GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

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Shobijin
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Shobijin »

Saw it in the theaters, and twice since then.
Way too many good things said about this movie in this thread. None are persuasive.
Horribly written. Low end of 1990s schlock blockbusters.
Godzilla in Name Only.
Deserves to be criticized in every way possible.
There is nothing redeeming about it.
There was no reason to "try something different".

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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by eabaker »

Shobijin wrote:There is nothing redeeming about it.
There was no reason to "try something different".
I'm no defender of this movie. I'm actually pretty consistently very harsh on it, and tend to get up in arms when anyone makes the absurd "bad Godzilla movie, but good movie on its own terms" argument; but these last couple of statements are pretty darned extremist.

I can't think of very many - if any - movies I've ever seen that had literally zero redeeming qualities. Sticking just to the Godzilla series, even the execrable Tokyo SOS has one cool shot in it (albeit one very reminiscent of Gamera 3). Godzilla '98 may be about 75% utter garbage, but there is, at the very least, some atmospheric build-up in the first half hour, and there are some decent moments to the score.

And there's basically always a reason to try something different. Sometimes, that something different is going to be lousy; but any entry in a series that doesn't try anything different is just a pointless redundancy.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Jeff-Goldblum1 »

I was disappointed by it when I first saw it in cinemas but enjoyed it on rewatch.

At the time it was the first Godzilla film I had seen in full, as for the others SBS Australia and Briz31 used to play Godzilla and Gamera movies from time to time but back then I had only watched parts of the movies.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Terasawa »

eabaker wrote:but any entry in a series that doesn't try anything different is just a pointless redundancy.
Like Tokyo S.O.S.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by eabaker »

Terasawa wrote:
eabaker wrote:but any entry in a series that doesn't try anything different is just a pointless redundancy.
Like Tokyo S.O.S.
The one Toho Godzilla flick I place solidly below the TriStar film.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Zarm »

eabaker wrote:
Terasawa wrote:
eabaker wrote:but any entry in a series that doesn't try anything different is just a pointless redundancy.
Like Tokyo S.O.S.
The one Toho Godzilla flick I place solidly below the TriStar film.
Here, here! :)
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by JAGzilla »

There really was some great buildup in the first half hour. If the "Gojira... Gojira... Gojira..." scene had taken place in any other movie, I guarantee it would be one of the most beloved, classic scenes in the franchise.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Manuelito Canelito »

JAGzilla wrote:There really was some great buildup in the first half hour. If the "Gojira... Gojira... Gojira..." scene had taken place in any other movie, I guarantee it would be one of the most beloved, classic scenes in the franchise.
This

In general, GINO + 10000 BC + 2012 are the movies that have made me hate Roland Emmerich with passion.
The fact that we didn't get Jan de Bonts version makes more furious than the movie itself, as trashy at it is.
Last edited by Manuelito Canelito on Thu Jul 05, 2018 9:39 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Maritonic »

ManuJM1997 wrote:
JAGzilla wrote:There really was some great buildup in the first half hour. If the "Gojira... Gojira... Gojira..." scene had taken place in any other movie, I guarantee it would be one of the most beloved, classic scenes in the franchise.
This

In general, GINO + 10000 BC + 2012 are the movies that have made me hate Roland Emmerich with passion.
The fact that we didn't get Jan de Bonts version makes more furious than the movie itself, as trashy at it is.
Goddamn, he did 10,000 B.C.?! I forgot ALL about that crap.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Manuelito Canelito »

Maritonic wrote:
ManuJM1997 wrote:
JAGzilla wrote:There really was some great buildup in the first half hour. If the "Gojira... Gojira... Gojira..." scene had taken place in any other movie, I guarantee it would be one of the most beloved, classic scenes in the franchise.
This

In general, GINO + 10000 BC + 2012 are the movies that have made me hate Roland Emmerich with passion.
The fact that we didn't get Jan de Bonts version makes more furious than the movie itself, as trashy at it is.
Goddamn, he did 10,000 B.C.?! I forgot ALL about that crap.
I've got Vietnam Flashbacks with that crap, sadly cannot forget it :(
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Pkmatrix »

Shobijin wrote:There was no reason to "try something different".
Excuse me?

This is the Godzilla franchise, basically the poster child for "let's try something different" IN EVERY MOVIE. There's literally no other franchise out there with the level of variety this one has. So, no, there's ALWAYS a reason to "try something different" because that's what this series has always thrived on.

