What Gareth Edwards should have done for Godzilla & the MUTOs

I was talking about the EMP attacks the other day with my co-workers. being as there were no electronic devices millions of years ago to disrupt, they should have shown that the EMP was used to also disorient Godzilla, thus explaining why the 2 on 1 fight was so difficult for Godzilla.

@Duratok - Yes you are right about that. I thought they should have demonstrated the EMP prowess of the MUTOs more explicitly e.g. in use against Godzilla in this case, to make them appear to be really powerful enemies of the King as from what I see, the EMP was only devastating to the humans but didn't seem to have any effect on Godzilla, which doesn't make sense considering the MUTOs hail from ancient times. Perhaps what should have been shown is for the MUTOs to have the ability to generate an EMP forcefield around them, which electrocutes Godzilla, or absorbs the nuclear radioactivity of Godzilla, thus weakening him. That, in my opinion, would have been awesome. 

@Something Real - I would rather Godzilla be viewed as a Destroyer of the Worlds or a retribution for our blatant misuse of Earth's resources, but then again I think I know why Gareth had to do a U-turn for this portrayal. Perhaps they considered that since Godzilla toys would be marketed to children, then it would be better to draw the line clearer on the position of Godzilla - By making him a hero and well-liked by everyone.  

Godzilla

I've been repeating this point over and over about Godzilla. He is no hero, he is apathetic to all things that is human, he doesn't care if they'll hit him or follow him, which is an awesome interpretation of nature itself. Nature does not give a crap about you, even if you hit her she doesn't retaliate, what's horrifying is when she moves and throw these random natural disasters at you.

That's what Godzilla is, in this incarnation, he is the most perfect representation of nature's awesome powers. If you hit nature, she will not hit back, because she is apathetic, same goes with Godzilla. You could say that it should be a natural urge for an animal to hit back, but there is this "holier than us" attitude that says otherwise. Ants might throw firecrackers at you but these crackers didn't hurt when it hits, it's more like a surprise if anything. What do you do? You get out of the way. The crackers spooked you, but that doesn't mean you should kick the crap out of the anthill.

So when Godzilla was on the bridge and becoming hit he simply thinks "Hey, I've got better things to do than waste my time here."

MUTOs

I didn't see the 6.3 Japan Earthquake as attributed to the male MUTO itself, I saw it as a coverup for the incident that occurred during its awakening. The MUTOs have something much more devastating than earthquakes here, and that is EMP (Which admittedly is less epic but far more terrifying). Earthquakes are like strong punches, it'll hurt, but you can heal from it, EMPs are like being infected by a virus.

Do you know how devastatingly painful an EMP slap on a gigantic body would feel? Very. I was not surprised at all when Godzilla was thrown down by those punches, he was definately getting shocked by EMP blasts, and the reason we don't hear it is because it ripples in Godzilla's body, which gives reason as to why the MUTOs even have EMP attacks, they make perfect weapons against a primordial apex predator.

You made some incredible points there THE WEAVER, I never knwe the EMP blasts would hurt gojira himself! Thanks for the info!

@The Weaver

While I agree with Destroyah's points, you do make perfectly valid points. But the thing was Gareth made no inclination to show that Godzilla was apathetic. It stands to reason to say that Godzilla doesn't see humanity befiting of his time, and that the  Mutos were a threat to his territory (earth). However if that was the case, don't you think Gareth would have made it seem like that, because so far many people have seem to have interpreted as so. So I doubt Gareth would have kept an ambigous secret like that hidden for so long.

The EMP arguement seems you made is very sound though. It would make sense, seeing as that they are parasites to his race, so the EMP would act as a  'virus' to Godzilla. I think the main concern here is that Godzilla seemed very helpless and in pain in that scene, which is not very befiting for the 'King of Monsters' don't you agree?

Destroyah X@-These were one of the reasons why I was disappointed with the movie. 

AGGRESSIVEKAIJU45

Godzilla is the Ultimate Anti-Hero

This is an interview by Gareth which he said that Godzilla is indeed completely apathetic to the human race. Why we see him as a hero is all consequential. It's like a human hunting a buffalo that's harrassing a termite nest. Just because the hunter killed the buffalo benefitted the termites doesn't mean the human is their protector or hero. He sees us just like any insect. If bees fly to sting you, you don't try to destroy the nest, you get the hell out.

