vivdunstan

Posted by John Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/11/the-december-comfort-watches-day-eleven-godzilla-2014/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58631

No, the 2014 version of Godzilla, the US-produced one directed by Gareth Edwards, is not the best Godzilla movie in the several-decade, several-dozen-installment history of the franchise. If I had to rank it, I would probably put it at three or four, depending on how I was feeling about Shin Godzilla that day (for clarity, number one is the original 1954 production, the Japanese version, not the cut-up US release, and number two is Godzilla Minus One, proof that $15 million goes a long way if you know how to spend it). So don’t be jumping down my throat about that. Remember that the thing about these “comfort watches” is not that they are the best movies, or, sometimes (but not in this case) even actually good movies. They are the movies I find myself watching over and over.

And why do I rewatch this Godzilla, more than the others? Well, for one reason, I think this movie is one of Godzilla movies that actually gets the kaiju right.

I wrote about this a year or so ago in my film column in Uncanny magazine. You can follow this link to see the whole essay (and I recommend you do!), but the brief version is this: The recurring problem with Godzilla, the monster, is that the longer he sticks around, in sequel after sequel, the less he is an unstoppable force of nature and the more he becomes, if not an outright friend to humanity, then at least an entity whose interests appear to align with ours. That makes him progressively less interesting and, ultimately, boring. When a kaiju gets cuddly, it’s all over. Then the only thing left to do is reboot him and start over.

The 2014 Godzilla was not the first US-based reboot; there was the 1998 version, directed by Roland Emmerich, which was financially successful and a critical and cultural flop, the latter being especially interesting to me, even at the time. The movie did what it was supposed to do: make money (it was the #8 top-grossing movie of its year domestically), but at the cost of Godzilla’s cultural cachet; the humans in the movie were kinda soft and goofy and Godzilla, while not at all on the side of the humans, didn’t feel like Godzilla. Godzilla is (to varying degrees of effectiveness over the years), a vessel for humanity’s fears and a representation of the world smacking us back for our hubris. 1998’s Godzilla was… just a monster, and not one that actually looked like Godzilla was meant to look (also, the laying of eggs in Madison Square Garden didn’t help much). It’s not a surprise that Toho Studios, the owners of Godzilla, later retconned the ’98 Godzilla into “Zilla,” a kaiju, yes, but not the kaiju. Not Godzilla.

For the 2014 movie, Gareth Edwards and the other filmmakers didn’t screw with what makes Godzilla Godzilla, they leaned into it instead. There were some criticisms of the monster design, because of course there would be, nerds are gonna nerd, but this film’s Godzilla looks like it’s sharing DNA with its Japanese predecessors. I remember some complaints about this monster looking too chonky and thicc, but speaking personally I didn’t consider this a problem at all because (and here I get super nerdy myself), look, a 300-fucking-foot-tall monster ain’t gonna be svelte in any of its dimensions. It’s going to have meat on its bones, okay?

(Also, before you get in on me about the square-cube law, remember I wrote a whole novel about kaiju and I get into the square-cube law in it. Whatever you’re going to throw at me, I already thought about it. Anyway, we’re ignoring some elemental physics at the moment for this movie. Accept it, my dudes).

More importantly, Edwards, et al understood Godzilla for what is meant to be, a force of nature — indeed, the force of nature, a huge variable designed to zero out the equation when something threatens to unbalance it. In this movie that would be the MUTOs, a pair of Kaiju who eat radiation, which is why one of them was attracted to a nuclear facility in Japan at the turn of the century, wrecking it and then cocooning there to feed until the time was right to pop out, a weird, sleek kaiju that looks Art Deco, or maybe like the vector tanks from the Battlezone videogame. The monster heads east, looking for a mate…

… and then here’s Godzilla to stop it, at, of all places, the airport at Honolulu.

And what a very fine entrance it is, too. Edwards has learned from Spielberg, Scott and others that your monster is more effective the less you show of it, until, that is, it’s time to show it all. Our first introduction to Godzilla are his back fins and body parts illuminated by spotlights and flares and exploding planes. And then, finally, there he is… and he is pissed.

This is the other thing this film does right. Godzilla is huge and Godzilla should feel huge, but for much of his existence, he hasn’t. For the first several decades of his existence, as much as you might want to, you couldn’t escape the fact that Godzilla, king of the monsters, was a dude in a rubber suit, stomping around a scale model of Tokyo. It didn’t make the early movies bad (note my position of the original Godzilla in the rankings), but special effects tech was what it was. As time went on, more advanced compositing and CGI could have fixed that, but in the 1998 Godzilla, at least, didn’t. That monster moved too fast and had no mass onscreen.

The 2014 edition doesn’t make that mistake. Godzilla’s big, and he’s massive, and he acts and moves like it. Every move Godzilla makes in this movie is a spectacle of heft. There’s no doubt he’s going to do damage with every step he takes. Godzilla and the MUTOs eventually settle their scores in San Francisco, and while there is never any doubt that the city is going to get wrecked, here it’s getting wrecked at a level of special effects mastery that gives it all an extra dollop of, well, not realism, exactly, but certainly consequence. Buildings don’t fall over like cardboard when a kaiju smashes into them. They crumble, and they eventually fall, like they are actually made of concrete and rebar, and the Kaiju get smashed to match.

