Godzilla Series Tier List

G. H. (Gman)

Alright, let's try to get the forums back on the topic of what they're meant for.

Post your Godzilla Film Series Tier List after creating it here: https://tiermaker.com/create/godzilla-series-1954-2021-923415

What do you agree or disagree with others about? Why did you rank them the way they are? Do you have any taste at all?

Post outcome of your list here.

Xenotaris

Xenotaris

oops wrong list

Cool Godzilla

sonictiger I mean, as long as Godzilla 2014 is at least higher than Godzilla KOTM.

Cool Godzilla

Xenotaris Is that an Alien/Predator Tier list?

Cool Godzilla

Xenotaris Umm, why is Shin so low? It isn't really that bad in my opinion. And Godzilla at S rank, wow that's a lot of love, Not bad.

EliteFreakozoid

sonictiger I love Godzilla 2014. I grew up with Godzilla movies, but I was born in '99 so the first time I ever had the opportunity to see a Godzilla movie in a theater was 2014. I'm obviously somewhat biased because of that, but I think a lot of people don't give 2014 the credit it deserves. As far as the Monsterverse movies go, it has the best human perspective of the series except for maybe Skull Island. I think the movie shot itself in the foot by having so much of the advertising revolve around Bryan Cranston's character instead of Ford Brody, as it gave people the impression that Cranston would be very present throughout the movie. However, in my opinion, the actual plot of the movie is very solid when compared to most other kaiju media. Unlike KotM and GvK, it felt very grounded and took itself seriously within its own universe which gave the movie a "disaster" tone more akin to Cloverfield than Pacific Rim. Also I just adore the MUTOs, very simple but very well realized designs with some of the best sound design in movie history. I'll stop gushing now lol, I'm curious to know why you aren't a fan of it.

Xenotaris I love the Alien/Predator tier list, even if it was a mispost. Mine would certainly look different but Alien might be my favorite movie of all time so I respect it. I'm also curious why you have Shin placed so low. It certainly came off as a bit pretentious, but I was able to overlook that because of how engrossing they were able to make a single-kaiju movie. That's a difficult task but I think they handled it fairly well.

Hydra

i haven't watched many Toho godzilla movies, do you know where i could watch it?

Xenotaris

Cool Godzilla and EliteFreakozoid

Oh I just didn't like Shin Godzilla. I felt they made Godzilla too similar to Hedorah and Destoroyah.

Also yes that is Alien and Predator, my other favorite franchise besides Jurassic Park and Godzilla.

SasquaDash

Hydra

The movies from Showa series (1954-1975) are available on YouTube for free (with adds). So that would be a good place to start.

Some of the other movies in the franchise are also available on YouTube movies, but you have to pay to watch them.

Monsterzero9

I put 1998 above 2014, i will die on this hill.

HinikunaGoji

Wow, G14’ is hated. Despite it having probably one of the best atmospheres in the franchise, and out of the American movies the most respect to the original source material.

just sayin

Monsterzero9

SasquaDash

HinikunaGoji

G'14 is extremely underrated in my opinion, a lot of people don't like it because of Godzilla's screen time and the fact that it focuses more on the impact that the monsters have on humanity rather than the monster fights. Godzilla's screen time and the constant teases initially bugged me when I first saw the film, but after several re-watches of the film, I've grown to really appreciate the tone that they went with. Considering how the later MonsterVerse installments focused on more out-there SciFi/Fantasy ideas and action packed monster scenes, I actually kind of respect that they took a somewhat more reserved and grounded feel for the first film. Other attempts to create a shared universe try too hard to add as much as they can early on to the point where it feels ends up feeling like a chaotic mess (Batman v Superman, The Mummy 2017, and S.C.O.O.B to name a few), so I like that the MonsterVerse has taken it's time to set up its universe as opposed to going crazy right off the bat.

