Godzilla: King of Monsters; Deuce of Dialogue

Fire. Mayhem. Destruction. Monsters. Death. No, this isn't the lineup at your local dive bar's amateur heavy metal battle of the bands night. It's the successful formula for a kickass kaiju movie — in particular, a Godzilla movie. Much to the glee of giant monster movie fans like me, the newest instalment in Hollywood's reboot of the franchise, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, smashes through expectations. Mostly.

I've blathered on about my lifelong relationship with the big guy before, so I won't rehash it here. Follow this link if you want to find out why I have such high hopes every time someone takes a crack at Godzilla. So, looking at the ups and downs of the past, I was hopeful, but wary when the first trailers for GKOTM started to stomp around the net. 2014's Godzilla was abominable: boring, with uninteresting human characters, and very little screen time for the titular star of the movie. But 2017's Kong: Skull Island was damn near perfect for a monster movie: a great cast who looked like they were having fun and doing a great job, a story that made sense within the world it set up, reasonably good dialogue, nice worldbuilding in the teaser during the credits to set up GKOTM, plenty of loving allusions to pretty much every previous incarnation of the big ape, and special effects and action sequences that kicked ass and set up Kong as a force to be reckoned with in Warner Brothers' unfolding kaiju universe. So the question was, would this new addition live up to the standards of KSI, or would Godzilla still be stumbling under the weight of the bad writing of the first movie?

Luckily, this time, the big guy seems to have found his stride. For fans of science fictional action flicks, monster movies, kaiju, and Godzilla in particular — or even those just looking for some big, dumb, smash-some-shit-up, drive-in movie fun — this movie hits just about every target. The colossal battles between Godzilla, King Ghidora, Mothra and Rodan are unapologetically frequent, destructive, prolonged, and vicious, and the humans underfoot are by no means spared. The writers and director keep up the good job of worldbuilding for the franchise, with more monsters added; a beautiful-looking sequence in the drowned city of a lost, ancient civilization; and news headlines that allude to Kong and his home of Skull Island (important, since the word is that the next movie is set to slam these legends into each other). And I loved the fact that the film's MacGuffin is a transmitter box that's used to summon Godzilla (and the other monsters) — someone on the creative team was clearly a fan of Hanna Barbera's old Godzilla cartoon! The radio scenes could only have been better if they'd taken place on a ship named Calico crewed by Majors, Brock, Quinn and Pete (But not Godzooky. That's one blast from the past we don't need.).

Where the movie stumbles is its dialogue, which is cheesy, and with the overall story of the human characters. Yes, I know, it's a big, dumb monster movie. We're not watching it for dialogue and human story. Except we can. I don't think that good writing for human characters is too much to expect in a monster movie. Peter Jackson's King Kong remake, Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim, and the aforementioned KSI are eminently watchable for their human stories, and their dialogue isn't cringeworthy. Good writing shouldn't just be a surprising bonus in a kaiju movie, and it's a pity that with the budget Warner was working with for this flick that they couldn't have insisted on a little quality.

But while the human story is a deuce, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is at least a prince in the court of this summer's popcorn action movies and is worth seeing in the theatre, at least on a cheap Tuesday.

VCon Day 3 - Tourists and Turkeys and Lovecraft, Oh My!

Ah, lazy Sunday. Say what you want about a con's opening Friday taking time to gear up, but the closing Sunday, despite being a full day, always feels like it's drifting along half-asleep (as many fanboys and fangirls are after Saturday night's round of parties), determined to finish out the day as a point of honour, but not making any kind of real effort to get to that finish line in any hurry.

I showed up early in the afternoon, not because of any late-night partying, rather because of late-night blogging and, in all fairness, I never show up before noon. Sure, there were a couple of sessions in the morning that I'd wanted to attend, but, you know, morning. I started with the usual round of the dealers' room to see if there was anything that would catch my eye at the last minute, and ended up wrestling with myself over whether to buy a battered used hardcover anthology at one of the stalls. It was only a buck, but I resisted temptation and wandered off in search of a panel session to take my mind off of it.

I started with the "Science Fiction Tourist in Japan" presentation by one of this year's Guests of Honour, Stan Hyde. I've never been there before, but Japan's on my list of places to visit in the next couple of years (probably as a side trip the next time my wife and I visit my mother-in-law in Hong Kong), so I thought it would be helpful to get some tips from a geek perspective. And the presentation was definitely worth while. In addition to notes about culture and the do's-and-don't's, and recommendations for traditional places to visit, Stan tempted the audience with photos and stories about cool sf-related places to visit. The ones that grabbed my attention were the Studio Ghibli museum (which, from one angle, looks a lot like a freshly-opened box of plasticine) and the Godzilla-themed Hotel Gracery Shinjuku. Apparently, there's a room at this hotel where if you hit a button everything starts shaking, the lights flicker, and a simulated breaking news flash comes on the TV warning that the king of all monsters is on the rampage and coming close. While I can see us sticking mostly to the traditional sites when we eventually go, I think a couple of Stan's recommendations will find their way onto the agenda.

Next it was time for the suffering. No VCon weekend is complete without testing one's mental mettle (and the capacity of your wallet) against the horror known as The Turkey Readings. The session involves a panel taking turns reading from a selection of truly awful sf novels, accompanied by audience volunteers who act out the scenes as they unfold. People in the audience can make bids to end the torture (with the money being donated, I believe, to the Canadian Unity Fan Fund to send fans to conventions in different parts of the country to foster closer ties between the various sf communities throughout the provinces and territories), but they can also counter-bid with higher amounts to have the reading continue, with the back and forth bidding between the two sides raising the stakes, increasing the amount in the donation pot, and prolonging the "literary" torment. The first selection was hell, but I stayed out of the bidding war. The second was a different story... literally and figuratively. The panelist read a selection from an old Leigh Brackett novel, and while it wasn't one of her best stories, it certainly wasn't bad. I couldn't figure out how it had gotten tossed onto the Turkey Reads pile. So, after the first minute or two when someone in the audience offered a buck twenty-five to make it stop, I pounced immediately with a counter offer of a buck-fifty to keep it going, because Leigh Brackett, people! Show some respect! Sadly, after another minute or so, someone else raised the stakes to end it, and I didn't have enough change left to press the issue. The third story selection that came next was back to the usual standard of sub-standard writing, and after a few minutes my brain had endured all it could and I bailed out...

...And went from the madness of the Turkey Readings to a panel discussing HP Lovecraft and those influenced by his work. I've never really been a fan of Lovecraft, and have only read a couple of his short stories, but there's no denying his influence — both in terms of those inspired by his world and those reacting against many aspects of the author and his creations (I recently finished Matt Ruff's excellent Lovecraft Country, so the conversation with and repurposing of the legacy of HPL was fresh in my mind) — and the panel discussion was fairly interesting.

Afterwards it was time for the Closing Ceremony with the final thoughts from the Guests of Honour, a few last laughs, and various announcements. Nice to hear VCon will be hosting the Aurora Awards in 2018.

Then it was time to go. Admittedly, I was tempted to stick around for the Dead Dog Party, but it was getting time for supper, and I wanted to get home to my wife to hear about her day at the Lego convention/tour/thing Downtown and then binge-watch the last few episodes of season 2 of Detectorists before starting Luke Cage.

So long, VCon. It was fun. See you next year!

Oh, and before I sign off, the con photo of the post: someone's idea of an earthquake safety device, hanging on one of the doors near registration and the hall leading to the art room and dealers' room. I'll have to use this next time I teach an emergency preparedness class.