Ebert also thinks 1954 Godzilla is a horrible film and was horrible even when it came out and is only worth enjoying ironically; the only difference is that he was in a good enough mood to give this an ironic good score because "it's so abd it's good" while he shat on Godzilla. The guy was open-minded and very knowledgeable about all sorts of things but almost all his comments on Japanese monster movies are off. Sometimes he almost got it (his Godzilla 1998 review where he talked about how classic Godzilla had personality despite the lack of realism), but not quite.
Roger Ebert got it right, Siskel got it wrong. Any big fan of Japanese monster films will tell you that Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is very entertaining, and on that level, where you want to see a decent plot (for one of these films) and a lot of monster fights and destruction, it's a darn good film. I had previously read Roger's print review for Gamera, but never knew they reviewed it on the show, thanks very much for the upload.
That’s because the only way you can see the original film back then was the 1956 American version with Raymond burr. That version wasn’t taken too well and in America, Godzilla movies became like a laughing joke in theaters. And the heisei godzilla movies weren’t released until tri Star got the rights to do so.
@@fijistarproductions990 Because for so many years, Godzilla was seen as nothing more than a joke in the West and refused to understand or care about the original intentions of the character.
The fact that Roger liked this movie at all is huge prestige. There are movies with higher budgets that he hated more and so I take this as a huge compliment. It's like Comic book Guy liking Bart's comic Angry Dad despite the drawing being sub-ziggy.
Except that he liked it because he found it so-bad-it's-funny, which is not what the movie was going for. It was genuinely trying to turn something campy and stupid into something good but Ebert can't tell the difference between a bad japanese monster movie and a good japanese monster movie; it's all the same to him because it's delivered in an old-school style that's aiming for exaggeration & showmanship over realism, with rubber suits and over-the-top performances (which he sees as either intentionally or unintentionally "bad" because of a lack of realism). He also thinks Godilla 1954 is bad and was always bad. I love Ebert overall but even the best critics can miss the point sometimes. He never understood that there can be a middle ground between dead-seriousness and full blown irony in such films.
Ebert was a fantastic critic in many regards and right about a lot of things, but don't doublethink your way out of it; he didn't think this was a good movie. "I'm giving it a high score because it's UNINTENTIONALLY horrible and funny" is the only reason he liked this more than Godzilla 1985, and he misunderstood both films. He also thought Godzilla 1954 was a terrible film for the same reasons he thought this was bad when viewed "objectively". No one is perfect and right about everything, not even the best critics' words should be taken as unquestionable gospel. Ebert was always extremely off about Japanese monster movies and didn't seem to understand that they can not care about being realistic while still being good. He just saw that it's men in suits and that the actors' performances are over-the-top and decided the movies are "objectively bad", not even considering the skill that went into the cinematography or the quality of the miniatures. Chances are if he saw Shinji Higuchi's direction/storyboarding in an anime he'd have liked it but he's just extremely biased against Japanese monster movies and acts like the enjoyment he gets from them is always ironic. He looked past similar things in anime because he saw animation as a place where you can get away with what he would consider "objectively bad" in live-action, but Japanese art in general, including live-action "special effects", has historically not been nearly as focused on realism as western equivalents. I disagree with Siskel too, but I can't say he's missing the point; he just didn't think this was a good kaiju film while the classic Godzillas were. He didn't fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of the genre.
Hello my friend. I don't mean to front as you are obviously a fan of Kaiju films, but what value do you think they could have to fans of traditional cinema? By traditional cinema I mean fans of human drama, realism and the golden age of Hollywood. I enjoy the original Godzilla because I view Godzilla as an embodiment of the Japanese nations collective trauma going back to the second world war (the most boring interpretation, I know). And the new movie, Shin Godzilla, is an exciting critique of bureaucracy. But other movies I have seen in this genre simply serve as "movie night" fodder for my friends and me (note here: some of them are endearing and entertaining, but most of them just feel disposable) Some of the movies deal with well established movie tropes like sacrifice and redemption (please note that I have not seen that many, mostly the ones from the 60s and 70s) but there is none of the cleverness of the original Godzilla. Also looking at your UA-cam channel we seem to share some interests.. Check out Megazone 23 if you haven't (you probably have).