EliteFreakozoid

Monsterzero11 I think there's a fundamental difference between a "Good Movie" and an "Enjoyable Movie." Kaiju media covers that entire spectrum. To borrow from another franchise to make my point, Thor: Love and Thunder is not a very well made film but it's still a very fun movie to watch. That's how I feel about Godzilla 1998. It's not very well written, having thieved most of its core ideas from other successful movies from around that time and kind of just threw them together without much care for why the source material was so well loved and respected. While I harbor no hatred for modern CGI, G98 came out long before they should have been using full CGI to render characters in an otherwise live-action setting. It was used to make the movie cheaper, not better.
On the other hand, I think Godzilla 2014 is a very well made film. Whether you enjoy it or not is a whole other thing, as it's definitely not as "fun" as most other kaiju media. It applies minimalism and restraint to the Kaiju genre in a way that isn't often seen, other than to mask budgetary constraints. Don't get me wrong, G14 is not my favorite Godzilla movie. I've just heard about a billion arguments against it that I feel don't respect how well directed/written/filmed the movie actually is.

EliteFreakozoid

Xenotaris I think a lot of the best kaiju media out there uses kaiju as a framework to tell an ultimately deeper story. Shin Godzilla's take on Godzilla is fundamentally different than any other Godzilla we've seen, so I fully understand why you might not enjoy it. That being said, while the Godzilla itself is inherently unique, the story being told and the tone being set are more similar to the original Gojira than maybe any other film in the series. The common fear of sudden all-out nuclear war has dissipated a lot since the original Gojira, and in its place a fear of government incompetence has grown. It builds an air of awe and terror ALMOST as well as the original. Where I think it falls flat is a strange reliance on what came before, a film so rooted in modern fears uses sound effects from the 50s for stomping, roaring, breathing fire, and even a lot of the military equipment. Instead of leaning further into its own absolutely beautiful and haunting score, it uses (and reuses) music from Hideaki Anno's past work as well as other Showa Godzilla films. While this problem isn't unique to Shin Godzilla, kaiju media has been leaning on nostalgia for almost as long as the genre has existed, I think it's more of a problem here than in any other instance. It's as if the film needs to remind you "You are watching a Godzilla film. It was directed by that guy who made Evangelion. Isn't that neat?"

Xenotaris

I have now created my own list for the Alien/Predator series 

https://www.alien-covenant.com/topic/51673

G. H. (Gman)

Cool Godzilla

G. H. (Gman) Godzilla KOTM and GvK are in F? That's very low.

EliteFreakozoid

G. H. (Gman) Interesting list. Can I ask why the hate for SpaceGodzilla? I've seen that sentiment a lot and never really had someone tell me why they dislike it so much. While I agree that it's fairly unremarkable among the other Heisei movies, I still had a lot of fun watching it. Might just be nostalgia goggles though, I was probably like 2 or 3 years old when I saw it for the first time.

G. H. (Gman)

Cool Godzilla,
For good reason.

EliteFreakozoid,
I'm going to have to give a shameless plug here, but only out of exhaustion for explaining why this movie is a slog of an insulting bore. I think Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla takes everything about the genre up to that point and presents them as weak or cliche with the most ridiculous lip service I've ever witnessed.

The Monster vs. Men podcast dared us to tackle the movie on our podcast and I used it as my last say on why the movie doesn't work in the least: The Drift Space - Episode 39 - Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla. (Also available on iTunes and other platforms <-- more shameless plug.) Point is, I think we do a pretty good job highlighting the issues there.

EliteFreakozoid

G. H. (Gman) Had fun listening to that, thanks for the link! I would need to rewatch the movie to really solidify my feelings about it, and I still enjoy the movie, but I'll definitely admit that it's an absolutely braindead movie. I love a good dumb movie from time to time, and I still adore the kaiju designs from the Heisei era. Godzilla was in his edgy teenager phase and it really showed through monster designs.

I will say, however, that the only thing I can actually refute from your podcast is that "Space Pollution" is actually a real thing. Not in the way the movie seems to want it to be a thing, but debris from rocket launches, dead satellites, and an increasing number of ACTIVE satellites has actually started to become a problem.

They're not generating evil crystal clones though. That's silly. This isn't a defense of the movie.

