Tag Archives: Godzilla: KIng of the Monsters

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G-Fest XXVI Report: The Best One Yet!

(Originally posted here on the Monster Island Film Vault website).

The logo for the con. (Official website).

Hello, kaiju lovers!

I’m delighted to say that G-Fest XXVI was the best one I’ve attended yet. While I’m still a bit of a noob to this convention (this was my third year), I was once again impressed with the con-goers’ friendliness and family-like atmosphere. The best part was the sheer amount of support and recognition I received. A few people recognized me from my time on Kaijuvision Radio (which, contrary to some reports, I am the co-creator of that show). I seem to have made an impression on this fan community. I never expected that to happen. I like a lot of things besides Godzilla and kaiju, but it’s here that I’ve made some of my biggest strides of late.

But you didn’t come here to hear me gush. You want to know what happened that weekend.

My brother Jarod and I left early Thursday morning and drove three hours from Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Rosemont, Illinois. We listened to the audiobook of Jurassic Park (a long overdue read for both of us, and an appropriate one for this con) on YouTube as we went. Sadly, we were at a slight disadvantage because we had to stay in the Comfort Inn and not the Crowne Plaza (where the con was held), but there was a shuttle service to G-Fest, and we got a free breakfast every morning. Can’t go wrong there.

Our first order of business after unpacking my 2003 Subaru Legacy (which I named Tatsumaki) was the film screenings at the Pickwick Theatre. It was there we met up with my friend/fellow writer/co-panelist Danny DiManna, author/creator of the Godzilla Novelization Project, and his entourage of family and friends and went to the first of two double features at 1pm: Godzilla’s Revenge and Ghidrah, the Three-Headed Monster. We were a bit late to the first one, but our RiffTrax-style commentary entertained everyone around us. Ghidrah was fantastic on the big screen. Every time I see an older film—even those from as recent as the 1980s—I see how much better their old-fashioned special effects look because this was how they were meant to be seen. It was the dubbed version, but the print was gorgeous.

After that, Jarod and I partook of my G-Fest tradition: Thursday dinner at Giodano’s, a chain of pizzerias that serves true Chicago-style pizza. We split a small deep-dish, which I finished first because Jarod was still learning how to attack such thick pizza.

This was followed by the second double-feature: The X from Outer Space and Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. I’d never seen the former, so I was unprepared for how (unintentionally?) hilarious it was. For one thing, it had the worst dub I’ve ever heard. Me and another guy riffed it the entire time. He had one joke that made me double over in my chair. In one of the worst hull breach in space scenes I’ve ever seen, a character gets sucked butt-first into the hole and gets stuck. In defiance of physics, his comrades pull him out and patch the hole. My fellow riffer said, “‘You saved the ship!’ ‘You bet your @$$!’” GMK was, thankfully, subtitled, but the subtitles weren’t entirely accurate.

Friday started bright and early. Jarod and I rode the shuttle there and collected our badges and programs. I met with Danny, and we wandered down to the Kennedy Room to prep for our panel, Sekizawa and Kimura: A Tale of Two Screenwriters, at noon. I took Jarod to the orientation at 11am and went back down at 11:30am. People kept pouring in, especially after the orientation. I don’t know if it was because of it being one of the first panels of the con, the subject matter, or the pre-con hype leading up to it (it was mentioned by at least two podcasts beforehand), but the room was packed. Danny’s girlfriend, Tori, had to be our usher to find seats for people. I’ve never seen that room get that full in all my time at G-Fest. It was thrilling. We weren’t able to go through all of our material, and I wasn’t able to play my podcast trailer for everyone, but it was a resounding success. We want to host another one next year.

If you missed our panel or want to watch it again, here’s the video:

I spent the rest of the day attending a few more panels, including G-pardy tryouts (didn’t make it again), a paleontologist panel on Godzilla, and Kevin Derendorf presenting on kaiju fans in media. That evening we attended the opening ceremony, where the guests gave emotional, heartfelt speeches to the fans (especially Sonoe Nakajima, the daughter of Haruo Nakajima); Akira Takarada picked a kid from the audience to get an expensive Gigan toy; and the kids’ costume parade was held. I then made a brief appearance at what I expect will be the final listener party for Kaijucast, the premiere Godzilla/kaiju podcast, where I collected my prize from their #MemeoftheMonsters contest and educated one fella on the politics of Shin Godzilla.

