As we navigate the chilling depths of the 2016 film, 'Shin Godzilla', we unravel the movie's layers and share our unique perspectives on the film. In this edition of Late To The Party, we discuss the reception of the movie and rank it against other Godzilla films. Whether you're a fan of Godzilla films or just love diving into movie reviews, this episode offers something for everyone!
IMDb Synopsis: Japan is plunged into chaos upon the appearance of a giant monster.
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast (which includes our brand new Patreon site!)🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
"Extenz - Gravity" is under a Creative Commons license
Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/extenz-gravity
🔺
As we navigate the chilling depths of the 2016 film, 'Shin Godzilla', we unravel the movie's layers and share our unique perspectives on the film. In this edition of Late To The Party, we discuss the reception of the movie and rank it against other Godzilla films. Whether you're a fan of Godzilla films or just love diving into movie reviews, this episode offers something for everyone!
IMDb Synopsis: Japan is plunged into chaos upon the appearance of a giant monster.
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast (which includes our brand new Patreon site!)🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
"Extenz - Gravity" is under a Creative Commons license
Music promoted by BreakingCopyright: https://bit.ly/extenz-gravity
🔺
Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it Anime.
Speaker 2:Plus Ultra.
Speaker 1:Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino. Yeah, they've got you covered, and all you gotta do is Wait for it.
Speaker 2:Hey everyone, welcome back to the Wait for it podcast. I am your co-host, phil Smith, aka Phil the Filipino, and joining us, as always, is your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty and Eric, we are here with a November edition of Late to the Party. And man, we had ourselves quite a weekend, both on different spectrums. You holding it down at Nakamakan, which I heard was an amazing success. I am very jealous, but for me, a weekend at Disney in which I think I am still asleep I think this is like a husk of myself that's actually talking right now I don't believe that I am actually awake. So it has been quite the weekend for both of us and we're gonna do our best to continue to stay awake as we talk about Shin Godzilla today on the episode of Late to the Party, to kind of give you guys an idea of how this went.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was gonna say this is the second Shin Godzilla experience where one of us is probably gonna be nodding off by the middle to end of it.
Speaker 1:Oh man, you know what. We get some hits and we get some misses. People really love this movie and we got. We got onto this, you know, phil, to give everybody a little bit of context, you know we saw the trailer back, I think in 2016 or close to its release, and we were like, oh, that Godzilla looks fucking scary. And then we were like maybe we'll watch it and it just never happened. So for late to the party, it's the perfect series to be late to and to go into a movie that we wanted to see, that was playing at Nakama, and then that didn't quite work out. So then we ended up at your house an hour later than we expected to watch it and then we got a movie we didn't quite expect. So it was a little bit of a journey, a little bit of a ride. We'd like to take you guys on that journey of our viewing experience and how the movie went. I think the episode will be a lot of fun.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, early indications on both ends not looking good, listen, godzilla fans can be a sensitive bunch, so we're going to handle this as so, not going to be totally disrespectful. But I mean we also want to hear.
Speaker 1:We also have a track record of shitting on Godzilla films.
Speaker 2:We really do, we aim to love Godzilla. I mean I'm excited to watch the Monarch series on Apple TV, but minus one minus one looks excellent.
Speaker 2:You know, I think I enjoyed the, the original Godzilla, more than you did, certainly, but then, like the journey we took after that, again we could have a whole monster versus saga, like a whole episode about what we think went wrong and where they could have done better. Not that we're necessarily the people to have that conversation, but it could be had as far as, like a casual viewer, I mean, giant lizard shoots fire should be a home run, you know, and Skull Island is great. We love Skull Island, so it'll make for an interesting conversation. We wanted to, you know, gravitate to a Godzilla that's not in the quote unquote mainstream. You know. That obviously wasn't the 1999 Godzilla, which Eric and I have very different opinions on, which I watched recently, actually not, still not good.
Speaker 1:What do you? Mean Still not very good, what do?
Speaker 2:you mean Terrible, terrible movie, so anyway, yeah, deserved an Oscar.
