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May 2, 2025 81 mins
In our first episode, Martin and Gretchen start with the movie Godzilla: Minus One. For a decade, Gretchen and I were on the Kaijucast, a podcast dedicated to Godzilla and his rubber-suited foes. In all those years of watching Godzilla films, this is the one that I always wanted to see. Gretchen and I talk about this movie and and a few other Godzilla films. 

Martin and Gretchen talk movies and more at Check the Gate. https://martinvavra.me
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You know, normal monsters. It would be like is this
food or fight or whatever kind of response. He's not
like obviously hungry me does eat them, which is something
I'd never seen. I don't think I've ever seen Godzilla
eat somebody before really like chomp, like.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Like no, Well, so the the Dean Devlin one, doesn't
Godzilla chomp a couple of people in there?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well, yeah, you're talking about nineteen ninety eight Gonzilla.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Yeah, but I think it's like Chompson. Doesn't this one.
We actually see Godzilla.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Like grabbrow and yeah, like a dinosaur.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
Yes, Hey, everyone, thank you for being here. This is
the inaugural episode of the Check the Gate podcast, which
is also going to be on YouTube and Instagram. Maybe
I'll get it over onto TikTok as well. But this

(00:55):
is something that's been kind of brewing for a little
while now. I have wonderful friends, and I work in
a wonderful community of film people, and I love to
talk about film.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I love to talk about film all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
I love the people that I talk to and watch
films with. Yeah, and Gretchen is one of the dearest
people that I have watched films with and talked about
films with for a decade, yeah, and I talked about
films for well over a decade now.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
But well, yeah, because like on the we were on
the Kaiju Cast and that I was on for four years.

Speaker 2 (01:27):
I forget in there where I officially met you, because
I did do the Zombie web series in twenty ten and.

Speaker 1 (01:35):
That was before my time somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
In the con world prior to Kaiju Cast or around
the beginning of Kaiju Castes.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Did I meet you through Kyle and Kaiju.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Cast, Yes, or maybe I don't know, it was somewhere
in there. We had a lot of like friends of
our mutuals and those kind of over those intersects.

Speaker 2 (01:55):
And it's a big over here a small town. Yeah,
big overlaps in a small town.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
True.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
And so I started doing Kaiju cast with Kyle Yount.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Yeah, and you came on four years into it.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
I four or five years into it because I was
I came on as originally friends with his wife and
how it's so weird because again like the whole overlapping groups,
like we knew each other but didn't know each other
kind of thing. And then I came in as doing

(02:31):
the Bechdel Test and talking about the Bechdel Test and
Kaiju films because I came from another show. I was
on a small podcast called the Horror Brew Podcast, and
that one where we did a lot of like with
discourse about horror movies obviously, and then we would do
a like a cocktail that we would kind of favor

(02:51):
around that. It was kind of the beginning of that
like where a lot of people do that now with
a brew And you know, I was one, yeah, oh no,
it was really cute. It was a cute one. And
then they end up doing like tor trivia in Portland
and then they moved, they moved to New York. But yeah,
so I was asked to come on for Women of
Horror Month on the Kaiju Cast and talk about the

(03:13):
Bechdel Test and how related in Kaiju films and oh,
this is not pass at all, but you know it's
a that's a low bar, but you know this is
we're talking about movies that weren't even expected to be
in that nature like they were. Kaiju films were more
of the you know, the the fantastical and more kid less,

(03:37):
less humans are more scenery than they are actual characters,
and those films back in the day, yeah show era.
But yeah, so that's how I got started on the
Kaiju Cast. And then they brought you and I was
like I know you, and you were like I know you.
And because we had like a revolving cast and that
would you know, we'd have like multiple people from different areas,

(03:59):
like Charles Babbage and then you know, like the Dave
Helfrey and everybody. We kind of all moved around.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
Yeah, it was pretty great. I was on the very
first episode. Yeah, it wasn't on every episode. There were
just times where life didn't allow me to be there,
but I was on most. I think I was on
more than fifty percent.

Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:22):
So Kaiju Cast, for those of you that don't know,
the Kaiju Cast was Kyle gownt and it was him.
He's a huge Kaiju fan, Godzilla fan. This was a
really big deal for him launching.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
All of this stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
And he already had sort of a foothold in the
Godzilla rubber Suited monster universe, but this really expanded it.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
And so it was always news.

Speaker 2 (04:46):
And we talked with people who were in the films
and people who made films, fanmas, food, actors, oh, man,
it was.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
It was such a good time. It was a very
healthy on days with that because there were we had
so much access to people that were part of like
FX teams. And I mean this is also before like
it got real big in America. I feel like we
were kind of at the beginning of that, like getting
to see that that crest cresting happened before that wave

(05:16):
crash into the legendary films where people got more like
Godzilla Evolution I suppose, yeah, American cinema.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
This was post Dean Devlin nineteen nineties Godzilla, yeah, and
this was pre legendary Gareth Edwards Godzilla.

Speaker 1 (05:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
So we came in early in that stuff, yeah, talking.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
About it, and we talked about things that people hadn't
conversations people hadn't had before, like talking about shoa era
and heysey era and like those were terms that people
hadn't heard before, especially like how they related to like
Japanese cinema and with also with Kaiju cinema. But yeah,
it was we had we were in a time where

(05:58):
this was still very new and still like getting to
expose people to things they had never seen before and
explaining what these meant and these eras of Godzilla films meant.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
And even for the folks that were Godzilla fans, because
we had a huge Godzilla fan following. People who went
to g Fest or they went to other kind of
events that had anything god absolutely monster.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
It was a good time.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Yeah, So there was already this fan base that was
kind of there that didn't really have anybody feeding into
it because it was also I mean twenty ten. That
seems weird to say, well, it's fifteen years ago now,
but nobody was Like podcasts were kind of laughed at.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
Really yeah, they were really new, and you know, they
were still kind of they were still kind of like
that's a nerd thing. I mean, well we are nerds,
but I mean it still is.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
It still really is now it's a monetized nerd right
smash that like button for.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Alert subscribe, I can subscribe and share with all your friends.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
That's right, because you know what this world needed was
another mediocre, middle aged white man with an opinion on films.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well, and that's where like that was a part of
that was that was interesting for me coming into that
was that the well it's still really really truly is,
but there is It's Kaiju films and Kaiju nerdom and
that kind of stuff. Still very boys club and it's
a little more it's a little more open nowadays, but

(07:42):
I would just even say, like four years ago or
two years ago, it's still really boys club. I mean,
there's like I could probably name ten women and the
Kaiju fandom that are like impactful, like ten yeah, out
of a sea of dudes, and like a very even
smaller that a non binary contingent being like the very

(08:06):
small amount even smaller minority. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Well, thankfully that didn't bring about any type of weird
interactions from the fan base with you being out there.
Sure yeah, yeah, but so so we did Kaiju Cast, Yeah,
as well as seeing each other out in the wild
and in various conventions around town and whatnot. So our
VENN diagram started to kind of merge, I guess a

(08:33):
little bit, getting closer and closer to one. So yeah,
so Kaiju Cast did its thing, and Rachel who was
a part of that as well, and yeah, there was
the whole contingency of folks. Yeah, and then Kaiju Cast
concluded after a decade. Yeah, we had a few random
episodes that we did in there as well, just with
film releases.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
We all kind of got the band back together.

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Oh yeah, for like we did for we did Let's see.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Shin Godzilla, we got back to that was.

Speaker 1 (09:02):
We were still the show was still going.

Speaker 3 (09:04):
Then was this still for shin O? Yeah, we it
must have been like.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
It was for one of the legendary films, and it
was for we did a small like he has an
Kyle has another program called Cleectal Monsters, and it took
more of a fubie toy more oriented towards like the
toys of the of like Kaiju toys and whatnot, and
they they had a like crossover like a Kaiju cast versus.

(09:33):
And then when we all got together for Godzilla minus one,
that was also like a really big deal.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
That's a great segue. Yeah, what are we talking about today?

Speaker 1 (09:41):
Hey, Godzilla minus one?

