The MonsterVerse

The Monsterverse

Sidey: Right. Mentioned in the previous episode- Yeah ... where we're doing a little- Right, right.

Dan: 'cause I'm just crunching. No

Sidey: Captain Crunch going on.

Dan: Yeah. I will

Cris: w- Oh,

Dan: do it

Cris: still recovering, Daniel, from, his previous episode.

Dan: Right. I need, I need that kind of junk food moment Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm

Sidey: That I'd been watching with my daughter, movie nights all of the MonsterVerse movies. Okay. So the Godzilla stuff. Yeah. I actually missed the fi- although I have seen it, but it was a little while ago. The first one, the Godzilla one, she watched that and then she was hooked, so we watched the rest of them, and we'd watched them in a real weird order as well. So the first one, and it's way back in 2014, was Godzilla. Yeah. Yeah. So he's like, that's,

Dan: Well, this is-

Sidey: this is- ... th- the discover him ...

Dan: I mean, if we're going way back, it's the cartoons, isn't it?

Sidey: Well, no, you'd have the original Kaiju, the man in a suit, Japanese versions. Yeah. And then, yeah, there was the fucking shit cartoon with Godzooky, what the fuck that was about. But this is the kind of I wanna say Legendary/WarnerVer- Warner Bros. Studios making this. Is 2014

Cris: 2014 the one with Matthew Broderick?

Sidey: No, that was way back when. That was the '90s. That's '99 or something- Yeah ... no? Right, so it's earlier than that. It's like '96.

Dan: Godzilla's been with us for a while. Yeah.

Sidey: it's been around, but this is the sort of the modern-

Cris: Oh, right. Yeah, okay

Sidey: know, take on it. Then there was Kong: Skull Island. Yeah. I watched this last week. That's 2017, it's a three-year gap introducing us to more Kaiju. I like this one. It starts off with... So this is kind of like- A sort of Bermuda Triangle-y type island where you can't sort of see it or no one knows it's there- See it, yeah 'cause it's got this weird geographical

Cris: What, Kong Island? ... Skull Island. Yeah, I've, I've seen that. It's Samuel L. Jackson,

Sidey: Yeah. ship. So a guy and a, a Yank and a Japanese pilot crash there- Yeah ... and they're having a fight, and the Japanese guy's about to beat him, and they're on a sort of edge of a cliff/mountain thing, and this massive fucking hands appear on the side of the cliff, and then you just see Kong's head appear. Cut to present day. It's John Goodman who's got wind of this island. Yeah. And he's sort of leading this, Mission ... mission to go over there and explore. 'Cause they know obviously now that there's Godzilla, there must be other shit kind of. Although his, this is actually way before, 'cause this is, this one jumps back to like the '40s

Cris: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Okay ...

Sidey: of goes every place. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. and he leads his crew over there. They've, think maybe they've all just finished World War II, or was it Vietnam? It's a bit sketchy on exactly which- I Think Vietnam ... which- '

Cris: Cause they've got machine,

Sidey: like, proper machine guns Yeah, they all got the machine guns- So ... out the side of the- Yeah thing. And when they, so they have to... Basically no one's seen this island because of this weird weather pattern, this hideous per- seemingly permanent electrical storm. No one's decided to fly through it to see what's there. So they, they do do it, and they, some pretty hardcore turbulence, but they make it through. And you get a great sequence of Kong just like swatting fucking- Yeah ... helicopters out of the sky and all that. And then eventually when some of them do survive we're reintroduced to the Yank guy we saw at the start. It's John C. Reilly as this weird like-

Cris: Survivor guy. Yeah

Sidey: yeah, survivor who's seemingly befriended these local tribesmen of like- Just they appear out of nowhere, don't they, when they- Yes. Yeah, Yeah, yeah ... they all appear. And he's like, "Hey, guys." And they all worship Kong, and so we get to meet him and, and do all that sort of stuff. I actually really like Kong in this. He looks like a fucking badass. Yeah. Yeah. And like, like the theme about all these movies is they're obviously fucking completely stupid, but I really love big Kaiju, big monster movies. Yeah. They're so cool. And then th- that leads us into, and I forgot, 'cause I had seen these. I thought that Godzilla: King of Monsters was the last one. Okay. But it isn't. It's, it's right slap bang in the middle because Godzilla x Kong is after King of

Cris: Really? Okay. when

Sidey: you watch King of Monsters, there's so much fucking destruction. 'Cause when they, when they fight, you know, they take a building down. There's everything, yeah They're in Tokyo and over. In King of Monsters, it honestly looks like there's, like, fucking nothing left of the world. Like, it's not even worth saving anymore. That one's got, it's got Millie Bobby Brown and,

Cris: I don't think I've seen that, though.

