Godzilla 1998 vs. Godzilla 2014 - Trailer Comparison

I honestly liked the '98 trailer better. I've never seen any Godzilla movie, but I've seen part of the '98 Godzilla, and from what I saw, it was interesting. I haven't seen enough if the movie to form an opinion though.

The 2014 trailer hands down. It captures the tone perfectly, while the 1998 trailer doesn't really seem to have a tone. Besides, you actually get to see the full design of Godzilla in Legendary's trailer. Looking back on it now, the Tristar trailer was pretty much full of lies. 

The tones of the trailers are completely different so it's hard to compare but honestly in advertsing alone the 1998 one is better in my opinion, as it has no useless time fillers. The 2014 trailer has almost a minute of the air jump, and easily takes up a third of the trailer. Gives you scenes just to show the main actors, rather than convey the movie. The 1998 1 was centered around Godzilla, what he was doing the scenarios he was in ect. As much as people hate that movie any1 alive at the time would have to admit the marketing for the film was genius to gain hype. Much better than the current marketing we're seeing now.

@DURPOO4 Do you realize how many trailers today show all of the good parts of the movie? This trailer does what trailers should do by leaving a lot of the awesome scenes for the movie, but still giving you a few things to speculate on. This Godzilla follows the tone of the 1954 Godzilla, which didn't focus on Godzilla, it focused on the humans around him. I'm sure you'll get to see a lot of Godzilla action when he fights the MUTOs, but this is THE FIRST FREAKING TRAILER. What did you expect, 20 minutes out of the whole movie? Then why even go and watch the movie? Use that brain in your head a little. The mystery is what makes you want to see the movie. 

I'm not asking to see the movie, I'm saying don't post a trailer that's almost 3 minutes and then make a 3rd of it people skydiving. Understand the difference? This was a trailer for a GODZILLA movie so what do I expect to see in said trailer? Well sure as hell not some1 skydiving even if it did show a quick glimps of him. The 1998 trailer didn't show him and that made it so much better. You saw what he was doing, it didn't give anything away either, and didn't show "all the good parts" but conveyed a message that made you want to go see the movie.

Where did I say show me the movie? Nowhere I said don't fill the trailer with useless scenes, perhaps before you tell me to use my brain you should use your eyes.

Personally and honestly,both of the are great,and i actually like the 98 movie at itself,not as Godzilla movie..but for the trailer,i shat my pants back in 98 when i saw this trailer..now im 24 i still shat my pants watching the trailer..so,i guess you can judge

*both of the trailer*

the 2014 trailer was dark and Realisic but the 1998 one was too much action so Hands down too the 2014 trailer i really do like the destruction of San franscio.

I agree with @ DurPoo4 that the 98 trailer show more of what Godzilla did than the 2014 one did but the 2014 is more darker and serious  and around that tike when the 98 trailer came out  it was really good  but both are good  trailer but as far as the whole movie I feel the 2014. one is going to be more promising as having more similarties to the root of Godzilla 54 darker and serious like how it should be.

I agree with @ DurPoo4 that the 98 trailer show more of what Godzilla did than the 2014 one did but the 2014 is more darker and serious  and around that tike when the 98 trailer came out  it was really good  but both are good  trailer but as far as the whole movie I feel the 2014. one is going to be more promising as having more similarties to the root of Godzilla 54 darker and serious like how it should be.

What I like about the '98 trailer is that they don't show Godzilla - they tease him and like many of you have mentioned - most movies give away too much in the trailers - so in terms of keeping the main attraction a secret - '98 did a better job.

But in terms of tone and emotion, I think 2014 wins, hands down. The suspense and score just envoke total fear, and makes Godzilla seem more "realistic" - which is something both films were going for.

So, if all we're comparing are trailers - it's a pretty close match.

Great discussion. I think the 2014 trailer needed to give us a little more, BECAUSE of the dissapointment of the 98 movie. The 98 movie gave us a popcorn godzilla... As evident from the score as well as the comic relief in a few spots but most notably the very last scene. 2014 immediately pays more homage to the dark, impending doom, brought forth by humanity's mistakes. Furthermore, us hardcore fans wanted to be sure we weren't duped again. We wanted a Godzilla movie, not an interpretation of one. So they needed to show us a) that Godzilla LOOKS like Godzilla, not an overgrown tyranosaurus from the Jurassic Park movies. b) That he sounds like Godzilla c) provide some evidence of atomic breath (the building with the hole in the middle) and d) that he's fighting another monster(s) - but that one is just a bonus because we've all seen G solo and still be an amazing movie. 

i dont think you can compare these two trailers and not be a fan of gozilla, the first trailer as a fan does no justice to the monster himself and that is not a bias opinion based on my seeing the movie, true fans now that hes not just tearing through a building a true fan knows hes not taking time out to mess with fishing boats, and a true fan knows hes not a giant trex, the new trailer on the other hand .. OMG i loved it and the destruction is just like i always imagined it should be like. the smoke and the debirs and such but then showing godzilla as well hmmmm cant really put that part in words i have been waiting for a vision of this type for a looooooong time. 