G. H. (Gman)

EliteFreakozoid,
It wasn't exactly a hot button topic in 1994 though. My main issue is that it was really looking for a message to tack on at last minute and treat space pollution as if it were some ecological concern. And the thing is, I might've bought it had there been some parallels between it and pollution on Earth--the movie did include Mothra after all. It was a missed opportunity. But, then, that's kind of the whole movie.

Cutie Hugsploder

my brother told me he did one of these so I made one without looking at his list first. I've been watching these movies since I was still in a crib so not all my choices are rational. these are in order of how much I enjoy them and also how likely I would be to re-watch it given the chance. I am now off to tell my brother his list is bad. cheers.

Cutie Hugsploder

EliteFreakozoid, what a bad list! /s

the hate on 84 is sad though. the theme alone should bring it up a rank. 

Cutie Hugsploder

To all the anime movie enjoyers it seems weird that you all place the first higher than the third which I think had the most clever ideas of all three. is it because of Ghidorahs weird design change? the time distortion scene where the spaceship gets destroyed and they see and hear their deaths on the monitor before they die is the best scene in all three movies in my opinion.

EliteFreakozoid

Cutie Hugsploder Our lists are too similar, you have to change yours. This is silly.

In regards to 84 though, I made an effort to use all tiers with a somewhat even distribution. Even the movies in E tier are ones I would happily watch again basically any time. That said, if I were to rewatch the whole series I'm sure some placements would change. Maybe even the anime trilogy could move up a tier or two lol.

EliteFreakozoid

G. H. (Gman) Oh I absolutely agree on the space pollution thing. I love the Heisei series, in my opinion it's probably the most consistently enjoyable to watch era of Godzilla, but it's absolutely full of wasted potential and nonsense plotline. I loved Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah when I was younger, but it's pretty rough to get through now with the nonsense time travel plotline. Battle for Earth reads as more of an Indiana Jones movie during the human plot than a kaiju movie, and while that's infinitely charming to me I also fully recognize that it's absurd.

It's interesting to me that Heisei is the first time they really tried to do a fully interconnected series of Godzilla films, and yet the writers decided to do a lot of coke while they tried to settle on a consistent tone for the series. Going from the heart-wrenching A plot of Biollante into yet another scene with Sunglasses Assassin is... pretty wild. Instead of trying to do better with the Millenium era they just dropped the idea of telling a larger story at all, giving us some of the most and least interesting G movies in about a five year span. Say what you will about the Monsterverse, but I'm glad someone decided to try and take up that mantle.

G. H. (Gman)

EliteFreakozoid,
I don't really think an interconnected series of films is important for quality. The fact that the Showa series and Millennium series don't put much emphasis on that is a strength rather than a weakness. While the Millennium Series gave writers more freedom to do what they wish, rebuilding an entire world from scratch with almost each movie was time consuming and I think the way they introduced each world quickly mostly worked.

In terms of kaiju films where an interconnected through line was at its best, the Gamera Trilogy has still yet to be topped. I remember watching King of the Monsters in theaters and thinking to myself, "Y'know, I could just be watching Gamera..."

EliteFreakozoid

G. H. (Gman) The Gamera trilogy is absolutely S tier. Some of the best films in the entire genre.

I don't like the Showa or Millennium series any LESS because they don't have an overarching story, and I don't give the individual Monsterverse movies any additional credit because GvK is technically the same universe as G2014 even though they couldn't be more tonally distinct from each other.

However, I do sometimes want my cool kaiju movies to be more than drop in/drop out romps in a world we'll never see again. I think there's something to be said for a connected world that starts to feel familiar. Almost home-y. Again, that isn't to say a solo outing can't be deeply impactful and more meaningful than an interconnected story. Gojira and GMK are 2 of my all time favorites. There's plenty of room for both.

G. H. (Gman)

EliteFreakozoid,
The idea of "home-y" or "coming home" is probably the best argument I've heard for staunchly connected universes. A sense of returning the audience to a world they're already invested in has its merits--if done well anyway.