Godzilla (1998 film)

Godzilla
Film poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Written by	Screenplay: Dean Devlin Roland Emmerich Original 1994 Screenplay: Ted Elliott Terry Rossio Story: Dean Devlin Roland Emmerich Characters: Toho Co., Ltd.
Produced by	Dean Devlin
Starring	Matthew Broderick Jean Reno Maria Pitillo Hank Azaria
Cinematography	Ueli Steiger
Edited by	Peter Amundson David Siegel
Music by	David Arnold
Production company	Centropolis Entertainment
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release dates	United States/Canada May 20, 1998 Australia June 11, 1998 New Zealand June 18, 1998 Japan July 11, 1998 United Kingdom July 17, 1998 Thailand July 24, 1998
Running time	139 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$130 million
Box office	$379,014,294

Godzilla is a 1998 American action science fiction film directed and co-written by Roland Emmerich and starring Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo and Hank Azaria. It is loosely based on the Japanese Godzilla franchise and is a re-imagining of the 1954 Japanese film of the same name.

The film tells the story of French nuclear tests in French Polynesia which irradiate nearby lizard nests. This causes a mutation to occur and a massive reptilian creature is created. The creature migrates to New York City and causes lots of damage. Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) is called in to aid the military due to his research on nuclear radiation's effect on animals.

Godzilla was released on May 20, 1998 and became a box office success, grossing $379.01 million at the international box office; however, the majority of critics gave Godzilla negative reviews and the film won two Golden Rasperry Awards for Worst Supporting Actress (Maria Pitillo) and for Worst Remake or Sequel.

An animated television sequel, Godzilla: The Series premiered on September 12, 1998 on Fox Kids and received more praise than the film did itself.

Plot

The opening credits play over a montage of French nuclear tests in French Polynesia. A lizard nest is irradiated by the fallout.

Decades later, a Japanese fishing ship is suddenly attacked by an unseen, giant creature. Only one sailor survives. Traumatized, he is questioned by a mysterious Frenchman in a hospital in Panama. His only reply is "Gojira."

11111111 222 YOU! HAR HAR HAR Zilla (as later mispronounced by the media) travels to Manhattan and creates havoc in the city, and then disappears. The city is evacuated as the military attempt to destroy him. With Nick's help, they set up a fish trap to lure Godzilla out into the open. He takes the bait, but is scared off by small arms fire and runs off, while some of the missiles accidentally destroy the Flatiron Building. When two military Hum-vees give chase, the creature retaliates by forcefully exhaling, sending the Hum-vees flying. The creature's breath is ignited upon coming into contact with sparks caused by the vehicles hitting the concrete; thus giving the illusion of it breathing fire on the Hum-vees, but still destroying them nonetheless. He is then chased by three military helicopters that shoot missiles at him, but instead hit the Chrysler Building. Godzilla then destroys the helicopters and roars with victory. Nick then collects a blood sample, and learns that it reproduces asexually and is collecting food for its offspring.

Aspiring journalist Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo), Nick's former girlfriend from college, discovers a classified tape in Nick's tent that concerns the origins of "Godzilla." She considers this her lucky break, but her boss, Charles Caiman (Harry Shearer), reports on the tape as if it were his discovery. The tape plays on television and the military is outraged. Nick is thrown off the team and kidnapped by Philippe Roache, who reveals himself to be an agent of the French Directorate-General for External Security (Secret Service). He and his team have been keeping close watch on the events and are planning to cover up their role in the nuclear accident. Suspecting a nest somewhere in the city, they cooperate with Nick to find and destroy it.

The military lures Godzilla out again, trying to trap him in the open ground of Central Park, but fails since it remembers the last attempt and runs off before firing can be commenced. Godzilla then dives into the waters of the Hudson, where he is attacked by three U.S. Navy nuclear submarines. After the submarines fire on Godzilla with homing torpedoes, he swims straight into one of the submarines, gashing a hole in its hull. The torpedoes follow suit, destroying the submarine. The torpedoes from the other two submarines continue to chase him, and seemingly kill him.

Nick and Philippe's special ops team, surreptitiously followed by Audrey and her cameraman Victor "Animal" Palotti (Hank Azaria), make their way through the subway tunnels to Madison Square Garden, where they find over 200 eggs. While the team plants explosives, the eggs begin to hatch and the baby Godzillas begin to feed on the fish left for them. When the fish run out, they begin hunting the team, who have caught the fish smell on their clothes. After failing to contain the babies and losing several members of their team, Nick, Philippe, Animal, and Audrey take refuge in a TV broadcast booth. Believing that the babies will eventually force humanity into extinction if they escape, Nick, Audrey, and Animal alert the authorities, who order an immediate strike by a trio of F/A-18 Hornets. The four escape just seconds before the arena is destroyed, and the babies are wiped out in the explosion.

