Hello everybody, I hope you are having an awesome day and spooktacular Halloween today. I know I will be having some Halloween later today. However, I am not very happy with some particular news that needs to be addressed. The article is a Washington Post article called, Godzilla back as animation has human drama, fewer monsters. This article came out yesterday and this from an interview from The Associated Press that took place last week with the Godzilla anime directors, Hiroyuki Seshita and Kobun Shizuno. The interview was suppose to talk about Godzilla: The Planet Eater, but there was some stuff said that is really grinding my gears. What is grinding my gears is that they want to push away the old fans and bring in new fans. They don't say they are push the old fans away, but it is very much implied on what they are trying to achieve. I will be skipping over some parts of the article to get straight to the point.
The two directors of “Godzilla: The Planet Eater” acknowledge that their film is so different it might turn off hard-core fans. But they say that’s an intentional attempt to reach out to new audiences.
“We welcome getting bashed by the traditionalists,” Hiroyuki Seshita, one of the directors, told The Associated Press last week. “That proves more than anything we succeeded in creating something different.”
So right away in two paragraphs, we can already see Mr. Seshita's inflated ego rearing its ugly head. Look, I'm okay in bringing in new fans, but just because you do something different doesn't mean that the movies are good. I've seen Godzilla (2014) bringing in more new fans than Godzilla: Monster Planet. Even the trailer for Godzilla: King Of The Monsters got people who weren't fans before wanting to go see it. Plus, you even have Shin Godzilla, which albeit was also boring, but it still brought in new fans. It was still different, but also kept Godzilla traditional. You don't need to change so much with Godzilla.
Also, Mr. Seshita, you say that being bashed by traditionalists proves you succeeded in creating something different when you did not really do anything different at all in terms with the story. The first movie, Godzilla: Monster Planet, I was going to let go since it was the first movie and that it was just the introduction or the first act. Then, the second movie came and it was the same boring story as the first movie and you teased the fans promising MechaGodzilla and you didn't deliver MechaGodzilla. I'm all for a story based Godzilla movie, but the story has to be good. The stories in the past two movies have not been good or at least remotely interesting to watch. So when fans say that a movie isn't all that good, you may want to replan how to make the next movies instead of insulting them. You even knew from the beginning that these movies were going to turn fans away and you still proceeded anyways.
Although some viewers may find the story rather complicated, Seshita said the film chose to interpret the Godzilla saga as what he called “a kind of animism,” or a godlike force that is bigger than human existence, a perspective he said was integral to Japanese culture and storytelling.
“I’m not a Godzilla expert and so I simply made a film I thought would be enjoyable,” said Shizuno, who has also directed the “G.I. Joe: Sigma 6” and “Detective Conan” animation series.
Mr. Seshita, the story of your movies are not complicated at all. I think even a 10 year old could figure it out. Granted, you had the fans hooked on the idea of three animated movies and we were hyped for that idea. However, just because the idea could have been good the execution of how these movies were made was poorly handled. Thus, the end result was the criticism from the "traditionalists" as you would call them. That was your own fault and now you create a bigger mess by saying that some viewers would find your story complicated and that you were trying to attract new fans. This is the same excuse Hollywood uses for the Ghostbusters remake or for the new Star Wars movies, which are littered with political propaganda. When these movies got criticized, the Hollywood elites blamed the sexist, racist, boogeyman instead of cleaning up their mess. You, Mr. Seshita, are doing the same thing as well by basically laughing at the fans.
As for you, Mr. Shizuno, you don't even need to be a Godzilla expert to figure out how to make a Godzilla movie. If you want to make a movie that you want to enjoy, then that's fine, but you and Mr. Seshita have to understand that not everybody is going to like it. While it is understandable that you cannot please every fan, to me it sounds like you are having a hard time making even a hand full of fans happy.
It seems as though that once again we have come full circle where these two have become the new Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich. It is quite obvious that the duo do not care about the property and they just make whatever they think is acceptable. If the movies were called something else and used an original monster instead of using the Godzilla property and cleaned up the story then perhaps these movies could be seen in a different light. Instead, Seshita and Shizuno just slaps the Godzilla name on it and hoped that it would do well.
I know that nobody from TOHO Co. will see this, but I want to give a shout out to the higher ups in TOHO. I heavily advise that you have a talk with Mr. Seshita and Mr. Shizuno. This interview was insulting to the majority of your fan base that made Godzilla popular. This just sounds like you want to push us away like we don't matter, but fans know that you know that the fans do matter. The old fans do want to see the fan base grow by attracting new fans of the Godzilla franchise, but when something goes wrong you don't blame the fans for it. Not everyone is going to be happy with every movie, yet when almost everyone does not like the movies and are not becoming profitable enough that is where you need to take a step back and rethink this idea. You just don't go around insulting the fans. I don't see Michael Dogherty, Adam Wingard, Jordan Vogt-Roberts, or Gareth Edwards bashing the Godzilla fans when they work on their movies and neither should you or anyone else for that matter.
What are you thoughts? Do you feel the same way or do you think I am being over dramatic? Leave your thoughts in the comment section and if you are new then make sure to follow me on my Facebook page so you can stay up to date for more Godzilla related news, reviews, and discussions and have a Happy Halloween.
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