The difference with G'98 is that what it tried to do different completely flopped and did not work. There's a few redeeming elements, but doesn't stop it from being just a bad movie.
JAGzilla wrote:There really was some great buildup in the first half hour. If the "Gojira... Gojira... Gojira..." scene had taken place in any other movie, I guarantee it would be one of the most beloved, classic scenes in the franchise.
I agree. The first 30 minutes promise a much better movie than what we ended up with, and every time I've revisited this it always manages to trick me into thinking, "Oh, maybe I've been too hard on this..." But then the second act begins and the movie transforms from a giant monster movie into a bad romantic comedy for the next hour.
ManuJM1997 wrote:
JAGzilla wrote:There really was some great buildup in the first half hour. If the "Gojira... Gojira... Gojira..." scene had taken place in any other movie, I guarantee it would be one of the most beloved, classic scenes in the franchise.
This

In general, GINO + 10000 BC + 2012 are the movies that have made me hate Roland Emmerich with passion.
The fact that we didn't get Jan de Bonts version makes more furious than the movie itself, as trashy at it is.
10,000 B.C. though, at least IMO, might be savable via a thorough re-editing job. XD

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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Maritonic »

Pkmatrix wrote:The first 30 minutes promise a much better movie than what we ended up with, and every time I've revisited this it always manages to trick me into thinking, "Oh, maybe I've been too hard on this..." But then the second act begins and the movie transforms from a giant monster movie into a bad romantic comedy for the next hour.
This is actually really accurate. I always get tricked and then "lol nope". Garbage.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by jackzilla »

I have SO many mixed feelings on this movie. Apart of me loves it and apart of me hates it. I do think that it's a really fun, goofy, and entertaining monster movie that's a ton of fun to watch. But...the movie is also a bit of a middle finger to the franchise. Roland Emmerich himself said he didn't even like the Toho movies and thought his version was superior. That alone makes me want to hate the movie. I will never definitively have an opinion on it. I will always have this 50/50 loving it and hating it vibe with it.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by VaranTheUnbelievable »

Pkmatrix wrote:
Shobijin wrote:There was no reason to "try something different".
Excuse me?

This is the Godzilla franchise, basically the poster child for "let's try something different" IN EVERY MOVIE. There's literally no other franchise out there with the level of variety this one has. So, no, there's ALWAYS a reason to "try something different" because that's what this series has always thrived on.

The difference with G'98 is that what it tried to do different completely flopped and did not work. There's a few redeeming elements, but doesn't stop it from being just a bad movie.
Honestly I've always felt the Tri-Star Godzilla failed not because it tried to be different, but because we were promised something not different. In that I mean, WE, as in not just the hard Godzilla fans but general movie fans as well, were led to believe that this was going to be a big budget version of the Godzilla we were familiar with. Yes, he was going to look a bit different, but he was going to be this big badass dinosaur who breathed fire and stomped on buildings. He was going to huge, imposing and unstoppable.

The promotion for the film (which was arguably the best promotion for any movie in ages) featured a ton of campaign materials about how he was HUGE, how powerful he was, and how it was going to be intense.

Godzilla was going to be taken seriously and for the most part, the movie going public was hungry for this and paying attention.

But then the movie hit and Godzilla didn't seem that huge, he didn't breath fire and he didn't smash anything on purpose. He was weak, running scared for most of the film and easily defeated. We were promised a Godzilla movie, but we got a movie that spent a lot of time making it's main "character" seem weak, the humans were largely played for laughs (again something most people weren't expecting) and then you add in the extra layer of Godzilla looking different and such... And people just disconnected. Not to mention the movie wasn't particularly good on it's own merits, the SFX were middle of the road and lacked the umph that made this feel special and huge chunks of the movie were blatantly derivative of Jurassic Park.

So there was LOTS wrong. But I still think the audiences would have forgiven that it was a bad film, if it had delivered on a cool Godzilla doing Godzilla things. When THAT didn't happen, the whole house of cards fell apart. And I think even if it had somehow managed to be this amazing movie from a script, acting and SFX department but still had a meek and ineffectual Godzilla it still wouldn't have resonated with people.

The marketing promised a badass and people in the US perceived Godzilla as a badass and the thought of a Hollywood made Godzilla film meant he was going to be SUPER badass. But what they delivered wasn't a badass, just bad and ass.

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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by Terasawa »

There is such a thing as being “too different,” and that certainly happened here. Even ignoring the changes to the Godzilla character the movie just isn’t very good. It was also overhyped and I don’t think the marketing plan was all that wise. Keeping your title character hidden, especially when the character is a known property, is just very gimmicky.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by LegendZilla »

If the Debont version of this film was made instead, this fandom would be a much happier place.

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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by PitchBlackProgress »

LegendZilla wrote:If the Debont version of this film was made instead, this fandom would be a much happier place.
Yeah, I doubt that.
Last edited by PitchBlackProgress on Wed Aug 29, 2018 11:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by UltramanGoji »

LegendZilla wrote:If the Debont version of this film was made instead, this fandom would be a much happier place.
Because all the negativity in the fandom definitely comes from the reaction to one twenty-year old film.

Brilliant, Holmes.
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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by LegendZilla »

UltramanGoji wrote:
LegendZilla wrote:If the Debont version of this film was made instead, this fandom would be a much happier place.
Because all the negativity in the fandom definitely comes from the reaction to one twenty-year old film.

Brilliant, Holmes.
Maybe not all, but a ton of it.

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Re: GODZILLA: Tristar Godzilla Film (1998)

Post by SoggyNoodles2016 »

Real talk, I'm actually kinda glad Godzilla 1998 got made. Movie failed on nearly every level but it helped the franchise by giving a standard future films had to avoid and pushing Toho to start the Millenium era to try and fix the mistake. Kind of like how X Men Orgins blew but people wanting to do better gave us the Deadpool films.
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