At 10:30pm, Jarod and I returned to the Pickwick to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters with a theatre full of fans. It was my third time seeing it and his first. G-Fest crowds are famously rowdy, but I’ve never heard them like this. It was glorious! I even squeezed in a joke that got a groan. When a bunch of dead fish floated up after the detonation of the Oxygen Destroyer, I yelled, “That’s a lot of fish!” (My apologies to everyone who was present). The best part was when we all sang along with the new cover of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Godzilla” during the credits. A video of that was shared on Twitter, and both director Michael Dougherty and composer Bear McCreary teared up, it seemed.

Saturday was a whirlwind. As usual, G-Fest is remarkably busy for a con of its size. I never feel like I partake in everything. Panels tend to eat up most of my time. A few highlights: the Akira Takarada interview, where he talked about growing up in China and being wounded by Soviet soldiers as a child; the Shusuke Kaneko interview; the Dawn of the Monsters video game panel (wherein I suggested they add Indianapolis as a location); the Heisei Gamera panel; and the panel on the unmade film Nessie.

I participated in two more panels that day. The first was the Godzilla: King of the Monsters panel with the guys from the YouTube channel DangerVille, among others. Here’s the video of that:

After that was The Art of Kaiju Writing, which I’ve been on every year I’ve gone to G-Fest. (What’s crazy is I got on it in 2017 five minutes before it started—but that’s a story for another day). It was four writers doing a Q&A on the craft of writing and the publishing process. I recorded that panel, too, but it hasn’t been edited or posted yet. Stay tuned! It has a tremendous amount of info for beginning writers.

The traditional evening events followed: awards and the adult costume parade. A guy in an inflatable Godzilla costume, which are a dime a dozen usually, surprised everyone when he turned on some red lights inside the suit, making him Burning Godzilla from KOTM. Well-played, sir!

The Kaiju Crescendo concert was held that night. I wanted very much to go, but I ended up not attending because I wanted to save money (my budget has been tight this summer). I kinda regret it, honestly. But Jarod didn’t want to go and wanted to see Monster Zero at the Pickwick, and since I didn’t want to abandon him, so we went there. A good time was had by all. I heard, though, that attendance was split so much, it was somewhat low for all events that night.

I went to a few panels the next day, but I tried to hit up the places I didn’t get to the rest of the con, like the Mecha-G Arcade, artist room, and dealer hall. I also got autographs from both Akira Takarada and Shusuke Kaneko. Much to my surprise, Takarada-san gave me two signatures! I gave him the booklet to my Criterion copy of Godzilla (1954), which he signed, and then he grabbed the box and signed that, too! What a wonderful man!

The day ended with Kaiju Confessions, a hilarious sing-along to kaiju film songs.

I can’t wait for G-Fest XXVII!

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Why ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ is Underperforming

(Pardon me, True Believers, as I get back into the habit of blogging).

As I discussed a few weeks ago, the American kaiju fandom had a meltdown when the Rotten Tomatoes score was revealed for Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It slowly dropped to 40% over the film’s opening weekend. Meanwhile, the audience score remained high (it sits at 83% currently). Unfortunately, despite pushback from outspoken fans, the film has been underperforming at the box office, only making $49 million its opening weekend. There’s been a lot of talk as to why, but I don’t think it’s just one thing but many working in tandem, and unlike he did in Godzilla: Final Wars, Big G couldn’t defeat all of these opponents.

  1. Highly Competitive Movie Season

As much as I love Avengers: Endgame, it sucked the air out of the proverbial room. Every major studio tried to give the Disney/Marvel juggernaut at least a two-week breadth. Heck, if I remember correctly, KOTM’s release was pushed back a week or two to give the superhero epic as much space as possible. Unfortunately, KOTM still opened amidst stiff competition from other big franchises: Detective Pikachu, John Wick 3: Parabellum, Aladdin, and Dark Phoenix (making this the second time an American Godzilla film opened the week before an X-Men film). Given that Endgame dominated filmgoers’ time and money, they were less likely to go see something else that soon.