This wasn’t Edwards’ first time at the monster rodeo. He made his directorial debut with Monsters, a 2010 science fiction film about, you guessed it, monsters, which did some amazing things on a reported budget of half a million dollars. His budget for Godzilla was 32 times as much, for the monster fights alone, he got some good value out of the money.

I’m mostly into this movie for the monsters and the havoc the wreak, but the human stories here, unlike most Godzilla movies I’ve seen, don’t make me want to just fast forward to the good stuff. One, it has a level of gravity to it that I appreciate; all the humans in it take what’s happening seriously, and so does the screenwriter. There’s generational drama, a husband and wife separated by monsters, a mysterious NGO dedicated to the tracking of kaiju, and a race to deal with a nuclear bomb that it was humanity’s fault was there in the first place (there’s that hubris!), and so on. It’s fine! It moves along and no one acts stupidly, which is never a guarantee in a monster movie no matter how high-toned it is. Godzilla, I’m happy to say, gives almost no shits about anything the humans are doing, any more than any of us would worry about ants if we got into a brawl with our cousin at a cookout.

That wouldn’t last. There have been several sequels to Godzilla in the last decade, all as part of a “Monsterverse,” some involving King Kong. The further we go along, the more Godzilla is becoming an ally of sorts to humanity, and the more the stories feel drained of consequence. In the latest movie in the series, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Rio De Janeiro is laid to waste with the same gravity as a bunch of kids knocking over a LEGO set. It’s pretty, and silly, and since New Empire made more money than any other film in the series, the series will almost certainly continue to be pretty silly.

Thus is the nature of Godzilla. At a certain point, the returns will diminish and they will reboot him, yet again, to be a force of nature and not our pal (actually they already did with Godzilla Minus Zero, but that’s not in the same timeline or extended universe, so (jedi wave) forget about that for now). Until they do, I have the 2014 Godzilla to keep me company. It lets Godzilla be Godzilla, and I like that about it.

— JS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/11/the-december-comfort-watches-day-eleven-godzilla-2014/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58631

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/11/why-ive-been-mia-which-in-this-case-stands-for-moving-is-agony/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58620

Or maybe Moving Irrationally Angrily? Because both are true.

You may have seen on here a bit ago that I got a house. Well, you would probably expect someone to be happy about this sort of thing, or at least pretty excited, which I am, but it has been completely overshadowed by stress and anxiety, and I’ve been having a really hard time with moving.

Since the move began, from the get-go I was immediately overwhelmed. Right off the bat, I was distressed by the inspection, which while it went “well” still revealed that there were plenty of things that needed fixing.

I was overwhelmed with the fact that I had to transfer utilities into my name, hire movers, get internet installed, pack everything up and then unpack everything and put it away somewhere. The previous people took their washer and dryer, so had to go buy those and have those delivered and installed, plus got a new microwave so had to have that installed, now this entire week has been electricians and insulation guys and a plumber, and you get the picture.

Yes, I know that transferring utilities and getting bills and internet and whatnot is completely normal and a regular adult thing to have to do, but I’ve never fucking done it before, okay? It’s a little stressful.

I knew moving would be hard, but I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be for me. The overwhelm shut me down. The stress made me unable to function. I wasn’t coping well. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. And not just stuff related to moving, I wasn’t doing anything.

For a bit there, I was crying everyday, the to-do list getting longer and longer and me getting more stressed and depressed. It felt like every time I checked something off the to-do list, two more tasks would pop up in its place. It’s a hydra of a house. And yes, I know, “welcome to being a homeowner.”

While I’m largely through the move, with most things being in decent order and shape, there’s still so much to be done. While I haven’t been in the trenches this week like I previously was, I’m still not doing great emotionally. A big reason for this is because of how many people have been in the house working this week.

I know they’re here to do the work that needs to be done and of course I appreciate their service and whatnot, but it’s becoming hard to be stuck in the house while four guys are here from 9am to 4pm and I don’t even have internet or power in some of the rooms because the electricians are actively working. It’s not like I’m nervous to have men in the house or anything like that, but I am on alert that there are people in my house and if I leave my room I’m going to be in their way or something. And I can’t even do laundry or dishes or shower or something productive. I just have to sit there and listen to them drill and bang around and do their work. And they track SO MUCH MUD IN!

And I’m tired of people being late all the time. The internet guy said he’d be here from 8-10am and that installation would take about two hours. So I planned my day expecting the guy to be done at around noon or one at the latest. So I practically waited at the door until he came, and the guy didn’t even show up until 11:45am, and then didn’t leave until 4pm! My day felt like it was gone!

What it comes down to, I think, is that I don’t feel at peace (yet) in my home. I feel trapped and stressed and I can’t find my fucking pans to cook with. I want eggs for breakfast gosh dang it.

Ugh, this just sucks. And I know everyone says moving sucks, but boy does it suck. I underestimated the suckening. And I underestimated how poorly I was going to handle it all.

I’ve been angry, and lashing out a lot. My patience is low and my stress is high, and I keep snapping at people close to me. Then I feel bad afterwards and cry about that, too.

Also, word of advice, don’t move the week of Thanksgiving, and don’t move when it’s fucking cold as shit and snowing outside. Normally, I really like the holiday season, but I feel like my festive spirit is being ruined by the moving stress. December is flying by and yet everyday is also exceedingly long.

I am looking forward to this part being over. Soon, hopefully. I want to be happy in my home.

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2025/12/11/why-ive-been-mia-which-in-this-case-stands-for-moving-is-agony/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=58620