I thought the trailer for the 2014 was far superior after being quite dissapointed with the 98 film, but i still enjoy both the film and the trailer for setting up a fun blockbuster, For the 2014 trailer i thought the Halo jump was quite intense and as people have said sets the tone perfectly, this creature is a force to be reckoned with. People complain that the trailer showed too much of Godzilla i don't see a problem with that personally as most of us know what the creature looks like and it won't be much of a suprise. What i got from the trailer is it's letting us know that this film will have meatier character development and that the Godzilla creature is not the only thing to get excited about, and thats what excites me about the upcoming film, a little more depth. 

The 1998 Film Director failed to let us know that he only licensed the name Godzilla

The creature was horible and so was the film

Um well in my opinion 2014 did a hugely better job on the trailer...because 98' shows almost all the really fakey ( rated b {low budjet}) scenes in the trailer and didnt give that 'wanna crap your pants and give up hope' feeling like 2014 did very much well...

The 98 trailer hands down hit the nail on the hand as for generating hype for the movie. Its fast, loud and has a catchy tune and lots of random destruction without showcasing "Godzilla". The 2014 however matches what the 1954 film was trying to do by showcasing what happens when our inability to coexists goes too far. If the 1954 film was to come out now it would look like the 2014 one.

These are two completely different films (and trailers) and can't really be compared because they have different goals. Emmerich wasn't trying to make a dark and serious movie, he was making a fun monster movie.

The 2014 trailer is obviously the superior trailer, because it's being honest on what we're getting here - the real Godzilla. Plus, it has a chilling dark tone and suspense, just like "Gojira" (1954), generates actual fear, and when you see Godzilla, you feel the chills going down your spine and fear his precense.

The GINO trailer (GINO, referring to the movie title) was horrendous, it was a rip-off, the movie knew it was being dishonest with the audience, giving us a gigantic disappointment rather than satisfaction. TriStar lied to everybody, making us think we were getting what we wanted when they knew they were lying, and they knew they were gonna give us was a big pile of kaiju bullsh%t. It disrespected the Godzilla character in general, Toho, the fans, as well as the audience, and the source material that horrible piece of monkey scrotum of a film was based on. We didn't get Godzilla, we just got Zilla. And you know what's the worst part of all is? The Devil's pubic hair himself, Roland Emmerich, admitted he hates Godzilla, he didn't care for the source material, that's why he staryed away from the old films, that's why the movie sucked, by LACK OF INTEREST.

Obviously, Godzilla 2014 is far superior to GINO, Legendary is gonna kick TriStar's fake ass and put it to its place, and hopefully will make people FINALLY forget about that HORRIBLE film.

Both were good but the '98 one shows his feet a lot and they make him look like a Jurassic Park dino. The '14 one...wow. The jump, the breathing, the commander speaking to them, the skyline and dark skies... this one is dead serious and when you see Godzilla you just get goosebumps, I didn't have that with the '98 one, sure I was excited about it, I was 15 at the time but this one... Hands down the '14 trailer. I saw the '98 in the cinema and I'm definitely going to see this one too. Multiple times.

@Camdigidy "Emmerich wasn't trying to make a dark and serious movie, he was making a fun monster movie."

No, Cam, Emmerich wasn't trying at all, he hates Godzilla and he only did it for the money, he didn't care that he was disrespecting Godzilla.

D&E's  G98 was just awful.  I saw it in a $1 bargain matinee and could barely sit thru it.     The new film can only be better - simply because we were at rock-bottom already "thanks" to Devlin and Emmerich. 