Speaker 2:Absolutely did not. No Razzie, maybe, which I think he probably won for 1999 Godzilla, but anyway, let's talk about Shin Ganzela, this month's episode of late to the party. For any of you that are brand new to the show, welcome. Thank you so much for checking us out. Maybe we, eric, met you this past weekend at Nakamakon and you're checking us out for the first time. We appreciate you. Make sure you stick around to the very end of the episode and we'll let you know.
Speaker 2:We can find all the rest of our content and social media pages and for all of you returning listeners. Thank you, guys, so much for the continued support as we wind down 2023 and head into 2024. Stronger than ever. So, eric, let's start on the positive side. Talk about some things maybe we did enjoy from Shin Godzilla. For those of you that are unfamiliar, it is a 2016 film. The synopsis read Japan is plunged into chaos when an enormous monster emerges from Tokyo Bay and terrorizes the city, leaving a path of destruction and casualties, and that is a I mean, I feel like that's putting it lightly a path of destruction and casualties. Eric, seems like that is a very minimal way to put the amount of destruction that we saw, but, yeah, what are some of the things that you did enjoy about Shin Godzilla? As we, you know, search for them through this episode.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we'll just go like one at a time. So we have we both have enough to go into. I'm just going to take the easy one Shin Godzilla. Godzilla himself is great.
Speaker 1:I liked Godzilla in this film Creepy, very scary. There's like an evolution that happens Again. We're going to speak pretty freely on the film. I mean, we're not going to really necessarily spoil the movie, but who knows where this episode will take us. To be honest, we're late to the party. So are you. I don't really think you're missing anything that if you watched it after it would affect your experience.
Speaker 1:So he evolves throughout the movie and I thought that was an interesting plot device to allow us more time to, you know, kind of soak up the situation with the other characters. And I think there are really strong efforts here to make an interesting perspective on how, like in real life, if Godzilla was to appear, what are some of the conversations that would be happening, what are some of the things that would be happening. I don't know that it would go like this, where every five minutes there is a meeting which we will talk about in five minutes, is gracious, but I liked the attempt. So those are. I did two things. It's not one thing. That was two things that I liked about the movie. Did I take the only two things? I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Well, here's the thing. So Godzilla has always been a metaphor for something right? So, like the original, godzilla was conceived as a metaphor for the atomic bomb right, that's what the original one was for. This one was a true inspiration from the Fukushima nuclear disaster and the 2011 earthquake and following tsunami. So I think that's why there is more of an emphasis on the response, right, like you said, there's a lot, of, a lot of talking about that, a lot of talking about what to do, a lot of talking about what has already happened, a lot of talking about what we should do even further in the future, a lot of political stuff that is going on in the background as well, and I think maybe we were not properly prepared for what type of film this was going to be, knowing what little we did. I think maybe that's why it resulted in the viewing that happened.
Speaker 2:But also, when you go into a Godzilla movie and I mean correct me if I'm wrong Again, we are casual Godzilla viewers. But when you go into a Godzilla film, a monster film, you expect to see some cool monster shots and there are definitely those in here. Like the, like I said, the the monster itself. Godzilla itself is very Unsettling as it evolves over time and its powers, and you know the blood and everything, and it's pretty, it looks pretty neat. You know, some of the visual effects are pretty solid as well.
Speaker 2:I mean 2016, this isn't that long ago, so there are Certainly things that were enjoyable, but in between all that, just the waiting man. That is what really got to us. And again, it was already late at night, later than we expected it to be. Did that really play a part? I don't think so, because we can. We stay up late all the time doing whatever, whether it's gaming or just shooting the shit, and we don't have that kind of problem.
Speaker 2:So when there's, it's just very heavy on dialogue, and you also can't tell us that it's because it was in sub, because we Preferred, we wanted to watch it in the sub, so that and we watch sub all the time, and then we all also don't have any issue there. So, by all means, for those of you that are Godzilla enthusiasts and really enjoyed this movie, let us know what we missed. But it just was, man. This was difficult for us to get through and, honestly, if we hadn't been watching it together so we could like a riff off of each other, we would have been in trouble, I think yeah, I don't know that I would have been able to finish the movie.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I would have gone back to it. I I genuinely don't know what would have happened, and we almost had to watch it in dub it Nakama, which is how they were showing it, which we didn't know that was on us for just assuming and also makes sense for that setting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, watch it in the dub.
