Award Season Series: “Godzilla “ (1998) A Golden Raspberry Nominated Movie

Initial release date: May 20, 1998

Streaming service: Netflix and Tubi

Over the past few weeks I have been working on my award season review series, where I take a look at films that have received some prestigious accolades. For this next selection of the series, I wanted to check out (or in this case revisit) a movie released in 1998 that has received quite a few Golden Raspberry nominations (or the Razzies for short - opposite of the Oscars). And this movie that I’m talking about - 1998s “Godzilla.”

During a nuclear test, the French government inadvertently mutates a lizard nest; years later,a  giant lizard makes its way to New York City. Dr. Niko Tatopoulos, an expert on the effects of radiation on animals, is sent by the US government to study the beast.

When the creature, dubbed “Godzilla” by news outlets, emerges, a massive battle with the military begins. To make matters worse, Niko discovers that Godzilla has laid a meat of 200 eggs, which are ready to hatch.

The 1998 version of “Godzilla” was a childhood favorite of mine, having watched it quite a few times when I was younger. I also didn’t notice how flawed the movie actually was. Now, after revisiting the movie for the first time in years, even though “Godzilla” (1998) is a poor adaptation overall, it can still be kind of fun and entertaining.

Despite its obvious departure from the traditional Godzilla movies, this version of the series does deliver some decent visuals and this iteration of the titular character is kind of decent - despite the major departure. This version of the character is lean, fast and actually cunning that can rely on hiding from the troops and scientists (another departure from the original character).

“Godzilla” (1998) also has some entertaining sequences that do stand out, such as the

Madison Square Garden chase (where the main characters are chased by the baby Godzillas) and at the end where Godzilla ends up getting trapped by suspension cables on the Brooklyn Bridge and gets attacked by F-18 Hornets.

Even though this kind of entertaining “Godzilla” movie did introduce some of us to the Kaiju sub-genre years ago, it does also have its flaws. I honestly didn’t really mind the creature’s dinosaur-like appearance, yet I also do understand completely how die-hard fans of the still beloved Japanese franchise really didn’t like it. Another aspect of this creature that many people didn’t like was that this iteration of Godzilla pretty much behaved like a scared animal most of the time and didn’t really attack a lot - which I do agree with them.

The cast that was featured in the movie is also on the bland and kind of boring side - except for a couple humorous moments from Hank Azaria’s cameraman character. Also - slight spoiler - the creature was very easily killed off by just a few conventional missiles. This probably would’ve given the traditional Godzilla some bruises but likely would’ve just brushed off the wounds.

“Godzilla” (1998) is widely considered a visually spectacular but narratively weak blockbuster, a divisive entry that prioritizes action and spectacle over depth, character, or faithfulness to the original lore. It’s also often seen as a flawed but enjoyable “guilty pleasure” for its pure creature-feature chaos.

This movie won two Golden Globe Raspberry awards for Worst Supporting Actress and Worst Remake/Sequel, while also earning nominations for Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Screenplay.

MPA: Rated PG-13 for sci-fi monster action/violence   (runtime 139 minutes)

Trivia: Despite the less than expected box office performance, this movie still made more money worldwide than any other American movie based on a foreign film. It held this record until the 2014 reboot of “Godzilla.” 

The original plans called for two sequels to be produced. These plans were scrapped due to the movie’s poor reception and an animated series was created instead (which lasted only one season). 

• This movie features more Simpson voice actors than any other project besides The Simpsons (1989) itself: Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer and Nancy Cartwright. When the Simpsons later did a Godzilla parody called Homerzilla, they referenced that "Homerzilla" received a Hollywood remake that failed, a jab at this movie. The episode ends stating that Homerzilla will one day return just as soon as that "Zilla" film is forgotten.

• Producer Dean Devlin claimed that, because TriStar was very secretive about the actual design of Godzilla, the studio created unique fake designs and sent them to different merchandise manufacturers, which was done to test whether the companies could be trusted or not. After Fruit of the Loom leaked images of Godzilla on the internet in November of 1997, they lost their license to sell any Godzilla-related apparel. Devlin also claimed that the mold maker who was hired accidentally based the Godzilla design on one of those fakes. When the mold maker found out about that, he destroyed the designs, but forgot to destroy the mold as well, which was then discovered and taken pictures from. However, when the official design was eventually revealed, it turned out to be essentially the same design as the alleged "fake leak".

• Roland Emmerich admitted that he did not like most of the original Godzilla movies, although he was fond of Godzilla (1954) and praised it in the German Cinema Magazin as a masterful disaster movie. He claimed that he only agreed to the project after being promised to be able to do what ever he wanted with the series. This was in contrast to the film's original director, Jan de Bont, who grew up a fan of the character. Looking back on the film, TriStar producer Robert N. Fried described how "team that took over Godzilla was one of the worst cases of executive incompetence I have observed in my 20 year career. One of the golden assets of our time was managed as poorly and ineptly as anybody can manage an asset." Emmerich himself has since expressed regret in taking the job, given his lack of passion for the subject matter.

• Despite the less-than-expected box office performance, this film still made more money worldwide than any other American movie based on a foreign film. It held this record until Godzilla (2014) claimed it 16 years later.

• The film's first teaser trailer began appearing in theaters a full year before the film was released. The trailer contained a shot of Godzilla's foot coming through the roof of a museum and crushing a T-Rex skeleton. This scene was cut from the final version of the movie. It cost $600,000.

• The movie's intended look was not revealed to the public until the Blu-ray release in 2009. All previous versions contained a serious technical issue which led to the computer generated graphics appearing sub-par. Dean Devlin explained that this was the result of the type of film they had wanted to print the movie onto being inaccessible at the time of release. Thus, the movie was printed onto a different film and shipped to cinemas with unfinished-looking effects. This was one of the reasons behind the movie's failure, as the effects did not live up to the hype. They were digitally corrected for the Blu-ray release.

• Although plans for a sequel, in which the surviving Godzilla hatchling was to be relocated to Australia, fell through, the Japanese Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001) does make a reference to this movie in its opening scene. In this scene, military men discuss a monster that attacked New York some years before. One of them asks if it was Godzilla, only for his partner to respond that the Americans think so, but the Japanese officials believe that it was a different monster. The "American Godzilla", now simply called "Zilla" also appears terrorizing Sydney in Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), which can be seen as a reference to the never-made sequel.

• Due to tight deadlines and likely because the monster's look was to be kept secret, the movie wasn't given test screenings. The studio later deemed this to be a mistake, since none of the movie's faults were fixed for the theatrical release. This was one of the reasons for the movie's grandiose promotional campaign, as the execs expected the movie to fail without a significant marketing push.

• The film received considerable backlash from the fan base of the original series. The fans conceived a nickname to distinguish this film from the original: G.I.N.O., which is an acronym for "Godzilla in Name Only," indicating their dislike for it.