This morning, we were lucky enough to get a first glance at 20 minutes of footage from this summer's highly anticipated Godzilla, a much-needed reboot without Matthew Broderick anywhere to be seen.
Director Gareth Edwards also sat down and spoke about the upcoming blockbuster, giving us an insight on what's to come.
Warning: if you want to remain totally fresh before seeing it then there are some spoilers ahead
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1. Godzilla is the biggest Godzilla ever
Standing at 350ft tall, the latest incarnation of the iconic beast is officially the biggest we've ever seen. Gareth Edwards told us the trick was to make him big enough to take on any city building but not so huge that he couldn't hide and surprise us when needed. Our first full look happened during a major action scene at a Hawaii airport where we also hear the famous roar. We were mightily impressed. The scale is awe-inducing while the minute details were enough to put all previous Godzillas to shame.
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2. A major character doesn't make it through the opening
The first clip we saw from the film was taken from the opening sequence which is set 15 years ago. It's a power plant disaster which then drives our main characters to get to the bottom of what really happened. It's an urgent and emotional scene that features a surprising amount of poignancy. Edwards did inform us that it was shot in an extremely pungent sewage plant though, which changes things somewhat...
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3. Family is an important theme
The opening tragedy rips a family apart who then have to try and repair the wound while Aaron Taylor Johnson's character is motivated by the need to protect and be there for his wife, played by Elizabeth Olsen, and son. Edwards was keen to ensure we genuinely cared whether these characters lived and promises some effectively intimate scenes between Taylor-Johnson and Olsen.
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4. It's a disaster movie above all
The feeling we had from watching the footage was that we were watching a disaster movie. From the shadowy conspiracy about keeping Godzilla under wraps to the tsunami that overwhelms Hawaii to the dog trying to outrun the chaos, it wasn't just based around a monster smashing things but the ensuing effect that it would have on the environment.
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5. Transport gets a pummeling
The big action scenes we saw mainly featured horrible things happening to different modes of transport. So a monorail-esque train suffers, a helicopter gets thrust at an airport, taking down a lot of planes and a fiery train on an isolated bridge is the focus of an epic action scene involving the military. Again, this helps engender a strong disaster movie vibe.
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6. The 3d is extraordinary
The clips were actually shown in 2D but at the end we got the chance to watch the trailer in 3D and it was superb. Truly adding another depth, even the smallest details were jumping out at us. It's very much a carefully considered 3D movie, rather than a rushed job.
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7. This shot is important
That's about all we can say on that point so you'll have to wait and see for yourself.
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