What I meant is, when the MUTOs were hitting Godzilla with their arms, they weren't just hitting him like normal punches, they were shocking his body with EMP blasts. Here's another analogy, imagine a defibrillator with a sentient mind, when those pads hit you, you feel nothing, because the cable is not attached. Now, put a current into those pads, and you're going to be in a lot of pain, if it doesn't just stop your heart completely.

@The Weaver

Calm down my friend. I want you to know that I agree with every point you made, I just wasn't aware that Gareth had officially said that. There was no need to rewrite everything you just said; offering me the link would have been fine. Nevertheless I want to thank you for taking the time to type all that out as your 'human-buffalo-termite' and 'sentient defibrillator' analogies helped further my understanding of what you had to say. It seems more rational now :)

AGGRESSIVEKAIJU45

I'm not angry here. It's just how I talk. :)

Trying to keep Akums Razor:

Mutos EMP: EMP's exist in nature and one of the more common and well known are lightning strikes. A parasite would benifit from temorarily paralysising its host when laying eggs or feeding larvae. This is seen in nature such as the spider wasp. I would infer that the mutos use EMPs to stun their hosts before using them for larvae food/host. 

Godzilla and the two muto fight: I see no problem with this. if you want godzilla to be so awesome that nothing is his problem watch the old movies. Garath said that this is suppose to be realistic. The atomic breath would not have meant anything if he could just take them down with hand to hand, given that it drains him why would he use it, animals are not stupid they will fight to win or not fight at all. A tiger would clearly destroy a single gazel but a group of gazels would run it away. 

Godzilla: He is an Apex Predator. Humans are not a source of trouble to him. Gaurding his territory is his primary goal. The Mutos are infringing on his territory so he awakens to kill them or drive them away (isnt Godzilla himself a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). 

1+ to The Weaver

I do have a question for everyone did it bother y'all guys that after Godzilla killed the Mutos that when he went back on land and when he pass out did that bother y'all because I understand the mutos was tough but I seen godzilla battle other monster that tougher and was still able to go back to the ocean and I understand that gareth was trying to keep it realistic but it wasn't something I was use to seeing him do and I wanted to know did it bother anyone who seen it.

I have been saying this since I saw the movie:  Gareth Edwards was over his head.  There needed to be more awe, more terror, more destruction, more chaos, more panic, more havoc.  There was not enough "WTF is that" from the humans.  Also, there needed to be more explanations, more reasoning and more realism in the world of fantasy.  How was Godzilla lying there motionless and no one was taking pictures, and there were no investigator, no nothing or did I miss it? 

The movie seemed like a dress rehearsal.  Everything appeared to be staged.  The editing  was  terrible and I thought the music was intrusive.

I look forward to the sequel, but I'm not going to wait with baited breath.  I've been burned twice already.

Maybe next time the studios will  have a bigger budget, a better script and a more seasoned director.

RATEDREX

There's enough exposition in the movie, the pace moves well and havoc is shown. What you're asking is an overblown in-your-face of all these things, which kinda says something about your tastes. Mmmh, I hear the Transformers movie is coming out, not saying that those movies are garbage, but I don't actually mind people who prefer them.

But the most important thing that must be unquestionably appreciated is how Godzilla was treated here. You could not ask for a better Godzilla. With Gareth at the helms, it can only get better from here.

Glad to hear your opinions people :)

@Weaver - Thanks for commenting. I have never disputed the fact that the MUTOs have powerful EMP abilities. They were awesome. The only issue I mentioned was the way the MUTOs demonstrated their power towards their fight with Godzilla, which was not being visually represented enough in this movie to suggest that. To your scientific mind and knowledge of EMPs, you could see that the MUTOs inflicted heavy damage to Godzilla, but to the untrained general audience, all they see are just two MUTOs pounding on Godzilla like gorillas. No EMP lighting effects in action, nothing out of the ordinary. When I left the theatre I could already hear people behind me remarking that Godzilla seemed weak and even fainted twice in such a short fight.

