Godzilla (1998) -Matthew Broderick - Page 2

I am gonna have to Signature quote that beauty

But size DOES matter.
If you have to ask, you'll never understand.

This is another entry to apply my Reno Punch Theory to:

If there's a movie where Jean Reno punches someone, the movie will be good. If he doesn't punch anyone, it's shit. Does he punch anyone in this movie? No. This movie is, you guessed it, shit.

I remember this theory of yours. I really, really wanted to debunk it, but so far, it's solid.

Did he punch anyone in Just Visiting?

I'm also wondering if he punches anyone in Margaret. This could be the cause of all of that film's troubles.

Watching this right now.  The first 2/3rds really aren't all that bad and have a few great sequences.......................until everything goes to shit in the third act.  David Arnold's score is aces though.

Looking over this thread, I've discovered that in my previous comments I neglected to highlight my appreciation for GODZILLA 98's monster design. I will correct that now:

 

It is my firmly held belief that the Godzilla we meet in Roland Emmerich's GODZILLA '98 is in fact the best designed Godzilla of the entire series. He is easily identifiable as a four legged iguana that has grown out of control, but he also has a form factor capable of bringing that T-Rex like dinosaur-run-amok quality to the proceedings. His rear stabilization fins, running the length of his spine, have a nightmarishly twisted quality to them, and their jagged appearance suggests exposure to intense mutagenic compounds. The snub nose and deep set forward facing eyes gave him a face capable of great emotion

 

Combine that with marvelous effects that still largely hold up today (the practical elements like the Chrysler Building destruction, as well as more CGI heavy sequences such as Godzilla becoming entangled in the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, remain thrilling and IMHO iconic), and over all while the story may have been underwhelming and served to let down the entire film, Godzilla himself stood tall

Edited by Princess Kate - 9/23/11 at 9:17am

Good point, Kate. I still have a soft spot for this film. Well, certain parts of it. I actually could have done without 92% of the movie....but when I think back on it, the thrilling 8% part of it always replays in my mind and I think it isn't so bad. Then I always catch it on cable and reconfirm that it is bad.

 

However, I do really enjoy the initial attack on NYC, the scene in Central Park with the fish and the last sequence as Zilla' chases the cab through an abandoned downtown NYC. I know a lot of Godzilla fans were really pissed that this version of Godzilla didn't actually look like the classic Godzilla. I never had a problem with the design.

 

I basically echo James Rolfe's review. It's an interesting watch especially if you haven't seen the movie in a long time.

 

My thoughts exactly, AdamClane99. Everything actually involving Godzilla - not his babies, or the squabbling worm scientists, ETC* - works very well, IMHO, and is, as you say, thrilling

 

I'll have to watch that review from home when I get a chance

 

 

*though I liked the idea of Jean Reno as French secret service trying to make up for having nuke tested Godzilla into existence

 

I've never understood the hate or "that's not Godzilla!" bullshit that's surrounded the film. I'd argue that the one thing Emmerich did right/well was updating/reimagining the monster. I grew up watching (and loving!) the original Toho films, but I liked the changes to the creature.

 

The rest of the movie is fucking awful. I read somewhere that Emmerich and Roland flipped the usual first and second act arcs/emphases, and tried to do a lot of exposition and character building in the second act. I don't know if it's true, but it doesn't work. The writing is some of the worst in an Emmerich film (and I've seen 10,000 BC and 2012). 

Godzilla's design doesn't suck because it's not Godzilla, it sucks because it's boring. He looks like a run-of-the-mill movie dinosaur, he's got no character. Aside from the fact that he drastically changes size from scene to scene, of course.

