In Defense of Godzilla (1998), Not the Best Defense but Still Some Sort of Defense

Some movies get bad reputations because the people going to see them have expectations that the movie does not meet.  They set a high bar for where the quality has to be, and need it to follow through in order to be satisfied.  They want it to be a specific type of movie and if it isn’t, there’s no chance of a positive reaction.  It happens all the time.  The backlash culture is a result of this kind of thinking.  Instead of letting a movie be its own thing, people need to put some sort of checklist on it.  If the checks aren’t met, the movie is a failure.

One of the more common examples of this happens whenever a popular book gets adapted into a film.  The people who read the book had their own vision of what happened in their heads.  The things that happened outside of the pages kept their imaginations running.  The stuff that was in the text, they pictured a certain way.  If the movie didn’t live up to the imagery that the readers had when they were going through the book, they came out disappointed.  They didn’t like the movie because it wasn’t exactly what they wanted.  They created negativity around the movie.

The same could be said about remakes, reboots, and readaptations.  If someone is used to a story being told a certain way, they won’t take kindly to the changes that get made.  The way that a story might be reimagined doesn’t matter.  The audience wanted the original 1980s Ghostbusters because that was what they grew up with.  They didn’t like that it could possibly be changed for a new audience that might like what was currently happening.  It wasn’t the original, so it didn’t matter.

This week’s movie fits into the reboot discussion.  The 1998 version of Godzilla was an American reboot of the popular Japanese film franchise, bringing the monster to New York City.  Colonel Hicks (Kevin Dunn) was in charge of a military team investigating and then stopping the monster from causing harm to the people of the world.  He brought on Dr. Niko Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick) to help study the creature in order to defeat it.  Along the way, they encountered hopeful reporter and ex-girlfriend of Niko, Audrey Timmonds (Maria Pitillo) and her cameraman, Victor ‘Animal’ Palotti (Hank Azaria), as well as a French secret service team led by Philippe Roaché (Jean Reno).  This rag tag group of people in New York tried to save the city from destruction.

There have been twenty years of backlash since the release of Godzilla.  People were disgruntled because the movie didn’t stick to the source material.  The origin of the creature was the same.  There were nuclear tests that caused a giant, dinosaur-like monster to attack.  The monster come out of the ocean and caused destruction a big city.  Originally, it was Tokyo.  With the new Americanized version, it was New York City.  Other than that basic idea, however, the American version took the story in a completely different direction.  It was no longer a cautionary tale of what nuclear weapons might do to the planet.  The movie wasn’t about a monster going up against a monster.  This version was about an animal with animal instincts trying to stay alive in a human world.

The backlash was so severe that Toho disowned the movie.  They considered the monster to be a different monster, one that wasn’t Godzilla.  All of their branding changed the creature into one called ‘Zilla.  It’s not a huge change, but one that deserves to be noted.  The story of the whole thing was that Toho gave TriStar the rights to make an American Godzilla movie as long as they were to stay true to the source material.  The changes were drastic enough that Toho regretted their decision and decided to declare that the 1998 version of Godzilla didn’t count as a Godzilla movie.

That’s unfair to the idea of adaptations, though.  An adaptation should be free to do new things with material that has been covered before.  It’s not a new installment in a series.  An adaptation involves a creative person (director, screenwriter, author) taking material that people know and spinning it so that it’s different while still being the same.  That happened with Godzilla.  The idea of a monster attacking a city was still there.  That’s the basis for the Godzilla that people know.  There might be more to it, but that’s the essentials.  The rest of the stuff, if it had been included, would be fan service.  It would be giving the fans what they know and love about the source instead of giving them something new to fall in love with.

Godzilla tried some new things that were interesting, if not always successful.  The most glaring changes when looking at the movie were the design of Godzilla, as well as the effects used to create him.  It’s not a knock against the film to say that the special effects were bad.  The American film shifted the creature from a man in a suit to CGI.  It was 1998.  There wasn’t a lot of good CGI going around, so Godzilla was one of the movies with the poor turn of the century era effects.  The look of Godzilla himself was more like a T-Rex with a square jaw than the Godzilla that people knew.  He was leaner, quicker, and, because of the change in his appearance, able to dodge the weapons of the military instead of being able to take a barrage of attacks.

