'Godzilla' from 1998

[ReadyAndWilling]

so I was watching this for about 15 minutes earlier after Christopher mentioned the animated show.

i know this was hated by fans of the original Godzilla and the hatred is definitely understandable from my perspective. i was a huge fan growing up of the original transformers in the 80's. i had the action figures and taped every episode. then i go and see movie from 2007 and it just didn't feel like it captured the true heart of transformers. some of the scenes were just out of place, like bumblebee takin' a leak on the guy, which is something the original would have never done. great special effects and some good looking women, but no substance.

anyway, i'm starting to remember why i enjoyed Godzilla so much. decent story, good humor and some exciting action scenes all make it worthwhile viewing. the CGI still holds up too, IMO.

 

[Starbreaker]

I realized it sucked in 5th grade.

 

[SG-17]

One problem, its not Godzilla.

 

[Tiberius]

I enjoyed it as a monster movie. more realistic than a guy in a rubber suit.

 

[Saga]

the animated series was good. the movie, not so much. the 98 Godzilla being easily defeated by the true Godzilla was one of the best parts of Godzilla Final Wars.

 

[Mr Light]

I loved '98 Godzilla as a kid. Great action scenes, and I liked how first it was Godzilla, then it was the baby dinos, then it was big momma again. Like any Emmerich film, turn your brain off, become of the lowest common denominator, and enjoy!

 

[bigdaddy]

the animated series was good. the movie, not so much. the 98 Godzilla being easily defeated by the true Godzilla was one of the best parts of Godzilla Final Wars.

I agree, the cartoon was amazingly well done, what a Godzilla show should be.

The movie was trash, no plot, horrible action, decent action, ugly Zilla.

 

[The Wormhole]

I remember I didn't see the American Godzilla until several years after its release, so I was well aware of all the negativity surrounding it. So I'm watching it and after the first time the defeat Godzilla, believing the movie over I thought "What the hell was everyone complaining about, that wasn't that bad." Then they fight the baby Godzillas. A bit Jurassic Park, but whatever. Then once they were defeated, Godzilla returns and they have another showdown with him. At this point, I realized exactly why everyone complained about the movie.

 

[Silvercrest]

I loved '98 Godzilla as a kid. Great action scenes, and I liked how first it was Godzilla, then it was the baby dinos, then it was big momma again. Like any Emmerich film, turn your brain off, become of the lowest common denominator, and enjoy!

I'm against entertainment that requires you to dumb yourself down to enjoy it. You do that enough times and you don't come back. That's the whole reason Hollywood is the way it is (not to mention the rest of the media). Hollywood executives are incapable of drawing an audience that's smarter than they are, so they did the opposite: They managed to convince the viewing public that it's okay to be as stupid as they are. And it worked.

Scary, isn't it?

 

[Christopher]

One problem, its not Godzilla.

True. But I've found that if you don't judge it relative to Godzilla and simply treat it as a self-contained monster movie, it's not bad. I suspect that if they'd simply given it a different title and told exactly the same story, it would be better regarded. It would still be considered a Godzilla knockoff, of course, but hey, Gojira was a knockoff of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms to begin with.

 

[Captaindemotion]

Yeah, big monster turns up, smashes the hell outta New York and gets defeated by a motley crew, that includes Jean Reno impersonating Elvis. What's not to like? Entertained me for a few hours, even if I've never been in any hurry to see it again.

 

[Christopher]

And what's cool about the animated series based on the movie is that it so neatly fits into the same continuity. Most TV series based on movies make changes to the continuity of one sort or another. Starman retconned the events of the movie to have taken place over a decade earlier; Stargate SG-1 tweaked character names and backstories and modified some of the movie's concepts; Men in Black: The Series (from the same producers as Godzilla: The Series) ignored Agent K's retirement and made Agent L more experienced than J. The Real Ghostbusters actually treated the movie as a film made within its universe, based on actual events. But G:TS can be almost perfectly reconciled with the movie; the only inconsistency is a tiny one, a difference in the timing of events at the very end of the movie. Aside from that, they can easily be treated as a single consistent reality, which is almost unprecedented. The animated series even featured two of the actors from the movie reprising their roles. (Though I was surprised that Hank Azaria wasn't among them, given his voice acting experience elsewhere.)