Although there are some good points you raised, there are also those which do not make sense at all when one tries to piece together the pieces with regard to the "apatheticness" of Godzilla you mentioned. 

Even with the Gareth Edwards' interview you provided, he may have his intents and way of portrayal as a Director about Godzilla, but it doesn't mean his take on how Godzilla should be represented is the most correct. Which is why I've said that as many as there are people out there who like how Godzilla is portrayed this time round, I can assure you there are equally as many fans who say bad things about the way Godzilla was presented in this movie. 

You mentioned that: " That's what Godzilla is, in this incarnation, he is the most perfect representation of nature's awesome powers. If you hit nature, she will not hit back, because she is apathetic, same goes with Godzilla."

-  If we go by this logic of apatheticness and what Nature represents is what Godzilla truly is, then shouldn't Godzilla be like Mother Nature, and let things take their own course instead of intervening with the MUTOs acts of procreation because Mother Nature is not supposed to retaliate isn't it? So if the reasoning is that because the MUTOs are disrupting the balance of Nature which calls for Godzilla's intervention, you do realize that humanity though minute in size in comparison to Godzilla, certainly have plundered the Earth's resources with impunity and destroyed landscapes through urbanization. If Godzilla is a force of Nature they try to picture of him to be, then surely he should feel threatened by humanity at the same time, who also happened to be leeching onto nuclear power, which is also a source of Godzilla's survival as an animal. There is no reason for Godzilla to have to show apatheticness exclusively only to humans because he is no human God to begin with. That's where the portrayal is inconsistent. Here, Gareth E. calls Godzilla a Force of Nature, but yet on the other hand, they say Godzilla is one of the last of an ancient species of his kind and also an Alpha Predator. - Which means Godzilla is just an animal, and there are many of his kind out there during his time of existence. So does it mean all of them are 'Guardians of Nature?' I do not agree with your theory on ants being a petty nuisance which does not warrant the act of killing off the anthill. An anthill may not pose much of a problem, but when you get hundreds of anthills encroaching your territory or your home even to the point of dropping kilotons of nuclear bombs on you, that's a whole different story. In this case, what difference does it make for Godzilla when both MUTOs and humans are equally damaging the environment Godzilla lives in? And for these reasons and inconsistent portrayals of Godzilla, it does not make sense for many people that Godzilla is balancing Nature. 

You do realize that by approving Godzilla's apatheticness of humanity in this movie, its as good as giving a nod of approval for humanity's activities and the plundering of Earth's resources as being natural, which completely detracts from the original theme of what Godzilla as an icon is supposed to represent. - The horrors of misusing Nuclear power in this Age and Time. Which is still very real and relevant in today's time. 

Instead, the MUTOs become the new representatives of this horror and Godzilla takes on a different theme and plays the role of Gamera this time. Godzilla destroying the MUTOs and sparing the humans does not teach any valuable lessons to Mankind. It just sends the message of complacency to humans to carry on with their nonsense, and they know if a new monster pops up, they can always rely on Good Ol' Godzilla to do the job. So in the end, a showcase of humanity's retribution which is Godzilla has now taken on the form of Gamera's duty - Guardian of the Humans of Earth. No lessons are learnt here.

And I can tell you, I love this movie, but I just don't think there are any valuable takeaways from the conclusion of this movie.

@WEAVER

Godzilla looked great, but he was all dressed up with little to do.

I'm 57 years old.  I don't like Transformer movies.  Didn't like the Batman movies.  Didn't like the "Man of Steel".  I've long past liking loud, over the top, face-paced action.  But there are ways to do chaos and mayhem.  "Titanic" did them well, so did "Saving Private Ryan", "Jaws", "2012 and many more.  "Cloverfield's" gave you a good sense of the terror and the unpredictable mayhem that is usually associated with the genre.

If you enjoyed Godzilla tha'st fine.  I wish I had.  I didn't hate it.  I just think it was a monumental missed opportunity.  The trailers for Godzilla may have been the best ever.  But it appeared that the trailers had all the best parts.