Speaker 3 (09:43):
Godzilla minus one?

Speaker 2 (09:45):
Yeah, So and well with the Kaiju cast, I was
always I was kind of the naysayer because I didn't
have the historic viewing that a lot of the fans did,
and a lot of the people that partici paid it
in the show and watched a lot of the movies,
even outside of Godzilla, like a lot of the other

(10:06):
kind of rubber suited monster film, so most people had
more of.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
A godging or an understanding them.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Some many people grew up with it. I mean not me.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
I was.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
I kind of came into it like in the early
in the late nineties, so I was more of a
like a Heysay era of like millennial like Millennium series
type stuff, and then went back and rewatched and caught up.
But a lot of people have that, like not like
strong nostalgia from like I watched it on like the
Monster double feature blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Cool. Yeah, I mean right, And I didn't get to
have that.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
So I didn't have TV growing up, so I didn't
get to really see Godzilla. And I saw a few
Godzilla movies here and there, a little bit, not in
their entirety.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
I knew they were out there.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
I didn't know the eras, I didn't know the movies
or anything like that. Uh, I'm I'm kind of Uh,
I guess I'm one of those. So I'm a mystery
science theater three thousand Godzilla persons. Yeah, Gamera, right, the
exactly Gamera and uh and I forget a couple of

(11:16):
the Godzillas, but those were really the first time where
I had watched most of a Godzilla film, but I
was watching it with commentary, so it wasn't it wasn't
the same. So I didn't have the same lore and
knowledge that a lot of people did, so to a degree,
I was a little bit of the naysayer in the group.

Speaker 1 (11:33):
Well there were also dubs too, Yeah, yes, so you
also got that you didn't have that like the language
exposure that it was like the seriousness or the seriousness
of like whatever show era of that kind of stuff.
But yeah, yeah, but you were kind of the straight.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Guy I was, And at the time, I had just
moved from one career into a film career, so I
was early in my film career and I was still
I was making my own films and doing commercial work.
While I'm now watching these films for the first time
with a fan base of people who absolutely ador them,

(12:12):
and then I'm dissecting them, right, how dare you through
my own lens? In my you know, in my forties, I'm.

Speaker 1 (12:20):
A horror movies. That's what I came in with. A
I have a strong knowledge of Japanese horror. I had
a a like I brought to the table was besides
the Bechdel test is that I had a like ridiculous
knowledge of Japanese horror movies and like the evolution of

(12:43):
how Japanese cinema, like Japanese horror kind of made its
way into America. And so that was my bent, is
that I brought that whole like talking about the horror
elements of like these films and what they're the intent,
their attention, or at least my interpretation of intention. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Nice, well, and so that's been huge, Like your friendship
and my relationship with you through these movies. Going to
horror has been really huge because because I didn't grow
up with TV, I also didn't grow up with a
functional movie theater in my town.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
The functional movie theater was one hundred and thirty miles away.
It was from where I was.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
I grew up in a little tiny town in eastern Oregon,
So that's where that you had to travel one hundred
and thirty miles to go to a movie theater. We
did have a rental store. We didn't have a Blockbuster though. Yeah,
we did have a rental store. This is this is
mid to late eighties. Yeah, so that was it. Like
you had the VHS local store and that was how

(13:48):
we watched movies and so and also part of the
background of of me with just a Christian conservative family
who didn't who was very much afraid of those kind
of things, so I didn't watch horror movies. It was
it was a really really, really really big deal when

(14:08):
I first saw Jaws, and I think I saw Jaws,
you know, probably somewhere around like eighty seven eighty eight
for the first time. I mean it had been out
for over a decade by then. Alien was the same
way the first time. I I don't think I saw Alien,
the first Alien movie, until probably around like eighty nine,

(14:32):
ninety ninety one, somewhere in the world where I was
like lateeen's early twenties. So horror was I was literally
afraid of watching horror films because I didn't know what
I was watching, right, and I had these old tendrils
of religion and various things that were still in there.
So I was literally afraid of horror. And so you

(14:58):
and Kyle, Dave Helfrey a few other folks have been
this really great, wonderful introduction to horror films and like, oh,
I gotta go and see them. There's a there's a
person here in town who I hope to get on
the show with us sometime. Jerry is her name. A
writer has a podcast Whiskey and Horror. I believe it's

(15:18):
called like her knowledge of horror is unbelievable and it's crazy,
the awesome stuff that she watched. Trista Perez, who knows
her horror. She really knows her Grindhouse stuff. Yeah, really,
but again even Grindhouse, Like, it's amazing to have watched
the films now in my forties and now into my

(15:39):
early fifties that I remember seeing the box covers for
in the VHS store and being afraid of them and
now watching them and gone, oh my goodness, Like I
wouldn't have I would have said, yeah, they're crazy, and
I don't know how I would have processed those Yeah,
in my teens, not having I guess some money there

(16:00):
to explain to me.

Speaker 3 (16:02):
What a low budget is or you know, what a
B movie is or anything like that. My family we didn't.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Talk about that really back then either. I don't think
that was like part of the scope of conversation. I
think like as we've evolved as an audience, like people
have begun to understand what these these kind of terminology means,
like what the difference between a grindhouse film is versus
watching like this is a B B rated action film,

(16:29):
or is this a Is this a horror film? Or
is this a horror comedy? Or you know, is this
black comedy? Is this you know, it's it's that kind
of thing. I think that those are terms that we're
still like we evolve as an audience and you become
more having more discerning tastes.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Yeah, you know, I saw a Texas chainsaw massacre for
the first time in twenty twenty four, no king original.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, no kidding, Yeah, I had never seen it before.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
You think at fifty three, I was still afraid to
watch the Texas chainsaw massacre because I didn't know. Well,
first off, I was surprised at how by today's standards, how.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
Low volume the violence is that's necessarily right camera.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
It's the it's that one is about thematic setting.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
I mean, hoper Man, it was amazing. So I don't
know what the budget was on that incredibly low that
was That was was that seventy six.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Something, maybe even.

Speaker 3 (17:31):
Earlier, but so it was somewhere in there.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
It was in the seventies.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, and that I think his budget was like one
hundred thousand dollars something like that.

Speaker 3 (17:40):
One hundred and twenty thousand dollars. I don't know. Don't
quote me on that one.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
I don't remember, but it was ridiculously low for something
that was being released into the theaters to some extent,
which was the same for like Halloween. Halloween I had
a three hundred thousand dollars budget in the seventies when.

Speaker 3 (17:55):
They made that one. Yeah, but yeah, so.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
I was angry it myself for not having watched Texas
Chainsaw sooner. Yeah, it was. It was fun to watch.
It was great. Uh, and I watched it? Did I
watch it at I think I watched it at the
Hollywood Theater.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
It was a Hollywood theater a millimeter Yeah, and so
it was it was so it was so good.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
It was it was. It was fun to watch.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
And yeah, the the art design and the sets and
everything when they get into the house and just everything
that's in there was so good. The things that they
were like pulling off and trying to pull together. But
it's it's and it scared people, yes, because of tense movie.

Speaker 1 (18:39):
Because he was masterful, masterful and building tension in that film,
and then on top of that, using those elements of
like what we are knowledge of serial killers, and I
think that that kind of preyed on the people's fears
at that time too. I mean that's always what I

(19:00):
feel like, Godzilla films, horror films in general, reflection of
what people's societal fears are at the time. Yeah, yeah,
I mean look at like we were looking at Godzilla minus.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
One, right, Yeah, Well, so that's our So that's our
first film. That's the film that we chose our first
film to talk about because because we have all of
this history, and we went and rewatched it again in
the theater because it was re released, and then we
watched it again.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
That was cool in black and white?

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah? Was that your first time seeing it in black
and white?

Speaker 3 (19:37):
It was my first time watching it in black and white?

Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, isn't it pretty?

Speaker 3 (19:40):
It is pretty. You saw it in the theater in
black and white?

