Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Submission 14,907

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About

Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a 2019 American monster film about fictional giant monster Godzilla. Following the release, the film garnered generally negative critic reviews and very positive user reviews, which has been the subject of memes and discussions on Twitter, Reddit and other platforms.

History

On May 18th, 2014, a sequel for 2014 giant monster film Godzilla was announced by Legendary Pictures.^[1] On July 21st, 2018, the first trailer for the film was released, premiering online on the same day (shown below, left).^[2] On December 9th, 2018, the second trailer for the film was released, with the final trailer premiering on April 23rd, 2019 (shown below, right).^[3]

On May 31st, 2019, Godzilla: King of the Monsters premiered in the United States,^[4] becoming the third installment in Legendary Pictures' MonsterVerse.

#GodzillaForGeorge

On March 6th, 2019, roughly two months before the release of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the 2019 Godzilla film, the Transit Drive-In Facebook ^[5] page posted about a campaign to allow a terminally ill Godzilla fan to see the film before he died. The campaign, which was started by the New York drive-in movie theater, the Transit Drive-In, aimed to reach the film's producers before George Root III died of stage 4 cancer. The post received more than 820 reactions, 130 comments and 500 shares in two days (shown below).

That day, Buffalo News^[6] published an article about the campaign. Twitter^[7] user @SlimerJoel tagged several of Godzilla: King of the Monsters producers and the caption, "Let’s do this." Additionally, they included the hashtag "#GodzillaForGeorge." The post received more than 160 retweets and 350 likes in two days (shown below, left).

Throughout the day, others shared their support for the campaign (shown below, center).

The following day, it was reported that Root had died. Twitter user @bobconfer wrote,^[8] "It's too late. George's wife just announced on his Facebook that the lovable fellow passed away this morning. Kudos to Rick Cohen, @TheBuffaloNews, @allwnynews, and everyone on social media for giving it the college try to have George see the film. RIP, George. #GodzillaForGeorge" (shown below, right).

Several media outlets covered the story, including Uproxx,^[9] CosmicBook.com^[10] and more.

Reception

The film received generally negative critic reviews, maintaining an aggregated rating of 39 percent on Rotten Tomatoes as of June 3rd, 2019, with 238 reviews.^[11] The critic consensus read "Godzilla: King of the Monsters delivers spectacular kaiju action -- and reaffirms that cutting-edge effects are still no substitute for a good story". On Metacritic, the film maintained a 48 percent critic rating with 44 reviews as of June 3rd.^[12]

At the same time, the film received very positive user reviews, maintaining an aggregated rating 86 percent based on over 10,300 reviews submitted as of June 3rd, 2019.^[11] On Metacritic, the film maintained a 7.9 user score as of June 3rd.^[12]

Critics vs. Audience

The large discrepancy between user and critic reviews of the film prompted the appearance of memes highlighting the issue online. In many examples, film journalists were criticized for being detached from general film audiences, while the film was praised for focusing on its action and visuals instead of the plot.

On May 24th, 2019, Twitter user @mombot posted a tweet writing that critic complains about too much emphasis on monster fights in the film were an indicator that the film is good (shown below, left).^[13] The tweet gained over 2,300 retweets and 8,400 likes in ten days. On the same day, Twitter user @Mugsysam compared the critic complaints about 2014 and 2019 Godzilla installments, with the tweet receiving over 100 retweet s and 330 likes in the same period (shown below, right).^[14]

In the following days, more memes and humorous posts highlighting the discrepancy were posted online on Twitter and Reddit (examples shown below).^[15]^[16]^[17]