Back in January we previewed the spring theatrical release Godzilla vs. Konghere at borg, asking: Could an aircraft carrier really support that kind of weight? A book coming next month might not answer that question but it will look behind the scenes of the movie. With a foreword by director Adam Wingard, Daniel Wallace’s Godzilla vs. Kong: One Will Fall–The Art of the Ultimate Battle Royale boasts being filled with concept art paintings that influenced the final look of the film. It also includes interviews with key production crew. It’s available for pre-order now here in the U.S. and in the UK at Amazon here.
Could an aircraft carrier support that kind of weight?
Warner Brothers released its new trailer (below) for the next Godzilla movie this weekend–Godzilla vs. Kong–the follow-up to the 2019 sequel Godzilla: King of the Monsters (reviewed here at borg). It’s one of the hundreds of movies delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, this one originally scheduled for a Thanksgiving week 2019 release. The next effort of U.S. studios to one-up the Japanese kaiju genre doesn’t try to hide what it is: what the director calls a “massive monster brawl,” a straightforward mash-up of MUTOs (massive unidentified terrestrial organisms). It merges the 2017 King Kong reboot Kong: Skull Island, and the Godzilla reboot story centered around the secret agency Monarch, which began with the 2014 Gareth Edwards-directed Godzilla. For this fourth film in Legendary Pictures “MonsterVerse,” young director Adam Wingard brings back Godzilla storyline characters played by Millie Bobby Brown and Kyle Chandler and adds familiar action stars new to the franchise Eiza González (Bloodshot) and Brian Tyree Henry (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse). It doesn’t look like any characters are being brought over from the Kong franchise.
One of the benefits of behind-the-scenes and making of/art books for major studio movies is that anyone diving into the production process for the first time can usually learn plenty about the stages of filmmaking from pre-production to final product. Just pick a film you like and jump right in. Abbie Bernstein′s The Art of Godzilla: King of the Monsters is no exception, but it will be particularly fun for anyone who is a fan of concept art and mega-monsters. It’s also weighted toward pre-production and the pre-visualization process. Readers wouldn’t expect a film with giant creatures to be filmed with practical sets, but with a modern studio Godzilla movie filmed in the U.S., you automatically expect a predominantly CGI movie. The Art of Godzilla: King of the Monsters is filled with trial pieces from artists showcasing the process of turning the classic Japanese kaiju characters into something new and different.
Fans of Scott Chambliss will want to read what guided him to make the choices and decisions for the look of the film. Chambliss has his own style, and when watching the film my reaction was how many sets, and specifically the color and lighting choices, felt like Star Trek 2009, a film in which Chambliss also served as production designer. Chambliss discusses the visual tricks he used to make Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, and King Ghidorra appear to have immense scale, but also appear real. Several effects companies worked on components of this film, each trying to make their creations the best of the pack without competing against each other–the goal being to create the best final product they could. Some artists worked on familiar software programs, combining photographs and 3D imaging of locations like San Francisco’s Union Square to combine with actors in Atlanta. Others made sculptures of each creature–in a variety of materials–and then those sculptures were scanned and manipulated into what the audience sees on screen by others, after even more creators contributed their colors, texture, lighting, and other touches.
The Art of Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a great companion book to Mark Cotta Vaz’sGodzilla: The Art of Destruction, the behind the scenes look at Gareth Edward’s 2014 Godzilla film that was the starting point for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and Simon Ward’sThe Art of Kong: Skull Island. All of these massive monsters will come together soon in Godzilla vs. King, so it’s a good time to be a fan of kaiju. For fans of the new Legendary Pictures movie, it’s a good opportunity to understand the characters better from those who created them, and learn more from actors about their experiences on set, including Millie Bobby Brown, Vera Farmiga, Kyle Chandler, O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Elizabeth Ludlow, Thomas Middleditch, Anthony Ramos, and Bradley Whitford.
When you have made as many movies as have been in the Godzilla franchise (31, more than James Bond movies), you run the risk of making a sequel or reboot that ends up like Independence Day: Resurgence, or Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, or Man of Steel, or Alien: Covenant. For some moviegoers, a quick fix with lots of CGI in one of their favorite universes is good enough. Godzilla: King of the Monstershas many things in common with these movies, without quite being as good as any of them, or Godzillas of the past. Inasmuch as moviegoers will see the great effort taken to be faithful to its predecessors, by bringing more than just Godzilla to the picture, by bringing in a significant number of character actors that will be familiar to audiences, and by trying to create more spectacular visuals than came before, the latest Godzilla movie, opening today, doesn’t match either the monster mayhem or the humor of its 20th century predecessors.