2. Ads Revealed Too Much

KOTM had an ad campaign almost as aggressive as a certain other American G-film. So aggressive, in fact, that Legendary/Warner Bros. gave too much away. It revealed things that should’ve been surprises, both in terms of plot and the kaiju fights. By contrast, the ad campaign for Godzilla in 2014 erred on the side of minimalism (much like the film itself). Warner Bros. could’ve learned something from that or the advertising for Endgame, which kept secrets from the audience. As it stands, some people probably felt like they’d seen the whole movie just from the trailers.

3. Niche Audience

Like it or not, kaiju films aren’t “mainstream.” The superhero genre managed to broaden its appeal, but kaiju have yet to do that. I don’t know why since there’s a lot of overlap with the two, but even in Japan, where the genre came into being, the same is true. Ultraman is more popular than Godzilla. Regardless, the kaiju fans turned out in droves to see KOTM, but their numbers don’t compare to the likes of Marvel fans.

4. Audience Doesn’t Know What It Wants

On a related note, the kaiju fanbase, at least in the States, can’t seem to agree on what a kaiju movie should be. From what I can tell, every Godzilla film from both sides of the Pacific has divided them since 2004. There were complaints that there was too much human story and not enough monsters in Godzilla (2014) and Shin Godzilla, but now the complaint with KOTM is there’s too much monster action. The same was said about Godzilla: Final Wars (2004). Yet if you ask a fan to name one of his favorite entries in the series, he’ll likely pick a Japanese film that had little monster screen time like Monster Zero. This division not only makes the films and the fans look bad, it confuses filmmakers and undermines box office. It’s possible those disappointed with Godzilla (2014) for those reasons stayed home even though the problem was rectified.

5. Long Gap between Films

While some moviegoers complain of superhero fatigue, one of the secrets to the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s success is it usually releases two or three films a year. This maintains narrative momentum and brand recognition. Even individual series within the MCU often only have a two-year gap between entries. It’s been five years since Legendary’s Godzilla reboot. Yes, Kong: Skull Island came out in 2017, but it wasn’t marketed as part of the MonsterVerse. This stymied both recognition and momentum.

6. Critics’ Reviews…

While I previously wrote that review aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes have been given too much power, the fact remains that a film’s RT score can affect box office turnout. For better or worse, filmgoers will pay attention to the scores. It doesn’t always affect it, but it more often than not does.

7. …and the Fan Backlash

That being said, the fans attacking critics as hacks because of their negative reviews hasn’t boded well. While I can’t say for sure, many of their attempts to fight against the tide of bad reviews by saying, “It’s a Godzilla film! It’s supposed to be stupid!” isn’t making anyone interested in seeing KOTM. If anything, they should try talking about what they liked about the movie or try to explain how the critics are wrong. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Sadly, the internet is flooded with vinegar.

Because of all this, Warner Bros. considered delaying the release of Godzilla vs. Kong so they could “make an A+ movie.” There were several reasons why this might’ve happened, but that’s a topic for another blog (that I may or may not write).

In the end, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a good film that faced an uphill battle, and the hill just kept getting steeper.

What do you think? Are there other reasons KOTM underperformed? What are they?

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Godzilla vs. Rotten Tomatoes: A Balanced Response

After nearly a year of escalating hype, Godzilla: King of the Monsters dropped in theatres this weekend. It was one of my most anticipated films of 2019. As a fan of nearly two decades, the co-creator of Kaijuvision Radio, and a raging nerd, I went into it excited but cautious. I remembered another American-made Godzilla movie from 20 years ago or so that had just as much, if not more, hype, and it failed to deliver.

I walked out of my local IMAX theatre with a huge smile on my face. Most fans did.

Critics didn’t.

All this week the Godzilla fan community (in America, anyway) has been in a tizzy. As the critics score on Rotten Tomatoes dropped (it sits at 40% currently) and the audience score remained high (it hovers around 90%), the fans got defensive. They became the latest fandom to declare critics “hacks” who didn’t know what they were talking about, who just didn’t understand the genre or Godzilla. While many fans—including myself—said King of the Monsters wasn’t what critics claimed it was, others stamped their feet, crossed their arms, and said, “I like because it’s bad like all the other Godzilla films!”

Even Godzilla is shocked by his some of his fans’ behavior.

