Actually, you're a bit wrong. They played into the standard dumb military, the asian expert who knows all about monsters but really knows nothing and some of the other old godzilla cheese. Cranston should have lived and his son should have died in which Cranston should have been the one looking for the wife and the boy. It was a nice job on a much smaller budget than that Spiderman Marvel junk. We'll get better CGI and monsters on a bigger budget in the second installment.
MOS > Godzilla > EVERYTHING MARVEL DOES EXCEPT FOR Pepper Potts.
The military. I don't think they were making smart plans.
Starting off with transporting nuclear missiles via train... which then passes RIGHT next to a muto. A muto who can detect radiation from VERY far away. This was already established and the information was available to the military... yet they still did it. Why not just put the missiles on a plane and fly them around to San Francisco? Seems faster and safer. Even with the flying muto hanging around.
So we all know that the nuclear bomb won't work. But the twist is that it doesn't work MUCH sooner than expected? 'Cause the train is robbed by the muto and the military has a chance to change their mind about the whole thing... but they just say "the hell with it" and continue on with their moronic nuclear bomb plan. So it doesn't work TWICE instead of once. This is just bad writing.
Move on to the whole San Francisco bit. "There are still civilians on that bridge..."
Wait... haven't you known these creatures were converging on the West Coast for quite a long time now? You're telling me that you JUST now thought it a good idea to evacuate the city?
Wait... why is no one on the bridge moving? Oh, traffic on the bridge has been reduced to a standstill... because there seems to be a ridiculous amount of road blocks and cop cars blocking all the lanes. Why would they... oh, just so the military can drive tanks onto the bridge to face towards Godzilla as he rises from the water. Huh, well... Godzilla doesn't seem to be doing much... oh, wait, they're all firing at him now. This is at the point where THEY ALL KNOW that the ONLY thing that can destroy any of the monsters is a nuclear explosion. So what's the point of driving a bunch of tanks onto the bridge, and endangering a bunch of people, that are all going to end up in the drink without a doubt? There isn't one.
I know what the military could have done. Position the tanks on nearby land, fire at the Godzilla, and draw its attention away from the bridge so the people could continue evacuating. Makes sense, don't it? Now I can make a sensible plan for what's happening in the movie, and the military has all the same information that I do, why shouldn't the military be sensible too? Tension? Does the military need to be incompetent to create tension? I don't think so. Why? Because there's already giant monsters destroying everything; which is creating tension. Am I right?
So then the military's final, big operation is to stop the nuclear bomb that was essentially only there because of the military's own actions.
How dumb? Really. How ridiculously unintelligent and pathetic. That literally the only thing the military does for the ENTIRE movie is realize shit too late, and then scramble to clean up after their own mess.
I know what the director could have done. Make the military hone up to their own helplessness. Let the admiral admit after the first nuke was stolen that anything more they do would only create more problems. So they then refer to the scientist and his prediction that Godzilla's existence is to create balance within the system. Because the mutos were parasites and enemies against Godzillas before? Or something? I can't quite remember the back-story on that. But at least then it's prepping the audience to root for Godzilla, instead of just throwing in the little news title at the end "Savior of us all?" Like, I know he killed the monsters; but he DID just destroy almost all of San Francisco and probably killed some people in the process. He still would be viewed as just a rampaging monster to everyone in the city. It's only the audience and the scientist who can really look at his actions as "heroic" or "good".
Speaking of Godzilla. They could have milked it.
Why not? I came to see Godzilla smash stuff and fight monsters... and Bryan Cranston deliver good acting. Not some stone-faced guy who internalizes everything, his mild wife, and his mild son. So as soon as Bryan Cranston died the movie only has Godzilla going for it. Yet the very first conflict with Godzilla and the muto is immediately cut away from so we could have a stupid gag: the mild kid waking up to see the monsters fighting on television.
Really? You're going to cut away from the first encounter between Godzilla and the muto so I can watch a kid acting sleepy. Really...?
Then the second (and last) encounter between Godzilla and the mutos is broken up by the military cleaning up their own mess. Just, whatever...
The pay-off would have been Godzilla breathing plasma into the mutos mouth. Except the build up to it was so badly written that this ONE moment of epicness was just a little tickle of joy after a long, boring disappointment.
Btw: This Roar
