why is zilla 1998 so bad?

The original script for the movie was good.  But instead, we got this piece of shit that is NOT Jurassic Park.

 Haven't watched it in years. I remember loving it as a kid. I love the design. That's my  two cents.

All criticisms about plot, characters and dialog aside, it just wasn't Godzilla. That's my main complaint. The film makers took everything that was cool about the character and flushed it. Had it not been called Godzilla, it wouldn't have been any better a movie, but I think people (and certainly Godzilla fans), would have been a bit easier on it. I'm with a lot of other folks in that the design of GINO is a pretty cool design, but it's not Godzilla, even 18 years later. Had it not been called Godzilla, it just would have been another 90s popcorn flick that some loved and others ignored, and we wouldn't be discussing as much as we do.

The more recent American version managed to get more "right", but the sad fact is that between the two American versions, the studios have managed to spend almost $300 million (not including marketing), and neither one hit it out of the park. Although it's regarded more highly, the 2014 version is equally divisive amongst fans, but for different reasons. I don't love either one.

Bane of my existence, I gave a really long article on why I hated it....

GG, it made you leave Godzilla for 18 years.  You said that in your review.  

@JPC: The movie is just a reboot of Jurassic Park with Godzilla as Rexy and the babies as Raptors.  The characters are stereotypes, and "Godzilla" dies to missles.  The military also destroys more than him, and they reference 9/11.  Wait...the film came out in 1998.  9/11 happened in 2001.  2001-1998=3.  How many sides are on a triangle?  3!  Illuminati confirmed!

Godzilla: The Series made up for this pussy.  They used the design, but gave it all of the original Godzilla's characteristics: strength, endurance, and atomic breath.  And Zilla Jr. gets revenge for the 1998 film by killing his cyborg father (the one from the 1998 film).

Yall do know i made this in 2013 when i was 13 and had no concept of what made a movie good besides cgi.....right? i see know how bad the acting and overall plot was i mean wow i was stupid back then.

You wrote this article before I joined the forum...

@GorillaGodzilla yup

Most of you have your heads so far up your asses it isn't even funny. Even the Japanese Godzilla films passed the 1998 American one had shitty special effects, bitten parts from other movies and were cheesy af. So what if the 1998 version wasn't your original Godzilla, atleast it was watchable. I think that Godzilla is dope af compared to some ghetto unproportioned costume

 The troll(lololol) is strong with this one.

What do you mean, GMan? The "Godzilla 1998 is good because all the Japanese Godzilla movies are garbage" argument has always been a very logical and completely legitimate defense of the film. If the only defense of the film is belittling those that came before and after it, isn't that the mark of a truly "dope" film?

I can go on FOREVER to why I despise it

I personally think it is garbage from top to bottom. I saw it opening night in 1998 and almost walked out. Last year I tried to give it a re-watch and I didn't last an hour.

I waited for the VHS way back and enjoyed it for what it was. I had no expectations- I just wanted a newer monster movie flick and it worked just fine. Would I watch it again? No, because I have a huge backlog of scifi movies to watch.

I just think its a bad "Godzilla" movie. I enjoyed it when I was a kid, I can enjoy it for what it is now. But the character just isn't Godzilla and should not be a Godzilla film. Ill give you a hypothetical question to give the reason why G-fans hate this movie.

Lets just take someone like Batman and do what the Zilla 1998 movie did to Godzilla and apply to a similar plot and character developmental change to a Batman movie. Lets have Batman's background changed, Batman is still bruce wayne but not rich at all(like how Zilla is named Godzilla but just a really bug iguana). In fact he is close to the poor house, his parents still die but maybe from a heroine overdose and his grandparents take care of him instead. He wants to fight crime, and works part time as a criminal to get the funds needed to buy guns and knives and a car and a batman suit to kill all the people committing the crimes, then Batman gets caught by police and sentenced to death by the system. Now call it Batman. Is it still a batman movie just because its called Batman? Its a terrible thing what they did to Godzilla in 1998 by changing everything that made Gojira a powerful and unstoppable monster and making him look like a weak overgrown lizard that eats lots of fish and I feel like if they did that to any other character in a franchise those fans would feel the exact same way.

I watched it a couple weeks ago. I still think it is a good popcorn flick but should have been called something else. Gman confirmed it was canon in a different thread although he hates it- fair enough. My biggest issue was the cheesy American vibe drama it had and that it seemed like it was trying to jump on the Jurassic Park wagon at the time. I give it some props for being a more agile creature instead of a slow lumbering one- it was fun to watch. A big downer was it dying from aircraft missiles. The OG swatted those away like pesky flies or just was unhurt by them.

I'll say this much for it: I like the first third. I think everything that happens before we even see the monster or the setting shifts to New York is quite interesting. It has a suspenseful build-up toward something horrific. The problem is "something horrific" or terrifying never gets delivered. Godzilla isn't depicted as a slow, lumbering god that doesn't need speed to escape fire fights. He's depicted as a scared animal. If anything Godzilla had more to fear in this movie.

But that's only the part that makes it a poor Godzilla movie. What torpedoes this movie is how cliche it is in terms of 1990s blockbusters. Literally every bad trope you can find in Independence Day, The Rock, Under Siege, Face/Off, etc is thrown in a blender and used to show how utterly poor most of the 1990s action film making was. It's an insult to Godzilla, made by filmmakers who had no love for the source material and couldn't evolve past the absolute worst material from grunge-era blockbusters.

Just seeing this article makes me wonder what would've happened if the 2014 movie was Hollywood's first attempt at making an American Godzilla movie instead of this movie. In other words, what would've and should've been.

^I still think 2014 movie would have stayed the same. The Zilla film had zero influence on this film and Im glad it didn't. The 2014 movie was a step in the right direction, imo the legendary film is in no way the best Godzilla film but with hopeful 2nd and 3rd films being installed in the near future I believe we will soon see a great American made Godzilla film. With Dougherty on the slate for the sequel, I believe we will see the best US Godzilla film ever made(that is still not saying much compared to 2014 and 1998), then with GvK we will see an ending to this trilogy that will make Godzilla a home in the US film industry.