Godzilla (1998 film)

Godzilla
Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Roland Emmerich
Written by	Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio and Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich (story) Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich (screenplay)
Produced by	Dean Devlin
Starring	Matthew Broderick Jean Reno Maria Pitillo Hank Azaria Michael Lerner Kevin Dunn Harry Shearer Vicki Lewis Doug Savant
Cinematography	Ueli Steiger
Edited by	Peter Amundson David Siegel
Music by	David Arnold
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release dates	May 19, 1998 (USA)
Running time	139 min.
Language	English
Budget	$130,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	$136,023,813 (USA)

Godzilla is an American science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich and starred Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Michael Lerner and Kevin Dunn. It is the American movie remake of the popular Japanese film Gojira (Godzilla).

Tagline:

• Size does matter.

Plot

The film's opening credits play over a montage of French nuclear tests in the Pacific Ocean, observed by many marine iguanas. Then, in present days, a Japanese fishing ship is attacked by an unseen monster; only one survived (an old man). Traumatized, he is later questioned in a hospital by a mysterious Frenchman (Jean Reno) as to what he saw. But the man didn't answer until the Frenchman asks in english with a match moving left and right and repeatedly says only one word -- "Gojira".

Another seaborne attack just by the Eastern Seaboard culminated in the eventual destruction of a fishing ship. The crew, however, survived, after witnessing their boat sinking, but it shot up from underneath and landed with a huge splash in the surface.

Niko "Nick" Tatapolous (Matthew Broderick), an NRC scientist, who happened to be in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone (Ukraine) researching the effects of radiation on wildlife, was interrupted by the arrival of an agent of the U.S. State Department. He was sent to Panama, escorted by the military, to observe the wreckage of the recovered Japanese fishing ship (it had three gigantic claw marks on one side) and a set of massive dinosaur-like footprints in the grassy soil. The Frenchman is also there, observing the scene and introduces himself as an insurance agent. Aboard a military aircraft Tatapolous identifies skin samples he recovered as belonging to a creature "unknown to science".

"Gojira" then heads to New York City, dragging three fishing boats under the sea on the way, then creating havoc in the Fulton Fish Market, before rampaging through the city. Manhattan is evacuated and the military attempt to kill Godzilla, first luring him out with a huge pile of fish. Godzilla takes the bait, but then shrugs off small arms fire, and evades, and destroys, three pursuing AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, by swiping at one with his claws, and snapping his jaws at the other two. He escapes, but not before Nick realises that the monster is pregnant, due to it being hermaphroditic, and is collecting food for his offspring. Nick is determined to find Godzilla's nest.

However, when a videotape from Panama is stolen by Nick's ex-girlfriend, Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo), a would-be TV journalist for news channel "WIDF", he is thrown off the team. He is then kidnapped by the Frenchman who introduces himself as Philippe Roaché, an agent of the DGSE - the French Secret Service. He and his team have been keeping close watch on events and are now ready to do what they can to clear up the mess they feel responsible for, but cannot acknowledge.

The military lure Godzilla out again and after a fierce battle in the waters of the Hudson River, with three U.S. Navy nuclear submarines, Godzilla is torpedoed and seems to be destroyed. Meanwhile Nick and a crack French team, led by Roaché, surreptitiously followed by Audrey and cameraman Victor "Animal" Palotti (Hank Azaria), track Godzilla through the subway tunnels to Madison Square Garden, finding hundreds of eggs. They start to lay explosives, but the eggs start to hatch. The babies were looking for food, and since the team stink like fish, they were inevitable targets. After failing to contain the creatures and losing several members of the team, the remaining 4 of them take refuge in a TV broadcast booth. From there Nick, Audrey and Animal alert the authorities, who order an immediate strike by a trio of F-18s. The four escape just before the building is destroyed, only for an extremely angry Godzilla (who managed to survive the battle in the East River) to emerge from the wreckage. The four make a getaway in a taxicab, and lure Godzilla to the Brooklyn Bridge where he becomes entangled in the steel suspension cables, and is an easy target for the fighters. As the three F-18s close in, they each fire a pair of missiles that slam into Godzilla's side. As the jets pass him, Godzilla uselessly tries to attack by snapping at them with his jaws, but fails and the F-18s circle around and fire another wave of missiles that also slam into the beast's side. After many screams of pain, he finally falls into the earth. As Godzilla is left to die, he and Nick look at each other during Godzilla's final moments as his heart slowly stops beating. At the end of the film Nick and Audrey reconcile while Roaché disappears into the night after stealing their videotape footage of the incident. He promises to return the tape after "certain information" has been removed. All seems well until we see in smoking ruins of the Garden, a single egg has survived and hatches.

Music

The film's soundtrack featured songs by such artists as Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page ("Come with Me"), Jamiroquai ("Deeper Underground"), Rage Against the Machine ("No Shelter"), Foo Fighters ("A320"), Ben Folds Five ("Air"), and Green Day ("Brain Stew (Remix)" ). The David Bowie song "Heroes", covered by The Wallflowers, can be clearly heard in the background during a restaurant scene early in the movie. David Arnold's orchestral score provided the music for the rest of the movie, and roughly four minutes of it is included on the album. A score-only release was cancelled due to the film's box office performance, and Arnold's complete score was unreleased until 2007.

Sequels and spin-Offs

Main article: Godzilla: The Series

The film spawned an animated series which continued the storyline of the movie. In this series, Nick Tatapolous accidentally discovers the egg that survived the destruction of the nest. The creature hatches and imprints on Nick as its parent. Subsequently, Nick and a group of friends form an elite research team, investigating strange occurrences and defending human kind from numerous other monsters.