What is funny is some of the critics of the 2014 trailer complain that too much of Godzilla was shown. As Kidwunder stated earlier, after the reputation butchery that was the 98 film, we needed to see more of him as a reassurance that it wouldn't be a repeat offense. We also don't see a whole lot of him. We see a few second birds eye view of him lumbering through a dimly lit area, then we see him rise out of rubble mostly obscured by dust and aforementioned rubble. You don't even see his whole body. The 98 trailer basically gives us a bunch of scenes of different parts of his body that we can puzzle-piece into almost the whole creature, so that argument is invalid. The other contention, that too much time was wasted on the halo jump scene, also struggles. In the 98 trailer alot of time is spent just looking at people on the street while cars shake, then we see a bunch of flash scenes that basically Cliffnote the entire film. The 2014 allows us to get emotionally invested by giving us more than a strobe of shoddy CGI. In short, the 98 trailer allows us to predict most of the movie, the 2014 trailer leaves us wondering what is happened in the other 2 hours or so they haven't shown us.

I would also like to state that we don't have any idea what is going on with the other monsters. We kind of know what the smaller spider guys look like, and we kind of know what the bigger centipede-ish guy looks like. But remember, we already saw the centipede guy dead, which means that there is very likely something much bigger and more dangerous that Godzilla still has to cope with, and we haven't the faintest idea what that creature will be. Mark my words, if it ends up being Mothra, people will be maimed (by me).

BTW, I use the same name here as I did in the news group Alt.Movies.Monster.    There's a treasure trove of my posts (as well as those by a host of other G-fans) there detailing my dislike/disgust for the G-98 film, and the film's writers/producers.  There were a lot of great posters back "in the day" there - especially a guy named "Steve Zivanic" who nicknamed G-98 as "Bombzilla" in reference to its box office performance.   LOL.  

I love the 2014 trailer more, but for what there trying to convey the 1998.

The '98 trailer was full of cliche lines and "scare" tactics, such as giant claw marks in a boat that was hardly destroyed at all...  And for a trailer from 1998, the graphics seemed very 80's.  I had no idea who the characters were (Matt wasn't even featured!) and all it seemed to be was action (which, turns out, was taken from only about 3 scenes of the film).  

The '14 trailer had an atmosphere, with a sense of dread.  While there were far fewer clips than the '98 trailer, I was more emotionally invested.  This only goes to show that quality proves greater than quantity.  

The key difference here - the '98 trailer focused on the devastation.  The '14 trailer focused on the characters experiencing the devastation.

Chalk and cheese, its hard to separate the 1998 trailer from the mess that was the final movie, but in isolation the trailer is effective, by not showing the creature they hoped to build interest - but as the film proved, it was a mystery that ended up being wholly misplaced.

The 2014 trailer seems to be trying to set a different tone almost by design, as if to distance itself from the 1998 movie. The slow build up and sparse soundtrack create a sense of dread. Is there too much Godzilla or not enough? I think they struck the right balance, the tease during the HALO sequence hopefully surpises those unware that it's the Godzilla trailer. The big reveal at the end is just enough to assure the fans that this time they're getting a proper Godzilla rather than some half-arsed "reinvention".

The 1998 trailer is better than final film derserved. The 2014 trailer is better than the whole 1998 film!

Chalk and cheese, its hard to separate the 1998 trailer from the mess that was the final movie, but in isolation the trailer is effective, by not showing the creature they hoped to build interest - but as the film proved, it was a mystery that ended up being wholly misplaced.

The 2014 trailer seems to be trying to set a different tone almost by design, as if to distance itself from the 1998 movie. The slow build up and sparse soundtrack create a sense of dread. Is there too much Godzilla or not enough? I think they struck the right balance, the tease during the HALO sequence hopefully surpises those unware that it's the Godzilla trailer. The big reveal at the end is just enough to assure the fans that this time they're getting a proper Godzilla rather than some half-arsed "reinvention".

The 1998 trailer is better than final film derserved. The 2014 trailer is better than the whole 1998 film!

The '98 trailer conveyed one thing at the time for me, and still does after watching it; by teasing it's design too much they clearly showed that they had relied WAY too much on Zilla carrying the film, and basically had the rest shat out of a monster movie generator just to fill in the gaps. Very apt indeed that this film was later famously dubbed as "GINO", because if it hadn't bared the name of Godzilla, it would have been much more positively accepted as what it truly is; a fair-to-middle monster flick.

As for the '14 trailer...well without going into a major caps lock-fuelled nerdgasm, I feel it basically tells us "OK, so here's enough of Godzilla for you to see he's been designed right. But he's actually in a Godzilla film this time. And boy, do we have a treat for you!".

In short; Holy s**t I can't wait 'til May :) :) :)