is Roger Ebert the ultimate arbiter of "objective quality"? Dude hated The Raid: Redemption; do its fans need to wimp out and go "yeah, it's objectively bad, but I like it"? @@Godzilla00X
"The golden age of Hollywood" is a very Americentric view. There's plenty of fantastic "traditional cinema" from all over the globe with different approaches to human drama & realism. Are Indian films bad cuz they're over the top? Why would realism be a prerequisite for "good classic cinema", anyway? All cinema is unrealistic to some extent and the very idea of Godzilla is fundamentally preposterous & has particularly flimsy basis in reality even by general movie standards - yet you still enjoy Shin & '54 as legitimately good movies, right? So clearly there's nothing inherently wrong with that level of unrealism - it's just about how well executed it is. And yeah I won't say movies like Monster Zero are good, but Ishiro Honda himself took issue with the extreme kid-friendly campiness he had to include in those. What about earlier stuff like Rodan and Godzilla vs. Mothra? I don't see how the serious themes of the 90s Gamera trilogy have no artistic merit if you're actually willing to engage with them - Ebert couldn't even engage with the themes of '54 Godzilla and just thought it was a terrible film in every regard, its profundity "phony". I made a video about 90s Gamera's themes years ago & how they're a fantastic addendum to Godzilla '54's thesis; I stand by most of it except being mean to 60s Gamera. ua-cam.com/video/KLPAf_iGoso/v-deo.html I also don't see how the political themes of Godzilla '54 are immensely "cleverer" than the themes of Godzilla vs. Mothra. One is much more serious & somber in tone, yes, while the other is more comical; but vs. Mothra still has clear (and in my opinion well-executed) sociopolitical themes even if they're more light-hearted & its social criticism more satirical, along with pretty strong human drama (if you take the chosen tone of the film into account). Rodan, meanwhile, came soon after Godzilla '54 and shares its somber tone. '64 Ghidorah suffered from some exec meddling with the fairies "translation" of the monsters' "dialogue" & it's not exactly thematically thoughtful, but it's a fine comedic kids' movie with strong direction. When you go into the "pure camp" Godzillas, there's still ways to judge quality - I'd say vs. Mechagodzilla is a pretty well-made "monster battling & wacky sci-fi shenanigans" film while Gamera vs. Barugon is, as far as I'm concerned, just a really bad Godzilla vs. Mothra wannabe But of course, these are my standards - a lot of Japanese people consider vs. Barugon to be the strongest of the 60s Gameras, likely because it's the closest to a "traditionally good adult film". I disagree with this because I think 60s Gamera's strength is in embracing the campiness - and again, there is good campiness and bad campiness. Monster Zero I'd say is bad campiness. Consider my point about anime. Ebert realizes Japanese animation's over-the-top theatric approach to human drama and lack of realism is intentional, yet he doesn't only "give it a pass"... he considers these elements a positive! Because "it's a cartoon, not real life, thus you can explore such presentation in the medium of cartoons". Yet he can't take one step further and realize Japan takes the same purposefully unrealistic approach to its special effects films. You might not like it, but it's clearly intentional! Does the extravagant use of special effects in Japanese tokusatsu look like the filmmakers are trying to be realistic & failing? Or is it intentionally more focused on stylization? It's obviously the latter and made a video about this too including historical information, creator quotes & academic sources showing Japan has a different approach to special effects ua-cam.com/video/3PgRzhP_rPE/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DeadStockParadise I've seen Megazone 23 part 1 and the funny part is, I found the writing too unbelievable and illogical to just sit back and enjoy the direction & animation. The characters' incredibly stupid decisions (why did the main guy let a young girl base her school project on the robot, letting her FILM IT, when he knew he got that robot from a dangerous government organization that'll stop at nothing to retrieve it? Why did no one notice him piloting the giant robot at night & punching a big hole in a building to save another girl from her creepy boss? Because "it was at night"? Give me a break!) - all this feels way more unbelievable than most Godzilla. @@hokuspokus759
The Thing is an amazing movie full of genius subtext. Gory horror films were another massive blind spot for Ebert: dude's brain just shut off when he saw too much blood & guts & he refused to even consider there might be something more to it. Very similar to his view of Japanese monster movies.@@KaijuSatsu
I really enjoyed this film, especially the Japanese inspector who keeps some humor. I prefer Gamera vs Legion but this is a really good popcorn flick. I recommend it to people who never even saw any of his films. I enjoyed the first 3 films which for the 60s were good. Then they turned him into a friend of all children films which stunk IMHO. In the 1970s they played these films and Godzilla as well repeatedly. It was awesome. The 4:30 Movie monster week. Chiller Theater and Creature Features in the tri state on weekends. It was way better times. I'd look through the TV Guide from the Sunday paper to see what was playing that week. Back to the film. It's one of the best Kaiju films period. That's including Godzilla films. Godzilla 0 and the original Japanese version are untouchable. In the late 70s they colorized the original Godzilla film.