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I remembered thinking the movie was OK, but nothing special. I saw it when I was 11, though, and haven't seen it again. The cartoon series was quite fun. I agree, it did fit in well. I thought they actually did a good job expanding the concept to make it more than the movie ever tried to be.

 

[Gojira]

I am a huge Godzilla fan since I was young in the 1960s. I am a rare individual that really liked the 1998 version. I own it on DVD and have watched it too many times to mention. I do consider it Godzilla in name only due to the fact that the looks of the creature is too far from the original. Now having said that, as a giant monster movie on its own it is a fun movie. Sure it has its flaws, some characters just make me roll my eyes, and the scenes in Madison Square Garden drag the movie to a crawl, all in all it is a fun movie to watch.

I am really looking forward to the 2012 reboot of Godzilla.

 

[SicOne]

^ 2012 reboot of Big G? Do tell!

Are we talking about a reboot of Toho's Godzilla, or of the Emmerich Godzilla?

 

[Gojira]

^ 2012 reboot of Big G? Do tell!

Are we talking about a reboot of Toho's Godzilla, or of the Emmerich Godzilla?

Legacy Pictures bought the rights for an American version of Godzilla.It will not have any association with the 1998 version. It is due out in 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godzilla_(2012_film)

 

[Brikar99]

A friend of mine once complained that he didn't like the movie because he just couldn't take it seriously. But my question in response was how could he possibly try to - the cast is composed almost entirely of comedians, the action sequences are practically slapstick... This movie is a comedy, and it works much better when you look at it that way.

 

[RAMA]

People take this "real Godzilla"/"fake Godzilla" thing far too seriously. You really can't consider the Japanese Godzilla as a serious, unchangeable icon. Frankly, the American version was a better monster and actually had some "character" development. lol The human characters were a different story, but then that was never a strength of the Japanese films either..although the Smog Monster was a sympathetic character...poor creature...

RAMA

 

[Christopher]

^I agree. Purism is a silly, narrow-minded standard to judge things by. It's the very nature of human creativity that ideas get adapted, reinterpreted, reinvented, reimagined, and evolved. That goes all the way back to ancient mythology. It's how stories survived back before there was widespread literacy or printing -- by being retold, reimagined to suit new audiences who would keep them alive in their own way. Gojira, as I said, is himself a knockoff of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and that film was a spiritual descendant of King Kong and may have been partly derived from a Ray Bradbury short story. And Gojira has been reinterpreted often enough within his own series, going from a deadly monster to a cuddly defender of Japan back to a deadly monster again.

What matters is how well a story is told, not how slavishly it imitates its source. If it changes things in a way that creates a fresh, distinctive story, that is a good thing. Now, it's questionable just how good a story the '98 movie was -- there's only so much quality you can reasonably expect from a Devlin/Emmerich movie -- but the fact that it's different from its source material is not a fault in and of itself.

 

[FordSVT]

Sure it has its flaws, some characters just make me roll my eyes, and the scenes in Madison Square Garden drag the movie to a crawl, all in all it is a fun movie to watch.

Yeah, Jurassic Park did the "dinosaurs chasing people around a building" thing a lot better just a few years previously. They were going for the kitchen scene and failed.

The 98 movie wasn't a total loss, it was relatively nice to look at and I didn't think the plot was terrible, but it's a decidedly 2/4 star, C- grade feature. I wouldn't be sorry if I didn't see it again.

I think the major problem most people had with the movie is simply the design and execution of Godzilla himself. I think part of the problem was that Godzilla, as seen in the original movies, is so big and powerful and unstoppable that the only thing he's really good for is 75 minutes of fighting other monsters and stomping around crushing buildings and Jeeps. Complain about the shallow plot of Godzilla all you want, but I don't remember any of the plots of the Japanese Godzilla movies I've seen to be any better. "Oh shit, some monster showed up and wrecked a power plant that caused an earthquake and released Godzilla. Now watch them fight for an hour before the military puts a secret plan into action that will drive Godzilla back into the ocean". Not Shakespeare.

And no, I'm not saying mindless action movies are a bad thing, but I am saying it's a bit strange to demand great acting and a deep plot while simultaneously wishing the movie was more like the originals. I think what people really mean is that they want this guy on the screen, not an overgrown iguana.