A sequel to the film was planned, and would have involved Godzilla battling a mutant insect creature. However these plans for a sequel were ultimately scrapped in favor of The Patriot. It was said if Spider Man 3 was successful, a sequel would be made . (Which it was.)

Early in the film Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, Admiral Taizo Tachibana is giving a lecture to several Japanese military personnel and briefly mentions a monster attack on New York City (referring to the events in this film), two soldiers also question whether the creature was indeed Godzilla while one states that Americans claimed it was but the fact that it was the true Godzilla was highly doubtful. The movie's title creature would make an appearance in Godzilla Final Wars (2004), where it would attack Sydney, Australia and then briefly fight the original Godzilla and lose.

Marketing campaign

File:Zilla.jpg

Godzilla, caught in the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The marketing campaign for Godzilla was multi-pronged in its execution:

• Crushed cars were dotted around London as a part of a guerrilla advertising campaign.
• 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.
  • Examples: "His foot is bigger than this bus", "His eye is bigger than this billboard", etc.
• Bits and pieces of different body parts of Godzilla were shown on TV commercials and posters, but never the entire body; this was to add a bit of mystery as to the design of the creature, ideally prompting people to see the film because that was the only way to see the whole creature.
• 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 in a tiny box, whistling and calling, "Here, lizard, lizard, lizard." When Godzilla appears, the chihuahua says, "Uh-oh. I think I need a bigger box." (referring to Jaws, as well as the film's line "I think we're gonna need a bigger boat")
• 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 T-Rex skeleton as a tour guide gives a lecture saying that the T-Rex was one of the largest predators the world has ever seen.

Box office

File:Baby godzilla hatching.jpg

Godzilla's surviving offspring hatching

Although film received mixed reviews, Godzilla grossed $136,314,294 domestically and $379,014,294 worldwide, bringing back its $130 million budget.

Criticism

Despite its box office success, the film was heavily criticized by fans of the original Japanese Godzilla. The character design and creature behavior were significantly different from its Japanese predecessor of earlier films, and as such disregarded by many fans as a legitimate Godzilla. It is believed that this criticism led to the American Godzilla monster being mentioned briefly in the prologue of Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), where it is suggested that American scientists had mistaken it for the original Godzilla. Subsequently, Toho Studios officially named this film's title monster "Zilla" to differentiate it from the original Godzilla.

Trivia

• The old cook from the ship refers to the monster as "Gojira" when he is in a semi-conscious state. Gojira is the name of Godzilla in his native Japan, but the name was changed in the process of translating the original film into the American Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The name "Godzilla" is Toho Studios' official English name for the character. The name was used on English-language international promotional material for the original film in 1954; however, "Gojira" is the pronunciation used by the English-speaking cast of such later films as King Kong vs. Godzilla.

File:Godzilla1998DVD.jpg

The standard DVD cover for the film

• Tomoyuki Tanaka, who produced all of the Japanese Godzilla movies, was going to be the executive producer for the film, but he died only a month before this film began actual production.
• Dean Devlin maintains that the tagline for this movie, "Size Does Matter", was meant simply to differentiate the movie from Jurassic Park, hence the original "museum" trailer, but that the advertisers for the studio took it too far with their overzealous campaign (e.g. "His foot is as long as this bus").
• Three voice actors from the comedy series The Simpsons appear in the film: Harry Shearer, Nancy Cartwright and Hank Azaria.
• Sega Pinball released a pinball machine based on this movie.
• The opening sequence of the movie featuring the atomic bomb explosion is footage from the Baker Test (1946). It looks so dramatic because the explosion took place under water
• The reference made by Matthew Broderick to asexual reproduction is a joke stemming from a discussion of the same topic in a biology class in one of his earliest movies, WarGames.

Cameos and Allusions to other Films

• Barney the Dinosaur from the TV seriesBarney & Friends can be seen in a TV set. An action figure toy of an alien from Independence Day (1996) (also directed by Roland Emmerich) is visible on top of a computer in the broadcast booth at Madison Square Garden.
• The Japanese freighter attacked and destroyed by Godzilla in the opening of the film is named Kobayashi Maru, in homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Coincidentally, Kobayashi is also the name of the pilot in Godzilla Raids Again who gives his life trying to destroy Godzilla by crashing his plane into the ice, causing an avalanche.
• The extra killed in his car when Godzilla first arrives in Manhattan was cast as a look-alike for J.D. Lees, editor of G-Fan Magazine, because he said disparaging remarks about the information that leaked out about the film prior to its release.
• The music that plays on an elevator in a scene with Matthew Broderick is "Danke Schoen", which Broderick lip-syncs in a memorable scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
• Matthew Broderick's character's last name is "Tatopoulos." Godzilla's designer and supervisor is Patrick Tatopoulos. A running gag in the movie is the characters mispronouncing his last name, for example, "Dr. Tadatapopolus," or, "Nick Tatapolis." Another running gag in the movie is how his research with mutant earthworms, has caused most characters to refer to him as, "The Worm Guy."
• The policeman seen during Godzilla's arrival is the same policeman (both played by same actor) seen suddenly leaving his patrol car in the middle of an intersection in Independence Day (1996).

• The TV station that Audrey was working for, "WIDF" is another reference to Independence Day, as the movie was marketed with the title "ID4".

• Mayor Ebert and his aide, Gene, are parodies of movie critics Siskel and Ebert

• The Giant Octopus from It Came From Beneath the Sea is seen in a TV set.

External links

• Barry's Temple of Godzilla
• Toho Kingdom
• Godzilla Stomp
• The Godzilla Shrine
• Godzilla at IMDb
• The 1998 Taco Bell commercial used to promote the film.
• A recent Doritos commercial featuring the creature (Under "ads")
• Godzilla vs. The Gryphon (the original Godzilla script)