Did these two ever review the other two movies in the trilogy? If they did I'm sure that the Legion review would probably be more or less the same but I'm really curious as to what their thoughts on revenge of Iris was/would be.
He'd have thought it's even worse because of the video gamey CG. He completely dismissed the fun he had with the film and acted like it was purely him laughing at how "bad" it is. Never once did he consider that maybe it did some things right and that's why he was engaged. Sad since he was very open minded and thoughtful about so many things.
Except that he didn't praise this for having an "intelligent script", he just said it's "so-bad-it's-good". I would not call Biollante an intelligent film by the way, the "Godzilla just swims away and everyone is happy" ending in particular is extremely bad and nonsensical. This movie series is actually very clever and Gamera arguably works as a better nuke metaphor than Godzilla himself.
"This script is a hell of a lot better than G84's." lol except he thinks both are horrible, the only difference is that he thinks Gamera is unintentionally horrible and thus unintentionally funny while godzilla 1985 is intentionally horrible "like the 1954 film" (this is seriously what he said; read his 1954 review to understand his overall-negative view on Japanese monster movies perfectly). Both are wrong and silly; I love Ebert overall but he never understood that there can be a shade of grey between dead-serious execution and complete irony in kaiju films. That they can go for both willful camp and unironic coolness, that they can have genuine love and effort put into them despite understanding the fundamental silliness of the concept. Just as "a stopped clock is right twice a day", even great critics like Ebert can misunderstand some genres.
_Godzilla_ (1985) is nothing compared to _Godzilla_ (1984), the original, uncut, and unaltered Japanese film, which Mr. Ebert did not review. In G85, the evil Soviets purposefully launch a nuclear missile at Tokyo, and Godzilla is lured to a volcano by the sound of birds chirping. In G84, a malfunction causes a Soviet nuclear missile to be launched at Tokyo, and Godzilla is lured to a volcano by a magnetic field, as it is discovered that he navigates the same way as migrating birds.
Godzilla 1998 is very bad, but I recently re-watched it, and all these years later I thought it worked very well as a parody. If you watch it with the intent to laugh (at the unintentionally funny dialogue and situations) and not as a thriller, it's kind of "bad/good."
lmfao all the mad kaiju fans in the comments. Ebert praised it and while Siskel didn't like it he literally said Godzilla movies are good. Ebert praised the movie for many of the reaons kaiju fans loved it.
I think it was a good movie. Gamera is cool. The plot makes sense, the special effects are fantastic, and the creature architecture is nifty.
Ebert also thinks 1954 Godzilla is a horrible film and was horrible even when it came out and is only worth enjoying ironically; the only difference is that he was in a good enough mood to give this an ironic good score because "it's so abd it's good" while he shat on Godzilla. The guy was open-minded and very knowledgeable about all sorts of things but almost all his comments on Japanese monster movies are off. Sometimes he almost got it (his Godzilla 1998 review where he talked about how classic Godzilla had personality despite the lack of realism), but not quite.
Roger Ebert got it right, Siskel got it wrong. Any big fan of Japanese monster films will tell you that Gamera: Guardian of the Universe is very entertaining, and on that level, where you want to see a decent plot (for one of these films) and a lot of monster fights and destruction, it's a darn good film. I had previously read Roger's print review for Gamera, but never knew they reviewed it on the show, thanks very much for the upload.
"Yes, Gamera is powered by farts"
Best quotes from Erbert
I never thought in hell that these guys reviewed this.
They actually reviewd it BEFORE they died.