Dan: I don't think I've seen this one, yeah. I have-

Sidey: really stupid. Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga Kyle Winatabe. He has to sacrifice himself to

Dan: No

Sidey: yeah. So this one we have, they've identified, you know, the, the, the world of Kaiju and what they call them, Titans, is expanding, and they're, they've managed to replicate the sort of... In a similar way to Project Hail Mary, they've found a way that they could communicate or- Right ... get some sort of thing going with the animals with the Titans. So they've got Mothra, is, which is obviously i- i- in a pupil pupate state? Pupate? What? What's the right way, word? And they're waiting for that to come out i- into its full moth-like state. But they're... So this

Dan: Pooper

Sidey: is all, because there's this corporation that's kind of in and around all of this stuff called Monarch. Right. And then there's rival s- factions. And so as they're about to see, they're all there waiting for Mothra to hatch, I guess. Charles Dance comes in and his crew just fucking executes all the scientists there. and and it all goes fucking Pete Tong. So in that one you get Mothra, you get Rodan, which is the big sort of flaming kind of eagle type thing. You get obviously Godzilla, but you get King Ghidorah, which is the three-headed Hydra one- Yes. Yeah,

Cris: was gonna say there's like a dragon with three heads looking thing,

Sidey: three heads looking thing. But that one's not actually from Earth. So w- well, the fucking, we love the size of this shit. So the Earth, there's obviously the Earth as we know it. Yeah. There were people that live on the, the outside, but there's like an inner inside

Dan: There's an inner core There's

Sidey: an inner core. There, so there's an inner core. Right. And this is where all the Titans originally were, and nukes and stuff have awakened everything. And so there's all these Titans on Earth in this one, but they are being controlled or being called and shepherded. There's like a mammoth, there's fucking loads in this one. A massive spider. They're being controlled by King Ghidorah just to go around and cause fucking havoc everywhere. But he, I'm saying he, I don't know if the gender is fairly neutral in this. They. They. Yeah. Probably from out of space somewhere. So controlling that. So basically we need Godzilla to come in and fucking kick some ass. Which he does. Yeah. But he is- At what price? He is taken down. He is fucking taken down in a bad way. And dies or at least we think he might have died. But no they do some sort of exploring stuff and find this ancient civilization, which is actually underwater And Godzilla's gone back there because it's the source of some sort of radiation which he is able to- Where he will heal ... heal him, but that is probably going to take a long time, and they're talking timeline of years. And so that's why Ken Watanabe has to go down there with a nuke. This is like a suicide mission, you know, you

Dan: Yeah.

Cris: Wow, okay. They didn't

Sidey: have to drug him like Old Man.

Cris: went by himself.

Sidey: did it, yeah. He did it. I don't think the initial intention was that it was gonna be a suicide mission, but he realizes there's no other way, so he detonates this nuke, and,

Dan: Does he make it out?

Sidey: No, he never danced again. But Godzilla does make it out. He's fucking really, like, supercharged to the point where he, they think he's gonna go supernova. Anyway, he fucking batters wins the day, but then, you, you know, the camera's, like, going around and just everything's just rubble and flames, like absolutely everything. So that one's really great. I really like that one. It's like takes

Dan: So would that be... What, so 2017 you say that one

Sidey: that one was? That one was 2019. '19. So we had a two-year gap between Skull Island and that one. And

Cris: and, then it's Godzilla

Sidey: then a further two years later we get Godzilla versus Kong. Yeah. Which is one that nerds would get, like, a real hard-on about. Like, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and Kong? Yes, yeah. Okay. I think my daughter was really up for this one. Between

Cris: your dad and my dad

Sidey: Yeah, but it's not just Kong, is it? Because that's boring. It's it- Is

Cris: the one where they have little kids?

Sidey: No, it's the robot one. This is Mecha, Mecha Godzilla comes along. Yes. So I think this is, if I remember rightly It's the crew, I think they're, they're called Apex Cybernetics, and I think this is the sort of rival crew to Monarch. They're trying to, like, leverage all this Titan shit to build, you know, weapons or whatever. So they've got this robot version of Godzilla. So Kong and Godzilla for, like, a lot of the movie just beat the shit out of each other and total what's fucking left of the

Dan: building weapons of mass

Sidey: to team up to,

Cris: Bring down robot

Sidey: brilliant. I love all this shit.

Dan: No, definitely not seen this one.