IMHO, and this really is just an opinion, but he's got incredible character. He has an intelligent, cooly sinister face, revolutionary stabilization fins, and a form factor unlike anything else in cinema. It's really cracker jack monster design. If you can point to one movie dinosaur that looks like Godzilla, I'll gladly retract this claim

 

EDIT: And keep in mind I'd say it would have been fair to describe me as a GODZILLA fan growing up. I've seen GODZILLA VS THE SEAMONSTER  many many times, as I had it on VHS growing up, and I took care to rent several more GODZILLA titles from our local VHS emporium. Additionally I am well versed in GODZILLA AND FRIENDS. Yet, with that wealth of experience, IMHO GODZILLA '98's design remains far and away my favorite, and, dare I say it? Iconic

Edited by Princess Kate - 9/30/11 at 12:04pm

my biggest problem with the movie wasnt the terrible, terrible, exposition-filled script that even the always awesome Jean Reno couldnt escape from, or the monster, because personally, i enjoyed a good 80% of the monster scenes.

but neutering the king of monsters into a big, a-sexual PREGNANT MOM who just wants to find a nice place to lay her eggs......fuck you Emmerich, THATS the point in the movie where i totally zoned out. i mean, cant he just be a big fucking lizard who wants to fuck some shit up? christ thats the one thing the new movie must get right. i dont need a reason why this radioactive reptilian is destroying my city. id be pissed off too if i googdrupled (totally just made that up) in size because some scientists thought it would be awes0mz to blow up some bombs where i live.

if that entire explanation was excised from the original script, i dont think there would be as much hate as there is for this film

Andrew Merriweather, MichaelM, I disagree.  To me, the design of Roland Emmerich's Godzilla is...Awful!  The concept that Godzilla doesn't...Breathe Fire, is lame as well.  The best of Godzilla 98, was his cameo in Ryuhei Kitamura's Godzilla Final Wars, as he got...Monsterously Slammed, by Toho's Classic Godzilla.  Not only have I not seen this...Travesty, again, I have not seen...Any of Emmerich's movies since.  I hope the next Godzilla film is worthy of one of the coolest monsters in cinema!

Mr Fleed,

Godzilla 98 does in fact breath fire (or radiation or something). He uses this ability exactly once: during the helicopter attack sequence

Princess Kate,  I am not sure if it was Roland Emmerich or the producer that stated...Living Things do not breathe fire.  I cannot remember how the effect was realized, but it was not the same as Godzilla breathing fire.  I hope the next Director, Writer and Producer of a US Godzilla film realizes that there should be alot of...Wanton destruction, Collateral damage, and Godzilla vs another monster.

I believe he ignites his bad breath with a fire from an exploded vehicle.  Spitting high-proof alcohol through a fire to create a stream of flames wouldn't make me a man who can breathe fire...............therefore it doesn't count for the '98 Godzilla either.

This is just going off my own memory, but as far as I can recall, Godzilla pops up in front in front of them, and there is a shot from inside the cockpit where we see a giant fireball come from deep inside Godzilla's mouth, with accompanying 'fire breath' type sound effect

I feel the need to do more research on this though, now it's bugging me

If it has to be researched than it doesn't say much for whatever impression it left anyway....

 

 

 

He takes them down by hitting them or biting them. No fire breathing involved. The scene Plisskin is talking about is during the cab chase near the end, and like he said, he wasn't breathing fire there either.

A fair point

 

I am going to research this when I get the chance though, just to satisfy my own curiosity

 

EDIT: Researching right now on YOUTUBE.. just had to point out how wonderful the practical model explosions from the heli chase are

Edited by Princess Kate - 10/1/11 at 8:04am

OK, so,

 

I've looked into the firebreath issue for you guys. While my research was conducted using a YOUTUBE video of middling quality, I put alot of effort into getting accurate results (I don't have the DVD on hand and this burning question demanded to be answered)

 

IMHO? He's definitely breathing fire towards these humvees*. Check out the flames from inside his throat

 

 

The video, so you can judge for yourself:

 

 

*it was humvees, and not helicopters like I remembered

Yeah, it's this. At about 1:50 into that video you can see there's some fire at his feet that he blows towards the humvees. What you think is the fire coming from his mouth is the fire lighting up the inside of his mouth. There's even one of your captured shots where there's no fire in his jaws. It's definitely not the lazer-beam type radioactive fire that Godzilla breathes.

