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Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, here with a Slate spoiler special on Godzilla, the new reboot of the 60-year-old franchise by Gareth Edwards.

And here to talk about Godzilla with me in the Slate New York studio are Forrest Wickman, who is Slate writer. Hello, Forrest.

Hey, Dana.

And Chris Wade, who is our audio video producer at Slate, and also a Godzilla expert who was just put

together a comprehensive history of the character of Godzilla. Hi, Chris.

Good morning, Dana.

All right, guys. So let's wail on this Godzilla the way that it wailed on San Francisco.

I didn't see it with you guys. We were all in the same screening, but we did not touch base

afterwards. So I don't even know how you felt about it. Can you give me a quick reaction? I was in a different screening.

And my screening, as I've just gathered from talking to some people that were your screening, was like really rowdy.

I loved this movie.

I thought it was a total blast.

I do not think it was perfect.

I think the second half totally stomps all over the first half and leaves all of its intentions and sort of

character arcs in the rubble. But it's pretty cool to watch it stomp all over the first half of the

movie. And I just thought it was legitimately awesome using, you know, that word as it's meant to be.

I don't think I'll be thinking about it a lot. But when I was in the theater, I was thinking that is really impressive, that is super cool.

And that's basically what you go to these movies for.

Yeah, no, you're right.

The emotion of awe, actual awe, like being amazed at the grandeur've seen a lot of things that are meant to awe us in that context.

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