The history of "Godzilla" can be said as early as 1954. At that time, Japan was entering the fifth year after World War II. The deterrence of the nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the war made the Japanese people still have lingering fears. Speech is a sensitive nightmare. Director Inoshiro Honda had witnessed the horrors of wartime and captured the impact of this ideological disease on the Japanese masses. However, if you shoot a film about the impact of nuclear weapons with a strong documentary nature, the impact will be at great risk both during the shooting process and the dissemination to the audience in the later stage. Development is completely unfavorable. Therefore, Inoshiro Honda visualized this ideological disease and expressed his ideas in a more exposed form. On the basis of this theory, there are two films that have a deep influence on it: one is "Atomic Monster" produced by stop-motion animation master Harryhausen in 1953; the other is produced by RKO in 1933. "King Kong".
The former can be said to provide the prototype for "Godzilla", telling the story of the awakening of atomic dinosaurs and the havoc in New York City because of unscrupulous nuclear tests; the latter provides a channel for "Godzilla" to express . From 1929 to 1933, the United States was faced with an economic crisis, people were afraid, the upper class pursued instant pleasures, and material desires were inflated; "King Kong" describes a film director who was greedy for selfishness and introduced King Kong into the city center for performance, in order to attract the curiosity of the upper class hearts and suck the money out of their pockets. In the end, the masses paid the price for their own greed, which not only reflected the anti-erosion of primitive civilization to urban culture, but also carried out the endless inaction and greed of indulgence of interests under the social contradictions and dangers at that time with the image of monsters. Ruthless ridicule. This exaggeration of human fears and social contradictions in the form of monsters has become a reference version of many later sci-fi movies, but the most far-reaching one is still "Godzilla".
With the support of this concept, stop-motion animation, a time-consuming and laborious method, was abandoned in order to save cost and filming time. The special filming technology, which is mainly based on leather actors, has begun to affect the world film industry. It may seem a little outdated today, but it was a national policy film that was popular in Japan in those days. The audience at that time was astonished to witness Godzilla. Star Wars in the 70s, Jurassic Park in the 90s. So under the cooperation of Ishiro Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya, the "father of Ultra", "Godzilla" was officially released in 1954, and then the influence of this IP has continued for 65 years, not only for major film and television, animation , games and novels provide endless creative inspiration, and it has developed into a popular global culture. So far, it is the only fictional character who has left footprints on the Walk of Fame. Its fans include Guillermo del Toro, Spielberg, George Lucas, Tsui Hark and other famous Chinese and Western directors.
With the great victory of the first "Godzilla", Dongbao Company keenly captured the commercial value of this monster, and then continued to launch sequels. In order to continue fighting, Godzilla always took various forms. resurrection. In this interjection, Godzilla is not one, but a type, such as the little Godzilla in the Heisei series, and in 2002's "Godzilla Fights Mecha Godzilla", the Japanese authorities passed The bones of the original Godzilla created three generations of Drag-Rides to counterbalance the Godzilla in the film. Godzilla in the sequel is no longer a one-man show. Various original monsters and the legendary Japanese beasts of protecting the country, whether friends or foes, have participated in the war, resulting in related movies such as Mothra, Raton, and Ghidorah. From the early hand-to-hand wrestling to the later laser-shooting, it was all designed to catch the eye of the audience. This also laid the foundation for today's monster universe. During this process, Godzilla's identity is also erratic, one will be the patron saint of mankind, and one will be the catastrophe of the earth. The "not necessarily" in the mouth of Zhang Ziyi's character in "Godzilla 2" also shows the contradiction of his identity.
Pushed back to 1998, Roland, the disaster film director who directed "Independence Day", began to prepare for the shooting process of the American version of "Godzilla". Due to its widespread broadcast on Central Six, many viewers' first impressions of Godzilla began with this film. Unfortunately, this film has been ruthlessly ridiculed by many Godzilla fans since its birth. It is ridiculous that a broken lizard who can't even breathe atomic breath is trying to pretend to be Godzilla.