Speaker 1 (19:43):
So I was I nerded out on that one because
I was so completely blown away by this film, and
I I saw Hit at the theater like six times,
like the first time I saw it because I knew
we were going to do a Kaiju cast episode on it,
and that we end up doing like a Zoom meeting
and it was us and I think some people from

(20:05):
Collect All Monsters and they but that podcast isn't normally
a film podcast, so it's always interesting to kind of
put us together with them too, like because they're they're
mostly they mostly talk about I mean, they talk about
the movies, but they talk about them in a very
light manner and like mostly in description of like this

(20:25):
of the toys themselves, and I think that, like, so
it's just kind of a like different meeting of minds
when we do those kinds of episodes with them. But yeah,
like with Godzilla Minus one, I was so blown away
by a modern Godzilla film. I mean, I love should Godzilla.
That is my favorite quote me on it. I guess

(20:51):
I'm quoted as should Godzilla is my favorite Godzilla film,
And then I would say second to that being well
Hidora versus Godzilla and this one, I mean, I loved
love this movie. It is that this was the first
time in a Godzilla film that I really cared about

(21:13):
the human element and it was easy to care about
these characters. They were flawed and we saw a hero's
journey and I mean I'm just really lightly overtouching the
tops of the of the subjects that are shown in
that film.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
But it.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Was the first of its kind in a lot of ways,
and I'm really looking forward to seeing what this director
is going to bring to the table because he got
greenlit for a second film and his favorite Godzilla film
is also Godzilla Versus Hodora. So I have some hope
that we're going to have another canonical Godzilla series of

(21:55):
films that is not an American.

Speaker 3 (21:58):
Make and on a very little budget.

Speaker 1 (22:02):
Too, would be grand, right, or something ridiculous like that.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
It was, I think it was under fifteen million.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Under fifteen million. I heard it was like a really
ridiculous loan number. Yeah, there was a fifteen million that
that's still really low for horrendous. I mean, woo, go
if you haven't seen this film, go out and watch
this film immediately. It's ridiculous and come back to us.
Yeah it is, uh.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Yeah, spoilers yeah, because possibly?

Speaker 1 (22:29):
Right, Well, I mean, is there anything to spoil There's nothing.
There's no grand surprise in this at all.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
They're warned just in case. Okay, who knows spoiler alerts. Yeah,
if it's been out for more than a year. I figure,
you don't have to be able to warn anybody. But
you know, I'm not ready to start building any type
of YouTube Internet hate yet that's coming.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, I figure if you see the title of this
is going to be first episode Godzilla minus one.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Yeah, if I burn a bridge on the Internet, it's
not going to be because I spoiled it. It's because
I said something else stupid.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
So but yeah, I mean, this film had a low
budget and there is no way shape form or fashion
do you see this as a low budget film. This
director did a Pachinko commercial, right, And he also did

(23:21):
the theme park Godzilla for the there's a I think
it's called like an oh gosh, I cannot remember the
name of the theme park. But he did a small
like movie, a Godzilla movie. And I think that's why
he was even allowed to like get on board with
this because he is a new director as far as
Tohoe is concerned. But he did a lot of the

(23:46):
anime remake or anime like live action films like he
did Parasite, he did, he had the he.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
Did in visual effects. He's got a whole vision.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Yeah. Yeah, And he also was part of the Attack
on Titan stuff.

Speaker 3 (24:05):
Oh okay, he did those.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
He's like, he's huge in that industry. The Doremond movies,
the Dragon Quest movie, I think is also his. He's
pretty prolific as far as like what he's done with
a CGI anime style and bringing that to life. So

(24:28):
Toho trusting him to do Godzilla was a big deal
and it shows. I mean it shows in every moment,
every frame, the how much he loves loves Godzilla.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
Yeah, loves Godzilla, but is also a storyteller.

Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yes, that's the big thing.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
Because a lot of the directors when we were on
the Kaiju cast, repeat directors, new directors that would come in.
People were fans, Yeah, they were big fans, but they
were usually burdened with.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Low budgets. Yeah, and quick turnarounds.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Because it always seemed like, and I don't know this specifically,
this is how it felt, just through all of our
movie discussions and filling in it. So I'm filling in
a little bit of space here on my own, it
always felt like Godzilla was on the cusp of being
canceled in some way of like going away, We're not
going to do another one. And then it always seemed
like there was like just enough, like it did just

(25:23):
enough where someone was like, oh, this did make a profit,
and people do still like this thing. Quick, let's go
make another one and go get in on. It's this
big scramble and everybody's rent an. They're throwing a little
bit of money and they're trying to rebuild cities and
put it on, you know, repaint the old suit real quick.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
You know that we burned the last time.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Throw it all together and make another one and get
it while the while, you know, while the iron's hot.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
I think that fandoms fall in love again. Yeah, and
I think that like every like younger I hate to
say the younger generation, but like I think that each
evolution that we get of Godzilla is somebody revisiting those
films are falling back in love with those films.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Yeah, well they did it with Legendary. I can't say, yeah,
the Legendary films are not made for me.

Speaker 1 (26:12):
No, they're not made for us as Godullah fans, but
like they're made for American kids that you know, especially
the most recent ones. I watched one of them the
other day and I was like, oh boy, I hadn't
seen the new Goddila versus Kong, New Empire, whatever, Ghostbusters,
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, I haven't seen that one yet either. God's versus
Kong was that was so nothing matters the movie to me,
And I was like, well, I don't know if I
need to.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
I think that. You know, there comes a point when
we're making movies to make moneies and we're making movies
that will put butts in seats and sell popcorn.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Yeah, throw it in there. Yeah, why not, let's commercrafts. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:02):
Hollow Earth, Hollow Earth. That was for me. What was it?
What was one of those like something camouflage Like, I
was like, what year is this movie supposed to be in?

Speaker 3 (27:14):
Oh my gosh, I don't think.

Speaker 2 (27:16):
Well, I don't think you can try to even run
a calendar of days within the movie, because it's like
we're on Skull Island.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
Now we're on a ship. Now we're in the center
of the Earth. Now we're in Tokyo.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
Now we're in and there's a transport system between the
two and it takes us days to be able to
get over here, but this thing gets you there an hour.
So it's like, yeah, there's no chronology like times out
the time.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I feel very I feel very like fractured when I
watch those films. Yeah, I'm I'll be honest, I'll be
bagging on those if we I mean, that's I mean,
that's going to be. I have no love for the
legendary films. The first one I was like, okay, I
was like, this has potential. And then I was like

(27:57):
I could foresee what was going to happen that at
studios would be a part of it, and production companies
would be like, let's put this Coca Cola product in
or Surge energy drink or whatever the you know. Yeah,
and so that was that was the obvious route that
those films were going. But that's okay because we got
shin Godzilla, which was a love I mean, we have

(28:20):
that's the director of Evangelian and so there was so
much brought to that and it was a very serious film,
and American fans didn't love that because it was procedural,
it was very Japanese.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
There was very much a commentary on the on the
political yesh bureaucrotic system of.

Speaker 1 (28:43):
Japan, and that was not made for an American audience.
And so I understand when when American audiences go like, oh, well,
that's silly, blah blah blah. I love that film because
of the the idea of Godzilla evolving and starting from
some and so we to circle back to like Godzilla
minus one. We get that in a way, but what

(29:08):
we get is the the evolution isn't quite as like
Amoebic to two monster, but more of a this this
Whereas I felt like shin Godzilla was kind of like
a god and had a very like toneology, they were
kind of like they kept parkening back to like mythic

(29:29):
monsters and things like that. Whereas this Godzilla and Goddilla
minus one is a monster. I mean absolutely, he's a monster. Yeah,
and he has these terrifying expressions and there we're not
supposed to be like, oh Godzilla. You know, Godzilla is
not our friend in this. He is a monster. I

(29:51):
mean his first appearance as on the island and where
our hero crashes, doesn't really crash, but he's yeah, I
mean i'll let you if you want to. Well, he's
going to break it down.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah he's faking. He's not faking.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
But it's so essentially our setup is that with our hero,
our anti hero, Yeah, somebody who's certainly forced into it,
that doesn't doesn't have any other kind of choices in anything. Eventually,
but yeah, he's been selected to be a kamikaze pilot,
but his fear overrides his sense of duty. So they