Seconds later, Godzilla, still alive, emerges from the wreckage and witnesses the slaughter of his entire brood. Enraged, he chases the four humans around Manhattan. They manage to alert the military, who advise them to lure him out into the open, and Nick chooses the Brooklyn Bridge, where Godzilla becomes helplessly trapped in the steel suspension cables, becoming an easy target for the returning trio of fighter planes. Godzilla is hit mercilessly by missiles, whereupon he falls to the ground and slowly dies.

The crowd and the military celebrate Godzilla's demise, while Philippe, Audrey, Animal, and especially Nick are somewhat disheartened by his death. Philippe quietly leaves, taking the videotape Animal had recorded, promising that he will return it after he removes certain footage from it. The film ends in the smoking ruins of Madison Square Garden, and it is revealed a single egg has survived the bombing. Suddenly, the egg begins to crack, and a baby Godzilla hatches and roars.

Cast

• Matthew Broderick - Dr. Niko Tatopoulos
• Jean Reno - Philippe Roche
• Maria Pitillo - Audrey Timmonds
• Hank Azaria - Victor "Animal" Palotti
• Harry Shearer - Charles Caiman
• Kevin Dunn - Colonel Anthony Hicks

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• Michael Lerner - Mayor Ebert
• Arabella Field - Lucy Palotti
• Vicki Lewis - Dr. Elsie Chapman
• Doug Savant - Sergeant O'Neal
• Malcolm Danare - Dr. Mendel Craven

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Production

Design

Patrick Tatopoulos was contacted early on by Emmerich and asked to design the new Godzilla. According to Tatopoulos, the only specific instructions Emmerich gave him was that Godzilla should be able to run incredibly fast. Godzilla's color scheme was designed to reflect and blend in with the urban environment. At one point, it was planned to use motion capture from a human to create the movements of the computer-generated Godzilla, but it ended up looking too much like a man in a suit.

Marketing

The marketing campaign for Godzilla was multi-pronged in its execution. Before the release of the film, the creature's form was never shown in its entirety, only in bits and pieces. This was intended to add more mystery to the creature's design, thereby prompting audiences to pay for a ticket because the only way to see Godzilla as a whole was in theaters. Emmerich and Devlin insisted that extensive measures had been taken to keep the new look of Godzilla secret, prior to release. When images leaked out onto the internet, Sony Pictures insisted it was part of a massive disinformation campaign designed to keep people guessing about what Godzilla looked like. Ultimately, however, the circulated drawings proved to be authentic.

In the month or so before its release, ads on street corners made references to Godzilla's size in comparison to whatever medium of advertising the advertisement was on. For example, buses that said, "His foot is as long as this bus" or on billboards that said, "His head is the size of this sign." Crushed cars were dotted around London as a part of a guerrilla advertising campaign.

The film's first teaser trailer began appearing in theaters a full year before the movie was released. The trailer featured a shot of Godzilla's foot coming through the roof of a museum and crushing a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton. Another teaser shown on New Year's Eve was intended to resemble the countdown and Times Square Ball drop in New York City. As the countdown nears completion, the ball is knocked off its mechanism by Godzilla, who passes near the stunned and silent crowd.

KB Toys dubbed itself "Godzilla Headquarters" around the time of the film's release. Taco Bell had tie-ins such as cups and toys that promoted the film. The Taco Bell chihuahua was also at the height of its popularity in Taco Bell's television commercials. During the summer of 1998, several commercials pairing Godzilla with the Taco Bell mascot were produced and aired, including several with the chihuahua trying to catch Godzilla. Various online video games such as an online environment chat room, a shooter game, and an RPG Baby Godzillas Vs. Military game were produced.

Godzilla also appeared in two Doritos commercials. Footage from the fish trap scenes was edited to replace the fish with large quantities of Doritos chips. One commercial depicted Godzilla consuming a whole semi trailer full of Doritos, while the other showed the creature eating a spicy variant of Doritos and jumping into the Hudson River. Godzilla was one of the highest grossing film of 1998

Soundtrack

Main article: Godzilla: The Album

The original score was composed by David Arnold. The films score was not released on CD until 9 years later when it was on sale as a complete score in 2007 by La La Land Records. A soundtrack containing alternative rock was released on May 19, 1998 by Epic Records. It was a success, peaking at 2 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum on June 22, 1998.

Reception

Godzilla was initially projected to take in $90,000,000 in domestic sales during its opening long weekend, to surpass the four-day Memorial Day long weekend opening record set the year before by The Lost World: Jurassic Park. While Godzilla's four-day opening weekend sales were a respectable $55,000,000 ($44,000,000 for the three day weekend), it clearly did not track with studio profit forecasts. Godzilla took in $136,314,294 at the domestic box office, in addition to Overseas sales of $242,700,000.

