by Rich Meyer

Created on: December 02, 2009

Would Godzilla (1998) have been more successful with a different title? Of course. One only has to look at the recent viral buzz over the movie Cloverfield to see that. In fact, many people were assuming that the Cloverfield title was just a ruse for yet another remake of Godzilla. I think that proves how much we want a really good remake of the Big G, and the success of the film shows how well a different title might have helped the 1998 movie's box-office receipts.

I know that when I sit down to watch a Godzilla flick, I expect certain things: Cheesy effects, bad dubbing and a sometimes incomprehensibly-translated storyline. But I don't mind those things; in fact, they're a big part of the charm of a Godzilla movie, as much as the giant man-in-a-suit-a-saurus that is trampling small buildings and wrecking havoc on Tokyo. Until 1984, almost every Godzilla movie was aimed at children. Any fan of the kaiju eiga (giant monster) genre learns to look at these films from that point of view. Heck, the whole point to most of them is that Godzilla is the protector of the world! Friend to all children! Bruce Lee impersonator! The only real exception to that formula was the original Gojira (1954), which was edited and released in the United States as Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956). The original movie is a classic that many look at in the same vein as many of Kurosawa's movies, as an anti-war and anti-nuclear weapon proliferation statement. Naturally, that edgy feeling was toned down for the American version, as Japan's views on being nuked twice probably wouldn't sell a lot of tickets over here in America. The 1998 remake touched on those aspects in about the same manner as the 1956 movie, with the shifting of the blame for the nuclear accident to the French.

That was fine and dandy. But it still didn't make the movie Godzilla. The monster's popularity had rebounded in the mid-eighties (after the franchise nearly died a malingering death in the seventies with some movies even kiddies could barely sit through) with the first true remake, Godzilla 1984. Suddenly there was a good chance Godzilla would stomp a kid instead of saving him. The radioactive menace that embodied what was thrust upon the Japanese in 1945 was back and he was mad! Of course, this Godzilla was pitted against other monsters that he defeated, and in doing so inadvertently helped humanity. I guess there's no way around that with Godzilla. He's got to have enemies who are meaner and worse menaces

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