Speaker 1:I couldn't imagine watching this in dub live-action. Dub is very hard to get into, so we watched it sub, we gave it a shot and we were in it. We were in it feel like we were okay with the running joke. I mean, this movie has at least 20 to 25 Location shots and out of those, 23 of them are conference rooms. So every time a new. How many rooms are in this building? Every time there was a new room, we would riff off of each other and we would have some fun with it, because it was like a Gradual thing we're like because I think we both, we both had noticed it, but then it kept happening and I was like, finally I had to say something.
Speaker 1:I was like how many different rooms are in this building and again, that's really funny after about six to ten times. I think this is very, for different reasons, very similar to Tyke what Titi's decision about the goat screams and Thor love and thunder Really funny about the first four or five times, but yeah, after we get the double digits it's like Okay, it's not funny anymore. There were also a lot of things that happened in this movie plot wise, that like there was just stuff happening Godzilla falling asleep, there would be situations that happen where he's not there and like I get, that's part of a monster movie. But they just didn't feel natural and I guess the reason for that film. I'm curious how you felt there was no character here. There was one that we thought was really pretty and very funny and her name was developed quite a crush on her in a very short time.
Speaker 1:Me Isha Harrah, who I've never seen in anything before. She also played Hanji in the live-action attack on Titan. Which kind of tracks With her personality yeah, I could see that she was a fun Ball of energy. Everyone else really bland. I didn't connect with in any way and we've connected with characters in international films.
Speaker 2:So that's Godzilla movies.
Speaker 1:And Godzilla movies, so that's out of the window. None of these characters were interesting and Phil, I didn't really believe that they could solve the problem, so when, like any Godzilla movie, obviously they did, I wasn't buying it.
Speaker 2:And also, it didn't seem like they really even may solve the problem based on the ending. Now, yeah, I'm not going to follow up on this. I don't really care as to see what happens after they have quote unquote solved the Godzilla problem, but there is an interesting idea there and again, treating it as a worldwide issue, which they also did in Godzilla versus Kong Like that happens too. But like the meeting of the different countries and people needing to come together and maybe accept help where they don't want to accept help. Right, because that's one of the big things. One of the major themes is that Japan wants to prove that they can handle this on their own.
Speaker 2:And again, I don't know too much about the 2011 tsunami. Obviously, we know it was just a catastrophic event, but I don't know if that's the kind of stuff that was going on behind the scenes. But also just in general, like you know, is it a sense of pride with countries they don't want to accept relief? You know they don't want to accept assistance. They want to show that they can take care of their people, and that's very interesting. I think that side of it as well.
Speaker 2:But you got to mix in. At least for us, you got to mix in something that will also keep us captivated and they're just having one of these conversations in one room and then having the follow-up conversation in the next room, and that was just repeat over and over again. They'd be like oh yeah, by the way, godzilla, now he's emerging from the Bay or he's, he's asleep with his eyes open or something, I don't know. It was really strange and I, as we, the further we got into it, we were like oh no, here we go again. Godzilla fans are once again going to be upset once they get a hold of this thing on TikTok, eric, it's over for us. We might have to stop. We might have to stop the podcast.
Speaker 1:We at least got to stop watching Godzilla movies, then Maybe that's it Apparently.
Speaker 2:yeah, that's the trouble.
Speaker 1:And again, shin Godzilla does play with a lot of different ideas and I love the monster vibe. Like when it sticks to that formula it's at its strongest. But when it does this political mind game with these conference rooms, again the tagline for the episode is Kaiju versus conference rooms, the Battle of the Century. Like that's what this movie was Like. I can't imagine that anyone thinks it's more than this. Really, I just don't understand it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And, once again, you can use political motivation and Godzilla together, I think relatively easily, but when the conversations that are being had are not very interesting, then then why should I care, you know? So I think that's just the best way to put it. I really wish there was more to discuss, but like that's all that really happens here. I know they're. I know, I'm sure if I dug into it more which I'm not going to, I'm just gonna be honest There'll be more to uncover here, but I'm going to leave Shin Godzilla right where it sits in my, in my mind and never look back.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry. I'm sorry guys, we're good, this was a miss and we move on and we hope, we hope things get better for me. All right, we're hoping that our December late to the party we have high expectations for. Well, eric's already seen it. Yes, I saw it a little bit early in the year, so I'm very excited to watch it as well. But man, we just wanted to see big lizard Dude do big lizard things and I didn't get that. Yeah, no, we didn't get enough of that to be not enough.
