History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.

Godzilla!

Just to clarify: I wouldn’t have liked Godzilla ’98 even it it had been called something else… it’s not that the Toho Godzilla history got in the way of my enjoyment, it’s that it just wasn’t a cohesive film, and that detracted from the enjoyment I might have had.

Of COURSE I can suspend disbelief when watching any kaiju film; it’s required. (I also like Space: 1999, as some of you already know, so the ‘disbelief suspension’ thing is well-ingrained in my psyche! )

I think it I would have enjoyed the movie more if they left out the entire egg sequence (way too similar to Jurassic Park) and, if memory serves me correctly, the fact that they killed the (or a) Godzilla with a torpedo or two. Godzilla mocks your silly torpedoes!

Someone above mentioned Johnny Socko. Check out the 90s re-imagined anime series Giant Robo. Great production values and lots of retro-styled technology. When the titular Giant Robo takes a step, streets crack, windows shatter, and city councilmen cry. Great stuff!

Lastly, *ahem*
Gamera is really neat, Gamera is full of meat, we all love you Gam-er-raaaaaaa!

[[when the helicopters are being chased throught the maze–err, I maen through the streets–why didn’t any of them just go UP? Helloooo, you’re in helicopters. Go up! Way up, out of jumping/climbing range. Sheesh!]]

Measure it in two dimensions — x and z. The first thing you want to do is maximize your radial distance from the problem. Going up would include an element of going “sideways;” you could lose r. You could try going up on a slope, but again, your first concern is to increase r as much as possible, and if both the monster and the helicopter are going linearly along x, you don’t want to move in y or z.

…any movie where a giant reptile eats a helicopter can’t be all bad.

Of course, apart from the original film, Toho rarely got it right, either. Godzilla: Final Wars is just as much a nonsensical mess as the GINO flick. And they’re both about the same amount of fun if you don’t think about them too hard.

One thing I hate when I see a movie that could also be titled “It Ate Everything” is the nitpickers. They wouldn’t fly that low. The debris would have killed them. She wouldn’t have survived being impaled. Nobody ever used the bathroom. Whatever… as long as you realize that never once did you question a GIANT INDESTRUCTIBLE MONSTER emerging from the sea and rampaging through New York City. Sheesh.

And then there was that fish icon used on the computer display on the trap they set for the beast. Oh fish icon, how I hate thee.

If you can get past that, it may be an entertaining movie. (It wasn’t for me.) I think someone got it right, the makers of this movie weren’t sure what kind of movie they were making. It was a movie by committee. It was all over the place. Sometimes a monster movie, sometimes a comedy, sometimes a sci-fi movie, but never a cohesive movie. The TOHO movies afterward were all responses which said “Here is the movie you could have made.” “Godzilla: Final Wars” was the best! It is a BA must see!

Oh, and the Jurassic Park T Rex terrorized San Diego, not LA. Please, get your dino-movie trivia right.

To be sure, there were some good moments, but they pale in comparison to the rest of the film. I liked some of the ones mentioned already, and disliked many of the same ones pointed out already, by the way. I’m surprised nobody ripped on the biggest ‘dumb moment’ in the film as far as the US military is concerned: when the helicopters are being chased throught the maze–err, I maen through the streets–why didn’t any of them just go UP? Helloooo, you’re in helicopters. Go up! Way up, out of jumping/climbing range. Sheesh!
On the other hand, for a plus side, one shot I thought was cool was when lightning struck the antenna on the WTC… turns out that wasn’t even an sfx shot, but footage they happened to get while filming a real storm in NYC! Reality trumps fantasy once again!

And no, I wasn’t disappointed because I expected it to be like the Japanese Godzilla series. I’d already outgrown many of those anyway, except for the first two, and the mid 1980′s ‘return’ to Godzilla’s unstoppable ‘force of nature’ ways. I don’t like the ‘heroic’ Godzilla of the late 60′s & 70′s anymore, and the 90′s version got a little silly.

I have to echo some of the comments posted already:
—See the original 1954 Japanese version, Gojira. A serious film that’s a metaphor for the fear and uncertainty Japan had over nuclear warfare, at a time when Japan was still recovering from being the first country to have nukes dropped on it in wartime.
—See the 1990′s Gamera trilogy. A complete reboot of the awful 1960′s & 70′s camp, this is actually decent sci-fi, as far as sci-fi involving giant mosters goes. They show characters actually doing science-y things, like formulating ideas, testing them out, cooperating to achieve common goals… amazing! They even take into account political & economic repercussions of a major disaster (which is what a giant monster would be). And in one great line early in the first film, partly humorous yet at the same time partly serious, a government official reminds people that due to existing laws, the Japanese military can’t launch an attack without provocation, “even in a situation as ridiculous as this!”
The sfx in the Gamera trilogy get better with each film, and blow away anything in the Godzilla series prior to 2000, as well as the American Godzilla ’98. Really, Phil and everyone else interested in kaiju eiga (giant monster films)… see this trilogy! The American dvd release has both the Japanese language version and the American dub. (The dubbing is rather good, too, and utilizes a cast of dozens, instead of the usual small handful of voice actors voicing multiple chatracters.)
—The 1980 Virus is also a pretty good film, as Quiet Desperation pointed out. Not great, but good. In part, because it takes a non-Hollywood view of the (near) end of humanity. In other words, it’s believable in its unconventional, matter-of-fact portayal of the collapse of civilization, and the struggles of the last few survivors to, well, survive.

Oh, finally, Maria Patillo had a very brief scene in the film True Romance. But then again, just about everyone had a brief scene in that film. If you’ve seen it, you know what I mean by that. Great movie for its genre (action/drama, I guess), but see the unrated director’s cut if you see it at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_%281980_film%29

Most of humanity is wiped out by a virus, and the rest is pummeled by automatically launched nuclear missiles. My gods it was glorious! If only they had an asteroid then hit the Earth, I would nominate it as the #1.

Misery, death and radiation! All that and Chuck Conners! Woot!

I think calling it Godzilla was probably the wrong thing to do, yes.

I can watch it today if it pops up on TV, but I never pop in the DVD.

I should say I grew up in Kentucky where Godzilla movies were scarce until I was old enough to buy video tapes, at which point I got Godzilla Vs. Megalon, which is when I realised that Godzilla movies sucked. But that’s why they were endearing, because of their goofiness.

I liked Cloverfield, but I think the monster looked dumb. That was really my only complaint.

But this movie grows on you.

“I am a patriot and I am ashamed of what we have done.”
“Chewing gum makes you look more American”
“Oh, I get it. It’s a footprint!”
“Are you locked on?”
“I thought you were locked on!”

Tell me, does it get any better than that?

This movie’s great! The monster’s about to step on the video cameramen and, in a moment of lucid calm, he inserts the tape into the camera with a gentile nudge.

I love it!

No, we hated it because it was boring, had no character development, a stupid plot full of holes, the silly parts were stupid-cult-silly (not cute-silly, sly-silly, or funny-silly), drug on half an hour too long and just wasn’t any fun.

The original is most of those things and, ironically, is you look it up, the Japanese didn’t use the word “Godzilla”.

(Oof! we have a psycho troll above! Somebody needs medication or a reevaluation of their position on this planet)

It is one the rules of the website that someone has to say this isn’t it?

Next time I’ll post quicker!