I recently watched a DVD of a version of Godzilla, but not named Godzilla. It was called, "The Giant Behemoth". It was a British movie from '56 and it really wasn't half bad, though clearly a rip-off of the G. myth. (I'd give that movie a 6/10 for what it's worth. It had some intelligence, plot development and sympathetic special effects.)
Dinosaur movies pre-date G. but he really put them on the map. In fact, dino movies go way back to silent film. But what's distinctive of Godzilla era movies, is that they bring the dino into the present day and world. Prior to the '50's, dinos lived in their own context. Humans were the ones to invade their world; such as you find in 1933's King Kong or 1925's The Lost World. (I fully realize that both of those examples illustrate a contemporary world, but the dino's world is isolated and self-contained none-the-less.) Godzilla changed all that and with such a wonderful device: nuclear power. And it makes sense that Japan invented this now ubiquitous plot point, being Earth's only true-life recipient of atomic warfare. So really, any solo dinosaur run-a-muck flick made since the mid '50's is simply a retelling of a now familiar story, with little deviation from established story lines. The question then becomes: how well was it executed?
I'd heard that the new Godzilla movie has some originality in that you really get a closer glimpse of the victims. That's true. Also the effects really are stunning and brother do you see some cities get destroyed or what? Tokyo, Honolulu, Las Vegas and San Francisco get demolished, just flattened. That's cool. The story is vaguely plausible though there were some plot points I didn't quite get, but really, I don't need to. It's Godzilla for crying out loud... So I'll ignore the fact that this Godzilla seems to be the largest dino-dude in movie history. Which brings up a problem that only science geeks, like myself, care about. Gravity. No moving creature that size could actually move about on land because earth's gravitational force would be so extreme he'd simply not be able to lift himself. And/or if he could get up his legs would get crushed, literally under his weight. A dinosaur's design simply prevents him from getting that size.
Tyrannosaurus Rex was 40 feet long and 13 feet high at the hips. Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus) was 70-90 feet log and 15 feet high at the hips. In this new movie G. seems like he's a few hundred feet long and 60-70-80 feet high at he hips. It's impossible to get that big with Earth's gravity being what it is. This is also why spiders can't get as big as they sometimes are shown in scary spider movies. Their design prevents them from getting larger than a common tarantula. They would collapse if they got to the size of, say, a 3 month old kitten. Their legs would be crushed by their body's weight. But really, nobody cares about things like gravity. Oh, well.
Godzilla's rating: 7/10.
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