Speaker 1:There you go, yeah so we've got a couple things that we need to answer. As we kind of get to the end of this episode. We'll talk about the reception to this film, as we do typically, but before we get there, phil, we got to rank it. Is it better?
Speaker 2:totally, I totally forgot, because I totally forgot to letterbox this thing, because I forgot about it immediately, oh Crap well.
Speaker 1:So at least off of your, off the top of your head. Is it better or worse than the shining?
Speaker 2:Oh God oh, no, oh, oh, boy See.
Speaker 1:I was bored. It was pretty boring reasons for different reasons. All that saves it above the shining is the fact that Godzilla was pretty cool, right, like that's what puts it just if you put Godzilla in the shining, then yeah, it's the blood. No, it's still better.
Speaker 2:It's definitely still better than the shining. I hate that movie so much, god, do we just so?
Speaker 1:bad, we just think it. If we hadn't made enough people mad, we would just remind them of our opinion of the shine.
Speaker 2:Yeah well you know, if you enjoy the shine. It actually kind of does make me want to watch doctor sleep, because I heard it's just so much better than the shining. I don't think I ever will. But like, yeah, but ultimately let's well, let's talk about Ron tomato scores here and then we'll do our letterbox score Afterwards, or did we do it? Do we do it reversed?
Speaker 1:We do. Either way, I don't think, I don't think anyone's gonna want to talk about shin Godzilla anymore. Let's just move on.
Speaker 2:Okay, she's got a lot 86% certified fresh to meter meter score from critics, which is to be expected again. This is a very highly praised film. We just did not connect with it in 75% audience score. So that seems like it's kind of like, you know, teetering for a lot of people. I would be interested to see how many.
Speaker 2:This doesn't seem like a Godzilla movie that people are gonna, are gonna seek out, that are casual Godzilla fans, you know like. We're watching it because obviously we want to, we want to experience Films that are obviously very highly praised. A casual Godzilla fan is not gonna watch this movie. So, 75 audience score. Its average score on letterbox is 30.9. So almost a four, which is wild. So, um, eric, I will go. First, I ended up giving shin Godzilla two. Then that's mostly for big lizard, um, and then our and then our new favorite actress apparently as well. So I gave it a two because, again, she was very fun. Yeah, we, yes, we definitely developed a crush on her a very short amount of time, but she was also very fun it was a personality.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, this movie is like a character. This movie is devoid of any joy or excitement, or like even anything, it's a disaster.
Speaker 2:We doesn't necessarily have to be riffing and it doesn't have to be funny, but there has to be likeable characters a little bit.
Speaker 1:I mean again when 1999's Godzilla's the bar.
Speaker 2:Best Godzilla films? No, it's not. It is not the film Stop I must have I must have misread the room. I gave it a two and honestly I feel like that's generous, but I felt like a one and a half was too disrespectful. But maybe I'll go. I don't know. As of right now it's it's at a two. It might change at the end of the year, who knows, when we talk about like our least favorite film of 20 that we watched in 2023. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll see what happens. Um, I gotta agree with you. A two, I really think it. In a different mood I could think it's a 2.25. In a in a worse or mood I could think of a 1.75. So I don't think it too feels right. Again, this is just our daily ask for letterbox to do point two.
Speaker 2:five scores, that's all, eric do you have a secret rotten tomatoes account? Because somebody who want to review this? Two days ago we're recording on November 6th, Somebody put in their review on rotten tomatoes first, All the boardroom scenes felt unnecessary and they dragged on and the characters are so bland and uninteresting no it wasn't me, are you sure?
Speaker 1:I'm positive, john.
Speaker 2:Cena, Are you sure about that? No, they gave it. They gave it half a star, which is very Okay. That's a little aggressive.
