Godzilla (2014) Promo

This is nothing new. I tend to place my focus on the classics and the past as you know, but I continue to enthusiastically throw my support behind Gareth Edwards Godzilla (2014).

As I noted in Godzilla-Building, the marketing team behind this picture, along with Edwards, appears to be generating just the right amount of buzz and just the right look for a film that continues to mount excitement. So far, so good.



I'm not certain the new Godzilla feature will endure for me like the Japanese classics. To pull that off will be tough. It's hard to compete with them in my mind. Literally, I mean, my mind has those uniquely Japanese pictures on a pedestal.

Surely Edwards Godzilla will be a technical triumph and I expect to marvel at this picture lovingly this summer, but will it rest high atop the pantheon of Japanese greats? Probably not. Gareth Edwards is British for bloody sake. I'm joking of course.  It doesn't mean he's not capable.

The only reason I temper my expectations to be realistic is the same reason I always temper them for a J.J. Abrams Star Trek film. My childhood has so emotionally connected me with Star Trek: The Original Series it is near impossible to get there, to that apex, for anyone.  Even the Star Trek films with the aged, original cast never quite hit the same notes for me.  It was a different time. It was a different place and I was different.

How Star Trek: The Next Generation managed to pull off an epic coup in the pantheon of greats is nothing short of a miracle. It's surprising, but that series resonated as deeply with me as ST:TOS and that is no easy feat in my book.



Abrams' films are technically proficient and superior on an effects level in every way.  They also certainly capture the spirit of Star Trek for a new era nicely, but they never quite endure with me on an emotional level. It's not their fault. I'm just beyond that place in my life. My exposure to the 1970s and the 1980s essentially sealed my fate. I was doomed. As I've said before, these things simply are a matter of fact for me.  I am a prisoner of my past. Any and all pop culture by way of home, Britain or Japan set the bar. It's difficult to look at things without that prism of excellence, in my mind.  Everything is constantly held to that expectation. It's exactly why Godzilla Vs. Megalon is still something of a minor classic. I'm kidding, but I'm not.

Seriously though, I am over the moon with anticipation for the new Godzilla picture and like Star Trek I always have my older series and my older films to fall back on regardless of any new output that falls short. It's nearly impossible for pop culture to go back and ever get that feeling absolutely right again. Pacific Rim (2013) struck a chord.

So I will still enjoy the new pictures and hope for excellence, but like the new Star Trek films, will the picture endure with time or be a Roland Emmerich dud? I surmise it won't be the latter, but, as always, for someone out there it will be the former.

We will continue to watch the development of this film with anticipation.