The movie also added a new storyline for the monster that was the most ambitious aspect, and the part that made the movie fun.  Godzilla wasn’t attacking the city because its habitat had been disturbed by nuclear testing.  It attacked because it was looking for a safe place to lay eggs.  This paternal animalistic nature gave the monster a new motivation that made it sympathetic while still vicious and destructive.  It also led to a setpiece where Madison Square Garden was filled with eggs that hatched into miniature Godzillas that were still bigger than the humans trapped in the building with them.  The fact that every floor looked the same in the building led to confusion that meant a mini-Godzilla could be around any bend or behind any door.

Godzilla was a fun movie.  If you go into the movie without the expectations that it will be another in the long line of Godzilla movies that Japan has been giving the world for sixty years, there’s a whole bunch to enjoy.  The different action moments were fun, from the chases to the Madison Square Garden bit.  The performances were entertaining.  Hank Azaria was the standout, nailing the comedic elements that made everything work.  What was most confusing was that the quality of Godzilla was on par with Roland Emmerich’s later film 2012, yet people hate this and enjoy that.  The only explanation for it is the adaptation backlash.

Godzilla got a bad reputation right out of the gate.  It didn’t make what people expected during its opening weekend, and the word of mouth has been poor since its release.  People didn’t like what was changed for the adaptation of Godzilla.  They didn’t like that the monster looked different and had a different motivation.  They wanted what they loved about the Japanese films and that wasn’t what they got.  An adaptation should be about taking the source material and putting a new spin on it.  Audiences wouldn’t allow the American Godzilla to do that.  When it did, they were upset.  They set a high bar for their expectations and the movie never got there.  It was a disappointment.  It’s not as bad as people say.  It’s fun.  Most people don’t see it that way though.

These notes should be fun:

• Godzilla was suggested by @R_ViewMovies.
• Frank Welker did some voice work in Godzilla.  He also put some work into Anaconda (week 80), Mortal Kombat (week 140), Hudson Hawk (week 232), GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords (week 244), and Super Mario Bros. (week 248).
• Richard Gant made his fourth Sunday “Bad” Movies appearance in Godzilla.  He was previously in Ed (week 11), Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (week 85), and Norbit (week 227).
• Clyde Kusatsu had a small role in Godzilla.  It was his third Sunday “Bad” Movies role behind A Nanny for Christmas (week 3) and Top Dog (week 126).
• Steven Ho returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week.  He was in the two Mortal Kombat movies (week 140) before showing up in Godzilla.
• Two actors in Godzilla were also in Kung-Pow: Enter the Fist (week 234).  They were Al Goto and John Koyama.
• Godzilla was the second appearance of Philippe Bergeron, who was also in 30 Nights of Paranormal Activity with the Devil Inside the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (week 10).
• Jean Reno returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies this week.  He also popped up in Alex Cross (week 12).
• This was the second Sunday “Bad” Movie that Craig Castaldo showed up in.  The first was Glitter (week 22).
• Matthew Broderick starred in Godzilla.  He also had a role in New Year’s Eve (week 57).
• Eric Saiet showed up in Godzilla.  He previously showed up in a little movie with a big man called Steel (week 127).
• Lloyd Kino returned to the Sunday “Bad” Movies after long ago showing up in Mortal Kombat (week 140).
• Godzilla marked the second appearance of David Pressman, who first came into the Sunday “Bad” Movies in Gigli (week 225).
• Lance Reddick came back to us this week, after first appearing in Jonah Hex (week 249).
• Finally, Kurt Carley is a Sunday “Bad” Movies two-timer, showing up in Godzilla and A Haunted House 2 (week 274).
• Have you seen Godzilla?  What did you think of it?  What do you think about adaptations?  Do they need to stick as close to the source as possible, or can they go down a new path?  Put your thoughts in the comments.
• I’m always looking for suggestions about what I should check out.  If you have any, use the comments to tell me.  Or you can go to my Twitter page and let me know there.  Either one works.
• Sometimes when I’m watching bad movies, I share bits and pieces of them on Snapchat.  If that interests you, feel free to add me. (jurassicgriffin).
• Now that I did a big budget Hollywood movie, I’m going to steer into the opposite direction next week.  Aliens vs. Titanic, aka Aliens vs. College Girls, aka Predator World, will be the movie next week.  It’s a low budget horror movie about a group of space travelers crash landing on a planet where an alien is trying to kill them.  I’ve got an idea for the post already, but you’ll have to wait until next week to find out what it is.  See you then.