Editing Kaiju (section)

==[[Ameritrash|American Kaijus]]==

Like Disney did with European folktales and mythologies from across the globe, Americans wanted a part of the Giant Monster cake, and we're gonna be blunt around here, they really did not do a good job. At all.

Which is a cruel irony, since technically America ''invented'' the giant monster movie genre. Kaiju as a concept stretch all the way back to the ''1930s'', when America created King Kong, the first ever kaiju. America also jumped on the "nuclear nasty" genre around the same time Japan did, releasing the actually quite awesome giant ant horror movie ''THEM!'' several months before Godzilla debuted on Japanese theatre screens as Gojira. Sadly, though America did its own share of giant monster movies throughout the 50s and 60s, most of them were basically [[xploitation]] films trying to clumsily ape ''THEM!'' without either the scriptwriter's talent or the budget, and the genre slowly died off around the 60s - ironically, perhaps in part due to the influx of (admittedly badly dubbed) Japanese kaiju movies.

But what really stained America's reputation was when they rented the license to Godzilla from Toho in the 90s and attempted to do a new spin on the king of the Japanese kaiju... unfortunately, they decided to go back to the kaiju genre's pre-Atomic roots, reinventing "Zilla" (as he is now derisively known) as more of an old-school giant beast; no nuclear breath, no [[regeneration]], just sheer size, strength, speed and cunning, to the point he is ultimately brought down by sufficient firepower once he is immobilized. Now, if this hadn't been attached to the Godzilla title, it would have been a decent old-school giant monster movie...but since this was a '''Godzilla''' movie, and this creature bore no resemblance to the classic Japanese kaiju (hence the other nickname of '''G'''odzilla '''I'''n '''N'''ame '''O'''nly, or GINO), it led to an ''enormous'' backlash from the Japanese kaiju fandom, to say nothing about Toho's reaction. The only time anyone from the land of the rising sun would ever see this mistake would be in 2004's ''Godzilla: Final Wars'', where it appeared as a jobber that gets wrecked in one minute without even a mention. You know how this thing was supposed to go down originally? Godzilla was supposed to be normal lookin' and was going to fight an actual american kaiju; the griffin! But, in true Hollywood fashion; [[The Witcher|They hired two guys who vehemently hated Godzilla and wanted to do something that was completely different from it.]] Seriously, Emmerich, what the actual fuck is wrong with you?

The failure of the '98 Godzilla spelled the end of American Kaiju films for over a decade, save a few minor entries like Peter Jackson's King Kong remake from 2005 and the JJ Abrams produced found-footage film 'Cloverfield' from 2008. All this was to change with the one-two combo of 2013's Pacific Rim and Legendary's crack at Godzilla the year after... [[Skub|Which wasn't any better]].

Godzilla (2014) was a human-centric movie. Very reminscent of the first one with maybe even more dramatisation because this is Hollywood we're talking about. So it's nowhere near as heavy because all the sad stuff mostly focuses on [[Meme|Walter White and his family.]] No shit, Hal was the best part of the movie and he freakin' dies. Which is a shame because every single bit of human tragedy is usually transmitted by the boring middle-class american family. With that being said; you have to bear in mind that this movie came out after decades upon decades of Monster Wrestlin'. Which means that kaiju fans felt [[RAGE|blueballed beyond comprehension]], [[Skub|to such levels that audiences and public alike were wondering why the fuck were some autistic nerds screeching about the film on the internets]]. Why's that? Well, the focus of the film is on '''HUMANS'''. Which any Godzilla fan will tell you is the most difficult part to get right, and most of the time the most boring. Because the movie is called "Godzilla" not "Joe Schmoe and his family of two ft. Godzilla". Any fight that happened between the MUTOs and Godzi was immediatly skipped to have more exposition scenes or scenes with humans. Not particularly good scenes either because its either Joe Schmoe or the military talking. Having the whole film being shot from a human perspective was a neat idea though. The Showa was particularly guilty of not making the monsters feel giant. 

Alas, the movie was a success and what soon followed was the Monsterverse. It was to Godzilla what the MCU was to [[Marvel]]. The Monsterverse tried to appeal to three different publics; the casual audience who never saw kaiju films, kaiju fans who like seeing monsters brawling, and movie enthusiasts who like deep things. Seeing how difficult that would be, they decided to make a bold attempt at capturing a certain "vibe". Something between the craziness of the Millenium era and the eerie majesty of the Heisei era... To mixed results. Shoving deep lore that more or less reference the original films, contradicting the tone and direction of the first Godzilla/King Kong film, shoving in humor and [[Fluff|'''DEEP LORE''']] into the thing, while having this sort of "I'm not taking myself seriously unless I actually am" kind of tone... The movies are dividing.