Stuffed with every over-used creature and action trope, some used repeatedly, Godzilla: King of the Monsterssuffers from taking itself too seriously. Its single attempt at levity is Get Out’sBradley Whitford as a wise-cracking scientist who seems to be channeling Brent Spiner in the Independence Day movies. But beyond that, this is a family drama, more talk and human family in-fighting than Godzilla screen-time, between Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown as Madison and her separated parents played by Kyle Chandler (Super 8) and Vera Farmiga (The Commuter) (in that way it suffers the flaws of the 2014 Godzilla). For some credibility we get Oscar-nominated actor Ken Watanabe (Isle of Dogs, The Last Samurai, Batman Begins) to remind us of the creature’s 65 years as a Japanese kaijū icon. Other than that, the production skipped Japanese actors for this installment. The best character and performance comes from Charles Dance(Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Bleak House, Gosford Park), who plays a terrorist. His character is the lone voice who speaks sense in a film that only makes sense if you also believe ocean drillers are the best choice to pilot a space shuttle to save the world from an oncoming asteroid. Armageddon, War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, The Day After Tomorrow, Pacific Rim and every other disaster movie is rolled up into a single package here. Direction and decisions are all over the place. Even in a crazy, kooky, over-the-top monster movie, audiences deserve a plot with a foundation with a smidge of reality, especially if the talking heads scenes get equal time with the clashing creatures. So if you decide to see Godzilla: King of the Monsters in the theater, you’ll need to throw all logic and reason aside and try to enjoy the ride.
Although this wasn’t clear in the trailers, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is more than another franchise installment, it’s a direct sequel to Gareth Edwards’ 2014 Godzilla movie. Five years later the world is learning how to live as 17 titans (monsters like Godzilla) surface across the globe. Watanabe joins other returning cast members, including Oscar-nominated actress Sally Hawkins (The Shape of Water, Blue Jasmine, Layer Cake), Oscar-nominated actor David Strathairn(Sneakers, The Firm, Eight Men Out, Memphis Belle), as they attempt to cause the titans to join forces in support of Godzilla instead of his three-headed dragon competition Ghidorah. The best of the encounters finds the flying Rodan taking on a convoy of jet fighters, in a sweeping, well-choreographed scene that you’d expect from a Godzilla movie, although this scene and the rest of the monster scenes are mostly fuzzy and don’t make the most of high-definition camera capabilities or CGI.
Of the dozens of movies coming to your local theater between now and August, we spotted ten to highlight today. Although Disney continues to recycle past hits into new variants, like Dumbo, Aladdin, Toy Story, and Lion King, Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, and the rest of the pack are still holding their own with their latest efforts, all vying for the biggest box office win. So along with Columbia Pictures’Spider-Man: Far From Home (partnering with Disney’s Marvel Studios) and the latest Disney purchase, 20th Century Fox’s Dark Phoenix, there’s Legendary Pictures’ Godzilla: King of the Monsters coming next week, Universal’s The Secret Life of Pets 2, Columbia and Amblin’s Men in Black: International, New Line and Warner Brothers’ Shaftsequel, Universal’s Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw, Luc Besson’s Anna, and Columbia delivering Quentin Tarantino’s next feature, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, all in the coming summer season (realizing the studios don’t follow the actual calendar seasons).
You may have seen a few of these movie trailers before, but most we’ve been stacking up for today. We’re even throwing in the trailer for the Downton Abbeymovie, which eeks into the summer calendar, arriving September 20.
So start planning to fit these in. This week sees Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown team up with Godzilla in the first big movie on our list, Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The final X-Men movie of the 20-year run arrives the following week with Dark Phoenix. We’re sure Men in Black: Internationalwill be a big hit. And the third Marvel movie of the year arrives withSpider-Man: Far from Home for the Fourth of July weekend. Some good prospects lie ahead!
In case you missed them, here are the movie trailers for the summer’s biggest releases:
Sometimes so many trailers are in the queue it’s time to stack ’em, pack ’em and rack ’em. For us, that means it’s time for another installment of Trailer Park. We have a new Deadpool 2 trailer, reportedly the final trailer, and this time we meet the supporting characters. We have two new Solo: A Star Wars Story television spots you might have missed (do you say Han rhyming with Stan, like Lando does, or Han rhyming with Ron, like everyone else does?). We have the first look at Denzel Washington returning as Robert McCall in Equalizer 2. Plus another TV spot for next week’s Avengers: Infinity Wars. What else… one more trailer for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. That’s a lot of sequel trailers. You’d think we were already living in The Stacks.
And posters! The studios have released several new movie posters to gawk at, including a late-breaking UK poster for Solo, a Deadpool 2 poster by Deadpool co-creator Rob Liefeld (an homage to New Mutants, Issue # 98), a poster for Equalizer 2, and, directly from Jamie Lee Curtis, the first look at the return of Michael Myers in the late 2018 release of the Halloween reboot.
So what are you waiting for? Check out these six trailers:
It looks like the set up for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s sci-fi classic Predator. A mission gone wrong. A puzzled crew. And something unexpected hunting man in the jungle. It’s not an alien but the next King Kong reboot, Kong: Skull Island, and the first trailer for the movie was released Saturday at San Diego Comic-Con.
With an impressive cast, including Tom Hiddleston, John Goodman, and Samuel L. Jackson, Skull Island has the feel of Jack Black’s most recent big budget King Kong from 2005. And that movie was a generally good remake.
The producers, who also made the last version of Godzilla, were savvy enough to hide a full shot of the giant ape from us this early on.
