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Whether 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.

Learn more about this author, Ben Myatt.
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