I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I adore the Godzilla franchise. I grew up with the original Showa era movies, and they gave me an appreciation for foreign movies. Especially those of the ultra cheesy variety. I have seen and talked about every movie in the series (check out the Godzilla-Thon series for those) from the great to the American.
Naturally, when the newest trailer for the next American Godzilla dropped today, I had to set all my plans aside to thoroughly discuss it.
And I do mean thoroughly.
We’re gonna go through this thing shot by shot, line by line, and Kaiju by Kaiju and point out everything that makes me excited or nervous. By the end of this, you’ll know whether or not I as a Godzilla fan will be going into this movie with high hopes or a strong dread. With all that said, let’s get started!
Real quick: if you want to view the trailer, you can click the link right here to head to it.
The trailer opens up with a quiet montage featuring a voice over from Millie Bobby Brown (also known for her role as 11 in Stranger Things) as she tries to reach out to someone over a radio. In this montage, we see general shots of mass panic and destruction, some featuring hints at the Kaiju in the film.
Such as this bitching shot of Rodan’s shadow passing over the town.
Or this bitching shot of Ghidorah in the clouds.
After this, we get a shot of poor Millie listening to the sounds of monsters, dying and other such disturbing things. Once again, she proves that she is a fantastic actress, especially for her age. I’m honestly super excited to see her in this movie. She’s fucking great.
Then, after we cut to black, we get this spectacular shot of Rodan on his volcano. And frankly: I’ll let it speak for itself.
Then there’s this super curious shot.
At this point, we begin to get voice over from the guy in the Verizon commercials. No I’m not joking, it’s the same damn guy. Don’t believe me?
Before that reveal, however, we do get a few more bitching shots of the Kaiju. Among them are this awesome shot of Rodan taking to the skies with lava pouring from his wings.
As well as this shot of a mountain being heaved upwards.
After a few more shots of general destruction and shocked characters (and a cool shot of Godzilla’s glowing dorsal fins in the storm, but that was really fucking annoying to capture, so go watch the trailer itself to see it), we get a bad ass shot of a moving Mothra larva. Following this is a shot of her evolving whilst enveloped in light.
Because angel symbolism and all that.
Then the trailer gives Rodan even more love with this fucking bad ass shot of him flying low over a town.
Followed by the first true shot of King Ghidorah. This pans up from his tail and ends with a full shot of him enveloped in smoke. And Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t lie: this shot gives me a god damn erection.
- HE LOOKS SO GOD DAMN COOL ARE YOU SEEING THIS?!
After this comes a very cheesy, yet simultaneously chilling exchange that perfectly fits the series.
So you want to make Godzilla our pet? -Random Government Lady
No. We will be his. -Doctor Serizawa
You can’t deny, this fits right in with all the different lines from the Godzilla series.
After that line (which will either give you goosebumps or make you laugh, that all depends on you) there’s a shot of a beaten up Godzilla lying down in a burning city. This tells us one thing: Godzilla is gonna get messed up. And considering his opposition of three (maybe four) other Kaiju, it makes sense that he’ll be beaten to fucking hell.
Luckily though, after that depressing shot, comes this fucking bad ass shot of him swimming through the ocean.
Moving on, we get another quick montage of human characters looking scared or sad as chaos ensues, followed by one of my favorite shots in the entire trailer: Ghidorah getting ready to throw down.
Then we get another montage of Kaiju doing Kaiju things. These include a fire ball plummeting through the electric clouds, Mothra sailing through the skies (with a new design that I find rather awesome) and then this shot of Godzilla and Ghidorah facing down for the first time in these trailers.
Then we get a series of Kaiju close ups, including Godzilla, Ghidorah and Mothra. These are the following.
My childhood is looking pretty fucking bad ass right now. I mean, look at Ghidorah and Mothra! They look so fucking cool!
But more important than those is this shot. In case you can’t tell (which I can’t blame you for, the image is pretty low quality) of a burning Godzilla storming through the town. Which may mean we’ll get the iconic scene of Fire Rodan giving Godzilla his power.
Which may mean the Red Atomic Breath. Which would be fucking rad as shit.
The rest is pretty standard action movie flare. Shots of bad things happening to humans, Kaiju doing awesome things (such as Rodan spiraling through the air, which is fucking rad as shit) and ending with the coolest shot in the entire trailer.
Godzilla and Ghidorah charging each other down.
And that’s the trailer. Lots of awesome shots of Kaiju doing bad ass stuff. And I won’t lie: the child inside of me is screaming in joy. However, you may notice one little detail from this rant.
I didn’t talk about the story or characters a whole lot.
Sure, Millie Bobby Brown is great, and the line about the pet is great, but aside from that there really isn’t anything of substance. We get a lot of shots of the different actors, but very few of them say anything of substance to tell us what kind of characters they are or how they’ll affect the story.
Now, I can’t judge them harshly yet. This is just a trailer, after all. I’m merely pointing out that this trailer focuses heavily on the action and the monsters than the story itself.
In the end, I find this trailer very exciting. Sure, it doesn’t do anything to sell me on the story. But it sure as hell sells me on the Kaiju action! The adult who loves good story telling is nervous, but the child who loves watching giant monsters kill each other is screaming in excitement!
Guess which one is screaming louder.
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