By George Robbins
Later this year, we are supposed to be getting a movie that many fans have been waiting for ever since it was first announced a few years back. Legendary’s MonsterVerse is one that has managed to maintain a steady fanbase ever since its original inception due to the fact that they do a pretty good job with the fight sequences. ‘Godzilla vs Kong‘ is a match-up for the ages that people have wanted for a long time that pits two incredible monsters up against one another for a battle that would rock the world. After the ending of ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters‘ people can only guess what the reason is for the two titans to square off against one another in the upcoming film. With no trailers and no proper synopsis, it is kind of difficult to guess the plot for the film.
There really is no telling just what will happen plot-wise for the upcoming film since a fight between the two monsters doesn’t seem right given the past movie plots. Both monsters serve a “protector” role for the world and it seems unlikely that they would fight one another for no reason whatsoever. This means that there will end up being some plot point that we can only currently guess about being brought up almost immediately after the movie begins. As of now, the only thing we have to go off of is a small synopsis that reads, “As the gigantic Kong meets the unstoppable Godzilla, the world watches to see which one of them will become King of the Monsters.” This gives us very little to go off and sometimes these early synopses’ are usually wrong.
So where will the movie end up going from here because we have no content pertaining to the upcoming release of the film other than the fact that the rating is set to PG-13. Other than that, we can only try and compare it to the original ‘King Kong vs Godzilla‘ movie that released in 1962. In that movie, King Kong is brought in to fight a Godzilla who has made it his mission to attack people on a regular basis. The end result of the showdown between the two titans in the original film is a narrow victory for Kong after a long fight between the two. With no clear titan being a “villain” in the upcoming movie, there is definitely going to be a lot of interest going into this new film. The movie is set for theatrical release on November 19th of this year, so let’s just hope it stay that way.
By George Robbins
The world we live in is currently in turmoil, but some of it is for a good reason and shouldn’t be ignored by anybody. The Black Lives Matter movement is one that brings with it a lot of deep-seeded issues that must see the light of day. In order for these things to be recognized they must be dredged up in order to allow people to have a voice that they should have had all of this time. Among the countless issues that can easily be pointed out by the community is the issue of representation in media. Many young Black men and women don’t have many different people that they can look up to in the media and it is an issue that makes people feel inferior due to the fact they have no one to relate to out in the world.
Actor Michael B. Jordan gave a speech recently during a BLM protest in which he stated as an open declaration that Hollywood should be doing what they can to hire more Black talent. Children look for icons outside of their familial and social circles to relate to when they are young. They look for people that look like them and sound like them and it helps develop their character from a young age. If there are no people in a field or position that a child can relate to, then they end up not trying to go into it at all and the world could lose out on a tremendous opportunity. Actors and actresses help give people something to look towards as they grow up and help them identify who they are. It is a problem that there are not as many prominent Black or Hispanic actors in media as there are Caucasian actors.
If there is an increase in diversity when it comes to actors, then we could see children growing up being able to reflect themselves in a better position in life. The better young people can relate to others in powerful positions, the better off the world will be in the end. More Black talent being hired by Hollywood would give more role models for younger generations to look up to and could give us even better future talent. Hollywood shouldn’t be the only place where this is happening, but it is most certainly a prominent one that could help make a difference. With the BLM protests, the message should be clear that everyone should be treated equally by everyone and eventually things will have to change.
By George Robbins
Christopher Nolan’s upcoming movie ‘Tenet‘ is as much a mystery to the actors portraying characters in the film as the audience who will be watching it. That is not to say that the actors don’t have any idea whatsoever as to what is going on in the film, but they don’t know just what all of the details are. Recently, there was a trailer that gave us an idea as to who the villain would be for the movie, and it appears the villain would be the character portrayed by Kenneth Branagh. The problem is that it appears as though even Branagh doesn’t know if he is the villain in the movie. The only way to tell who the real villain would be in the film is to actually go and see the film when it hits theaters.
