10th anniversary of Godzilla, May 16th

If I remember correctly, this was considered a return to form for the franchise after the 1998 Godzilla.

I didnt care for it. But then again I never was a Godzilla kinda guy. Weird since I love monsters. I just could never get into Godzilla for some reason.

I really liked it, & preferred how slow & nuanced it was compared to ppl's expectations, esp. Godzilla as hero (or at least neutral) monster. Wasn't expecting that.

B+ for the MonsterVerse from me, it's settled very nicely including GxK.

It is interesting how detached it feels from the rest of the Monsterverse, and by that I mean in terms of the filmmaking, as the events of the movie are still referenced in continuity as the universe has continued since. Unlike later entries which are more fantastical, over-the-top, cartoonish, bright, and colorful, with comic book like storytelling this one is more serious tonally, darker in appearance, and more atmospheric. Sometimes I wonder where things might have gone had the movie been an even bigger success...

I like the movie fine, but it isn't one I go out of my way to revisit often. I think getting rid of Cranston's character so soon into the picture was a mistake, he was more interesting than Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen's characters, the former of which I am just not able to click with like I should be able to and the latter feeling "just there" just about 100% of the time. Thankfully, Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins got more to do in the follow-up.

Looking back, I don’t think killing off Bryan Cranston so early was really a big deal. His character served his purpose. What was he going to do for the remainder of the film? Hang out with Ken Watanabe? The real problem is that the marketing focused too much on his character, thus giving audiences false expectations. The marketing team was clearly taking advantage of the fact that Breaking Bad had ended recently.

Fat Godzilla.

I have only seen the fx scenes and wasn't impressed because you could tell it was motion capture.
You can't make cool giant monsters in CGI if you use motion capture.
It works for suitmation because they slow it down--but cgi is expensive so they speed it up.

I can’t say I see where exactly CinemaSins comes into play. All I’m saying is that there’s generally a limit to what you can have human characters do in kaiju movies, so if you’re going to keep a character involved in the plot, you have to find a way to do so in a manner that doesn’t come off as forced.

In terms of consulting the government, that’s basically the role Ken Watanabe and Sally Hawkins’ characters serve. They’re the ones who are established as experts on giant monsters. Meanwhile, Aaron Taylor Johnson’s character serves the role of disarming the nuclear warhead at the end, which makes sense for a character with a military background, but would be a bit of a stretch for Bryan Cranston’s character. 

Cranston fills the purpose of investigating the government conspiracy, and his death helps establish a tangible sense of stakes. It’s a minor role in the grand scheme of things, but I’d imagine that people would’ve been less disappointed if Cranston wasn’t at the peak of his popularity thanks to Walter White, and if the marketing hadn’t focused so much on him, to the point where most people just assumed he was the lead. 

I can’t say I found Ford Brody (Johnson’s character) to be particularly compelling, but he works as a sort of audience stand-in who learns everything as we do, and his military background means he has a believable excuse to be involved in the monster action. 

I just mean it seems like an overly technical way of looking at the movie, to suffer through multiple boring characters instead of one enjoyable one just to avoid "This character shouldn't be in this situation" dings. Finding ways to keep a central character the central character is basic storytelling, and if they had to alter the story a bit to keep Cranston, it's not like the movie had a very intricate plot in the first place. Johnson kinda just wanders place to place up until he gets sent into San Fran anyway. I don't know if you saw Godzilla Minus One, but that's a Kaiju movie with one central character and I think they did a great job building the plot around him.

You're not wrong that people had Walter White fever and the trailers tapped into that and gave audiences false expectations, but Johnson being a boring lead is another common complaint mostly independent of that.