Was 1998 really that bad?

I really wanted to like this film. I waited for it for years. I was there on opening day with such high aspirations. But when it was done, I left confused and put off. For a time, I tried to convice myself that I kinda liked it. But honestly, I don't. In fact, not even close. I find no redeaming qualities in it and it's borderline insulting.

Now, I can see how if this was your first Godzilla movie, and you have no frame of reference, you might like it because you had no pre-concieved notion as to what Godzilla should be. But I saw the '98 Godzilla when I was in my twenties, and had a fully formed opinion of Godzilla based on the most beloved movies of my childhood. If you are young, you can't understand that. If you're older and liked it for whatever reason, then okay, to each their own.

It's been on cable lately, so I thought it might be fun to watch with my kids. It wasn't. Honestly, I can't even sit through it, for all the same reasons that have been debated for years.

Don't give me a veggieburger and try to tell me what a great hamburger it is.

you're not alone i like it too, i mean sure it didn't look like godzilla, it didn't shoot fire, over all i thought it was fun to watch 7.5/10

you're not alone i like it too, i mean sure it didn't look like godzilla, it didn't shoot fire, over all i thought it was fun to watch 7.5/10

you're not alone i like it too, i mean sure it didn't look like godzilla, it didn't shoot fire, over all i thought it was fun to watch 7.5/10

you're not alone i like it too, i mean sure it didn't look like godzilla, it didn't shoot fire, over all i thought it was fun to watch 7.5/10

you're not alone i like it too, i mean sure it didn't look like godzilla, it didn't shoot fire, over all i thought it was fun to watch 7.5/10

Talking about the '98 version yet again? Come on guys, give this topic a rest.

But if you really want to know, yes I despised it. Not because everyone said so or its "hip/cool" to hate the 98 version. Its simply not a good movie in my opinion. There are exceptions and second opinions, but sometimes, a movie that is universally hated really do mean it actually sucks.

Yes, I didn't like the deception. They called it "Godzilla" when the monster clearly had nothing to do with the "real" Godzilla. Instead, what we got was a generic (and weak) monster-of-the-week you see on power rangers. . But more than that, the plot just stank. As others have said, it rip-off Jurassic Park and it sorely wasted the talent of Broderick. 

I just re-watched the movie again,so my opinion is fresh......

Yes! It is a completely shitty movie! People making excuses for it are wrong! Better than some Toho movies? I would love to see what Toho could do with $130 million dollars. Remember all the Toho Movies are made on the cheapish side.

This was a bad movie, plot holes that are huge (burrowing monster that can't get into a tunnel?), bad acting (Maria pitillo), unoriginality, (raptors) and a egotiscal team that had no respect for the source material and completely misunderstood the reasons why there would even be a demand for a Godzilla movie 44 years after the original. I equate it to two guys who just had a hit movie looking at each other and saying "I know, lets make a Bond film, but instead we will make him fat and from Texas beacause we know whats cool and beside I always thought the original 60's Bond films were a little campy!  Just slap the Bond name on him and people will come."

Sounding bitter? not really, I believe it is simply the only true classic giant monster flick (Cloverfield was more art school take) that people have grown up on. So this smelly coil is their what they are comparing everything else on. Oh, to those who said it made money, the movie was techincally successful but it wasn't a hit. It did its buisness here in the States in the first two weeks befor word of mouth got around and according to Steve Ryfle the movie disappeared from US theaters very quickly.

Bottom line....it was because of that crappy movie that we have had to wait SIXTEEN MORE YEARS... for another Godzilla to have another shot on the big screen. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

I just re-watched the movie again,so my opinion is fresh......

Yes! It is a completely shitty movie! People making excuses for it are wrong! It was a massive disappointment to me then and it has only gotten worse over time.  Better than some Toho movies? I would love to see what Toho could do with $130 million dollars. Remember all the Toho Movies are made on the cheapish side.

This was a bad movie, plot holes that are huge (burrowing monster that can't get into a tunnel?), bad acting (Maria Pitillo), unoriginality, (raptors) and a egotiscal team that had no respect for the source material and completely misunderstood the reasons why there would even be a demand for a Godzilla movie 44 years after the original. I equate it to two guys who just had a hit movie looking at each other and saying "I know, lets make a Bond film, but instead we will make him fat and from Texas beacause we know whats cool and beside I always thought the original 60's Bond films were a little campy!  Just slap the Bond name on him and people will come." That is what happened with Godzilla!

Sounding bitter? not really, I believe it is simply the only true classic giant monster flick (Cloverfield was more art school take) that people have ever known and grown up on. So this smelly coil is  what they are comparing everything else to. Oh, to those who said it made money, the movie was techincally successful but it wasn't a hit. It did its buisness here in the States in the first two weeks it was out before word of mouth got around and according to Steve Ryfle, the movie disappeared from US theaters very quickly.

Bottom line....it was because of that crappy movie that we have all had to wait SIXTEEN YEARS... for  Godzilla to have another shot on the big screen. Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

The reason we hate the movie, well me anyways, is because of the hype.  I was born in 1993 and I've been watching Godzilla for as long as I can remember.  I remember being 5 years old and watching the film and loving it because as a 5 year old my imagination ran rampant.  As I grew older I kinda realized that "hey wait a minute that isn't Godzilla" so on rewatches it's not a bad movie it's just the fact that when you open the case of the DVD/Blu Ray you see the name Godzilla.

@Akagi

While I still think your assessment of fans is mostly attributed to the younger of the crop, and about as rational as their own fan ideas, I agree completely with your assessment of Emmerich's movies.

He seems to apply that exact same kind of base story to everything he does-- which would be fine if he were a visionary director. But the truth is, he has no idea how to frame memorable specticle with characters that experience the situation honestly. The closest he ever got was the President's wife's death in Independence Day, which had a completely different mood from the rest of the film.