Ever since the first trailer for the film released, ‘Tenet’ has been a film that has remained on people’s minds due to the strange nature of the film. Nolan is known for making a number of different high grossing and relatively well reviewed movies that have people excited to see them. This film is akin to his other movie, ‘Inception,’ that nobody knew a thing about until they watched and dissected the movie. It seems that the same type of thing will end up happening with this film as well and we will end up seeing something interesting from it. The question right now is whether the film might just be too confusing for people to understand.
As of now, people understand that the film has something to do with the manipulating of time and the prevention of World War 3. No one is sure how time manipulation is meant to work in the film, but that isn’t the only thing that is confusing about the way the film plays out. Branagh has said that due to how Nolan usually tries to reinvent the wheel with some of his films, there is no telling if his character is actually the villain. To put into perspective how confusing this film might just end up being, Branagh has said that out of all of the screenplays he has had to read for a role, this is one that he had to read over more than any other. This means that we could end up with twists and turns galore throughout the film that we never would have imagined.
‘Tenet’ is currently sitting as one of the only films that has kept its original release date of July 17th, while many others have been forced to change due to the pandemic. However, this seems to be tentative since it seems like Warner Media might be changing the date of release, but this is still an unknown. Nolan has been doing his best to ensure that this movie would be among the first to end up releasing to theaters when they were reopened. The release of this movie would mark it as the first major blockbuster to be available when theaters reopen and it would gain even more traction given the circumstances. Whether it ends up delayed or not will not at all change the fact that this film will, in fact, see a theatrical release in its lifetime. ‘Tenet’ is most definitely a movie that holds a lot of interest and it will draw people in due to its supposed originality. All we can do until it releases is speculate and hope that it is as interesting as it appears to be.
By George Robbins
It is of absolutely no surprise to anyone at this point that studio interference is what caused issues for the DCEU thus far, at least for one movie. Though there is no telling whether they got too involved in other films as well, they have been known to get too involved in the ‘Suicide Squad‘ movie. This has been something that was speculated from the time the movie was first released, but has only been revealed recently amidst director David Ayer’s attempts to have a director’s cut released. The studio had decided that they wanted to make the movie more of a comedy before it was released so they scheduled reshoots and it is apparently the reason why the film ended up with such an all-over-the-place plot and tone.
Ayer has said that the original plot of the film actually was much more coherent and a lot of the characters had better stories, but the studio felt otherwise. This resulted in a film that many DC fans were excited for getting thrown to the wayside. Many people ended up disliking the film and it received generally poor reviews that meant that it would just end up being one of those films most people are disappointed to see. This failing is one that Ayer does not want to let go, since he put so much time into the original cut of the movie and he wants his version of the film to get its own release. It is up to the studio whether the version he wants out there will get released, but it should be more of a duty to them at this point to release it.
The fact that they suddenly decided to do reshoots to begin with just shows how little they care about the direction of the cinematic universe they are working on. They tried to play off of how well the ‘Deadpool‘ movie did by trying to make their anti-heroes more comedic to draw in audiences which doesn’t fit in with most of the characters to begin with. This ultimately ruined the movie and showed the audience that they are doing whatever they can to try and draw audiences in by appealing to familiarity. Instead of just trying their own thing and building a universe off of that, they are trying to copy other established universes and it shows.
Fans have been constantly disappointed by the DCEU due to the fact they are trying to make it seem like the universe is already established, even though people know it isn’t. Without building a proper universe, it is hard for any of the movies to seem like they were planned very well. No movie did a better job at showing how poorly planned it all is than ‘Suicide Squad.’ Hopefully, moving forward, they will start formulating a proper plan to keep people interested and to make sure that thee universe isn’t all over the place. There is no telling where the DCEU will go moving forward, but maybe it will be able to have some sort of coherent storyline for people to start following.
By George Robbins
Production studios have had a lot of issues over the past few months since the coronavirus pandemic was first announced. Since mid-March, companies have been doing their best to come up with a battle plan to move forward when they are able to start working again. This has resulted in many different productions having to try and find the best chances they have to actually film their movies. Recently, for some movies, there was a small ray of hope in the fact that Hollywood was given the go-ahead to be able to start up productions again. Of course, this comes with a lot of restrictions since the pandemic is still a very real threat that people keep trying to ignore, but ultimately can’t.
Some of the restrictions for movie and television sets include the enforcing of the social distancing rule for all cast and crew. Even while on camera, the cast is still supposed to maintain a certain distance from one another while the camera operators are supposed to change the angle to make it seem like they are closer. On top of being forced to use movie-magic to create illusions in scenes that no one would have expected them to have to do, crews must also be cut down and limit overall capacity. This will ultimately lead to many people simply being too far from where they should be or there will be skeleton crews on sets. Some parts of the crew such as craft services will not even be allowed to be there just to limit the number of crew on set.
On top of these on-set restrictions, there are a number of restrictions that must be followed off of the set while there is a production. Before films can even start up again, there is a period of time being adopted called the quarantine period that cast and crew must be isolated for a couple of weeks before productions can start. There are also other restrictions that they must follow involving cast and crew moving around outside of set boundaries. They aren’t really allowed to leave the place they are filming in until the filming is complete to prevent the risk that they get sick and bring it back to the set by accident. With these restrictions adding up, it can be pretty easy to see why it will be difficult for some movies to even start up again to begin with.
After the announcement that the UK would be loosening restrictions to allow things like movie productions to pick up where they left off, many thought movies like ‘The Batman‘ would be able to resume as soon as possible. With these restrictions in place, this is turning out not to be the case and not just with that one movie, but with most if not all big-budget films. Studios will be having a hard time just getting everything together since they have to make sure they are following the safety protocols without making any mistakes. There will be an inspector on-site at all times in order to make sure that the cast and crew are following the rules at all times so that they don’t slip up. With the exception of ‘Avatar 2’ there is no guarantee that many productions will even be able to restart any time soon.
By George Robbins
Ever since the initial conception of the Godzilla character back in the 1950’s, it has become an icon in monster cinema throughout the years. The character has undergone a number of different reformations and reboots and has appeared in many different forms of media. ‘Godzilla’ films have become a hallmark for monster movie media and have become some of the most favored films around due to the fact people simply want to see giant monsters fight one another. Within the past decade, Hollywood was given the opportunity to show that they could actually make a ‘Godzilla’ film that would be enjoyable. They succeeded when they released 2014’s ‘Godzilla‘ and it ended up with relatively good reviews since most people just want to see giant monsters fight.
The 2014 iteration was released by Legendary Entertainment and easily brought the character back into the eyes of the public stateside. There were still many fans who knew the character from the older Toho films that were interested to see if the film would be better than the 1998 American iteration. This was not a feat that was considered difficult by anybody and they did much better than people expected them to do. Thus the greenlight was lit for the studio to start working on what is now known as Legendary’s MonsterVerse. Of the cinematic universes that studios have tried establishing within the past decade, it has still managed to hold up and is actually considered one of the best.
As stated previously, it is not hard to get people interested in giant monsters fighting one another and this is why the films have been doing well. The next film that they have up on their docket of releases is the ‘Godzilla vs Kong‘ film which will see the two titular monsters facing off since the original ‘King Kong vs Godzilla’ released in 1962. Both characters have been featured in their own movies and despite what some say about those films, the general consensus is that they are well done. The biggest complaint that people have in regards to those films are that they focus entirely too much on the human characters and not the monsters. After all, the reason most people go to see the movies is due to the fact that they get to see giant monsters fighting one another.
Even though the film is still slated for a release some time later this year there is really no information for it, and it has only just been announced what the rating would be. The film will share the same rating that the rest of the films in the MonsterVerse currently share which is a PG-13 rating from the MPA. These two world famous monsters are the headline act that people have been waiting to see fight one another ever since it was announced that they were a part of a shared universe. While Kong won the original battle in the 1962 film, we don’t know just how the upcoming film will play out and we can’t even speculate any plot details since there isn’t really any footage out for the public. All we can do now is wait and hype ourselves up for a very intense match-up that fans have been looking forward to for years.
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