(30:30):
had these series of islands that people could use to
land in certain places if they were having mechanical problems
anything like that, or they could refuel. And he lands
on one of these islands, and it becomes apparent very
quickly that this person is and I'm not saying it,
but in the eyes of the people, he's a coward
because he's supposed to be dying for the Japanese Empire

(30:54):
at the closing days of World War Two. So's he's
certainly not setting himself up to be a hero for
the audience, but clearly not for the characters in the film.
It's going to take a lot before anybody ever starts
to even consider him an option for anything, because he

(31:15):
is he's considered a coward.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
He's a he's a flawed hero. I mean, he suffers
from I mean. This is also where we kind of
touch on reflections of like modern society, is that we
are still kind of working around the idea of like
what PTSD does, what war does to soldiers and whatnot,
And we see the we see our hero he's suffering

(31:40):
from this, like from the PTSD. In Japanese culture, they
have a saying that's like the hammer that sticks out
gets gets the nail that sticks out gets hammered down.
And I think that was very that was a very
prevalent thing that was happening right the very beginning of
this film. Character, I mean, his familiar responsibility. There was

(32:04):
all that expectation on him it and then we have
this monster attack the island, and the other soldiers on
the island are like, you only have You're the only
one with the gun, and you have the machine gun
and your airplane, and he is still so afraid that

(32:25):
he can't even pull the trigger. Yeah, and shoot Godzilla down.
I don't know if I would be able to. I mean,
I'd be like, it's good too.

Speaker 3 (32:31):
I have no idea what I would do in this
kind of situation.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
I'm not a soldier either, and I have wasn't you
know that was that was also you know.

Speaker 3 (32:40):
Yeah, I think it's really easy for anybody.

Speaker 1 (32:43):
To go, oh, I would shoot him right.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Well, anyone to have that whole like diehard mentality of like,
oh yeah, as soon as shit starts to go down,
I'm I'm the one that's gonna crawl in the air
ducks and go barefoot, and I'm gonna pull all this
stuff off.

Speaker 3 (32:56):
You know, I've seen enough karate movies.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
I you know, I can fight against international terrorist organization,
and quite frankly, I have no idea what I would
do in those because of that same setup. He's waylaid
on the island. He claims that he's had mechanical problems.
They're gonna fix it. Enough time has gone by that
we have our first incident with the monster. The monster

(33:19):
arrives and everyone scrambling around because this there was an
island legend, but nobody took it seriously. Now Here is
this giant lizard in its first form that we're seeing
is running around in there. It's like roughly forty feet
tall at that point in time, you know, and that's
the you know, jump into your plane and you know,

(33:40):
stand by with the machine gun and when he goes by,
you're gonna hit him with the machine gun and he
freezes up and pretty much everybody dies. Not because he
doesn't pull the trigger. But because they all start shooting
at him with their little rifles, which catches Godzilla's attention,
and then Godzilla just kind of mops the island with him.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
And isn't Godzilla at this point he has been his creation.
His inception is because of not just being an island legend.
I mean, you get the impression that it's he's an
evolution of atomic atomic weapons, like and he seems pained

(34:24):
like that. That was one of the things that really
struck me with this Godzilla is that he seems like
he's like constantly in pain. Like his skin is like
activated and bubbled and like heat signatures, and there's there's
so much attention that's drawn to like what he has

(34:45):
as he starts to or as he evolves into the
monster that we see at the end. I think what
his vision was that with with creating a monster that
was going to evolve, that it wasn't just going to
be like this gentile of evolution, that it was very
pained and everything that seemed like because like even when
Godzilla attacks the island, he has these like strings of

(35:09):
flesh that are between his jaws, so when he's roaring,
you can see like those like rivets of skin and
that looks like it hurts. I thought that was cool.
Like this me, he's always angry us all the time,
so like them shooting him, he's like what the heck?

Speaker 3 (35:24):
Man?

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Yeah, like I'm I'm just here. And he doesn't seem
to be like, like you know, normal monsters. It would
be like it's this food or fight or whatever kind
of response. He's not like obviously hungry me does eat them,
which is something I'd never seen. I don't think I've
ever seen Godzilla eat somebody before really like chomp.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
Like like no, well, so the uh the Dean Devlin one.
Doesn't Godzilla chomp a couple of people in there?

Speaker 1 (35:53):
Oh well, yeah, you're talking about nineteen ninety eight Godzilla.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
Yeah, but I think it's like chomps and doesn't this one.
We actually see Godzilla like.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Grad grab somebody throw like a dinosaur. Yes, And that's
yes what I mean by saying it was like a
monster versus like Shin had a kind of god like
aspect to him, whereas this guy, he's a monster.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
Yeah. Well, and so I didn't. I didn't.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
I definitely caught all of that stuff on the evolution
of Godzilla once we're off the island, the atomic blast
has happened. We're in post war, we're getting into nineteen
forty six, and we have those montages of nuclear weapons
being tested by the Americans out in the ocean.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
Oh yeah, and then seeing Godzilla underwater like bubbling and
being like his eyes like furiating. So i've that's again
he's in pain.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
Yes, I definitely got it off of for that for sure.
I didn't necessarily notice it on the early Godzilla and.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
I I don't know. I guess I didn't try to
read into it too much.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
And now that we know they're going to be a sequel,
we can kind of see what kind of a world
building process is going to go on, if there's other creatures,
or how the director views Godzilla in all of this,
because in the past movies there was always Godzilla the Protector,
Godzilla the Retribution right exactly. So on this one, I

(37:20):
guess I took it at such a surface level that
Godzilla was a monster, but some kind of like a
almost like a holdover monster that happened to be on
this island isolated.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
I don't know if there'll be other creatures, so what they'll.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Do with it it seemed more just an instinctive animal like.
It seemed very dinosaur like to me when we first
encounter Godzilla, and then it's that evolved radiation monster that
becomes the pained, tortured beast that you're talking about.

Speaker 3 (37:55):
So I definitely got that. So that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (37:57):
It makes me want to go back and watch it
again and see if I noticed that stuff in the
early version.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Well, if you look at him, he's like you can
see like they do it again when they show him later,
like as his final evolution or whatever. But when he's
on the island, there's these quick little because it's so
much darkness happening, and it's harder to see in the
black and white version, but in the color version you
can see those. Like the way they animated it or

(38:25):
did the CGI, like everything seems to have a heat signature,
so it's almost like blurring. And that's what I thought
was really like to me struck me as I.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Was like, we're gonna have to watch it again.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
I know the thing I had the Japanese version.

Speaker 3 (38:41):
I know well, and so I'll tell you this.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
This feels like so this was my favorite Godzilla by far.
This was by far and I loved the Gamera nineteen
ninety series.

Speaker 3 (38:52):
I felt like that was yes, so good and if
you ever get a.

Speaker 2 (38:58):
Chance to watch those gameras there was a trilogy haven't
made in the nineties. They're fantastic And that's still got
some rubber suited action going on in there. Fantastic effects,
but it has those people stories in it with well
really conflicted.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Yeah, like the Curse of the Vende or the Curse
of Edis is that what it is?

Speaker 3 (39:18):
I think so that.

Speaker 1 (39:18):
One, Oh boy, that's my favorite.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Or Gios Legion. Yeah, so the Legion character. So those
are all great and definitely go check those out. Those
are awesome. But those were the first places where I
was starting to see that there was the character element
and for whatever reason, either the director had the time,
the money, or the understanding of how to pull the

(39:42):
human element into things.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
Well, he is kind of the era and like Godzilla
and Gamera stopped being for children. They were more like
a little sexier, a little edgier, like we have you
know what Godzilla versus destroya that's like a plot about
like a like.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
A great monster.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Yeah, right, Destroyer is kind of a little bit like
a little bit like guy like Gios, like leading type stuff.
But I feel like that was that era where we
were still kind of like we've just kind of come
out of like the Cutti like Godsilla Stevens and more
of a like, oh Godzilla's monster. Yeah yeah, he's actually

(40:24):
not like he's ambivalent. He has no feelings either way.
He's like, well, he doesn't really want other monsters around.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Yeah, And that's a great comment ambivalent because Godzilla minus one,
this Godzilla doesn't feel ambivalent. I really like your your
comment about tortured and in pain, because that's what this
Godzilla seems like, that it is a creature that is
in pain and it's just letting loose and it's.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
Trying to get rid of the things that it's causing
its problems. I mean it clearly Japan.

