Godzilla (2014)

He still destroyed less of the city than Superman did.

Yeah, but...Superman's a dick.

I guess he'd be more of a Heroic Chaotic Neutral.

NO FUCK YOU. The world engine destroyed most of Metropolis. Superman himself knocked over TWO BUILDINGS.

edited 12th Oct '14 3:44:52 PM by SonOfSharknado

He was still the cause of most of the destruction XD If Zodd hadn't been actively searching for him the whole movie likely would not have happened.

And then made out with his love interest to the sweet accompaniment of the screams of the injured.

Sorry, this is never going to be not funny to me. But wow, Superman is kind of offtopic.

edited 12th Oct '14 3:47:50 PM by CorrTerek

That's like saying if Batman hadn't tripped the Red Hood and made him fall into a chemical vat, The Joker wouldn't have killed more people than Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler combined, but nobody calls Batman history's greatest monster or the worst superhero ever.

That doesn't make him the cause, it makes him the target of attempted victimization.

Saying that it's Superman's fault that Zod killed tons of people trying to get to Superman is Victim Blaming. Zod is the cause of Zod's killings.

edited 12th Oct '14 3:55:03 PM by TobiasDrake

You've never been to youtube, have you?

edited 12th Oct '14 4:00:57 PM by BaconManiac5000

Guy never takes the initiative to kill the Joker, just sayin'.

But that's besides the point. Godzilla was firmly on our side in this movie, or at least he is by the end. It can't have escaped your notice that by the end of the movie he'd started to at least notice the small creatures that now inhabit the world.

In the same way that you or I notice a particularly large anthill that wasn't there the day before. "Huh. How'd that get there?" Meanwhile, there's triumphant music, people are standing and cheering and waving, there's big fuck-off T Vs with news footage screaming "HUMANITY'S SAVIOR?" It's so stupid.

Yeah even if he stopped the mutos, you would think there would be more 'Nightmare finally over' and less 'yay godzilla wooo'

I know, I was joking

But anyway yeah, Godzilla did probably think the humans were inconsequential in the long run considering he let a carrier group sail alongside him and allowed them to keep pace until he smelled out the MUT Os, then tried to go under the Golden Gate bridge, didn't bisect the aircraft carrier in his way when he came to Hawaii (the tsunami was out of his control since he's so big) and other things.

I do think painting Godzilla as humanity's savior was a misstep. He stopped the mutos and didn't go out of his way to cause a lot of damage but still, he should be a painful solution to a worse problem. Be glad that he saved the day, mourn that it had to come to that.

I do think the tsunami was an accident, given that he didn't do that again. He's more careful when getting in and out of the water after that.

I still don't think he was deliberately trying to protect humanity, though; just wasn't trying to cause destruction needlessly. Contrary to most fictional depictions of predatory animals, most creatures in nature do not go out of their way to cause harm when there's no gain in it for them.

edited 12th Oct '14 5:01:50 PM by TobiasDrake

Unless my memory's failing me, isn't there a part where Godzilla is about as close to eye-to-eye with Ford as they can be at their different sizes. Like after Ford destroys the nest and the mother monster tries to eat him? That may not have saved his life right then and there, but it sure made his job easier.

After the battle's over and Godzilla's right about to take his nap. He looks at Ford like he's gonna give him a thumbs up.

Now THAT felt like a proper Godzilla cheese moment. You almost expect to hear the Crystal Pepsi music start playing

Yeah. All-and-all this felt more like an edgier Showa incarnation of Godzilla than the more malevolent 1954 original.

On that note, I was thinking that if they do make a Pacific Rim/Godzilla crossover, it would kick ass if they reintroduced Jet Jaguar as some kind of new prototype Jaeger (piloted by the two protagonists after Gypsy Danger gets destroyed).

I've been telling you people! Jet Jaguar needs to be controlled by the vengeful ghost of Bryan Cranston!

Bryan Cranstons mother never love him?

They bent over backwards trying to make Godzilla friendly. You know what would have been great? Godzilla lashing out at the carrier group because wild animals often have this thing called territoriality, which is why Steve Irwin considered having to cross a river with a hippo in it the most dangerous time of his career. That thing in the end where in-universe humans were cheering for him as their "savior" was just icing on the shill cake.

Related to the above, what would have been great was afterwards, there was argument between Admiral and Scientist over whether they should fire back, with Admiral being "he just killed a bunch of our ships" and scientist being "you got too close, wild animal of X size considers a space of Y radius to be within its 'danger' zone, that was a threat display that you weren't prepared for".

You could do it where it's somewhat ambiguous whether it's a threat display or an actual attack by making it similar to RL animals, but different enough that people still aren't really sure because after all we're dealing with an organism that hasn't been around for millions of years. And then have someone point this out, to which the response is "yes, we don't know, so all we can do is try and see."

Bonus points because this would have been scientists actually doing science.

Yeah, no. Godzilla is a lot of things, but he's not a dumb territorial animal.

You can be territorial without being dumb.

Even humans don't like people standing in their 'comfort bubble.'

As a social species, we have smaller territoriality but its still there.

Hippos are mammals, which have stronger opinions on territoriality than reptiles do. Reptiles generally define other living things under three categories - threat, food, or inconsequential. They play well with others when a mutually beneficial relationship is attainable, and they fight back when they feel threatened, but if you're not a threat or a food source, they're going to leave you alone. Amphibians are much the same. It's mainly mammals that will go out of their way to kill something that is totally harmless to them, just because they don't like it being in their space, and Godzilla is not a mammal.

Godzilla doesn't care about the aircraft carriers one way or the other because they are neither threatening nor edible. He fought back when the bridge started shooting at him, but humans are so far beneath him that, to a reptile's mind, there's no reason to go out of his way helping or harming them when they aren't attempting to cause him harm.

edited 13th Oct '14 10:45:53 AM by TobiasDrake