent enough to actually make weapons in the first place.

Yeah this movie really put emphasis on Kong being a Trap Master. It's good at emphasizing the balance between him and the big G.

Scar King takes it even further. He's clearly older than Kong and isn't as impressive physically, but he expertly wields a whip that's more difficult to use than Kong's axe but is even more dangerous. He's also figured out how to enslave another more powerful Kaiju which he uses as an attack animal.