Legendary Godzilla: not scary and harmless?

Titan of Water

I don’t get why people are so taken back by Legendary Godzilla’s personality. People say he isn’t scary because he doesn’t go out of his way to kill and destroy, just what is in his way. Isn’t that saying that a tornado isn’t scary because it has no ill-will and only kills and destroys what’s in it’s way?

G. H. (Gman)

But within context of the 2014 film and what we've seen of the new movie, is there any reason to consider him scary?

In both cases he's been set up as a protagonist to the extent characters in the first movie were cheering for him as he left for sea. I like Legendary Godzilla's personality, but I don't think there's anything about him particularly "scary".

TheGMan123

In the context of a watcher, he's not scary, just really damn cool.

We lack contextual scenes to showcase more personal horror associated with his appearances. Also, because he's more naturalistic in design, he comes off more like a genuine creature than some nightmare.

As well, overall, the bracket has been pushed for what counts as "scary" and "horrifying" nowadays. The reason Shin Godzilla is often cited as quite horrifying is because he's pushed the bracket farther than other incarnations of the character out of necessity in a modern viewing context.

Titan of Water

I think my problem is that I’ve hardwired myself to think that a modern Godzilla movie is “bad” if Godzilla isn’t “scary”, but I still consider Godzilla 2014 a good movie, it’s just a personal bias I need to get over.

Kenshen107

2014 Godzilla was really more animalistic than previous ones in the past. Say Godzilla from "Return of Godzilla" that one I believe was kind of like the one we have now where it was simply looked at as a more creature than the A-Typical Godzilla that is all friendly and looks out for people.

Also Shin-Gojira is another example of Godzilla being animalistic with just more messed up concepts that we are use to. They pushed the boundary on that movie and truly wanted to look at him more as a creature created by our own ignorance. A creature who's only instinct is that of survival and evolving to satisfy it's current needs. It truly had the ability to evolve into something that is nightmarish which I would love to see. 

All in all I do love the new Godzilla and am interested to see how he acts in this movie..

Titan of Water

As a note I made a forum called Kaiju films and Sadism where I worried most Kaiju fans are sadists but I realize I was being absolutely retarded and that just isn’t true, so just ignore it.

Artemisace

I think it depends on what you consider scary. I don't partake of modern horror movies, they bore me honestly, but I think they have set a very different president for what is scary nowadays. The original Gojira film, 1954 right?, was scary to people then. I think the Legendary team did a good job in making a Godzilla who in universe is definitely scary, but to us the viewer maybe not. I really enjoy the design of the new Godzilla and they took their inspiration for his scalation very evidently from crocadilians which would make him scary looking to some. If I was in the universe I'd probably think Godzilla was cool and scary, which is how this universe me thinks. If that makes any sense what so ever.