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Contact this writerWhether titled Godzilla or Giant-Stampy-Lizard- Eats-New-York, the Roland Emmerich remake of Japans classic monster movie, Gojira would have been a flop over time, by falling to one of the cardinal sins of filmmaking: Apathy.
The original Godzilla hit the chords in all the right places. in its Japanese homeland, it came across as a metaphor for the atomic bombs that had been dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki a mere nine years before. Every single line in the movie was designed to make a point, from the corruption of science for war, to the morality of destroying a destructive animal.
the point of Emmerich's version?
"RARGH, BIG MONSTER, SHOOT IT!"
now, don't get me wrong, I'm all for action in movies. But Godzilla is a sympathetic creature. even without the name of godzilla, the creature - or "Zilla" as it is known in official canon, is depicted as a animal that is out of place. Zilla never shows - at any point in the movie - the kind of malicious intent that is required to make him into a villain. rather than being a character in the film he is simply a walking target for however many missiles and bullets that the writers want to throw at him.
For comparison, look at 2008's Cloverfield. In cloverfield, the monster again is not depicted as a villain, but as a force of nature. It tears through New York, causing untold destruction and shrugging off the shots fired at it, but it is not shown as Sympathetic. it is merely the backdrop for events.
Whilst Emmerich's Godzilla is created by Nuclear weapons, it is not a metaphor for a bomb. it is merely there to destroy. On top of that the big climax of the film is not a heart-wrenching sacrifice of a man's work and life to prevent more destruction. Instead, it is the almost Gleeful killing of both the monster and its young. Rather than a sadness at the climax, it is instead a invitation to cheer at the death of a creature that has been built as sympathetic. Emmerich's version is Godzilla with all the messages taken out.
But there is one simple reason Zilla would not have been successful, possibly even less so if it had not been marketed as Godzilla.
It's a giant Lizard. Destroying a city.
If it hadn't been marketed as Godzilla, it would merely have been considered a Godzilla Rip-Off. at least, as Zilla, it has become part of a greater and more epic Canon than its own. Even if, in Godzilla: Final wars, it lasted approximately thirty seconds against The Real Thing.
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Would the Sony/Tristar movie "Godzilla" have been more successful at the box office if it was titled something else? I say yes it would.
I believe that the mere fact that this movie was marketed as "Godzilla" made people ultimately hate it because an expectation was not met. These weren't just die-hard fans of the Godzilla films of the 60's and the 70's; these were fans of big summer blockbuster films and people who were aware of the character Godzilla in reputation alone.
Filmmakers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich had created a fan base with the films Stargate and Independence Day and people were expecting big things from them in their venture with one of the most well know character properties around.
While I have seen the movie Stargate a few times I cannot relate it to another film like I can with the movie Independence Day. Independence Day shared many of the same elements of George Pal's 1953 classic: The War of the Worlds. After viewing both Independence Day and War of the Worlds, it seemed more like a gimmick than a homage.
That sense carried into the 1998 Godzilla movie as I found familiar scenes that made me think of another old film, The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms which was made in 1953 as well. For example, there is a scene in the Godzilla movie where some fishing boats are sunk which is almost exactly like a scene from the older film. You can also compare how in both films the creatures make their way to New York City, and eventually are entrapped and killed off.
I have no problem with the filmmakers paying homage to a movie, but couldn't Devlin and Emmerich pay homage to the right subject? Fans of Godzilla were expecting a creature of destructive force but what they ended up getting was an animal that was about as annoying as a cow on the freeway. The movie was marketed as Godzilla, but it since the main protagonist was not like the Godzilla that fans expected, it was disappointing.
If you look at the box office business that is reported on The Internet Movie Database, you can see that massive drop in money from the first week to the second. Was this because the movie was truly un-entertaining, or did it alienate the movie fans that were expecting something else? I think that if you remove the references to Godzilla, it changes the dynamic of the whole movie as major distraction has been removed from the plot. Market the film as a remake of The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, and it makes more sense. Sadly, when you look at it this way you can see that it was a tragedy of missed opportunities.
As it stands, Toho, the parent company that owns the rights to the character Godzilla, will probably be very reluctant to allow another version to be made because of the debacle that Devlin and Emmerich created, so it may be some time until an American Godzilla movie will be made for the fans.
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by Chuck Hoodak
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