To be honest, I’m not all that surprised. These fans have spent years defending their enjoyment of giant monsters—or perhaps even hid it—when many people relegated such fare to schlock. That’d put a huge chip on anybody’s shoulders. While other “nerdy” genres like superheroes have gone mainstream, the kaiju genre is still trying to gain wide acceptance. I don’t know if it ever will. Regardless, I think much of this pushback from Godzilla fans stems from their defensiveness. Like many nerds, they’ve made their fandom a huge part of their lives, and when they think it’s being attacked, they see it as an attack upon themselves.

This isn’t to say that the fans don’t have valid points. Rotten Tomatoes has grown from a website that helped moviegoers make an informed decision about what films to see to a cultural force that studios think they must placate. “Tomatometer” scores can make or break a film now. At least, that’s what many movie executives fear. An aggregate of bad reviews could destroy the millions of dollars they invested in a film. That’s why they brag whenever one of their movies has a high RT rating. The problem is people aren’t engaging with the reviews; they’re just looking at the score and not reading what was said. They don’t realize that RT’s system a critic only has to answer a yes or no question—“Is it ‘fresh’?”—before posting a review on the site. A rating of three out of five will count as “fresh,” so even a “B-” or “C+” review will count. In other words, the 90% fresh rating could all be average reviews. As one fan pointed out, it has ruined film criticism by reducing it to mere numbers. But these are numbers given tremendous weight and power by lazy often readers who succumb to some form of groupthink, either in agreement or disagreement. This, in turn, has led to some borderline conspiracy theories about studios bribing critics for good or bad reviews as well as theories that studios are censoring bad reviews from users. I’m not saying any of this is true, but it is certainly possible.

The “fresh” and “rotten” logos for both critics (top) and audience (bottom) scores on Rotten Tomatoes.

Fans say critics are prejudiced against the kaiju genre and don’t appreciate it. There’s some truth to that as I’ve pointed out. Their scores and criticisms often seem inconsistent, to say the least. Godzilla (2014) was criticized for allegedly not having enough screen time for Godzilla or the monster fights while focusing on human characters. Now the common complaint from critics is there’s too much time given to the monsters (I disagree, but I digress). Who wouldn’t pull their hair out? It doesn’t seem possible to please them.

But do fans know what makes a great kaiju film? I’ve often heard fans say that they want a film that’s nothing but kaiju fights. This has led to an image of the fandom that is, well, less than flattering (one Twitter user said it made the fandom look like “knuckle draggers”). In some ways it seems hypocritical. They fight against non-fans labeling the films “trash” while advocating for movies that are empty spectacle. As one YouTuber put it, fans like the “social commentaries of the Japanese films, but when it comes to American films, they just want Godzilla to eat buildings and punch monsters.” I’ll be the first person to argue that there is substance—often profound substance—in these films. Even the so-called “silly ones.” That’s why it vexes me to hear such talk from fans. It’s especially annoying because they’re basically saying, “This movie is nonstop action with human characters I don’t care about, so I love it for the reasons critics hate it! Boo-yah!” It’s kinda childish, honestly.

Ultimately, whether the reviews come from critics or fans, they are simply opinions, and as a crude old saying reminds us, everyone has opinions. It’s just that, for whatever reason—be it experience, education, position, or whatnot—we have elevated the opinions of critics. They are the dwellers in the ivory towers who know what true art is while fans are the unwashed, ignorant masses. (Insert “sarcasm sign” here). While fans have wanted to drop Oxygen Destroyers in critics’ laps this week, if their reviews had been positive, I have no doubt they would’ve celebrated and shared them as validation of themselves and their fandom. But do these critics invalidate the opinions of fans? No. They are allowed to like things other people don’t. They enjoyed it based on their own criteria. One man’s trash is another man’s masterpiece. Many people watch Godzilla vs. Gigan and see a silly low-budget kaiju film. I watch it and see a meta-commentary on pop culture and globalism. Opinions often change with time. When Citizen Kane was first released, it has rejected by critics as too unusual. Now it’s regaled as the greatest film ever made. The Empire Strikes Back, which is commonly considered the greatest Star Wars film, was dismissed by critics upon release. I say all of this to remind people that while there are objective criteria for what makes a good story, the evaluation of art is still largely subjective.

I’m gonna have a lot more to talk about on the King of the Monsters G-Fest panel than I thought.

What do you think? Is Rotten Tomatoes helping or hindering films, filmgoers, and/or film criticism? How so?