Speaker 3 (41:00):
At the time. No, no, but it's the closest.

Speaker 1 (41:02):
Thing, right because it doesn't have the sentience to know
that like was Americans who dropped the.

Speaker 3 (41:08):
Ball, right, it doesn't have It doesn't have any idea.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Yeah, so it's and I wanted to I wanted to
go back and comment on something that you said. I
don't think it's heroic to be I mean it was viewed.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Japanese culture, so it's really hard for me to make
any kind of commentary on it. So from from my seat, yeah,
it's really hard for me to look at a Kamakazi
pilot and say that them completing their mission was heroic
and not completing the mission wasn't heroic.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
I don't see that.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
So he's not a flawed hero as much as he's
a flawed human. And he's totally scared and I would
be too.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
But that but he won't commit either though, So like.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
He doesn't commit, So that's that's.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
Part of his personality. That would be like his toxic
trade or whatever is that he won't commit. Like he
takes on the responsibility of a child and a partner
friend and it's they have this like they play happy family,
but he is quick to constantly point out that they

(42:16):
are not in a relationship. This is not he is I'm
not your dad, like to the little girl making her cry,
and his friends are like, you're gonna break her, You're
gonna like mess her mind up. But still, I mean
he ends up. We kind of lost over this, but
he after the island incident, moves goes back to his

(42:37):
where he grew up and try to find his family
and they're all completely gone. And the neighbor is left
and she's like, what are you doing here?

Speaker 3 (42:48):
Who's lost her kids?

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, and she's like, if you didn't do your job,
And that's where.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
As if his one sacrifice was gonna make the difference, the.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Nail this dick's out. Yeah, it's you know, it's one
of those. That's the Japanese culture is very like as
far as my understanding of it, as it is very
insular and everybody is like to work together towards the
common You don't do selfish things because those have huge

(43:21):
impacts on your community and family and whatnot. If you
do selfish things. I mean, that's where his flaw would
be like as being a flawed character.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Definitely, yes, And I totally agree. And you, I know
I thought this, but you actually just really said it.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
And it's that he doesn't ever commit to her until
he's lost her.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Yeah, but does he even commit to her then?

Speaker 2 (43:54):
I think, well, I don't think he commits to her.
I think he recognizes that he hadn't committed and because
I think that's the place where he's committed to the mission.
Now skipping way ahead to the end of the film,
where now there's this mission. Godzilla has been an issue.
They've tried a couple of things, nothing's worked, So they're

(44:14):
going to try this whole plan of trying to sink
Godzilla at a really rapid rate and allowing the pressure
of the ocean to hopefully maybe do something. But then
if that doesn't do it, the rapid expansion going back
up and trying to do that and detonating a bunch
of explosives around him.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
I mean, that's no oxygen destroyer.

Speaker 3 (44:35):
It's not an oxygen destroyer, but it was. It's true.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
So you know, they were doing everything that they could
to try to come up with this plan.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
I think that that's where like, and also his drive
becomes that he wants to destroy Godzilla. Yeah, and he's like,
it's I don't, I don't. I think it's still on
a selfish level, like where he's just kind of like,
I want to destroy this thing, not for anybody.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
And because now we have this new plan that we're
gonna lure Godzilla out, We're going to have this whole
mechanism that's gonna blow up and sink Godzilla and if
need be raised, Godzilla up super fast, but we need
to be able to keep them out there. And they've
got an airplane that they're gonna use that was a

(45:26):
which is a real aircraft. I've talked about this a
couple of times. I lost my nerd mind when this
was happening when I saw it in the film the
first time we were watching it and they walk into
that old barn and there is this aircraft that was
built in World War Two.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
It was barely ever deployed.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
People now believe that if they were able to have
built it on a large scale and really use this plane,
it could have changed the course of the war because
of its ability to outdo our fighters that were the
support aircraft around the bar, that it probably would have
outperformed all of our fighters and taken out our bombers.
And they had it in there, and I saw it

(46:07):
in that barn and I was like, that's a nipon shaden.
And then they pulled that thing back and here's this
aircraft that is it's a pusher. The engine is in
the back, it has a reverse canard, so it's got
the small elevators or in the front, and then the
big wings are in the back and it's this super
high performance aircraft and I was like.

Speaker 3 (46:28):
Oh, they've got this thing.

Speaker 2 (46:29):
It's a real one in there, and that's the one
that they're going to use to try to lure Godzilla
out from the mainland where they can sink him.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
And they they retrofitted it with bombs, more bombs to
be dropped because they were they were this was going
to be like the plant ce so to speak, like that.
He was going to basically suicide bomb himself into Godzilla
and destroy Godzilla from that. That was their This was
their final.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
That was the secret plan. See.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
Yeah, I don't think anyone else knew about it except
for the mechanic.

Speaker 1 (47:01):
Right, well, because he was saying that's right, because he
was trying to get that mechanic and they asked him
how he got beat up and yeah, yeah, okay, now
I remember every time.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Yeah, nobody else knew. And that was going to be
his final move if he had to. Yeah, and he
saw from the first big encounter that he had on
that ship where when the mine went off in his
mouth and Godzilla's mouth.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Blewell, we should go back to that because that was wild.
That was a fantastic scene and the music. Oh my god.
So one of the first ideas was that they were
going to they Godzilla starts chasing the boat and they
cut a mine and the mind popp and Godzill just

(47:44):
automatically chomps down on this mine and blows off half
his face, and that was that moment of they were like,
uh huh, okay, so we can actually hurt him with
large enough munition because they realized, like, for whatever reason,
in all Godzilla films, it takes people forever to understand
that you just can't just shoot Godzilla.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Yeah. Well, and it's even I.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Watched the Ko movie and they were still shooting guys,
like what is happening?

Speaker 3 (48:12):
It's the exhaust port on the Death Star.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
You gotta get it down the little hatch there, and
everybody else is just like fireing away because they're like,
what else have we got?

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Why waste the munitions if we know it doesn't work,
That's right. It drives me bonkers, Like every time we
have to revisit this conversation with a Godzilla film, it's like, really, yeah,
you can't shoot Gonzilla with a fifty cow machine gun.
It's just not It's just not. Yes, it puts bullets hole,
it puts holes in houses. However, this is a monster.

(48:43):
But no, as realistic as that is, but the that
that was there aha moment, and so that was when
they've created the other plans of like, okay, we have
we're gonna do this like sinking thing, and we're going
to use the oceans to crush him because we realize
that he snaps back. Because what happens as soon as

(49:07):
that bomb blows off half his face, Godzilla like starts like,
first of all, you could tell it hurts again, We're
going to the pained expressions, and he gets furious and he.

Speaker 3 (49:22):
Basically retreats.

Speaker 1 (49:23):
He retreats, but he starts evolving in his face of
all's back and he kind of I don't know what
leap of logic Godzilla has, but he's like, I have
to go on the mainland, and if I destroy these
things here, then maybe they won't hurt me anymore. I mean,
there's again there's no like real like we don't have
a sense of like sentience, but he is acting like

(49:46):
an animal in that respect of like let's get rid
of the thing that's causing the problem. And so he
ends up walking into Ginza and we get this gorgeous
like in the first Godzilla movie in nineteen fifty four,
there was that scene where Godzilla has a train in
his mouth.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
And the classic classic shot.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
So we have that, we get to revisit that, but
we get to see it from the inside. One of
the more spectacular shots that I mean, I know it's cgi,
but you see in a Kiko's eyes the reflection of
Godzilla like walking towards like walking in the ginza, and

(50:29):
it is just a thing of beauty and horrifying, like
you can see you can see it in her eyes.
She's looking through like on the train, looking through the glass,
and the reflection of Godzilla back in her eyes, and
the music starts to kind of start swelling, and then
we get to see Godzilla attacking the train. But that

(50:51):
fantasy of knowing what was happening on the inside was
really cool, like getting to have her experience, like she's
holding on and she's like hoping to find a place
to drop, and then when he happens to like rear
the car's head over the water, she drops into the ocean.
Man alive. That's a great scene. So there's just such

(51:15):
such amazing like thoughtful moments that that director makes in
that film. That's enough for fans like us who are
like his old hat. I've seen all the Godzilla movies
and we're like, well, okay, and then he does that
and you're like, oh man. And I did like the
fact that we're not doing an oxygen destroyer. Yeah, I mean,

(51:35):
I have to admit it. First. When they first of
the bubbles, I was like, are they going to call
it oxygen destroyer? Oh? Yeah, because they because they talked
about bubbles, and I was like, wait, wait for it.
Uh huh, oh, it's an oxygen destroyer.

