I really like Shin for what it does in making Godzilla terrifying again. A gigantic, horrifying monster destroying everything in its wake for completely inscrutable reasons, like an angry god bringing down its wrath. For so long, Godzilla became a hero, which I totally get because it's cool and fun and we love big monsters, but Shin pulls the rug back out from under us. It takes away as much familiarity as Anno and crew were allowed to while still making it recognizably Godzilla in order to make it all the more uncanny and frightening.
Also the way the smoking fire breath heats up into the focused purple laser is cool.
The monsterverse movies try to toe that line, making Godzilla more of a force of nature, a Very Large Animal, and humans are just observers who try to minimize damage, usually ending up on the same side as him. But really, they're not fooling anyone. King Kong was already positioned to be a human-relations monster, and I think they tried to make this happen with GvK, but it was a pretty flimsy setup.
Note: I love the monsterverse movies and want more of them (were they done? I was under the impression GvKK was going to be the last one?), they're just more squarely in the "Godzilla is a hero! A scary hero, but a hero nonetheless!" camp.
FWIW, the anime movie trilogy did manage the "Godzilla is a terrifying monster destroying everything we hold dear" angle pretty well, it's just that literally everything else about them was utter trash. The first was passable, but the second was bad and the third nigh unwatchable.
I do want to see Singular Point though.
Also the way the smoking fire breath heats up into the focused purple laser is cool.
The monsterverse movies try to toe that line, making Godzilla more of a force of nature, a Very Large Animal, and humans are just observers who try to minimize damage, usually ending up on the same side as him. But really, they're not fooling anyone. King Kong was already positioned to be a human-relations monster, and I think they tried to make this happen with GvK, but it was a pretty flimsy setup.
Note: I love the monsterverse movies and want more of them (were they done? I was under the impression GvKK was going to be the last one?), they're just more squarely in the "Godzilla is a hero! A scary hero, but a hero nonetheless!" camp.
FWIW, the anime movie trilogy did manage the "Godzilla is a terrifying monster destroying everything we hold dear" angle pretty well, it's just that literally everything else about them was utter trash. The first was passable, but the second was bad and the third nigh unwatchable.
I do want to see Singular Point though.