Fair enough, what you've suggested seems plausible, but I'll withhold final judgement till I can see a high resolution version of the scene - and just FYI: that first image is just before he breaths/blows fire, I included it just to establish the geography of the scene, it's not intended to represent the start of his firebreath attack

 

A possible explanation for what we see: The fire at his feet is the initial stages of fire breathing, like the dragons in REIGN OF FIRE whose slobber ignites on the ground:

 

 

Now, I too initially wondered if the orange glow inside Godzilla's mouth mouth was simply reflected illumination from the fireball, but then it occurred to me that it more closely resembles dual streams of liquid flame, just like the REIGN OF FIRE dragons:

 

 

Perhaps this is all pointless speculation until we've examined the higher rez footage, but IMHO it seems entirely possible Godzilla '98 has some sort of trick for breathing fire. I agree that you're correct; it's certainly not the laser blast of radiation from the rest of the series, which is a shame as that's no doubt cool. With that said though, I just wouldn't want Godzilla '98 unfairly accused of lacking an ability he may indeed possess  (though certainly Emmerich can be blamed for the confusing execution of that particular shot and sequence, whatever is going on it definitely is not well telegraphed)

 

From Wiki:

 

"Originally, Godzilla was not to have any sort of breath weapon in the 1998 film, but an angry-fan petition forced Emmerich and Devlin to include one in their screenplay. Since Zilla is such a large animal, whenever he roars, a blast of powerful wind blasts out of his mouth. This breath weapon has many fan-created names, but in the script and the DVD audio commentary, it's called "power breath". Twice in the film, it gives the illusion that Godzilla is breathing fire. The first time, he uses power breath near two burning vehicles. The second time, he roars near two vehicles that crash into each other, causing an explosion."

I'm once again in the minority. I liked what Roland and Emmerich did there - thought it was a fairly clever way of having Godzilla breathe fire without doing the ray-breath thing.

Many thanks to AGENT Z for the WIKI research, I am glad to get this matter cleared up

And I'm with you, MichaelM. I don't have a big problem with power breath vs fire breath, but seeing as I so admire Godzilla 98's monster design, I'll readily admit it would have been great to see him radiation blasting stuff too

that clip proves, and i too am also in the minority on this, that when it comes down to it the movie really didnt disappoint in the action department. different creature model perhaps and it would be aces. especially for a late 90s action flick.

Kate, I meant the 2nd shot there, where there's already a fireball coming at the camera but nothing in his mouth. I could see how it would be clever for some dinosaur or some other giant monster homage to Godzilla. But if you're actually making a Godzilla film, give me the ray-breath.

You wanna over-analyze something in this disappointing mess? Tell me why Broderick's scientist kept giving his unsympathetic ex -GF second chances. And why we as an audience are supposed to care. The "estranged couple reuniting in a disaster" dynamic which works just fine in ID4  is complete and utter BS here.

Ah OK, gotcha. As I stated, ray breath would have been cool, and all things considered I'd like for it to have been included

I see to remember that absolutely nobody died in this film. Was there anything at stake? Even as a youngish boy I realized this in the cinema. What a jerk-off. 

A few people die but nobody of any actual importance to the film. This is something I found weak myself. It just isn't a very menacing monster. It kills a few people on a boat, eats a helicopter or two, and its babies eat Jean Reno's back-up crew. The big conflict is that supposedly if it grows as a species, it will make man extinct but I never really saw that as a realistic possibility. The monster feels more like a nuicance than a legitimate threat and the movie kind of treats him as such.

 

My childhood favorite, Godzilla 1985, managed to make the monster both sympathetic and terrifiying. This movie makes it neither. If I recall correctly, after its big rampage through NYC, the idea is that all these New Yorkers want to get back on the island but some authorities aren't convinced Godzilla is dead yet. It feels like such a poor note to play in a movie like this. It really makes this creature's attack seem like an afterthought. Yeah. Some buildings got crushed but I need to get home to watch the Yankees. It didn't just fail as a Godzilla movie. It also failed as the follow-up to Emmerich's massive ID4 and in the wake of the previous summer's The Lost World: Jurrasic Park. It just really wasn't a very good movie.

