Guilty Pleasures: Godzilla
By Shalimar Sahota
August 5, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
In the summer of 1997, Sony/Columbia made the smart move of attaching the teaser trailer of their next potential hit to Men In Black. Anyone who saw it at the time is likely remember seeing a giant reptilian foot crush the skeleton of a T-Rex in a museum, followed by the tagline, “Size Does Matter”. It was their way of saying how next year's blockbuster, Godzilla, would be bigger than that summer's Jurassic Park sequel, The Lost World. So began the hype machine. It was one of the first instances of a trailer advertising a film that wasn’t to be released till a year later, since hardly any footage had been shot.
Sony/Columbia bought the rights from Toho and hired writers Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio to pen a script, involving Godzilla battling another monster named Gryphon. The difficulty came in trying to find a director. The filmmaking duo of director Roland Emmerich and producer Dean Devlin were hot off Independence Day. They wrote their own script and were ultimately given the greenlight, as well as a deadline, after Sony announced a release date for Memorial Day. In a rush to get the film out there, there wasn’t even any time to screen test it. Believing that they’d missed an opportunity to fix mistakes, Devlin was very upset, describing it as, “The only movie I’ve ever done that we didn’t screen test.”
Sony, however, was supportive to the point that they appeared desperate for a hit. Emmerich himself thought the jokey tagline was a good idea, but weeks before its release, it was “too much,” with posters and banners everywhere, making some remark about the size of Godzilla. Deals were stuck with Taco Bell and Doritos. The trailers built curiosity by showing as little of the monster as possible. And then, someone out there thought it would be a good idea to have the film close the Cannes Film Festival (“He’s longer than the Carlton Hotel”).
Godzilla was released with an almighty thump and has since been branded a dud, a flop. It’s almost like a dirty byword that forms the basis for what we expect and hate about summer blockbusters, essentially a great big monster popcorn movie that delivers loud and explosive action. Being a teenager at the time of its release, this was what I wanted. I also hadn’t viewed any of the previous Godzilla films, which I guess might explain why I have a bit of a soft spot for this one.
Not so much a remake, the film uses the Godzilla name and tries to come up with an explanation as to why the giant lizard exists in the first place - French nuclear testing. He has for some reason come to Manhattan. In comes the military to deal with the problem, but as is Emmerich’s trademark, they need the help of a scientist to understand what they’re dealing with. Niko Tatopoulos (Broderick), who has been studying the effects of radiation, believes that they are dealing with, “the dawn of a new species.”
Audrey (Pitillo) is a would-be reporter and Tatopoulos’ old girlfriend, who initially meets up with him to try and further her career; her co-worker Victor (Azaria) is a daring cameraman trying to get video footage of the monster; and Jean Reno rocks as French secret agent Philippe Roaché, trying to get rid of the “mess” his country made. Although the film could have done without Roaché, his inclusion makes for an unexpected digression when it’s discovered that Godzilla has laid hundreds of eggs.
Essentially generic stock characters, there is some effort to make them a little more interesting. For example, Tatopoulos is surprisingly cleverer than the military, due to his thinking up how to attract the monster to them, and also throwing out the taxi ID in the final chase. Even minor characters prove to be memorable, such as Victor’s witty wife Lucy (Field), and Colonel Hicks (Dunn) and Sergeant O’Neal (Savant), both of whom actually trust Tatopoulos’ input and take his advice.
For a B-movie idea that just so happened to get a $130 million production budget, the special effects were pretty spectacular for the time and still hold up very well today. The night time trap sequences look stunning, where you can make out bullet-fire, and at one point scores of helicopters just come out of nowhere to chase the monster. A pregnant Godzilla laying eggs in Madison Square Garden is a rather unexpected sub-plot. When the babies hatch they look very similar to the raptors from Jurassic Park, which means that despite declaring its intentions to trump that franchise, you start to get that "seen-it-all-before" feeling. However, the escape from Madison Square Garden, and a thrilling surprise taxi chase climax (which extends the running time by an extra 15 minutes) are the only moments where any genuine fear emerges for the lead characters.
There is fair amount to nitpick. It’s been noted that size of Godzilla changes throughout the film and there are moments where he could breathe fire to his advantage, but for some reason he doesn’t. Lack of consistency is shown during his arrival in the city, as cars react by jumping to each of his stomps (which is a nice introduction), but this only happens the one time. Also New York City is evacuated in one day, though we don’t see any evacuation take place. We do see two guys looting a store, then strangely, minutes later there’s a convenience store open for Tatopoulos to buy a pregnancy test. In the end, why whine about a film that’s about a giant lizard?
Box office expectations were unnaturally high, yet after its reasonably good $55 opening weekend, the word “flop” began to be branded rather quickly. “MEMO TO: Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin,” ran Variety. "You’re the first filmmakers ever to experience a $74 million opening week and still be called losers,” It was like winning the game, but being criticised for not hitting a home run. The film actually made a very respectable $379 million worldwide, making it the third highest grossing film of 1998. Audiences had an appetite for destruction and Emmerich seemed to have a knack for making disaster look more spectacular than it has any right to be. So audiences flocked to destroyed cities again and again in The Day After Tomorrow and more recently in 2012.
The original film came about because people were scared of their cities being destroyed by the threat of the atomic bomb. Our fears manifest as an unknown monster made more of in impact in a post 9/11 world, when Godzilla was superseded by Cloverfield. Employing the same marketing tactic of not showing the monster, the trailers and advertising revealed very little. Even after viewing the film, explanations just weren’t there. Compared to Godzilla, what it lacked in action it made up for with increased tension and scares.
Godzilla was nominated for five Razzies, winning two, Worst Supporting Actress for Maria Pitillo and Worst Remake/Sequel. I really don’t think it’s as bad as everyone makes it out to be. It’s not a masterpiece by any means, but it brings out the inner child, and for a film about a destructive giant lizard, Godzilla makes for an extravagant visual spectacle.