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The year is 2023. Despite being on the decline, superhero movie franchising has irreparably permeated the fabric of Hollywood. This has marked a precarious time for Godzilla fanboys, whose previous instalments have basically turned into another superhero team-up movie. The stage has been set for Chris Pratt to inevitably assume another monster-wrangling, constant-smouldering, protagonist in the Kaiju-verse. And then, boom, Toho drops the spiciest teaser ever: their next movie has Godzilla — AND HE’S ACTUALLY ACTING LIKE A MONSTER! While Legendary’s reimagining of Godzilla as a cooperative saviour of humanity might have made big bucks at the box office, the franchise’s die-hards have been starving for the behemoth to return to his roots as a champion of indiscriminate terror. Not only did Toho’s latest Godzilla Minus One promise to do just that, but it also displayed immense potential to do well as a period drama, considering it was set during the perils of a World War. After suffering through the silly (and unreleased lesser-known sexy Godzilla arcs), everyone's favourite giant radioactive lizard, Godzilla — or Gojira, if you're feeling fancy — roared into Japanese theatres, and then in the US shortly after. Fans went bananas and practically raced to see the beast in all its atomic-breathed glory. Sadly, many countries, including India, missed out on the big-screen experience. However, Netflix recently swooped in like a saviour and dropped Godzilla Minus One into our laps. And in case you’ve been living under a rock, the film is set in Japan recovering from World War II. The story follows a guilt-ridden WW2 Japanese pilot who finds a makeshift family and lands a job detonating underwater mines. Guess what shows up? Godzilla (and a whole lotta trouble). A lot is being said about the latest version of the franchise — mostly good things. While the director Takashi Yamazaki was tight-lipped about the blockbuster’s budget, sources have since determined that it falls somewhere between $10 million and $12 million. Impressively, the film even received an Academy Award nomination for Best Visual Effects. Further, both critics and the audience have been raving about the writing, something that is oft missing from some kaiju films. However, amid all of this praise, there are some fans who weren’t, well fans, of Godzilla Minus One. Even as we remain steadfast loyalists of the franchise, here are some unpopular opinions on the recent re-telling of the OG monster. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Problems with CGI" comment="subhead" text="Problems with CGI">Problems with CGI </cmsannotation>Let’s face it, Legendary really got things grinding in the CGI department with their Godzilla films. Few things have effectively commanded as much raw terror as the final fight scene in Godzilla v Kong. There is a particular moment where Mechagodzilla looks into the camera after releasing its atomic ray all over the city, followed by the jarring mechanical ‘THUD-THUD-THUD’ that really fills your heart with something. While GvK did not succeed in winning any Oscars, Minus One won the Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards. This has received some criticism from netizens, with some alleging that the Legendary film had far better CGI than the Toho film. “How did this receive an award for CGI? It looks like an early 2000s ScyFy channel movie,” one user commented on Rotten Tomatoes. Meanwhile, other online critics brought up the fact that the graphics failed to make Godzilla expressive enough, something the audience had gotten used to with the recent Legendary releases. “I know they didn’t have a big special effects budget but Godzilla looked like the puppet originals, with a lack of expression and I thought they try to give it more realistic expressions with CGI,” another user notes on the same platform. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Godzilla isn’t the star of the movie" comment="subhead" text="Godzilla isn’t the star of the movie">Godzilla isn’t the star of the movie </cmsannotation>Many have labelled Godzilla Minus One an instant classic. And the melodramatic tone of the film captured the interest of the audience and critics alike. Yamazaki created a different world within the war-torn Japan and with the main character managed to evoke sufficient emotion in viewers. However, many fans weren’t exactly looking to be moved by the human elements. They just wanted to watch Godzilla doing what he does best — terrorise. For example, one Rotten Tomato user wrote: “I guess I'm the only one who wants more monster action and less "compelling human stories" in a Godzilla movie. I find it boring and forgettable.” “I liked the Godzilla scenes a lot and it did have some memorable characters but there was way too much humans and not much Godzilla. And the human scenes were boring and slow,” wrote another. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="It was just.. “okay”" comment="subhead" text="It was just.. “okay”">It was just.. “okay” </cmsannotation>Fans of the franchise had some other complaints as well, one of them being that while the film was good enough, it certainly didn’t wow them. “It's okay but I would not call it a masterpiece,” said a user on Reddit. Some had stronger opinions about the pacing, the dramatic storytelling, and even the plot. Here is what some other Redditors had to say: “Pacing was seriously all over the place, acting was oozing with cheese and most of the dramatic scenes didn't add anything to the plot. Some Godzilla scenes were all right but still... "BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME", 8+ on IMDB and 98% on RT, seriously??....” “With mediocre CGI, forced acting, and sluggish pacing, almost everything about this monster movie is painfully dull.” “Its plot is pretty generic and predictable and the acting was quite cheesy and resembled a soap opera. Some of the political overtones of the movie were also weird, like how it was essentially a redemption arc for a kamikaze pilot.” These viewpoints just serve to show that as long as there is art, it will be criticised. But did any of these opinions resonate with you?