Speaker 3 (51:47):
It's not. But I think it was a really cool
and go back to that for.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
The people who knew, yeah, there was kind of.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Like, oh, maybe it could be, but he made his own.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
But it also was more what would have been at
use at the time as opposed to.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
Like creating something that you.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Know, yeah, that is able to like deplete the oxygen
from the water or whatever, because it does in a
way like it pushes him down. And they were hoping
because they realized that he could evolve or like that
he could re what is it regenerates right, that they
were hoping that crushing pressure would keep him from being

(52:29):
able to regenerate. Not that that was a good hypothesis.
Why not you know that that was That's when we
start leading into the he has to create a He
kind of does his plan c and like secret planned,
and when they start to execute, the boats are going

(52:49):
to the ideas the principles that they're going to take
two warships right and wrap cables around him and that
will have these mechanisms attached that are going to set
off the air cannons that will sink him to the
bottom of the ocean. The Score is does something incredible?

(53:09):
I mean it's incredible. They take from Godzilla nineteen fifty four,
a Kira Fuka base, they bast full score and then
they also take from Mathra and they use the Score
and Mathra in a way that I was not expecting
at all, like that, when these the two warships are circling,

(53:32):
you have the Dun Dun dun du du du. I
was like, oh that's Mathra. Yeah, I literally got chilled.

Speaker 3 (53:38):
Why do you think that is?

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Do you think there is a symbolism between the two
ships almost like two wings and something.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
I mean, maybe I didn't go that far. I mean more,
I thought it was pacing, like I think that had
a perfect like the way that dund dund dund dun
dun dun dund like. I think the way that the
ships were moving in that pacing had a very it
made it made for an impactful sound. To have to

(54:05):
use the mathra score.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
Oh but that music, oh man, I know, Oh my goodness.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
So the first time that drops, the first time that happened.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Dum dum dun dun dum.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
It's just even now, you just did it, and I
just got chills. It just I did.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
And so when it happened the first time I watched
that film, I got chills.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
I did too, which is I actually got tearful in
the moment because it was I didn't expect it, and
it was such a loving way to kind of harken
do it. And it also they modernized it. The director,
I can't for the life of me the score music.
I wish I could tell you who was the who

(54:48):
did it, but he he clearly was very thoughtful about
using a Fukaba's music and gave us this this discordant
kind of leading up to these moments of the attacks,
like there were these very like cacophonous string moments, like

(55:14):
string instruments, sounds. It's just I mean, there was so
many things to love about this film.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Yeah, yeah, it's I think that it it pulls enough
in from the prior Godzillas for the people who are
the fans who know the stuff to go, oh yeah,
there it is there, it is there. It is like
this person gets it. This is just right and it's
just enough. But you can you could never watch a

(55:44):
Godzilla film and it's the perfect music.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
No, but this was perfect.

Speaker 3 (55:49):
That's what I mean.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
This was perfect that if you had never watched another
Godzilla movie before, if this was your first Godzilla movie
and you didn't know that it was a callback to
a Fukuba's music or anything with Matra, Yeah, it was
the perfect music.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
The score was just flawless all the way through.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
There's so many things to I mean. Honestly, I gave
this on Letterbox. I gave this a five five stars,
hands down five stars. Yeah, it's this was my favorite
film of last This was last year. Yeah, this was
my number one film for last year.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
This was always the Godzilla film that I wanted to
see and I had my love of Godzilla's like we
mentioned Destroya. You know, Godzilla versus Smog Monster was always
a great one that we liked with he and then Bilante.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, there's so many
things to love and like, yeah, I love the I
love the Godzilla versus King Gira, the Heyse era one
where we get the door rats and you know, I
loved all that.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah, and uh, what the heck was the one Giant
Monster All Out Attack?

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Oh yeah, good?

Speaker 2 (57:00):
Yeah, GMK was always a really good one that was
always a top film for us. It was no Space Godzilla.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Don't get even wrong. I have a special place my
heart for Space Godzilla.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
I have a special place in my heart for Space
Godzilla too.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
He's really I love that era.

Speaker 2 (57:15):
But that's yeah, that's not the strongest film, no, but
I have a special place for that one. That one
is so before the Kaiju cast. Yeah, when Kyle and
I were I think I think it might be the
first Godzilla or one of the first Godzilla movies that
Kyle and I ever watched together.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
He had a.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
Poster for it and I said I want to watch
that one, and he's like, are you sure? And I
said absolutely, And then it was like, holy cow, what
am I watching? I don't fully understand everything that's going
on because it's it's cheese and crazy and it's got
all the stuff with the aliens and everything. Oh yeah,
but I had to watch this thing because of the
giant crystal shards growing out of his shoulders and all that. Yeah,

(58:00):
it's super crazy. It's it's I mean, it's awesome. It's
very indicative of where Godzilla was at the time.

Speaker 1 (58:07):
That was that was still the beginnings of the whole
like like a little edgy yeah right, yeah, yeah, the
even like the aliens were like floppy haired, and you.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
Know, yeah, it was great. I have a special place
in my heart.

Speaker 2 (58:21):
Not the best Godzilla film, but it will always be
a special one.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Yeah that's a good one. I mean, yeah, I love
those films. Then there was when we kind of started
experimenting more with a little bit of CG, like you know,
that was the compositing. It was a little better and
yeah that kind of thing. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (58:39):
But man, so Minus one, yeah, is such an amazing film.

Speaker 1 (58:45):
Yeah yeah, and so what the delightful thing that this
director also did was putting it in black and white.
M hm. And I think to me that was the
ultimate moment of like I was like, yeah, this director
really really loves his fans.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
And we saw that one together on Blu Ray. But
you saw it in the theater when they did the
black and white run.

Speaker 1 (59:08):
And a lot of people I went with people who
had never seen The Gods Olla minus one and this
was their first time seeing it. Really they saw it
in black and white and they were like, wow, Wow.

Speaker 3 (59:20):
It's an excellent black and white film. I like it
both ways.

Speaker 1 (59:24):
Agreed the black and white It's not like the James
Gunn one where James who is the one that what
director did that whole Like, well.

Speaker 2 (59:33):
There was a black and chrome version that was done
of Fury Road, not.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
One, not not Miller, but the one who did the
Justice League.

Speaker 3 (59:41):
Movies, Oh, Zack Snyder.

Speaker 1 (59:43):
Zack Snyder, so like the way he just so desaturated
that that's the thing is I think he just desaturated.
Whereas this was given a black and white treatment that
was very thoughtful. There wasn't any like I felt like
the black saturations were were done in a way that

(01:00:05):
you could that was very indicative of black and white film.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
You had a dynamic range across the black.

Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
And there wasn't like harsh lighting, Like it didn't because
like that's what I felt like with that that.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Director Zack Snyder.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
Sack Snyder, I'm sorry because.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
It was it was shot Zack Snyder shoots from everything
that I've seen, he shoots on film. Yeah, so everything
is shot on film and then it's digitized for posts.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:32):
But I remember watching The Justice League the first time through,
and the colors were so harsh, like the lines and
everything were so harsh. And then when it was transferred
to that desaturated look, it didn't have beautiful gradients. It
didn't have nice dynamic range.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
That's what Gods the mist One has is that there
were so many gradients that were beautiful and you could
see there was details that I couldn't that I was
not even perceive until I saw them in black and white,
like things like the radiating Yeah, the the radiating body aspects,

(01:01:15):
the like the way his the way he shivered. At times,
I was like, oh my god, this is way more
prevalent in the black and white one, and especially in Ginza,
like when the attack on Ginza, when he comes out
and he's like walking across one of the better one
of the also better motions of Godzilla like we see
in other Godzilla films, like because he's always wearing a
rubber suit. It's like that's like the thing. And then

(01:01:37):
we see the legendary one and he's really like out
of proportion, and hin Godzilla is incredibly out of proportion
once we get to the final evolution. But Godzilla minus
one he has he's a little chunky, but he his
his body motion makes sense and like that something that

(01:02:00):
a director even talked about what we saw on that
like that special edition showing Yeah, was that he was like,
this is what my cat looks like when he walks.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
And I was like, right, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:10):
Brilliant, because that's exactly the It felt like a real animal.
Well it did it. You weren't so taken out of
it being like a giant monster like this made sense,
Like yeah, it felt like what you would expect to
see if you saw a giant monster walking across like
a town.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Yeah. And even the moves in Ginza.

Speaker 2 (01:02:33):
There's the move where there's the big whip around and
the tail and everything, and it feels like it has
mass watching all of that, like all of the mass
having to move in that space and take all of
that out just looks so.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
Good and then we that's the first time we see
the powered up attack right where it literally blew my
mind to see something I never even considered conceived to
have his scales like jutted out as he powers up,
and it again, like it reminds me of that scene

(01:03:10):
in an X Men when Wolverine's claws come out and
Rogue asks him does it hurt? And he says every
single time, And I'm like this, this is exactly that
moment for for Godzilla, like his scales like do jut out? Again,
it to me it was one of those pained moments

(01:03:31):
because he is like like body contorting as the as
that happens, it's so visceral and again like I mean
I keep saying the same phrase as like pain body
monster like, but these are but make him come, bring
him to life for us as an audience. And I

(01:03:51):
think that that's again one of those masterful strokes that
this director made was that he had the forethought and
the love of monsters that he wanted to make this
feel real for his audience. And it felt real. I mean,
we we were like oh like and the sound effect

(01:04:15):
of the powering up like it build up, yes, and
then the unleash it's yeah, it's incredible. It's incredible. I
mean we saw like Shinen did this kind of did
this too, like where Shin would narrow in his laser
and then like he bifurcated and then like it went
all over the place and it was like an array.

(01:04:37):
But this was just it just seemed like he was like,
I have to get this out.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
It's a release of rage.

Speaker 1 (01:04:45):
Yeah, it seems like yeah, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Not like a weapon it is. Yeah, it feels like
you're getting it out. Yeah, it's just a whole bunch
of rage coming out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:55):
Oh boy. But that was one of those moments I
just remember sitting in the in the theater being like, yeah,
this is incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:05:03):
And it's masterful build up. It's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yeah for the you know, I think I don't think
anybody even if it's your first Godzilla film and you're
watching that, you know, I think you know what the
end result is going to be, That it's gonna be
Godzilla's gonna like shoot a blast.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
We know like that, Yeah, but we never see this mechanism, right, and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
That that build up and that anticipation is so good
because I kind of feel like I'm building up with
it and when it happens and that release, that big
burst comes out, and it's it's just so masterfully.

Speaker 3 (01:05:38):
Done Sikashima, and we have Noriko.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
Noriko, which I was calling Akiko. Kiko is the kid's name,
my bad. So Shikashima's now has what where we're at
and the hero journey he is. We have the plan
the oxygen destroyer did not work. Nowther did their plan be? Yeah,
which was to bring him up really fast because he

(01:06:02):
gets really pissed off. And then he comes up with
like white eyes and more even more monstrous looking because
his pupils are blown out from being on the ocean floor.
And then we go to where he comes in. Shikashima
comes in, and what we don't know as an audience,

(01:06:22):
what we kind of get the impression of is that
Sikshima's decided he's going to sacrifice himself and he is
like this is the final straw, like he is going
in for that for the kill. And what we don't
know as an audience is that there was an injector
seat installed and Shikashima decided that he wants to live

(01:06:44):
and so he is, he's got the picture and the
drawing and he is like, he's like, I'm going for it,
and we as an audience are like, oh no, he's
going to kill himself. And he ends up pulling out
at the right way, ejecting at the right time.

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
Well, we have two setups for that too that are
subtle setups, but they are perfect films.

Speaker 3 (01:07:10):
They are perfect film set up with payoff.

Speaker 2 (01:07:12):
Yeah, because there's a moment in the film where they
talk about how the ejector seats and then lack of parachutes.

Speaker 3 (01:07:19):
Yes, they didn't.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
They didn't have those for the Kamakazi pilots because they
shouldn't be ejecting and they're not going to be parachuting.
So so there's a there's a comment about that earlier on.
And then when we are in the Nipon shidden in
the shed and it's ready to go, and he's like,
there's one last thing I'm going to tell you about,
and we're in the cockpit like we're in close and

(01:07:41):
a nice two shot, but then we pull farther back
and we don't hear him talking, and there's no subtitle
to it. Yeah, mama, he's doing this and so we
don't know what that is. We can it has been
set up for us, but there is like if if
we caught that other part before, we could catch this here.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):
So we have our payoff moment, which is.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
Which is the as soon as he he's does like
a voiceover narration that he's like, I want to live
for a kiko even though he gave the money to
the neighbor or aura, he gave the money with leaving
this note that like in case he died or whatever
the case may be, that like Akiko was taken care of,

(01:08:26):
and because he doesn't know that, like, we also are
also finding out in this moment that Norico is alive and.

Speaker 3 (01:08:33):
No, we don't know yet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:34):
Oh we don't know that Norico is yet. The because
the neighbor gets uh.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
And then I didn't know what the note was.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
I assume that, no. I assumed like when the when
the courier comes up with a note and she's like
and picks up a Kiko and like grabs like and
then starts running like to go meet out to the ships.
She I have that moment, I was like a love.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
I didn't know, so I didn't get that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:00):
I I didn't know, I don't remember the first time
I watched the film what I thought, because now I'm
for four viewings. Yeah that I can't remember what my
first thought was. But I don't think that I knew
that she was still alive.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
I had I was. For me, that was a moment
I was like, she's alive. And then we cut to
where he's in the pilot's seat and then he's like,
I want to live for I want to I don't
want to die. And then they're in the on the
ship going no, they're like nound and he comes back
in and he like a second just really great timing.

(01:09:36):
It's so almost like anticlimactic for a moment because like
the Gudsile just like chumps down on the front of
that plane, but it happens any and we don't see
we see him ejecting. But then the bomb goes off
and Gutzil's head just flip and explodes like open like
and then there's light shooting up and.

Speaker 2 (01:09:58):
It's because he's building to have his atomic blast, right,
so it's like boom, he kind of stops, it interrupts
the process, yes blows up. So now we've got horrendous
damage and so all of that. It's like it's a feedback.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
And it makes it terrible sound. It's like like and
you're like, yeah, hurts my heart a little bit. But yeah.
So then we then they're they're shooting, they're showing off
the distance. He's like, oh I could see him. I
could see him, and they're so happy, and that that
I that moment as Godzilla sinks down, I'm like, well,

(01:10:38):
does he like regenerate but maybe just takes a hot
minute and then.

Speaker 3 (01:10:43):
We we have our hot minute.

Speaker 1 (01:10:44):
We have our hot minutes. Yeah, But to me that
was kind of that was very indicative of like the
nineteen fifty four one too, And that was a little
bit again in one of those like moments of like
he the director love of Godzilla enough to be like,
all right, set this.

Speaker 3 (01:11:04):
Up and it's earned. All of that stuff is earned.

Speaker 1 (01:11:07):
There's no we're not surprised that he would be be
able to re evolve or generate. Yeah, that I liked.
The only thing that was to me was a little
like what was when we all go back to the
hospital to go see Norico and there is this scene
where she turns her head and you see this like

(01:11:28):
black veins developed on the back of her neck, and
I'm like, what is that about?

