Godzilla (1998 film)

Godzilla is an American science fiction film directed by Roland Emmerich and starred Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Michael Lerner and Kevin Dunn. It was remake of the Japanese film Gojira.

Unfortunately, Godzilla had bad fan reactions, (fans didn't appreciate the orgin difference or the differences between the Japanese Godzilla.)

Tagline: Size Does Matter.



Plot
During a stormy night of fishing a japanese fishing ship attacked by an unknown creature. The army is sent to invenstigate and calls Dr. Nick Satopalis to help figure out what is going on. Dr. Satopalis concludes that the creature is a mutated iguana and its heading for New York City. The monster rampages through New York with the army trying to kill with no success. Dr. Satopalis and a group of french agents discover some of the creatures and when they hatch the babies chase the scientist and agents around until they kill them in an explosion. After killing the babies the creature chases them and is killed by missiles. One of the eggs survives.

Alternate titles
Godzilla 1998

Zilla (working title)

Tristar Godzilla

Not Godzilla

Deanzilla

Patzilla

Fraudzilla

G.I.N.O.

Music
The film's soundtrack featured songs by such artists as Puff Daddy and Jimmy Page ("Come with Me"), Jamiroquai ("Deeper Underground"), Rage Against the Machine ("No Shelter"), Foo Fighters ("A320"), Ben Folds Five ("Air"), and Green Day ("Brain Stew (Remix)" ). The David Bowie song "Heroes", covered by the Wallflowers, can be clearly heard in the background during a restaurant scene early in the movie. David Arnold's orchestral score provided the music for the rest of the movie, and roughly four minutes of it is included on the album.

Sequels and Spin-Offs
Main article: Godzilla: the Series

The film spawned an animated series which continued the storyline of the movie. In this series, Nick Tatapolous accidentally discovers the egg that survived the destruction of the nest. The creature hatches and imprints on him as its parent. Subsequently, Nick and a group of friends form an elite research team, investigating strange occurrences and defending human kind from numerous other monsters.

A novelisation was released for the film, written as a retrospective by Nick Tatapolous. Nick always refers to the monster as Gojira in the text.

A sequel to the film was planned, and would have involved Godzilla battling a mutant insect creature. However these plans for a sequel were ultimately scrapped and Roland Emmerich made The Patriot instead.

Marketing Campaign
The marketing campaign for Godzilla was multi-pronged in its execution:

Crushed cars were dotted around London as a part of a guerilla advertising campaign. In the month or so before its release, ads on street corners made references to Godzilla's size in comparison to whatever medium of advertising the advertisement was on. Examples: "His foot is bigger than this bus", "His eye is bigger than this billboard", etc. Bits and pieces of different body parts of Godzilla were shown on TV commercials and posters, but never the entire body; this was to add a bit of mystery as to the design of the creature, ideally prompting people to see the film because that was the only way to see the whole creature. The same style of advertising is used for Steven Spielberg's adaption of War of the Worlds, where the alien attackers were rarely seen in advertisements and also for the movie Transformers where the Transformers are not fully seen. Unfortunately, the toyline was released before the film, and spoiled everything. Taco Bell had tie-ins such as cups and toys that promoted the film. The Taco Bell chihuahua was also at the height of its popularity in Taco Bell's television commercials. During the summer of 1998, several commercials pairing Godzilla with the Taco Bell mascot were produced and aired, including several with the chihuahua trying to catch Godzilla in a tiny box, whistling and calling, "Here, lizard, lizard, lizard." When Godzilla appears, the chihuahua says, "Uh-oh. I think I need a bigger box."

Box office
Although film received mostly negative reviews from critics (26% positive on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 58 reviews), Godzilla grossed $136,314,294 domestically and $379,014,294 worldwide, bringing back its $125 million budget.

Trivia
This article contains a trivia section. Content in this section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article or removed, and the trivia section removed.