Sidey: Oh, it's good. Then there's another one after that. So it took another three years to get Godzilla- But,

Cris: but is that not the other one? It's like Godzilla X Kong or something like that. Yeah, so

Sidey: Kong or something. Yeah, Godzilla multiplied by Kong. Multiplied, okay. Well, it's, it is ex, but I'm just, like, being a prick. Colon The New Empire. This is just a mere two years ago. And

Cris: is this with the babies? This

Sidey: is with the little

Cris: Yeah, they have... Yeah, okay.

Sidey: I think they just... There's ano- there's a bigger ch- Is he called Scar? Is it some sh- Scar King or something? Then this is more in the, Godzilla, the Netherworld. Yeah

Cris: Pure Japanese Godzilla ...

Dan: the, the mi- Is it Minus One?

Sidey: There's... Have you seen the trailer? There's a new one. Yeah. Minus Zero. Yeah,

Dan: Minus Zero. It looks... Well, it's brilliant, that Minus One. That was, brought, you know- Yeah ... Godzilla right back to the top of cinema for me again. It was- just- Yeah ... a,

Cris: amazing. That was

Dan: well received

Cris: as well. Yeah, it

Sidey: That was really cool. I was sure the trailer for it, and well, after we watched all these, and my daughter really loved this, and then she's like, "Is there another one? Hey, is there another one?" I'm like, "Not yet." But there is gonna be another one, I'm told, which is going to be called-

Dan: In this kind of Godzilla-Kong franchise In this, yeah,

Sidey: in this Monsterverse, the Warner Bros. Monsterverse. Godzilla times Kong Supernova. That's scheduled for next year.

Cris: Okay.

Sidey: So I don't know what the fuck the deal with that was. This is getting boring. But yeah, we also, we watched it with Pod, didn't we? We watched Godzilla Minus One. Minus One, yeah. And the new one's called Minus Zero. So I did say to my daughter, like, there is, there is another one, but I think she likes Godzilla as the hero

Cris: Rather than- Rather than the

Sidey: one that's just like- Yeah, no totaling everything.

Dan: that's just like- Yeah totaling everything. Yeah.

Sidey: but I think that's fucking excellent. I like him as the, the sort of inverted commas, friendly on our side Kaiju, but that one's fucking great as well. But it's I suppose we could watch it dubbed because she wouldn't be able to cope with the subtitles,

Dan: Right. Yeah. You can watch them dubbed, yeah.

Sidey: But we could watch it dubbed. I just don't think she'd vibe with it. She'd probably still watch it, but I don't think she'd

Dan: But y- this is a very different-

Sidey: real, this was a real sweet spot last week for her. She just couldn't get

Dan: oh, brilliant. It's lovely when you find stuff like that, isn't it? When you just- Yeah ... can all sit down, you enjoy it, and it, you

Cris: Locked

Sidey: are real-

Dan: than just you- Lock...

Cris: than just

Sidey: They're real switch your brain off, just enjoy all the violence and all the smashing of stuff.

Dan: I might go back and see some of these then. But did you

Cris: these though? W- w- because you said you had them in the hotel room,

Sidey: said- ... you had them in the hotel room, but was there- Well, on, in a, on the telly we had Netflix.

Cris: you just log into your

Sidey: account. So we could watch, I think a couple of them might be on, one or two of them might be on Netflix, and one or two were on Prime, and I ended up renting one on Prime. 'Cause didn't have Prime on the set, but they, you could cast to the room- Yeah, yeah ... to the TV in the room. So, we just watched them all like that.

Cris: That's why I was, I was

Dan: world is a

Cris: some of the hotels these days can, you can actually cast your

Sidey: your Yeah, yeah ...your

Cris: Yeah, yeah ... your iPad or your phone. Yeah. But some of them, they will just won't let you. I can't r- I don't

Sidey: Yeah. Could ... And some of the pro- some of the apps don't have a casting thing, which is a bit weird. Yeah, so the- these ones, the MonsterVerse, they do try and build it out with you know, like in this one you've got Millie Bobby Brown, and she's got a younger brother who's been killed, I think, by virtue of being near Godzilla. So the dad and the mum have split up. He's what's his name? Chandler thing, his name. And Vera Farmiga. So they try and bring in all this human drama. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Fuck off.

Dan: Doesn't matter.

Sidey: Yeah. Get that out ... let's just get to the fighting. Not interested. Give me the, yeah, give me the action. We don't need this to be two and a half hours where you try and bring in some human element. Don't care.

Dan: We're not here

Sidey: stuff getting smashed. Yeah. I think, you know, the, the visual effects now are at such a level that it just looks to me fucking

Cris: looks really real, yeah.

Sidey: Love all that.

