GODZILLA
May 19, 1998
I remember sitting in a movie theater, watching the trailers play. What movie was I seeing? I cannot remember what it was for the life of me. Then one trailer came up showing an old man fishing while being heckled by two bums, he gets a bite that he tries to reel in but fails and the pole is yanked into the water. Suddenly, a set of large fins appear above the surface of the water heading towards the pier, the man runs away as the pier is destroyed and after a flash of green light, one word appeared on screen. The message was clear:
Godzilla was coming to America!
The idea of an American produced Godzilla movie actually originated in 1983 when horror director Steve Minor proposed a project with Toho's approval. But due to a large budget and little to no studio support, the idea died within a year.
The film wouldn't really start to gain traction until 1992, when Sony acquired the rights from Toho. By 1994, a script was completed by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot. Jan de Bont, hot off the success of 'Speed' was set to direct the film and concepts for Godzilla's design were submitted by Stan Winston.
In the movie, Godzilla was going to be a monster bio-engineered by the ancient people of Atlantis and he would fight an alien monster called "The Gryphon."
(A giant monster being created by Atlantis? Why...does that sound familiar?)
But both the film makers and the studio kept fighting over the budget and eventually the project died once again.
In many ways, reviewing Godzilla 1998 feels like a rite of passage for anyone in my position. But if you're reading this, chances are you probably know why this movie is not a good representation of the character, how it fails to meet even the basic requirements, how it disrespects the legacy and apparently how there is a large quantity of fish involved.
I really don't know what more I could add.
A common statement from people who review this film state that it is not a good Godzilla movie, but as a basic monster movie, it fares a lot better.
So that's how I think I'm going to approach this. I'm going to look at this movie as your standard giant monster movie, with my Big G goggles placed to the side, and see how it holds up.
French nuclear tests in the South Pacific mutate an ordinary Iguana into a large dinosaur-like creature that attacks several ships before coming ashore on the island of Manhattan. While the US Army is bent on destroying it, a scientist is eager to try and figure out what the creature is and why he is here.
The first bit of praise goes to the score by David Arnold, which is strangely whimsical most of the time, but it fits the tone of the movie oddly well.
Our main cast consists of your common monster movie archetypes.
Personally, I think Matthew Broderick feels perfectly cast as our biologist, Nick Tatopoulos. Any guy who studies worms for a living has to be a quirky individual and Broderick is in fact, a quirky individual.
Jean Reno plays a French secret service agent bent on cleaning up the mess left by his country. He may just be the best of the main characters for as serious as he plays the role, he still brings an irresistible amount of charisma.
For our members of the press we have Maria Patillo as aspiring reporter Audrey and Hank Azaria as cameraman 'Animal.' Audrey is a fine character, but her emotional range is somewhat lacking, especially when she tries to justify an a-hole move she makes towards Nick. Spoiler alert Audrey: Reddit thinks YTAH.
As for our military people, Kevin Dunn plays the very entertaining Colonel Hicks and I do like the character of Sergeant O'Neal played by Doug Savant. Although I feel like there was a missing arc to the movie involving O'Neal constantly trying to prove himself and impress Colonel Hicks.
But not even good military characters can change the fact that in this movie, the military is REALLY bad at their job. The fact that they can't take their fingers off the machine gun triggers and proceed to hit everything BUT the thing they're aiming at is infuriating.
And the less said about the mayor and his aide, two characters based on the director's petty grudge against a couple of well known film critics, the better.
Now let's talk about the creature itself.
It is a very nice design. It's sleek, muscular body is instantly unique and it's huge jaws and curved fins are a nice touch.
The creature also possesses a curious innocence to it. He isn't out to destroy humanity or cause havoc, all he wants is to gather food and lay eggs, the city of New York just happens to be in his way.
I really have to commend this movie for its use of practical effects. Not just the miniature buildings that get blown up but for the creature as well. For some shots, a scale model animatronic is used and in a reported four shots in the film, the creature is an actor in a suit.
