Should we count the 1998 Godzilla movie

Fine by me

Even Toho acknowledges it on an official level. But I find it amusing that they typically don't mention it in official channels if they don't have to.

I personally don't count it as part of the series. When I list Godzilla movies, take inventory of them or line them up in some sort of list I typically omit GINO. It has and always will be GINO for me.

The issue isn't what they took away from this creature to be Godzilla, the problem is that Roland Emmerich believed that simply blowing up a giant scaley animal and having him stomp through a city equals Godzilla. But that doesn't make much sense. By that logic the Rhedosaurus from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the Ymir from 20 Million Miles to Earth are also Godzilla. They're clearly not.

Maybe the monster would have been accepted had it been anything that remotely resembled Godzilla's past history. He's been a walking metaphor for atomaphobia. He's been a social issue for women to stand up against. He's worked as the antithesis of pollution. He's been a villain, a super hero and an anti-hero. He's stood up to mean all of these things with a looming nuclear answer that could drop at any time. Not one of those things came through in GINO.

In GINO he was just a scared animal. He didn't fight back. He didn't destroy a city based on psedo-mythical vengance. He didn't protect it either. There was no sense of dread or horror. There was no sense of urgency either. This isn't creative license. This is just a lack of creativity.

Supplement that with a boring cast (Jean Reno was the only interesting character in the film) and a complete lack of fun surrounding the possibilities of the creature and you've commited another sin which is arguably the worst one a Godzilla movie could commit: It was no fun.

There's no likable characters, there's no sense of real danger. It's all played off like a joke-- which would be fine if the audience were in on it and enjoying it just as much as Emmerich.

See, Emmerich, like a lot of people here I'm learning, didn't get it. The Godzilla series was unique and endured because it did stick out. Because there were no limits to its imagination. And despite how absurd they got, there was always a sense of urgency and care amongst the characters whom grappled with these creatures like it was the apocolypse. He had a long list of facets that could've been Godzilla and chose to ignore all of them to create one of the most bland, uninteresting giant creatures in cinema history. That's the movie's greatest accomplishment: It takes real talent (or none) to make a giant monster boring-- Godzilla or not.

@G-MAN

the cast wasn't terrible. I thought they were pretty damn good.

The cast was mediocre at best. Matthew Brodrick is typically a good actor, but this movie torpedoed his career for a good decade until The Producers. It's not so much his acting that bites as it is his character. He's fairly uninteresting. This might have been the point, but he never breaks out of that mold. He never does anything truly heroic that changes his character for the better.

Maria Pitillo might have been up for a Worst Actress Razzie award that year. I can't remember. (EDIT: Just looked it up. My guess was right. She won worst actress of the year.) Even if she wasn't, she was downright awful. Her career has been forgetful at best since the movie. She's appeared several canceled TV series and as a guest actress in others. There's nothing redeeming about her.

Hank Azaria needs to stick to comedic roles and voice acting. Although he wasn't bad, he represents a part of the movie that contradicts itself: The fun that's failed by the supposed title creature. If the movie was as entertaining as he was attempting to be it might of worked. Otherwise he comes off as a mindnumbingly stupid and hard to watch.

Jean Reno is the only actor and character I can say nice things about. His character was no nonsense and combated the threat with a seriousness that echoed characters played by Akira Takarada, Akira Kubo, Akihito Hirata and Takashi Shimura. Even if the movie was just going to be fun, we needed more characters with the weight he carried into the situation.

The rest of the movie is scattered with mindless sub-characters, substandard acting and baffling roles. I'm not entirely sure how Hicks made it into the military and the Siskel and Ebert characters were a massive waste of space. If you're going to take jabs at critics, give the audience want they want to see out of it. Have a building fall on them or the monster crush them. Don't just do nothing with them.

@ luisshizz

the acting was good for the CGi around them. But I think the acting in the cartoon was better. Slitly.

No its not. Godzilla 1998 was its own monster movie because its not a real godzilla movie. Though it is in the godzilla universe its still not a GODZILLA movie.

Yes it does count in my opinion. Since it has the same name then it is counted as a Godzilla movie. They just wanted to bring Godzilla back with a new look.

The grim kaiju@ Wrongo, just because it bears the name that doesn't mean its an official GODZILLA movie its just a godzilla monster named zilla in his own movie. Besides in GMK they stated that the americans thought it was godzilla but the japanese had some doughts.

Ha lol fricken Americans.

I'm mexican, even though I was born in america. And I live in okinawa japan.

i agree with ZILLZILLAH hater

no 1998 is not godzilla its a mutated lizard that dies my being shot by missles and eats fish and toho bought the rights to zilla and put him in final wars so final wars goji could kill him and the battle only lasted about 10 to 15 seconds so toho did right by having zilla die in final wars the way he did.