Dan: There's nothing they can't do with the CGI, the visual effects

Sidey: And because you're starting off with a gigantic fighting lizard, like it's already like so preposterous that it doesn't

Dan: Yeah. ... it doesn't really matter what they do. No. It's

Sidey: do. Yeah. It's already at like a stupid level. It's like Power Rangers, man. So I'm, I'm all in. So bring it on. So that, if you think like Samuel L. Jackson's in that- he's in obviously Marvel stuff. Yeah. He's been in Star Wars as Mace Windu. He's been like almost like every fucking franchise going. He's... I know he's, he did lose the crown- He must make some good ... he did lose the crown to

Dan: What? The most money

Sidey: Yeah, the biggest gross- The Rock then? No, it's the, oh, nearly... it was so close to that to me. Zoe Saldana, 'cause she's been in Marvel, she was in- Right ... Avatar. Yeah, yeah, Yeah. And so she-

Cris: Like the biggest grossing.

Sidey: Avatar

Dan: would help, yeah. So around Pete spent

Cris: there's ... Who is that guy? There was ... I, I'm pretty sure we talked about this, but there was one of the actors that said no to Av- to Avatar to being in the in the takings. So he was like- Oh ... "No, I'm, I'm go- I wanna get paid." One, one of the actors was like, "I wanna get paid the 5 million," or whatever No And, and the producers were like, "No, no, we'll give you- Percentage ... percentage of whatever." And he, i- When he said, he's like, "Basically as of today," when he said it, it was like on a stage. It was one of the actors in it. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, "And as of today, I've basically said no to 800 million," or

Sidey: that. And it's done, mate." That's a huge... I don't know. It's- For- Sam Worthington maybe. Yeah. Bad decision. Yeah. I, I just don't like this one anyway. I do love these. I do love the other ones. I did at one point there, when there was an old video shop n- nearby where I used to live when I used to buy all the, the videos, and I was going through a spell of collecting all the old Japanese old ones, man in a suit

Dan: Oh, yeah.

Sidey: yeah. Yeah. They're not

Dan: So it's been a long love of yours, the- these Godzilla

Sidey: Yeah, I do like these. And I, even as a kid, I did watch, even though, like now looking back, Gozuiki was fucking terrible, but I did like

Dan: Yeah, no, I, I enjoyed the, ... They did, Godzooky came into it. It was like an earlier one where he actually, or he wasn't there for a few series, and then they brought in like Godzoo- you know, j- yeah.

Sidey: I had a really good collectible, like figure of Gozu as well. Right.

Dan: Well, w- as in Japan he's-

Sidey: It's in the real McCoy

Dan: you see the a huge kind of Godzilla like statue coming over a building just in Japan, just walking along, and he's there like that. Oh, wow. It's just, just the hands and the head coming over. Amazing. Like,

Sidey: You know the band Blue Oyster Cult? Yeah. Who do the "More Cowbell." So they've got a song called Godzilla. It's fucking really

Dan: okay. Yeah. Right. I've got, I've got their, one of their albums, yeah.

Sidey: So I would say overall, although we haven't really talked about the films in depth for me, the MonsterVerse is a strong recommend.

Cris: would you say they're all connected?

Sidey: Yes. In

Cris: of, of the l- the, the... If you, if y- l- let's say if tomorrow we would watch-

Dan: standalone

Cris: No, I know. I know that. But let's say b- because- They're connected. Yeah, because some of the Marvel ones are nowadays, they... If you haven't watched the last one and you wanna watch this one, it's just it's just like, well- You

Sidey: a recap

Cris: Yeah, I need to, to remember what happened in the last one that I haven't

Sidey: can also go even more in depth. There is a series on Apple TV, I think- Okay ... called Monarch, which is, features very little Kaiju action. To me it's, like, completely pointless.

Cris: It's more

Sidey: But it shows the, the sort of nitty-gritty if you wanna get, if you wanna get, like, super into all the human stuff. I'm not that bothered about

Cris: Okay. No, no, I wanna see. If I'm gonna watch that, I

Sidey: wanna see- I need to see, right,

Cris: same like if I wanna watch James Bond. I, I'm not looking for breakthrough performances and acting. I wanna see explosions. I wanna see him killing people. Yeah. And I wanna see him shagging the beautiful woman. That's,

Dan: bit of a, yeah, twist and a, a clever plot here and there. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And you wanna see some gadgets.

Cris: Nice suits,

Sidey: Yeah. I know what I'm, like, setting myself up for with Godzilla. If it doesn't tick all those boxes, then what the fuck? Yeah. And these all do tick the boxes, so for me, strong.

Dan: Okay. Yeah. Nice. We'll check it