But for the majority of the movie, the creature is brought to life via CGI, the results of which are mostly good. The creature does look great for most of the movie, but in some moments, the CGI looks like it could have used an extra bit of shading. There is one shot that stands out to me as bad when you see the impact of the Helicoptor bullets hitting the buildings while trying to hit the creature. (Remember, the Army sucks in this movie.) There's also one close up of the creature's eye which looks like it was ripped right out a video game.
One of the most notable scenes in this movie is the scene with the hatchlings.
The creature itself is capable of asexual reproduction, not unlike a real life Komodo Dragon, and ends up laying hundreds of eggs which end up hatching and pursuing our main characters.
While the sequence is overall good, it can't escape the stigma that much of the scenes borrow too many elements from the Velociraptor scenes from Jurassic park. Shots of the eggs in the movie are also reminiscent of Ridley Scott's 'Alien.'
The Hatchlings are portrayed both through guys in suits and CGI that varies from good to unfinished.
My editor Rhiannon and I both agree that this movie is really not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Yeah, the dialogue is cheesy and the effects are a bit dated, but it's just got this irresistible charm to it. This movie could easily fit in with some of the great monster movies like 'The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms' and 'THEM!', Producer Dean Devlin said they set out to make a fun, popcorn movie and they did succeed at that.
This is a ridiculous movie, but it can be enjoyed because of that.
That being said...
None of the praise I've given this movie can alter the fact that this movie was supposed to be an adaptation of Godzilla. The King of the Monsters and the living embodiment of nuclear destruction was reduced to an ordinary creature that is easily killed by modern weapons.
I am not ashamed to admit that I liked this movie when it came out. I was young, easy to please and didn't have the understanding of the series I do today.
I remember one time I was shopping in Walmart and I overheard some people talking about this movie and they said something along the lines of "Well, if they had just made the creature look like Godzilla, the movie would have been so much better." I just about had an aneurysm. The design of the creature is a big point of contention, but there is a bigger laundry list of problems that would still exist in the movie even if they did change the design.
Needless to say, Toho was not pleased with the results. Suit actors Haruo Nakajima and Kenpachiro Satsuma were especially critical of the creature's design. Satsuma even reportedly walked out of a screening shouting "This is not Godzilla!"
Godzilla's reputation had been damaged, but thankfully, this would not be the final word in the Godzilla saga.
But that's a story for another time.
There is one silver lining to all of this though. During the build up to it's release, many Blockbusters started carrying many more of the older movies, some even had an entire kiosk dedicated to them and those are some of my fondest memories of going to Blockbuster. I still remember when the area had suffered a blackout and it took a while for the guys working there to figure out how I could check out 'Terror of Mechagodzilla.'
Sony was also able to acquire the rights to the rest of the Heisei series that didn't get a theatrical/home media release in the states after Godzilla vs. Biollante. This was without a doubt the best thing to come from this debacle, as starving Godzilla fans could finally see the movies that they had only read about or heard whispers of, myself included. They no longer had to rely on imported VHS tapes from Japan without subtitles or various bootleg versions from a younger, more civilized internet. When I received VHS copies of Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla and Godzilla vs. Destoroyah for my birthday, I was beyond happy. And then I was crushed after the ending of the latter. So in a bizarre way, as much as us fans may hate the 1998 film as a Godzilla movie, I'm willing to bet that we owe a huge chunk of our love of the character to it.
Honestly, it doesn't feel worth it for longtime fans to get angry over this movie anymore, especially since America would eventually get it right and most of us have made peace with this movie. Even now I can still say it is an enjoyable film by itself, separated from association to Godzilla. It's no masterpiece, but you can still have a good time watching it. It's nowhere near Roland Emmerich's worst film, that would be '2012.'
Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon
and thank you for joining me here in my lair.
So long...
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Thanks for reading!