Even Toho dismissed it, so much so that in 2004's "Godzilla: Ultimate Battle", the Supreme Original killed the parallel importer. As for the reason for this adaptation, there are two theories: one is that Spielberg's "Jurassic Park" set off a dinosaur craze in the world before the film was released, in order to create a closer atmosphere and plot arrangement A commercial adaptation made from an American monster film; the other is rumored that the United States lost the design drawings after purchasing the copyright. According to records, in the absence of such data, Lao Mei came up with such a thing based on his own impressions and the most advanced industrial standards at that time. Later, under pressure, the monster was officially renamed "Sla", which you can find in the related comics released in the United States. In fact, from a movie point of view, this movie can be regarded as a middle-to-high-level Hollywood popcorn movie. The elements are handled just right in the classic Hollywood framework, which is enough to see Roland's skills. Pulling the pit, the result can only be pretending to fail and being x.
The second US version adaptation will be pushed to 2014. Seeing that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is making a lot of money on a global scale, it is booming. The major Hollywood companies could no longer sit still, and then Warner’s DC Universe, Legend + Warner’s Monster Universe, and Universal’s Monster Universe (Universal’s universe plan went bankrupt due to the unfavorable debut of “The Mummy”) were born. But it is obvious that these cosmic plans that follow suit are dwarfed by Marvel's long-term layout in terms of planning, and the commercial purpose is too obvious. In this environment, the new version of Godzilla came into being. Under the operation of the market, "Legend Ge" is no longer fighting alone. After "King of Monsters" has faced the fateful enemy Ghidorah, it will be in 2020. King Kong ushered in the battle of the century after 58 years.
Yes, as early as 58 years ago, Toho purchased the copyright of King Kong and had an indiscriminate wrestling battle with Godzilla on the screen. (When the copyright was in the hands of Dongbao, a film called "King Kong's Counterattack" was also produced, and the mechanical King Kong also appeared in the film). If you look at this film with today's eyes, it will undoubtedly look rough and young, but at that time, the setting of Guan Gong and Qin Qiong still attracted a lot of audiences (it is said that there are two endings, but I have only seen one, and the handling of the ending is Slightly ambiguous, and does not directly show who wins and who loses). Due to commercial purposes and other considerations, the later Godzilla series tended to be younger in the plot setting, and it was not until the Heisei Godzilla series that the series began to change.
Going back to "Godzilla 2 King of the Monsters", in fact, this Japanese-style American-style film is in Hollywood. At present, I think only the gyro director can perfectly integrate the American industrial standard with the Japanese special shooting atmosphere, and Watching "Pacific Rim", no matter how much the film's opening plot is laid out, it will not affect your viewing of the machine-beast fight in the second half. After all, this is the most familiar feeling buried deep in the hearts of special photography fans.
From this perspective, as far as the current films are concerned, "Pacific Rim" can be described as the conscience of the industry; "Pacific Rim 2" is like a soul change, and it obviously deviates in the general direction; "Godzilla" is tricky , to suppress the most critical part of the special photography to the lowest level under various paintings; "King Kong: Skull Island" is quite satisfactory, the size of a conventional Hollywood popcorn movie, no bright spots but comfortable enough to look and feel, it is regarded as a link to the universe of monsters made a small contribution.
When it came to "Godzilla 2 King of Monsters", after experiencing all kinds of ridicule in the first episode, I increased the role of monsters, visually majestic and imposing, oil painting-like epic composition picture, flying sand and stone, The sky is shaking, the king is coming, the arrogance of who dares not to obey, the roar of giant beasts, the tremor of gravel particles under the shock of the earth, under the background of the shadow hall, it is like being on the scene, aiming at this year's The audio-visual feast is worth the ticket price. But the question is, what is the highlight of this film? In addition to the bigger and stronger settings, have you thought about meeting other viewing needs in other aspects? This question has been making a knot in my heart since the end of the first act. Can the scenes without bright spots in the first half be set off by the final battle of the century or the reverse treatment? Unfortunately, everything is still in my expectations when the subtitles are released at the end. among.
First of all, let's look at the human scenes, which are as tasteless as the previous work, and use the most conventional family relationship shooting method. In terms of motivation, it is actually the "sustainable development of human extinction theory" that has been played out since "Ultraman Gaia". Not to mention the fact that the audience has just walked out of the traces of Thanos not long in advance. The female doctor with the same philosophy of life gives the audience a predictable feeling in the film, or the theory is no longer fresh, and it is unattractive in terms of plot settings. . Of course, what kind of plot can you say about special effects movies? Yes, but the plot treatment to a certain extent either complements or ignores each other, the former has "Transformers", the latter has "Pacific Rim". This film wants to create a kind of doomsday background where the characters struggle to awaken, but the already weak plot foreshadows that the characters other than Dr. Serizawa can't stand up at all. How can they complement each other? I don't want to leave it all aside. This is the weakness of the Monster Universe compared to "Pacific Rim". The mecha is operated by humans, and there must be a human role in the mecha. During this battle, we can see as much as possible. The shaping, whether it is reasonable or not, at least the clues are there. On the other hand, the main object of the monster universe is the beast, which is the opposite of human beings, unless the humanization of the beast can be tapped as much as possible, and more communication with people can be generated. Both camps can empathize with each other, rather than being split apart.
Secondly, monster fights are not new in today's movies under the indiscriminate bombardment of various special effects. It is not as good as imagination than stacking special effects. The special effects of Tsui Hark's "Four Heavenly Kings" are not as real as Hollywood. But in terms of imagination, there is an oriental aesthetic that belongs to China, which makes people addicted. How far can the monster universe continue to go hand-to-hand? A large number of expected fights, no matter how realistic the special effects are, the lack of new ideas will also cause aesthetic fatigue, it is difficult for people to engage, and thus be pulled away; whether it is the main plot or special effects, one thing is absolute, that is, firmly grasp the audience. The eyeballs, imagine all kinds of meaningless and expected tussle will be dull after too long. Especially in "King Kong vs. Godzilla", how does a wall with its own special effects, a gorilla who is so primitive to use his hands to create a setting that is evenly matched and at the same time makes the audience's heart mention the throat, I think it is the decision The key to the success or failure of the monster universe.
The last few easter eggs or highlights:
1 Oxygen Breaker and Dr. Serizawa's self-sacrifice pays homage to 1954's Godzilla. At the end of the first generation, in order to eliminate Godzilla, Dr. Serizawa sank to the bottom of the sea with an oxygen destroyer, and at the same time, in order to avoid this weapon being abused like a nuclear bomb, he chose to die in the sea and perish with Godzilla. (But the fact is that the harm of oxygen destroyers caused a large number of deaths of seabed creatures, especially the anaerobic climate it caused caused the recovery of ancient creatures, so there was Destro in 1994 "Kill of the Century" Asia).
2 The use of "Godzilla March" is one of the most exciting passages in the film.
3 In the movie, Zhang Ziyi plays two roles and is a pair of twins. The movie also mentions that she is from Baby Island. In 1961's "Mothra", Mothra eventually became the protector of Baby Island. In 1964, "Mothra Battles Godzilla" and "Godzilla: The Three Monsters" in the same year also have twin sisters from Baby Island. The twin sisters can summon the guardian god Mothra by singing.
4 "Three Monsters". The frame of the monster fighting in this film is very Showa style, and the action choreography obviously relies on this aspect. And "Three Monsters" is also the first screen battle of the four great beasts.
5 Red Lotus Godzilla's last nuclear energy expansion + red flame physique comes from "Century Killing Array" in 1994.
Monsters are a unique factor in eastern culture. Because of our respect and fear of nature, we always like to associate natural disasters with unknown creatures. This is different from monsters in Western culture and has a warning.
Just imagine that King Kong is the patron saint of primitive nature, and Godzilla is the product of human self-inflicted sins. Isn't the confrontation between the two a symbol of the game between human self-transformation and nature? The two symbolic fears are actually the consequences of the different choices humans make in the face of the known and the unknown. From this perspective, there is another meaning. If human beings put their self-consciousness above nature, one day nature will strike back at us with the same weight, will we be able to bear it? One thing that must be understood is that nature can be without human beings, but human beings cannot lose the living environment of nature. Under the consideration of commercial films, can Monster Universe take into account the reminder to humans? Of course, this is another story, let us look forward to next year's "King Kong vs. Godzilla", let's find out at first sight.
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