The creature from this film was officially dubbed "Zilla" by Toho Studios in the film Godzilla: Final Wars. According to Ryuhei Kitamura, the monster was given this name because the American movie had taken the "God" out of "Godzilla". Zilla was annihilated in literally about thirteen seconds by the "true" Godzilla (many Godzilla fans that expressed their opinions that the monster fight scenes were too quick remarked that this battle was the only "realistically short" fight in the movie) and the commander of the alien invasion remarks upon his destruction, "I knew that tuna-eating monster wasn't up to much." Although in the English translation he is referred to as "Tuna-Head". This is Toho getting back at TriStar for their perceived mistreatment of Godzilla. Before Toho studios officially named the creature Zilla, many fans created several nicknames to differentiate it from the original Godzilla. These nicknames included "American Godzilla", "Deanzilla" (because of writer/producer Dean Devlin), and "G.I.N.O.", an acronym for "Godzilla In Name Only.". The old cook from the ship refers to the monster as "Gojira" when he is in a semi-conscious state. Gojira is the name of Godzilla in his native Japan, but the name was changed in the process of translating the original film into the American Godzilla, King of the Monsters!. The name "Godzilla" is Toho Studios' official English name for the character. The name was used on English-language international promotional material for the original film in 1954; however, "Gojira" is the pronunciation used by the English-speaking cast of such later films as King Kong vs. Godzilla. Audrey mispronounces the name when she says "It's Gojira, you moron!" slurring it from "Go-jee-ra" to "Go-jeer-uh". The r should be distinctly on the third syllable.

The standard DVD cover for the filmThe characters of the mayor (Lerner) and his advisor are clearly caricatures of Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel. Reportedly, the less-than-flattering portrayal was because both had given negative reviews of Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich's earlier film, Stargate. When the actual Siskel and Ebert reviewed Emmerich's Godzilla on their show, it received two thumbs down and Siskel commented on being spoofed in the film, saying it was "petty." Barney from Barney &amp; Friends can be seen in a T.V set. The Japanese freighter attacked and destroyed by Zilla in the opening of the film is named Kobayashi Maru, in homage to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The extra killed in his car when Zilla first arrives in Manhattan was cast as a look-alike for J.D. Lees, editor of G-Fan Magazine, because he said disparaging remarks about the information that leaked out about the film prior to its release. The music that plays on an elevator in a scene with Matthew Broderick is "Danke Schoen", which Broderick lip-synchs in a memorable scene from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. The first sequence of the AH64-Apache gunships chasing after [Zilla]] through the streets references both Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back with the line, "Echo 4 to Echo Base", and Star Wars with "He's right on my tail! I can't shake him!" Both lines were spoken by Luke Skywalker. Matthew Broderick's character's last name is "Tatopoulos." Godzilla's designer and supervisor is Patrick Tatopoulos. A running gag in the movie is the characters mispronouncing his last name. The film is dedicated to Tomoyuki Tanaka, who produced all of the Japanese Godzilla movies and died only a month before this film began actual production. The film's first teaser trailer began appearing in theaters a full year before the movie was released. The trailer featured a shot of Zilla's foot coming through the roof of a museum and crushing a T-Rex skeleton as a tour guide gives a lecture saying that the T-rex was the biggest predator the world has ever seen (of course, larger land predators have since been discovered, but use of Tyrannosaurus had stronger name-recognition at the time). Dean Devlin maintains that the tagline for this movie, "Size Does Matter", was meant simply to differentiate the movie from Jurassic Park, hence the original "museum" trailer, but that the advertisers for the studio took it too far with their overzealous campaign (e.g. "His foot is as long as this bus"). The ads became the biggest focus of the backlash against the movie, especially considering that size was what ultimately ended up killing the monster. An action figure of an alien from Independence Day (1996) (also directed by Roland Emmerich) is visible in the broadcast booth at Madison Square Garden.(The action figure line for the movie Independence day was made by Trendmasters, who incidently were also the main U.S. maker of the toy line for the Godzilla movie.) The policeman seen during Zilla's arrival is the same policeman (both played by same actor) seen suddenly leaving his patrol car in the middle of an intersection in Independance Day (1996). Three voice actors from the comedy series The Simpsons appear in the film: Harry Shearer, Nancy Cartwright and Hank Azaria. The film was spoofed in the stop-motion show Robot Chicken from Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. In the segment, producers Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich are given a chance to make a sequel, or rather a "remake of a remake"; they use the money to have the baby Zillas perform an ice skating number in a rink. Later, they congratulate themselves on making "another giant piece of crap." When the Apaches are attacking Zilla in the city they say they are going to fire AIM-9 Sidewinders at it, but in real life sidwinders are Air-to-air missle that wouldnt have any effect on it and when they use their guns on Zilla they are shown to be next to the cockpit which is wrong. The gun is mounted under the nose of the aircraft. When the F-18s attack Madison Square Garden they use AGM-84 Harpoon which is used to attack ships not ground targets.