In recent years there have been a lot of giant monster movies. Last year’s Pacific Rim was a perfect movie if you had a desire to see giant monsters fighting giant robots. And a few years ago Cloverfield was a great combination of the found footage and monster genres.
This summer the king of all monsters will make his return to the silver screen. Godzilla has been mostly absent since 1998’s Godzilla. I actually enjoyed that movie when I saw it in theaters, but I think that was mostly due to my relatively young age.
The big guy will hit theaters again in the not-so-originally-titled Godzilla, the newest trailer for which you can see below.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIu85WQTPRc&w=560&h=315]
I was a little on the fence with Godzilla’s return, but after watching that trailer I am fully on board. I always enjoyed the old Godzilla movies, especially the ones where Godzilla became the good guy. From this trailer, though, Godzilla doesn’t look like he’s going to defend humanity from other monsters or alien invaders. The trailer gives us a glimpse of the destruction wrought by Godzilla and I can’t wait to see more.
It is weird to say that I can’t wait to see the massive destruction of cities and a massive loss of life, even if it is just in a movie.
Last year Man of Steel caused quite the uproar. Its final act saw the near total destruction of Metropolis, a disaster that would have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. I just saw the destruction as part of a movie and didn’t think twice about it. I don’t know if that means I’ve been desensitized to destruction and violence or if I knew I was just watching a movie.
We should never take the loss of real lives easily. Any time someone dies, good or bad, we should mourn the loss of one of God’s precious creations. If thousands of deaths in our favorite summer blockbusters ever make us indifferent to even one real death, then we should never watch another Avengers movie, Superman movie or Godzilla movie. If, though, we can still see every life as precious and enjoy a giant green lizard destroying San Francisco, then let’s still get excited for Godzilla this summer.
How do the death and the destruction of blockbuster movies impact you?
I don't feel personally affected by death and destruction in movies if we're talking about a movie where the cataclysmic event that threatens humanity is not a realistic one, and the actual death is not glorified in any way. However, the movies I avoid are the really gruesome horror movies, because they most often feature killers butchering people or demons possessing somebody and at times, glorify death as if to scratch some homicidal itch that people who overly enjoy those movies must have.
Nice site, by the way, and I am looking forward to Godzilla as well. I wasn't so excited before, but the more I see and hear, the more interested I have become. I was particularly struck by the image of Godzilla's spikes sticking out of the Pacific while being A-bombed, that just looked so cool.
Yeah. The trailer for Godzilla was really effective, in that it didn't give too much away and got me really excited for the movie.
I also avoid most horror/torture movies. Most of them seem to have violence and torture for the sake of having violence and torture, without much hope of redemption.
Exactly. And when I think of people who just love those kinds of movies, I think of people who have some secret fantasy of being serial killers.
As far as Godzilla goes, I still wonder if Godzilla is going to wind up being good though. Everything I've seen so far kind of teases you with glimpses of other monsters and all the focus is on Godzilla, and that makes me wonder what secret about the movie are they hiding? Or maybe Godzilla will be an equal opportunity destroyer, dishing punishment on other monsters AND humanity.