Godzilla (2014): The 45-year-old Tonus liked the movie, though he felt there should've been a lot more Godzilla and a lot less of the sub-plots, which consisted of putting people I didn't care about in danger. On the other hand, the premise and story helped wash away some of the bad taste left by the 1998 travesty. I like that they moved away from the standard "reboot" premise of 'monster awakened by nuclear testing, wastes city, is killed in exotic manner but we know he'll return.' Sure, the premise is kind of silly (Godzilla as a sort of Gaia super-cop) but it has a nice sci-fi flavor to it that reminds us that we're no longer in the real world, we're in a world where 350-foot-tall monsters breathe fire and snack on nuclear matter.
The 8-year-old Tonus was utterly enthralled the whole time because YEAH BABY GODZILLA OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT HE JUST DID OMG OMG... and so on. I think movies like this really work best for the very young and for those who can remember what they were like when we were very young. I have at least 85% of the Godzilla films on DVD, and honestly they're difficult to sit through now, whereas I could watch them every time they were on TV as a child. The build-up to showing the actual monsters was always worth it as a child, but these days I just want to fast-forward to the action, and that just highlights how little of it there traditionally was, and is.
(It was particularly aggravating that the first couple of monster fights are used as teasers and build up to a couple of fights that have some very cool moments but just can't deliver after I've been sitting there for some 80-90 minutes of build-up. Honest, guys: I do not care about the fate of the minor characters. Never did. It's like a pro-wrestling card where every fight has a long build-up and the fight itself is... oh, I see. Sigh...)
The 8-year-old Tonus was utterly enthralled the whole time because YEAH BABY GODZILLA OMG DID YOU SEE WHAT HE JUST DID OMG OMG... and so on. I think movies like this really work best for the very young and for those who can remember what they were like when we were very young. I have at least 85% of the Godzilla films on DVD, and honestly they're difficult to sit through now, whereas I could watch them every time they were on TV as a child. The build-up to showing the actual monsters was always worth it as a child, but these days I just want to fast-forward to the action, and that just highlights how little of it there traditionally was, and is.
(It was particularly aggravating that the first couple of monster fights are used as teasers and build up to a couple of fights that have some very cool moments but just can't deliver after I've been sitting there for some 80-90 minutes of build-up. Honest, guys: I do not care about the fate of the minor characters. Never did. It's like a pro-wrestling card where every fight has a long build-up and the fight itself is... oh, I see. Sigh...)
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould
