I’m gonna do my best to translate my unintelligible screeches of excitement into coherent thought.
[youtube.com/watch?v=QjKO10hKtYw]First off, this film is going to be a spectacle. We have arrived at the point, technologically, where we can finally do justice to the fearsome creature that has captured the imaginations of moviegoers for decades. Judging by the glimpses we see of the monster, the visual effects crew has put their all into truly bringing the iconic character to life.
But what’s excited me most thus far is the overall tone of the film. Not long ago, a Comic-Con trailer for Godzilla leaked onto the web (Warner Brothers promptly removed it). This first teaser featured a voice-over from J. Robert Oppenheimer, an American physicist instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb. His haunting words, when paired with the stark images of catastrophic destruction, both chilled and thrilled me. It was a sign that, above all else, this incarnation of Godzilla was taking itself seriously. (And why shouldn’t it? The idea for the creature was born of the nuclear devastation Japan experienced in World War II.)
With this new teaser, we get a confirmation that director Gareth Edwards is treating the Godzilla character and story with respect. We see parachutists bleeding out of the sky, dwarfed by the decimated cityscape and the staggering scale of the beast. We hear the unearthly quavering of a chorus cut suddenly to deafening silence, then filled with the monster’s unmistakable scream-bellow. In two short minutes, this trailer creates a palpable, mounting sense of dread. If it can do all that in two minutes, imagine what it could do with two hours.
-Alyssa