Every movie he's made after the fact sets up disasters for characters to plant their tongue firmly in cheek at. Hank Azaria in GINO was one of the worst offenders.

Godzilla 1998 introduced me to Godzilla, if the movie and monster were called "Zilla" there wouldn't have been as much hate, and Zilla himself is a badass addition to the TOHO monsters. That's all I have to say about that. Anyone who says the film is a good monster movie I will support, anyone saying it's a good Godzilla movie...hell no. But like I said, I owe this movie.

i don't remember doing a quadruple post

Hey guys, I'm new here!

For me, I loved Zilla. Mostly because I was a 90's kid and the first Godzilla films I was exposed to was that and all the showa films being released on VHS. Watching it now I certianly don't regard it as a Godzilla film, but I still enjoy it nonetheless. I dont' remember who said it on here but I thought some of the camera work, and how they were able to show Zilla's scale, was very impressive for the time. The animated series that stemed from it was leaps and bounds better than the film.

I can completely understand however how someone waiting in line to see this film opening night might've been disappointed lol

I would say I hate it.

I don't hate it just because Godzilla got killed by missiles or ran from the military, I hated it because the writing was horrible, visuals are horrible and characters are horrible. They make the characters from the campy Toho films look like Walter White from Breaking Bad.

@Brittkamp You've pretty much said it perfectly.

Seriously, GINO was the very first monster movie I ever saw (when I was two years old!) and the film that sparked a life-long love for Godzilla as well as dinosaurs and monster movies in general, and I still hate it. That really says something about how bad it is.

"Maybe it's best that some monsters be allowed their oddity."

Well said, Something Real. I think this explains how Godzilla should be and represents the issues of the film on a multilayered, thematic scale.

I think Zilla deserved a better movie. It was an amazing creature, and I named my lizard Zilla because of the monster. However, the series was BRILLIANT!

Am I the only one who hates Zilla's design?

i hate tunaheads design and i tired of talking about some random non exsisting lizard not to be rude

Well, I mostly posted this on another forum, but it applies here too, Destroyer. No hate, but lots and lots of chuckles:

First a friendly jab at Something Real (cuz I just gotta): if Josef Stalin posted here, would you say anything bad to him?  Juuuuuust kidding....

Okay, so, I would never hate you Destroyer, especially with a very cool nickname like that one...maybe show something like morbid curiosity?

But the movie? Oh dear.  If I were a devout Hare Krishna, I'd still be hatin'. One of only three films I've ever seen that inspired such a feeling in me before the time it was over (this, Demi Moore's utterly hate-inspiring Scarlet Letter, and the inexplicably awful Absolute Power).  I remember in the final scene, muttering audibly in the theater, "and they ripped off King Kong...the 1976 King Kong!!" Yeah, THAT BAD.

This movie is one of those rarities that checks so many blocks on the crappiness list, that I've truly lost count (Non-Ed Wood Category, of course): waste of good actors: √; complete aimlessness: √; egregiously disloyal to its lineage: √√; shamelessly glomming onto some other popular movie of that time: √√√!!; stereotypically portraying the best military in the world as hopelessly incompetent: √; and perhaps worst of all--annoyingly implausible within a genre that is itself built upon implausibility: √√√√√!! (You have to really, really try to check that one--you are a genius Roland!!)  I mean, do you think the reason the Japanese renamed this thing AND gave us Daisake Matsuzaka was only because of the box office haul?  No...They were also secretly invoking the real Godzilla to make a beeline for Tri-Star studios in early 1999, believe me.  

If one thinks for a minute, the most memorable thing about this film was its oppositely-brilliant pre-release marketing.  Who could forget the giant foot crushing the T-Rex fossil? Awesome! Oh my God, they're gonna make a freaking awesome, CGI, kickass Godzilla movie!  What could be better?

Nine months later, we had Roland Emmerich, trying to make dark comedy jabs at Roger Ebert, Harry Shearer mailing it in so much he probably wished he could be credited as Derek Smalls playing the part of Charles Caiman, and thankfully inspiration for one of the most sublimely funny Robot Chicken shorts ever.  I’m sure to this day, when anyone brings up the year 1998 to Shearer, he immediately blurts, “So, wasn’t Truman Show pretty cool?”  Never happened…

In fairness, the first 20 minutes or so—before we had to see the fish-eating, afraid of everything, bullet-dodging, asexual “monster” weren’t bad.  Had the movie not then transitioned to blah, then bad, then silly, then absurd, then annoying, then anger-inspiring (yes, in exactly that order), I’d have still given it a tepid “thumbs up.”  Nope, gotta hand it to Emmerich—he didn’t just boil the frog on us with this one; he got you actively, willfully invoking thoughts about never paying full price to see a sci-fi remake ever again.  Yes…

When I left the theater at the end of Emmerich’s Folly with my ex-wife, I remember bitterly exclaiming "Great! That ruins the next 20 freaking years--Now no one will want to touch it.”  Thank you Gareth Edwards for getting us there four years early. You weren't perfect, but you pretty well erased Mayor Ebert, Raptors—er, I mean Baby ‘Zillas, and COL Hicks from our movie muscle-memory. (My Ex-wife BTW, was an unabashed lover of Sci-Fi and probably about as non-critical as our lovely member, Something Real. She had already seen it (I’d been stationed in the Balkans), and when I asked her how it was, she paused and said, “Um, I dunno, not so great.”  That’s synonymous with “1.5 out of 10” from her.  Unfortunately, I didn’t listen).

I would never hate you Dude, and I salute your individuality, honesty, and well, bravery.  But in my mind, yes, it absolutely positively WAS THAT BAD....and if we ever have a big ole Godzilla party, I’m cracking jokes about you all night long…