Netflix surprise-dropped Godzilla Minus One and we’re ecstatic — but not all fans are thrilled

A piece of bad news hit India’s green ambitions events this month! The country, aiming to go full throttle with its environmental missions this decade, ended up ranking last among 180 countries assessed on their ecological impact. The Environmental Performance Index 2022 (EPI) report ranked Afghanistan (81st), Bhutan (85th), Maldives (113th), Sri Lanka (132nd), Nepal (162nd), Pakistan (176th), Bangladesh (177th), above India (180th) in terms of environmental performance. The EPI ranks countries based on how close they might be to achieving specific 2050 international climate targets, along with their performance in environmental health and ecosystem vitality. Therefore, a high ranking indicates that the country has longstanding and continual environmental protection schemes and policies that are at work. As per the report, the top five best-performing countries (in order) include Denmark, the UK, Finland, Malta and Sweden, which all belong to the Global-West region. In a not-so-surprising turn of events since the Trump administration, the US ranked only 43rd overall, a distinct outlier as most wealthy countries also typically displayed high EPI score-sheets. Asia-Pacific countries also performed quite terribly overall, with only two countries breaking the top 50 — Japan (25th) and Singapore (50th). These rankings by the EPI are determined upon 40 rigorous performance indicators that seek to indicate the state of national efforts to protect environmental health, enhance ecosystem vitality and mitigate climate change. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="How did India fare?" comment="subhead" text="How did India fare?">How did India fare?</cmsannotation> Aside from the overall rankings, the EPI also lists individual performance scores for each indicator for each of the participating countries. Some of these indicators are clubbed into groups based on their similarities, and an overall "category score" or rank is assigned. For example, in the health category, India ranks 178th among all the countries included. This category assesses factors such as air quality, sanitation, drinking water and waste management of the country. A different indicator that seeks to assess the health of our forests and their flora and fauna is the Ecosystem Vitality index. Despite our extensive forest cover and abundant biodiversity, India appears to have failed in providing the appropriate safeguards, ranking only 178th overall. On a brighter note, however, India fared somewhat better in the fishery category, claiming the 42nd place overall. According to the EPI, our fish stock — a subdivision of the fishery category that assesses our dependence on overexploited or collapsed stocks — places us among the top 20 in the world. While this is indeed a small and much-needed win, it may also be important to note that the February IPCC report predicted climate change to cause a severe decline in our fisheries, meaning this ranking could be for nought unless we strictly implement better fishing safeguards immediately. As for agriculture-related indices — an industry our economy is heavily dependent upon — a similar story can be seen in our pesticide consumption, where India has been ranked as the 47th most responsible pesticide user in the world. India is the largest exporter of rice and many other commonly used agricultural products. In order for us to continue production at current levels and still meet climate targets, it is important that we continue to innovate sustainable practices to up our farming game. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="Other EPI conclusions" comment="subhead" text="Other EPI conclusions">Other EPI conclusions</cmsannotation> While these are indeed "victories", it is necessary that we do not get hung up on them. The EPI report serves as a grim reminder that there is always more work to do, especially in a rapidly developing economy such as India. For example, the report's projections show that India is likely to join China, Russia and the US to become the largest emitter of greenhouse emissions by 2050. Furthermore, unless climate regulations and efforts are strictly reinforced, a group of 24 countries known as "the dirty two dozen" — which includes India, unfortunately — would account for up to 80% of total global emissions by 2050. The EPI report also gives an explanation for some of the low rankings. According to them, most bottom-tier countries have been afflicted by war or other upheavals, making investing in environmental infrastructure unfortunately very difficult for these nations. They further go on to point out that India, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and Pakistan have suffered low ranks because of this very reason, having prioritised economic growth over environmental sustainability. <cmsannotation type="cmsannotation" annotationid="India Rejects Its Ranking" comment="subhead" text="India Rejects Its Ranking">India Rejects Its Ranking</cmsannotation> The EPI methodology is framed by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University. While they claim that the methodology has been refined over two decades of meticulous data collection and assessment, India has since determined that there is much to be improvised upon. In a statement early this month, India rejected its low ranking, claiming that many of the indicators used to assess the EPI are based on "unfounded assumptions," with some of them "extrapolated and based on surmises and unscientific methods." It is worth noting that India's score has dropped by 0.60 since the last evaluation in 2021. However, this could mean nothing as the EPI continually claims that scores calculated using old methodologies are not comparable to current scores due to changes in ranking methodology. While that may be true, it might also be noteworthy that India slipped from 168th place in 2020 to 177th place in 2021. Elaborating on their stance in the statement, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&amp;CC) said that many important factors had been ignored in the new methodology that went into the study, such as taking a longer time period into account. They also asserted that the EPI had revised weightages of certain important indicators without explanation, which resulted in poor scores for India. They also said that quite a few important indicators were omitted in the calculation of the scores, such as indicators of water quality, water use efficiency, waste generation per capita, agro biodiversity, soil health, and food loss and waste — which includes some indicators important for developing countries with large agrarian populations such as India. Additionally, the statement noted: "The Index emphasises the extent of Protected Areas rather than the quality of protection that they afford. Management Effectiveness Evaluation of Protected areas and eco-sensitive regions are not factored into the computation of Biodiversity Indices." With threats such as water, scarcity predicted to put as much as 40% of the population under distress by 2050, what actions India decides to take next will certainly play a major role in determining what type of life we and our children will lead in the future. We stand to be one of the most "economically harmed" nations due to climate change, threatened by rising sea levels and water scarcity that seems ready to consume our country in the coming years. If anything, we hope that this report serves as a reminder to our country to take more stringent measures and have better political safeguards in place, in order to protect us and future generations against any lingering horrors of climate inaction.

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