So check out this trailer for Kong: Skull Island, direct from Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures at this year’s Comic-Con:
If your only exposure to Orcs is in the J.R.R. Tolkien Middle-earth stories, be prepared for a different look at this fantasy species in Christie Golden’s new novel Warcraft: Durotan, prequel to the upcoming Legendary Pictures Warcraft movie. We’ve reviewed many franchise tie-in novels over the years here at borg.com and plenty of prequels. Warcraft: Durotan is a surprisingly original novel, giving us a unique, sympathetic look at what you may otherwise only know as brainless, barbarian fantasy monsters.
Warcraft is of course the film adaptation of the megahit series of videogames. It opened this weekend internationally to some early box office success. Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), director of the film and son of the late David Bowie, star of Labyrinth and fan of fantasy films, has said he previewed the film for his father, who was excited about the movie. We previewed the movie trailer earlier here at borg.com. It stars Vikings lead actor Travis Fimmel, along with Clancy Brown, Daniel Wu, Paula Patton, Dominic Cooper, and Ben Foster.
You don’t need to have any background with the video games to enjoy the prequel novel. It will be familiar to fans of the games, but deviates from the video game story. Some fans of the games will like it, some won’t. Durotan is the son of a chieftain of a clan of Orcs. When Durotan steps into the leadership role of his clan he must learn to balance the traditions of the past with the very survival of his clan. Warcraft: Durotan is a solid fantasy story, but it could easily be the story of an actual Native American tribe, a Viking or Highland clan, an Aztec tribe, ancient Spartans, a band of Mongols, or even a family in a Louis L’Amour Old West novel. Durotan’s trials are the trials of any leader whose people are plagued with crisis after crisis. Loyalty, bravery, sacrifice, tradition, mythology, and folklore all come into play.
Well it’s been one long year, with plenty to do and see, plenty of good and not-so-good to read and watch, and as with last year we’re certain we reviewed more content this year than ever before. This year was a big year for borgs in TV and film, so we had some difficult decisions to make. All year long we sifted through all that Hollywood had to offer and honed in on the genre TV, films, comics, and other books we thought were worth examining. We went back and looked at it all and pulled together our picks for our annual Best of the Best list.
Today we reveal the entire list–the best genre content of 2015–with our top categories Best Sci-Fi Fix, Best Fantasy Fix, Best Superhero Fix, Best Animated Fix, and Best Borg selected regardless of medium. A dozen properties garnered multiple mentions.
We hope you agree with many of these great creations of the entertainment industries, and wish everyone a great 2016!
Best Sci-Fi Fix – Killjoys (Syfy). Surprised? Killjoys pulled together great worldbuilding, characters and actors in a year of a dozen new sci-fi shows to provide us the closest thing to the next Firefly we’ve seen in a long time.
Best Fantasy Fix – Galavant (ABC); Runner-up The Librarians (TNT). It aired early in 2015 but nothing surpassed Galavant’s medieval high adventure and all-out Princess Bride-style fun.
Best Superhero Fix –The Flash (CW). Of all the Marvel movies and TV series from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. to Agent Carter and from Arrow to Supergirl, nothing had us coming back for more each week like the superhero world in The Flash.
Best Animated Fix – Star Wars Rebels (DisneyXD). Compare it to Star Wars: The Force Awakens and see if you think this animated Star Wars galaxy had an even better story and characterization, along with the return of its own group of original trilogy actors, compelling visuals and rousing music.
Best Borg – Pops (Arnold Schwarzenegger) from Terminator Genisys(Paramount). Schwarzenegger created yet another borg that could stand up against his prior successful characters from the series. A cool, moving character in a big year for borgs on screen!
Best Borg Movie – Ex Machina (DNA Films). Incredible storytelling and a small cast of talented actors provided a classic science fiction story and Oscar-worthy film about our favorite subject.
Best Borg TV Series – Humans (AMC). On television the most in-depth look at life as a borg and among borgs has never been portrayed more dramatically than on this year’s surprise sci-fi hit series from AMC.
Best Kickass Genre TV Heroine – Liv Moore (Rose McIver), iZombie(CW); Honorable Mentions: Dutch (Hannah John-Kamen), Killjoys (Syfy); Helena (Tatiana Maslany), Orphan Black (BBC)
Want to know who we picked for best villain and best comic books of the year? Take a look after the cut…
At least if Jurassic World bombs we can’t accuse Amblin, Legendary, and Universal of false advertising.
This weekend the studios released the first film clip for the fourth film based on Michael Crichton’s bestselling novel Jurassic Park. Normally that would be something to gravitate toward, but not so this time. The clip features the show’s stars Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard with some over-long, stilted, outright boring dialogue. For nearly two minutes. And no dinosaurs.
We’d love to see the meetings where it was decided that this was the first clip to show audiences to showcase the movie. Already plenty of viewers have slammed it on social media. Even Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon chimed in about the staid, sexist set-up on Twitter: “…and I’m too busy wishing this clip wasn’t 70’s era sexist. She’s a stiff, he’s a life-force – really? Still?” And although it’s a bit odd for a director with a competing 2015 film so openly chiding another’s movie, he’s certainly right.