In the film, New York City's mayor is named Ebert, and his top adviser is named Gene, a reference to the famous film critiquing duo from TV's Siskel & Ebert. Both bear a strong physical resemblance to the real-life critics. This was an attempt at expressing displeasure at the negative reviews Siskel and Ebert had given the producers' previous films. Although Roger Ebert was somewhat amused by the parody, he gave Godzilla an overwhelmingly negative review, stating "they let us off lightly; I fully expected to be squished like a bug by Godzilla. Now that I've inspired a character in a Godzilla movie, all I really still desire is for several Ingmar Bergman characters to sit in a circle and read my reviews to one another in hushed tones." Gene Siskel also questioned why, having made the effort to lampoon him and Ebert, the movie did not humiliate them further or even kill their characters. The critics at Rotten Tomatoes scored the movie at 26%.

At the 1998 Golden Raspberry Awards, the film was nominated for five Razzies, including Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay. It took home two overall for Maria Pitillo as Worst Supporting Actress and for the film as Worst Remake or Sequel.

The film was screened out of competition at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival.

In interviews promoting The Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich admitted regretting Godzilla, particularly due to the rushed shooting schedule to necessitate a Memorial Day release and the studio's insistence in not test-screening the film. However, he defended the film as better than critics gave it credit for as it was financially successful and, of the films he has directed, it is the one that parents tell him their children enjoy the most.

At its release, the film has been highly criticized by Godzilla fans the world over. Kenpachiro Satsuma, the actor that portrayed Godzilla in the second series of films (1984-1995) walked out of a Tokyo screening and told reporters that, "It's not Godzilla, it does not have the spirit". Richard Pusateri, a writer for G-Fan Magazine and other Japanese monster periodicals, gave the film and title monster the name GINO, an acronym standing for "Godzilla In Name Only," which fans still use.

Impact

Home video release

The film was released on November 3, 1998, on VHS, DVD, and Laserdisc including holographic and normal packaging. The DVD's special features included: the "Theatrical Trailers", "Special FX Supervisor Commentary", "Director/Producer Biographies", "Photo Gallery", "Music Video (Heroes by The Wallflowers)", and "Godzilla Takes New York (before and after shots)". Along with the VHS release was an exclusive promotion with Duracell which sold special edition Godzilla flashlights in this offer.

Subsequent release continued including Region 2 versions after initial release. The movie was re-released as a Special Edition entitled "Monster Edition" on DVD on March 28, 2006. This release included three new special features that are tacked on to the original release's features which include: "All Time Best Godzilla fight scenes", "3 Episodes from the Godzilla animated series", and a "Production Art Gallery".

A Blu-ray version of the "Monster Edition" was originally planned for release March 28, 2008, but had been delayed until November 3, 2009, to release in preparation with Emmerich's new film 2012. The Blu-Ray includes a Godzilla trivia game.

Animated series

An animated series called Godzilla: The Series was made which continued the storyline of the film. In the series, Nick accidentally discovers the egg that survived at the end of the film before it hatches, in a minor change from the ending of the film. The creature hatches after Nick stumbles onto it and imprints on Nick as its parent. Subsequently, Nick and his associates form a research team, investigating strange occurrences and defending mankind from dangerous mutations, the new Godzilla working as the team 'bodyguard' to protect them from the creatures. While the film was negatively received by Godzilla fans, the series managed to gain a lot of praise.

On the Godzilla series

The 1998 film has been referenced twice in subsequent films in the original series. In 2001's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, in which it is mentioned that America was attacked by a giant monster three years prior; Americans reported the monster was Godzilla, but the Japanese are skeptical of this.

In Godzilla: Final Wars, the American version of Godzilla, now dubbed "Zilla", attacks Sydney, Australia and New York, United States and is later sent to battle Godzilla. It is unceremoniously killed by Godzilla, leading to the Xilien leader to proclaim "Good for nothing tuna eating monster" originally and "I knew that tuna head wasn't up to much" in the English dubbed. The creature was renamed Zilla for the film by producer Shogo Tomiyama because he felt the 1998 remake took the "God" out of Godzilla by portraying the monster like an animal that could be wounded by normal weaponry, when however the true Godzilla can't be killed by any of man's weapons (except the Oxygen Destroyer).

External links

• Godzilla 1998 Database
• Godzilla at IMDb
• Godzilla at AllMovie
• Godzilla at Rotten Tomatoes
• Godzilla at Box Office Mojo
• The 1998 Taco Bell commercial used to promote the film.
• Godzilla vs. The Gryphon (the original Godzilla script)
• Godzilla 2