Heh, now I'm seeing people complain about Godzilla-related traffic.  "I was 5 minutes late to work because that giant lizard smashed a street.  5 MINUTES!"

Are you a fan of Rob Zombie's HALLOWEEN as well?

 

Yeah, I'll be that guy. Let Godzilla be Godzilla. It's why I'm watching the movie. I don't need this type of "Let's do Superman without the suit, the cape, or the ability to fly!" type bullshit.

Agreed. He's a giant lizard created by nuclear fall-out. Why can't he just breathe fire?

I'm certainly not watching a Godzilla movie for realism, if that was the issue.

 

Haven't seen either of Zombie's Halloween remakes, and won't be doing so, ever. 

 

Roland's Godzilla was a huge bipedal reptile created by nuclear radiation and fucked up shit, including taking out helicopters. I don't buy the "it's not really Godzilla" purist arguments because a single element considered canon by many was changed or left out.

 

Look, the movie's awful. I'm in no way defending the quality of the film, as I don't think it can be done. But I don't think the monster itself is some sort of sin against the character, and I think it's the one thing in the film that actually works.

 

Also, for those who say they hate the all-CGI Godzilla - it was a guy in a suit for far more shots than you might think.

 

But it's not a single element. Other than the absolute broadest similarities that you laid out they ditched everything that makes Godzilla an iconic, effective movie monster. And actually, one of the broad similarities you mention isn't really true. US Godzilla barely fucks things up, at least not directly.

I'm indifferent to the look of the thing. It might have been able to work if the screenplay were better. As is, the moment we see what Godzilla actually looks like, the movie takes a nose dive. Not because it looks so crummy but because the story never builds on the momentum it had until that point.

 

Your statement just has me picturing denizens of Tokyo making similar complaints due to the constant monster damage that goes on in Godzilla's cinematic universe.

 

"Goddammit, Megalon destroyed the highway again!  Sorry honey, it looks like we'll have to go to a later showing of The Help tonight.  Would you like to eat dinner instead?  Keep in mind that we have to avoid the east end of town, as the local Kaiju forecast is predicting a Rodan appearance within the next hour or so."
 

Someone please commission Mike Judge to write/direct a film centering on a monster insurance salesman living in Tokyo in a Godzilla-esque world!

You didn't enjoy Commando?
 

 

 

Which was the single element?  The ray breath, the fact that the military can't destroy him, that he can only be killed by a super-weapon as equally terrifying as the one that created him, that his offspring aren't raptors, etc?

Yeah, Godzilla's offspring are supposed to cute and functionally retarded.

 

GODDAMN

 

that is pure genius

    For me Godzilla 98 was a bigger disappointment than The Phantom Menace. As a kid I was more into Godzilla than Star Wars. After seeing the T Rex rampage in Jurassic Park 2, I thought that what Godzilla would be like; an 90 minute movie that is mostly Godzilla going nuts in New York. There was also going to be top notch SFX. I got none of that.

 

   I don't like the design. I thought Godzilla would have that posture, since that is how scientists think dinosaurs moved and its not a man in a suit. It didn't look like Godzilla, breathe fire or was indestructible. Why pay for the rights if your just going to use the name and the roar?!

  

Chaz, That clip showcases the...AWE-INSPIRING Awesomeness of Godzilla defeating his weak US Cousin in Godzilla Final Wars!

I kind of had a similar idea but could never quite nail down the concept. There was this scene in Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla where the hero is driving down the freeway and observes Godzilla (actually MechaGodzilla) and Angulas fighting and it always struck me as odd how he would observe that they shouldn't be fighting because... THEY ARE FRIENDS. Like Japan has become so instuitionilzed with the concept of these giant monsters that them showing up isn't even the issue anymore. The course of concern is no longer the threat they cause by appearing in a populated area but the fact that the two who should be playing for the same team are not anymore. I always wanted to create some kind of comedy script around this, either as a long-form feature concept or just a quick nod to my obvious love of Toho product. Never quite found the hook though.

 

 

I am EXTREMELY tempted to give it a go myself.

Have you written before?