I knew Roger reviewed it, but was oblivious to the fact that it was featured on their show.
This film came out in 1995, so this is the review by them of this 1995 film? I checked on Wiki thinking there was a 80's version and I didn't see any.
I still don’t know why Roger doesn’t like the original Godzilla movie.
That’s because the only way you can see the original film back then was the 1956 American version with Raymond burr. That version wasn’t taken too well and in America, Godzilla movies became like a laughing joke in theaters. And the heisei godzilla movies weren’t released until tri Star got the rights to do so.
Panda-4U2C Podcasts but Roger reviewed the ORIGINAL one on his website and he gave it 1.5/4 stars!
@@fijistarproductions990 Because for so many years, Godzilla was seen as nothing more than a joke in the West and refused to understand or care about the original intentions of the character.
“Gay-os”
I’ve heard a lot of mispronunciations of Gyaos, but this by far takes the cake
It's pronounced GUY OS!
The fact that Roger liked this movie at all is huge prestige. There are movies with higher budgets that he hated more and so I take this as a huge compliment. It's like Comic book Guy liking Bart's comic Angry Dad despite the drawing being sub-ziggy.
Except that he liked it because he found it so-bad-it's-funny, which is not what the movie was going for. It was genuinely trying to turn something campy and stupid into something good but Ebert can't tell the difference between a bad japanese monster movie and a good japanese monster movie; it's all the same to him because it's delivered in an old-school style that's aiming for exaggeration & showmanship over realism, with rubber suits and over-the-top performances (which he sees as either intentionally or unintentionally "bad" because of a lack of realism). He also thinks Godilla 1954 is bad and was always bad. I love Ebert overall but even the best critics can miss the point sometimes. He never understood that there can be a middle ground between dead-seriousness and full blown irony in such films.
"And just like her dad she only appears in the most intelligent screenplays"
Fucking savage...
He was so close to getting the true appeal of kaiju movies
Ebert was a fantastic critic in many regards and right about a lot of things, but don't doublethink your way out of it; he didn't think this was a good movie. "I'm giving it a high score because it's UNINTENTIONALLY horrible and funny" is the only reason he liked this more than Godzilla 1985, and he misunderstood both films. He also thought Godzilla 1954 was a terrible film for the same reasons he thought this was bad when viewed "objectively". No one is perfect and right about everything, not even the best critics' words should be taken as unquestionable gospel. Ebert was always extremely off about Japanese monster movies and didn't seem to understand that they can not care about being realistic while still being good. He just saw that it's men in suits and that the actors' performances are over-the-top and decided the movies are "objectively bad", not even considering the skill that went into the cinematography or the quality of the miniatures. Chances are if he saw Shinji Higuchi's direction/storyboarding in an anime he'd have liked it but he's just extremely biased against Japanese monster movies and acts like the enjoyment he gets from them is always ironic.
He looked past similar things in anime because he saw animation as a place where you can get away with what he would consider "objectively bad" in live-action, but Japanese art in general, including live-action "special effects", has historically not been nearly as focused on realism as western equivalents.
I disagree with Siskel too, but I can't say he's missing the point; he just didn't think this was a good kaiju film while the classic Godzillas were. He didn't fundamentally misunderstand the purpose of the genre.
And this is why kaiju fasn can not be objective when it comes to the films they love so much
Hello my friend.
I don't mean to front as you are obviously a fan of Kaiju films, but what value do you think they could have to fans of traditional cinema? By traditional cinema I mean fans of human drama, realism and the golden age of Hollywood.
I enjoy the original Godzilla because I view Godzilla as an embodiment of the Japanese nations collective trauma going back to the second world war (the most boring interpretation, I know). And the new movie, Shin Godzilla, is an exciting critique of bureaucracy. But other movies I have seen in this genre simply serve as "movie night" fodder for my friends and me (note here: some of them are endearing and entertaining, but most of them just feel disposable)
Some of the movies deal with well established movie tropes like sacrifice and redemption (please note that I have not seen that many, mostly the ones from the 60s and 70s) but there is none of the cleverness of the original Godzilla.