Speaker 1:So again the movie plays with interesting ideas of what it could be and I think for that our favorite actress now and Godzilla being cool, I think, is enough to get it to a two, which for perspective means that the shining is in the ones. So just want to make that clear Did I give the shining? Just I didn't. We didn't even do letterbox at that time. But I have scored it on letterbox. That's going to be interesting. You probably scored it too high. I guarantee you're going to end up having to drop it now.
Speaker 2:I gave it a one and a half. Oh, that's not bad, I'm going to drop it to a one.
Speaker 1:Honestly, it feels like a one. Oh what Well? No one and a half's fair for Jack Nicholson, maybe, but like no more than that. No, I don't know more than that. So that's good to know where our door is.
Speaker 2:I rather watch anger management with Jack Nicholson. Wait, that movie's good too. What do you get? I'm just saying in terms of Jack Nicholson hierarchy. I'm pretty sure anger management comes up way later in the discussion for most normal, sane people.
Speaker 1:That's understandable, phil. This was a fun episode, you know, to be able to talk. We didn't really get a chance. We literally were so groggy I was almost dead asleep by the end of it. We didn't even talk, we just silently parted ways. So this was our chance to talk about the film. Phil, let's start to wrap up the episode and and start to kind of kick it from here. Next month's episode We'll talk about that in a moment as well, but let people know where they can listen to us and future episodes of the Wait For A Podcast.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Once again. If you met Eric this past weekend at Nakamakana, you're checking us out for the first time. We thank you so much. We have a lot of fun here at the on the podcast and we have fun conversations just like this. Most of them, and most of the things we talk about, we enjoy.
Speaker 2:So if this was this is not a precursor to every single episode. In fact, you should listen to the rest of our library, which you can find anywhere you listen to podcasts and you can find that in our link tree link, in our show notes. You also find our social media pages. You can keep up with us. A lot of you already following us there. So, thank you so much. So check us out on Instagram, tik Tok and Discord. That is where we are the most active and we really appreciate it. If you want to support the podcast a little bit extra, you can share episodes, tag us, let us know that you're listening, let other people know that you are listening, and then you can also leave five star reviews on Apple podcasts or Spotify. We would very, very much appreciate it. We have a whole lot planned for the remainder of the year and if you find yourself, you know, just in the giving mood as we approach the holidays, you can support us a little bit extra, and Eric will let you know how to do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so directly on our Buzzsprout page is a way that you can support us. Or financially, you can support us on Patreon and get extra perks that are available on that platform, where patrons like Stefan and Briar are helping to support the show. This will get you access to exclusive behind the scenes before and after credits of the show and early access to episodes, along with much more, with multiple tiers to choose. So we really appreciate any and all support. And if you can't go that extra mile, like Phil mentioned, a like, a comment, a share those things do the world of good for our podcasters, like us. With that being said, next month's episode is going to be spirited away. So we're really excited to start getting into the routine of preparing you guys for what the next movie will be. I have seen it and Phil has not, but I've only seen it in the last six to nine months. This will be Phil's first time. We're also, as a little bit of a spoiler, going to be watching the boy in the heron.
Speaker 2:So December, Studio Ghibli month, robert Patton. So now here showing us he can do anything. Wild, that guy is good, he's talented. We haven't even seen the movie yet and I was like, oh my God, imagine watching Twilight in 2000 and whatever it came out, and then be like that guy's going to be an excellent voice actor one day, wouldn't?
Speaker 1:catch me making any bets, but again, we have a lot of great stuff in the month of December. The rest of November is going to be stacked as well with episodes for Nova, stars, ac with the creator, spotlight and also reviewing Spider-Man 2. We have beaten the game. We're excited to tell you how we thought of what we thought about it. So, with that being said, my name is Mr Eric Almighty, that is my co-host, phil the Filipino, and, please remember, we release new episodes on the podcast every Wednesday, with bonus content on platforms like TikTok, and all you have to do is wait for it.
Speaker 2:So I heard you're looking for a go to source for entertainment.
Speaker 1:Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it Anime.
Speaker 2:Plus Ultra, mr Eric.
Speaker 1:Almighty and Phil the Filipino yeah, they've got you covered, and all you got to do is wait for it. This is the wait for it podcast.