Speaker 3 (01:11:35):
Do you know what that's about? Because I still don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:11:37):
There's still no for me this. If I was the
writer of the next film and we were making Godzilla
versus Hodora, I would make this part of this is
what I'm good. I would say, if we're gonna make
a canonically connected film, I would make this part of
what makes Hadora like his toxicity okay, because or that

(01:11:59):
he doora being existing as a result of like the
black rain that fell when Godzilla shot is ray up
in the air in Ginza. Like, to me, that's what
I would do. It's like all that evolving together and
like creating this monster from it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
Yeah, I wasn't quite sure.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
What that's what I would do if I was a.

Speaker 2 (01:12:20):
Mean I I think the first time I saw it,
I was wanting to try to draw some kind of
a Mathra connection. I don't know why, but but I
think there was a part of me that wanted to
be like, oh, this is like the person that has
the telepathic communication like.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
The fairies, or like the girl with.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Something like that, And this whole thing had maybe triggered
something inside of her that was starting to grow.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
Oh yeah, that too. Maybe she could have been like
the psychic link to Godzilla. I would love to not
have a psychic link to Godzilla, because I feel like
that's pretty overwrought in these Kaiju films, is that we
always have somebody who's like psychic linked, Like I mean,
even the legendary ones we have like the little girl
a little girl.

Speaker 2 (01:13:09):
Yeah, yeah, which is never explained or never even hinted at.

Speaker 3 (01:13:16):
They're just like, Nope, this is a thing you love.

Speaker 1 (01:13:18):
People are very special.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
We got we got stuff to get on with. Let's
past this. Folks, don't ask questions.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Earth needs to happen.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
We're four scenes past.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
You already keep going, don't nobody's stopping here to ask?

Speaker 1 (01:13:32):
Oh boy, oh boy. I actually read the novelization of
King of the Monsters. That's a different film. Yeah, oh really, yeah, yeah,
they're like eco terrorists in the book. Oh wow, Yeah,
it's interesting. But yeah, no, I I think that when
this at the end of this film. The first time
I saw it, I am I was. I was getting

(01:13:52):
up and I look over and there's this this Japanese
woman who's probably about my mom's age, just weeping, and
I walk up through her and I was like, doja
Boo does claw like, which means are you okay? And
she's like daijo poo and I'm like daijah boo like,
and I start crying with her cause I had already

(01:14:13):
been like weeping at throughout this entire movie. There was
all these moments that kind of drew me. But it
was like how that was seeing her like her reflection
of that was like very I don't know, not validating,
but also just I feel like she was moved as
a Japanese audience member as well as like we being

(01:14:34):
American audiences. Yeah, I'm very thankful that there's not been
a I don't think there has been. There may be
a fan edit or whatever that's got you know, the dubover,
but I appreciate that there's not been like that American
audiences have really accepted this as a Japanese language book
and film with subtitles, Yeah, because oftentimes there's people really

(01:14:55):
miss out on things like this because they are don't
want to re subtitle or whatever. Sometimes google fast or
I mean like, and I have an advantage. I speak
enough of the language that I get the gist. Yeah,
but nuances I lose pretty easily.

Speaker 2 (01:15:11):
Yeah, and there's a there's so much about culture. I
know virtually nothing about Japanese culture, and it's significant. It's
completely different than you know, the life experience is completely different.
They are completely different, absolutely so the folks and values

(01:15:33):
and everything that happened, but then also everything that's post
World War two and what happened in Japan after all
of that, but then also anything that happened with Americans
who had a Japanese lineage that had to make it
through the war camps that we had here, in the
way that they live, there is so much that I

(01:15:56):
could never get that a Japanese writer, director, storyteller, filmmaker
is going to be able to capture well.

Speaker 1 (01:16:07):
And I think that's what is so impactful ultimately about
this film. I mean, as we kind of go to
the end here, it's thoughtful. Filmmaking is always going to take,
you know, take an audience where they where the story

(01:16:27):
will be the best. I feel like I think that
if you're if you're thoughtful in your story and you
care about your characters and you care about your where
you're going with it, and I feel like this is
I don't know, I have lack knowledge and lack linguistic
lack the vocabulary to say whether or not this I mean,

(01:16:49):
I can only assume that this director loves yeah, like
it is trying to make an impact, but also to
put a spotlight on the thoughts of the people at
the time, you know, without making it a victim story. Yeah,
you know, because oftentimes I feel like there's there we see,

(01:17:13):
like the humans as victims are scenery, they're dressing, they're
set dressing, or they're barely there to forward a plot.
But this, you could easily take Godzilla out and make
this just a movie about like atomic weapons and things
like that, and they would easily be just as impactful.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Yeah, I think that's a really really great place to
leave this. So this is why I wanted to make
the show or have a podcast and do this kind
of thing because I love movies. I love talking about movies,
and I love talking about movies with my friends and
especially you. So this is huge for whoever does or

(01:17:54):
doesn't ever watch or see this. This is what I've
wanted to do this for a very long time time,
to just be because we could go off on a
bunch of tangents on all sorts of other things with
this movie and any of the others.

Speaker 3 (01:18:06):
So I really have loved this.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
Yeah. Thanks, I'm glad, we're we're glad we're getting this
off the ground.

Speaker 3 (01:18:13):
Yeah, we're gonna do more of this. I do know
what the next.

Speaker 1 (01:18:16):
Movie should tell me what our next movie is.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
So the next movie that I want to do is
Dinner in America, which I have seen.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
I watched it in the theater.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
I believe the film actually came out in twenty two
or twenty three. I've not seen it, but it never
It never got traction in the theaters.

Speaker 3 (01:18:37):
Nobody saw it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:38):
I remember seeing some promo stuff for it on like
Instagram and a couple of people talking about it, but
it just it never got traction.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
It was never in the theaters.

Speaker 2 (01:18:49):
And then the end of twenty four people were like,
holy shit, this movie and it did a theater run.
It's still doing a theater run. It's really doing an
international theater run right now.

Speaker 3 (01:19:04):
Oh. People discovered it and it's selling out all over
the place.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
Watching it for the next one.

Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
It was a cinemagic here and sold out for the
showing that I saw it.

Speaker 1 (01:19:14):
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (01:19:16):
So if you know before like if we can see
it in a theater before our next episode, that's great.
But if not, Dinner in America is so good and
I'm so excited because I'm gonna watch it at least
one more time, probably two more times. Yeah, for our
next episode. And if if we can watch it together,
that's great, let's do it. It's man. I just can't

(01:19:39):
even explain how good Dinner in America is.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
And it is.

Speaker 2 (01:19:46):
Such a sweet It's the sweetest punch in the face
you'll ever have.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
Wow, it's just such a heartfelt kicking the nuts.

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
I don't know how it's so good, because it is.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
It's a it's a very.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
It's a very raw, stark movie that has so much love,
and it has such endearing moments in it that are
so good.

Speaker 3 (01:20:18):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
And the and the dnum of the film is so beautiful,
just all the threads coming together the way they do.
It's masterful filmmaking, it's masterful acting.

Speaker 3 (01:20:32):
It's so wonderful. I don't know what.

Speaker 2 (01:20:33):
They're a bunch of us. We'll talk about all of that.
So I'm excited about it. So thus concludes the first
episode of Check the Gate. So thanks everybody for coming
and watching this I super appreciate it. If you check
this out, I don't care if you like or subscribe.
I hope you listen to more of this stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:20:52):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (01:20:53):
Gretchen and I just love talking about movies, and hopefully
we'll have some other people that we'll be able to
come in and have and talk about films with us.

Speaker 3 (01:21:01):
Uh. This has been a real joy and I'm looking forward.

Speaker 1 (01:21:04):
To glad we got this off the ground.

Speaker 3 (01:21:06):
Oh me too. This is so good, And Gretchen, thanks
so much.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
Thanks. Pardon mm hmm

Speaker 3 (01:21:30):
Ok,
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New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!

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