About the MUTOs, it's not hard to notice why Godzilla became as weak as he did, I do understand people becoming frustrated by that scene, but to me it was very easily answerable. It was established multiple times from the male and female MUTOs that ther feet can blast EMP attacks. And that EMP attack is devastatingly brutal when hitting a live organism.

So I simply figured: EMP claws + Godzilla's skin = Increadible pain.

To me, the fact that he even survived those hits makes him gloriously badass.

I've had a similar discussion with my brother, and the point he brought out was why would Godzilla really care about the MUTOs if he really represents Mother Nature? Nature let things run their own course. I mean, this does sound like a massive plot hole, if the MUTOs are upsetting some sort of balance that Godzilla must fix, then wouldn't mankind be the first priority since they're screwing up the planet so hard?

I answered with a quote from a very nostalgic movie of mine.

"This isn't some specie that was obliterated by deforestation or the building of a dam, dinosaurs had their shot and nature selected them for extinction." - Ian Malcom (Jurassic Park)

Replace "dinosaurs" with MUTOs, and there is your answer. Personally, and that is completely how I've come to interpret it, MUTOs are meant to be dead, they were supposed to die at the Permian extinction, their return upsets a balance that nature did not intend. Godzilla is simply a hand that is acting on that will. And it is humans that is allowing their prolonged existance.

Humanity are not Godzilla's concerns because we're living nature's chance, she hasn't selected us to die yet. What's horrifying from this movie, and what I took out of it after reading it long and hard, is that perhaps, when nature once again thinks of wiping the board clean, I think that Godzilla will become our destroyer.

This is an awesome conclusion for me, because the movie look more like a warning, and not an actual apocalypse. The movie seem to be giving a message that "This is what Mother Earth can do. Beware." And if mankind doesn't listen, then perhaps we'll seeing something in the equivalent of a biblical flood.

Should the movie be trying a lot harder to convey these messages? Yes, but hey, the movie made me think of such awesome ideas I never got to ponder on. That's a virtue of a great film, or even artwork.

Well as far as I know, in the Permian, when they lived, the mutos adapted to hunt in packs and take down individuals of godzillas species. They then killed the godzillas and laid their eggs in their radioactive dead bodies as to obviously, leech the radiation. Th mutos are a sinister and destructive species and in learning what they did to the species to which godzilla belonged it is natrual to presume that the two kinds became enimies, battling viciously for survival and dominance. I believe that the competition became so horrifying that it was instinct for godzillas species to irradicate the mutos as they presented a disturbing threat to their existence. This is my two cents and this is why I believe giojira emerged to tackle these monstrosities! They present a threat to godzilla and I think that this almost fear of the mutos drove godzilla to the state in which his main goal was just to rid his environment of these adversaries and to almost ignore us! Just my thoughts!

SOMETHING REAL

Well, the MUTOs wouldn't have been revived if mankind didn't try to dig in places they shouldn't. Or creating unwanted consequences. But even if they just happened to be awakened on accident (like a landslide and such) without us the MUTOs would still have died off as nature intended. But they don't, because of our meddling with radiation, which is their source of life.

In a sense, the MUTOs returned because of us, like Malcolm's distaste of genetic engineering. All of it is still our fault, albeit unintentionally. (Like genetic engineering)

So nature had to find a way. ;)

Yes, exactly, I got that information from the art book by the way! I would kill to see the ecosystem from which godzilla and the mutos hail, it must of been absolutely awe-inspiring, these giants battling it out as maybe smaller animals ran between them searching for prey! I hope they reference this time period in the next film!

It's actually great isn't it? You have to admit, Gareth has created a wonderful world and many aspects about which we can debate endlessly! This will only increase as the sequel looms!

SOMETHING REAL

Perhaps the MUTOs could still live on with as few radiation as there is, but not in the amount they would with nearly 20,000 nuclear weapons hidden in stockpiles around the world... Yeah, the MUTOs would upset nature very hard. (Thank Godzilla for his intervention) And thank you! :)

I had no idea we had so many nuclear weapons! I wonder how many muto creatures lie under the surface? It couldn't of just been this two!