Behold: the VersusVerse!

It's called the Nostalgia Oblongata, and
for some of us, it's overly active and that's
why I go see dumb, if entertaining movies.

I'm sure this isn't an original observation, but goddamn, we are suckers for nostalgia. Well, I shouldn't speak for you. I am a sucker for nostalgia. Although I've got a feeling you've fallen for it yourself as once or twice. I mention it because I went to see the new Godzilla movie over the weekend and I'm fairly sure I only went because the people who market these movies use some kind of rubric to determine exactly what they need to do and say to stimulate the part of the brain responsible for decision making and then get dumb idiots like me to see their movies.

Above: That time Roland Emmerich
made Jurassic Park only not as good.

Godzilla? Check. Collapsing recognizable landmarks? Check. Charles Dance as the bad guy? Checkmate. Also it helps that the marketing made it clear that this movie wouldn't waste so much of its runtime on people talking about how terrifying all the giant monsters are and instead would focus on the giant monsters doing cool shit. This was kind of a problem with 2014's Godzilla. No, not the Mathew Broderick one from '97. We don't talk about that one. Gareth Edward's Godzilla. It was the first entry in the MonsterVerse and while pretty good, it was kind of stingy with the monsters.

Next up: Godzilla Vs. Kong; a remake of
King Kong Vs. Godzilla huh...they probably
should have called it the VersusVerse.

Huh? Yeah, the MonsterVerse-and yes, it's a 'verse. You know what? I'd like to digress for a moment because we were just talking about this nonsense the other day. Yeah, Godzilla, Skull Island (the King Kong movie from a couple years ago) and now Godzilla: King of the Monsters (the one I saw Saturday) are part of Warner Bros. totally innovative attempt to do exactly what Marvel already did with its MCU, that is, to make a shared movie universe.

Which is dumb for a couple of reasons. Firstly, the cinematic universe, as a thing, is being done to death. Secondly, it was already done to death in the 1960's. And with Godzilla no less. It's complicated, and we've discussed it before so I won't go over it here, but suffice it to say Kevin Feige didn't invent anything.

He just took other people's characters, told other people to go write movie adaptations
filled with crossovers and team-ups which is something movies have been doing
since 1943's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Now if it sounds like I'm being harsh,
remember that Feige made like a trillion dollars doing it, so you know, he's doing ok.

Burr reprised his role of white guy in the
U.S. version of 1984's Godzilla Returns
which was retitled, get this: Godzilla: 1985. 

And thirdly...wait, did I say there was only two reasons why this is dumb? Because there're three. Anyway, it's also dumb because there was already a Godzilla: King of the Monsters. It was the title of the first movie when it was released in America. They spliced in some scenes with Rayond Burr because American audiences back then couldn't handle a movie without a white guy, but it was essentially the same thing. In Japan, it was simply called Gojira, which is the Japanese way of saying Godzilla which was the title of both the 1997 and the 2014 American-made Godzilla movies.

"Recycle!"

-King Ghidorah,
not being wrong

Are your ears bleeding yet? Thought so. Huh? So how was Godzilla: King of the Monsters? I mean, I thought it was pretty good. I wasn't expecting a finely crafted cinematic masterpiece and didn't get one. The premise is ridiculous: Charles Dance wants to free the world's monsters in a Malthusian...well, I guess we say Thanos-ian now. A Thanos-ian plot to keep human civilization, and our destruction of the environment, in check and Ken Watanabe must stop him.

But it was much more fun the 2014 one, and was full of call backs to the Toho movies, even re-using the score because again, they know who their audience is: adults who used to watch poorly-dubbed Godzilla movies hosted by Grandpa from the Munsters on TBS's Super Scary Saturday. Which brings us back to my original point from which I have wandered considerably: that all you need to do as a filmmaker is remind me of something I enjoyed from the past and I will give you money. God, is it me, or is that super-bleak?

Bleak? Maybe, on the other hand, hey look!
It's Grandpa! Here, have some money...