Fancast: The Big Picture

At least it'll make ME angry, a self-admitted Godzilla Nerd.

I've been resisting the online clamor about Cloverfield, the J.J. Abrams-produced movie coming out in a couple of weeks that is meant to give America their own giant monster comparable to Japan's Gojira. King Kong apparently doesn't count, which makes sense because even though they did make King Kong vs. Godzilla movies, they really shouldn't have been even remotely the same size. Kong had to climb the Empire State Building, whereas Godzilla could pick his teeth with it. I trust this proves my Godzilla nerdery well enough.

The reason Cloverfield may well tick me off is not because I think it will suck, even though the trailer gives the whole film a 'reality show' feel that could either make it a supremely effective disaster movie (what if 9/11 was actually a giant monster?) or it could make it unbelievably annoying to watch with shaky-cameras and grainy footage. I know just watching the first part of the trailer, I couldn't wait for all these Bambis to meet Godzilla right away.

No, the reason it'll infuriate me is the same reason that I'm still angry whenever I hear that Roland Emmerich is still getting work. It's the same reason I cackle nastily when people look at the 10,000 B.C. footage and think it will be a highly-mockable unintentional comedy. It's the same reason I retroactively hate Independence Day and I've wanted to smack Dean Devlin for a decade.

It will piss me off because when we got the chance to do a legitimate American version of Godzilla: King of the Monsters and not just the Japanese version with Raymond Burr edited in, we were given this piece of crap instead, and Cloverfield is likely going to be everything that Godzilla should have been - a truly terrifying horror story about an unstoppable force of nature come to destroy human arrogance.

I know I'm going to watch Cloverfield and think 'wow, that's cool' and then get immediately annoyed that I'm not watching a Godzilla movie that's this cool. Godzilla is not a giant iguana that can jog on the Brooklyn Bridge without collapsing the damn thing. There is no Mayor Ebert. Matthew Broderick should not leave his talent in his other pants. Half the movie should not be reels stolen from Jurassic Park 2.

My god, it's been ten years and I still get the bile in my throat. Please, Hollywood, stop giving Roland Emmerich money to do anything other than bus tables at Denny's.

On a different note, Cloverfield is currently employing the creepy 'don't show the monster' advertising angle that didn't work for Emmerich's travesty, but that's likely because the movie was a hunk of mucous, not because of any inherent drawback to the marketing strategy. Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere is actively promoting the 'don't show the monster at all' philosophy, which he says will instantly make it a visionary classic while likely sacrificing box office in the process. People going to monster movies want to see monsters, after all. But he's now reporting rumors that the monster is definitely seen. So we knuckle-draggers should have nothing to worry about.

I certainly see Wells' point - what's unseen is often scarier than what is seen - but come on. Half the fun of monster movies are the striking visuals. Godzilla stalking through the skyline of a city, forever altering it. King Kong perched on the Empire State Building and swatting down airplanes.

You gotta see the monster. And if they can reboot the Hulk and the Superman franchises, someone has to reboot the American version of Godzilla into something worthwhile.