Also looking at your UA-cam channel we seem to share some interests.. Check out Megazone 23 if you haven't (you probably have).
is Roger Ebert the ultimate arbiter of "objective quality"? Dude hated The Raid: Redemption; do its fans need to wimp out and go "yeah, it's objectively bad, but I like it"? @@Godzilla00X
"The golden age of Hollywood" is a very Americentric view. There's plenty of fantastic "traditional cinema" from all over the globe with different approaches to human drama & realism. Are Indian films bad cuz they're over the top? Why would realism be a prerequisite for "good classic cinema", anyway? All cinema is unrealistic to some extent and the very idea of Godzilla is fundamentally preposterous & has particularly flimsy basis in reality even by general movie standards - yet you still enjoy Shin & '54 as legitimately good movies, right? So clearly there's nothing inherently wrong with that level of unrealism - it's just about how well executed it is. And yeah I won't say movies like Monster Zero are good, but Ishiro Honda himself took issue with the extreme kid-friendly campiness he had to include in those. What about earlier stuff like Rodan and Godzilla vs. Mothra?
I don't see how the serious themes of the 90s Gamera trilogy have no artistic merit if you're actually willing to engage with them - Ebert couldn't even engage with the themes of '54 Godzilla and just thought it was a terrible film in every regard, its profundity "phony". I made a video about 90s Gamera's themes years ago & how they're a fantastic addendum to Godzilla '54's thesis; I stand by most of it except being mean to 60s Gamera. ua-cam.com/video/KLPAf_iGoso/v-deo.html
I also don't see how the political themes of Godzilla '54 are immensely "cleverer" than the themes of Godzilla vs. Mothra. One is much more serious & somber in tone, yes, while the other is more comical; but vs. Mothra still has clear (and in my opinion well-executed) sociopolitical themes even if they're more light-hearted & its social criticism more satirical, along with pretty strong human drama (if you take the chosen tone of the film into account). Rodan, meanwhile, came soon after Godzilla '54 and shares its somber tone. '64 Ghidorah suffered from some exec meddling with the fairies "translation" of the monsters' "dialogue" & it's not exactly thematically thoughtful, but it's a fine comedic kids' movie with strong direction. When you go into the "pure camp" Godzillas, there's still ways to judge quality - I'd say vs. Mechagodzilla is a pretty well-made "monster battling & wacky sci-fi shenanigans" film while Gamera vs. Barugon is, as far as I'm concerned, just a really bad Godzilla vs. Mothra wannabe But of course, these are my standards - a lot of Japanese people consider vs. Barugon to be the strongest of the 60s Gameras, likely because it's the closest to a "traditionally good adult film". I disagree with this because I think 60s Gamera's strength is in embracing the campiness - and again, there is good campiness and bad campiness. Monster Zero I'd say is bad campiness.
Consider my point about anime. Ebert realizes Japanese animation's over-the-top theatric approach to human drama and lack of realism is intentional, yet he doesn't only "give it a pass"... he considers these elements a positive! Because "it's a cartoon, not real life, thus you can explore such presentation in the medium of cartoons". Yet he can't take one step further and realize Japan takes the same purposefully unrealistic approach to its special effects films. You might not like it, but it's clearly intentional! Does the extravagant use of special effects in Japanese tokusatsu look like the filmmakers are trying to be realistic & failing? Or is it intentionally more focused on stylization? It's obviously the latter and made a video about this too including historical information, creator quotes & academic sources showing Japan has a different approach to special effects ua-cam.com/video/3PgRzhP_rPE/v-deo.html&ab_channel=DeadStockParadise
I've seen Megazone 23 part 1 and the funny part is, I found the writing too unbelievable and illogical to just sit back and enjoy the direction & animation. The characters' incredibly stupid decisions (why did the main guy let a young girl base her school project on the robot, letting her FILM IT, when he knew he got that robot from a dangerous government organization that'll stop at nothing to retrieve it? Why did no one notice him piloting the giant robot at night & punching a big hole in a building to save another girl from her creepy boss? Because "it was at night"? Give me a break!) - all this feels way more unbelievable than most Godzilla. @@hokuspokus759
The Thing is an amazing movie full of genius subtext. Gory horror films were another massive blind spot for Ebert: dude's brain just shut off when he saw too much blood & guts & he refused to even consider there might be something more to it. Very similar to his view of Japanese monster movies.@@KaijuSatsu
I really enjoyed this film, especially the Japanese inspector who keeps some humor. I prefer Gamera vs Legion but this is a really good popcorn flick. I recommend it to people who never even saw any of his films. I enjoyed the first 3 films which for the 60s were good. Then they turned him into a friend of all children films which stunk IMHO. In the 1970s they played these films and Godzilla as well repeatedly. It was awesome. The 4:30 Movie monster week. Chiller Theater and Creature Features in the tri state on weekends. It was way better times. I'd look through the TV Guide from the Sunday paper to see what was playing that week. Back to the film. It's one of the best Kaiju films period. That's including Godzilla films. Godzilla 0 and the original Japanese version are untouchable. In the late 70s they colorized the original Godzilla film.
Did these two ever review the other two movies in the trilogy? If they did I'm sure that the Legion review would probably be more or less the same but I'm really curious as to what their thoughts on revenge of Iris was/would be.
He'd have thought it's even worse because of the video gamey CG. He completely dismissed the fun he had with the film and acted like it was purely him laughing at how "bad" it is. Never once did he consider that maybe it did some things right and that's why he was engaged.
Sad since he was very open minded and thoughtful about so many things.
They didn't know what they were taking about
I always found Siskel far more obnoxious than Ebert.
roger likes this but not Godzilla 1985 >:(
Listening to what Roger says here, he'd have liked Godzilla 1985 if it had come out in 1995 like this one.
+The Selchies GotU is a far more intelligent movie than any of the Heisei Godzilla movies sans Biollante.
Except that he didn't praise this for having an "intelligent script", he just said it's "so-bad-it's-good". I would not call Biollante an intelligent film by the way, the "Godzilla just swims away and everyone is happy" ending in particular is extremely bad and nonsensical. This movie series is actually very clever and Gamera arguably works as a better nuke metaphor than Godzilla himself.
"This script is a hell of a lot better than G84's." lol except he thinks both are horrible, the only difference is that he thinks Gamera is unintentionally horrible and thus unintentionally funny while godzilla 1985 is intentionally horrible "like the 1954 film" (this is seriously what he said; read his 1954 review to understand his overall-negative view on Japanese monster movies perfectly). Both are wrong and silly; I love Ebert overall but he never understood that there can be a shade of grey between dead-serious execution and complete irony in kaiju films. That they can go for both willful camp and unironic coolness, that they can have genuine love and effort put into them despite understanding the fundamental silliness of the concept. Just as "a stopped clock is right twice a day", even great critics like Ebert can misunderstand some genres.
_Godzilla_ (1985) is nothing compared to _Godzilla_ (1984), the original, uncut, and unaltered Japanese film, which Mr. Ebert did not review.
In G85, the evil Soviets purposefully launch a nuclear missile at Tokyo, and Godzilla is lured to a volcano by the sound of birds chirping.
In G84, a malfunction causes a Soviet nuclear missile to be launched at Tokyo, and Godzilla is lured to a volcano by a magnetic field, as it is discovered that he navigates the same way as migrating birds.
1:20 she’s our Kendra for the movie, got it.
ah the Gamera Trilogy
Ayako Fujitani is the biological daughter of Steven Seagal.
Where is the raccoon?
Hey do you have Godzilla 1985?
The siskel ebert org web site has the episode with Godzilla 1985. UA-cam also has Ebert's solo video review he did of it for local news stations.
2:37 LOL. Savage :-)
Awesome
And here I thought Godzilla 1998 was bad
It's the worst Godzilla movie ever made!
@@JR-ez3zdyou’ve never seen Godzilla’s Revenge
Godzilla 1998 is very bad, but I recently re-watched it, and all these years later I thought it worked very well as a parody. If you watch it with the intent to laugh (at the unintentionally funny dialogue and situations) and not as a thriller, it's kind of "bad/good."
lmfao all the mad kaiju fans in the comments. Ebert praised it and while Siskel didn't like it he literally said Godzilla movies are good. Ebert praised the movie for many of the reaons kaiju fans loved it.
I thought roger ebert didn't like guys in rubber suit.
This movie is better than most godzilla movies ive seen
Why would they review a kiddie matinee" movie ? LOL