Monster Discussion: American Godzilla '98/Zilla

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Monster Discussion: American Godzilla '98/Zilla

Post by Green Blockhead »

This is a general discussion thread on the American Godzilla, aka GINO, aka Zilla (note, not an official name for the 1998 Godzilla).

The monster first introduced back in 1998 through the infamous American Godzilla movie from Tristar, who could swim, burrow, run fast... everything but fire an atomic ray.

Talk about his powers, design, etc.

However, I do want to kick off the topic by making an odd point: Making a post on the G'12 board, some people were arguing about how Zilla could lay eggs as a male. Zilla is a male, that's a fact. But how did he lay the eggs?


I think that he just did, because he's a mutant and it's just a story, so anything can happen in a story, even weirdness.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by Hotrod93 »

Asexual with more Male chromosomes(not sure if this is the way to put it, its 7am and no sleep).
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

Zilla is no male. Males can not lay eggs. They do NOT have the equipment. Masculine hermaphrodite? Possibly. Masculine female engaged in Parthenogenesis? Most likely. Male that lays eggs? No. You try and explain that. You try and justify that reasoning. It's impossible. For a film that was attempting to be more 'realistic' than the TOHO films they sure screwed up the science and plausibility of Zilla's reproduction. The only logical way to think, and the way I will continue to think about this film until I die, is that Zilla is female or at most a hermaphrodite. NOT male.

Green Blockhead... this is not me bashing you. But saying "I think he just did because anything can happen in a story" does not explain how Zilla did it.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by Reptile »

Tyler wrote:I have no idea why they thought this was better than just having him fight another monster. But it's not like that would really make the movie better...
So they could rip off Jurassic Park of course.

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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

Okay first, people need to quit being all LOL JURASSIC PARK RIPOFF. The whole reason they had that absurd, shitty marketing campaign about how HIS DICK IS AS LONG AS THIS POLE was to distance it. Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin decided they wanted to go for what was most biologically accurate. The problem? GIANT MONSTERS AREN'T BIOLOGICALLY ACCURATE IN THE FIRST PLACE. You can turn lemons into lemonade, but you can't turn lemonade back into lemons.
Masculine hermaphrodite? Possibly.
That's the truth. Why? A masculine hermaphrodite is as far as the viewer is concerned, male. Jabba the Hutt is a fair example. Ms. Cartman on South Park is an opposite example. (Although with "201" that can be called into question...) And for fairness sake, MechaGodzilla doesn't have a penis, either. A masculine hermaphrodite is the only biological solution, but as far as concern goes, it basically means male.

To be frank, the whole issue that brought up our big debate is that you said G98 was a female. That's resolved, so I'm willing to stop debating if you are.
Male that lays eggs? No. You try and explain that. You try and justify that reasoning. It's impossible.
I'd love to agree with you, but I'm not allowed to. At a writing rant website I criticized male pregnancy stories for not being biologically accurate. Never before or since have I had two-hundred new e-mails in my inbox, much less two-hundred telling me I was a dickhole for whining about other people's "kinks", for "'mansplaining it", and for offending several gay writers for implying only females write slash. Although really, my favorite part was when I apologized and was told to "put on [my] big girl panties and deal with it."

So now you understand why I am never, ever, going to say "Males cannot produce children." ever again.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

JVM, As I've explained before, we can say nothing about Jabba the Hutt nor how his species reproduces. It's an alien species whose genders are probably far different than what we know here. Male and Female may even be foreign concepts to them. Just because the audience says "Him" when referring to a masculine hermaphrodite does not make it a male. Cartman's mom, if I remember correctly from that episode, banged a chick and got her pregnant, thus, 'she' is technically a he. Although Kane has pointed out that on the individual's psychological level they may consider themself female though biologically they are male... that works the other way around as well.

You seem to be disregarding one MAJOR factor, something I consider the most plausible possibility. Parthenogenesis. Exclusive to females, more common in reptiles than amphibians. THIS is why I say GINO is female. So, GINO being a hemaphrodite is most certainly NOT the only biological solution. Hell, the main form of asexual reproduction in reptiles is, in fact, Parthenogenesis. Making it much more likely that GINO is female, not hermaphrodite.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

JVM, As I've explained before, we can say nothing about Jabba the Hutt nor how his species reproduces. It's an alien species whose genders are probably far different than what we know here. Male and Female may even be foreign concepts to them.
Hutt reproduction has been somewhat explained and is akin to marsupials. Jabba is a masculine hermaphrodite. And really, Jabba could correct anyone if he disliked the marks of male or female.
Cartman's mom, if I remember correctly from that episode, banged a chick and got her pregnant, thus, 'she' is technically a he.
I'm a South Park nerd so to put it in a nutshell, Cartman's mom had a ho-ho dilly and a cha-cha. Slept with everyone, and was originally believed to have slept with a chick who gave birth to Cartman. But as of "201", since the exact story was a fabrication, the status of her nether regions are a mystery.
You seem to be disregarding one MAJOR factor, something I consider the most plausible possibility. Parthenogenesis. Exclusive to females, more common in reptiles than amphibians. THIS is why I say GINO is female. So, GINO being a hemaphrodite is most certainly NOT the only biological solution. Hell, the main form of asexual reproduction in reptiles is, in fact, Parthenogenesis. Making it much more likely that GINO is female, not hermaphrodite.
I know what parthenogenesis is, I know how it works. I never said this was the only biological solution, but it goes against what's said in the film - Zilla is referred to as a he. Not a she. The script refers to it as a he. I'll admit that's my only real hint towards hermaphrodite over partheogenesis, but the main characters, including Nick, who is the biggest 'zilla scientist even if he was horribly acted.

It's also, of course possible, something completely unique happened that can't be explained with what happened on-screen :P I mean Zilla is a mutant reptile - there's no biological accuracy in the mere idea really, so for all we know, something neither of us can guess happened, haha.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

Have you ever been with a person and they see a dog and automatically say "he" or "she" without first checking that animal's gender? It's quite possible that is what was going on. It's also possible that since GINO looks too 'ugly' to call it a female, they refer to it as male since it certainly looks more like a masculine animal, like most reptiles. But that's just the product of stupidity on people's part.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

Have you ever been with a person and they see a dog and automatically say "he" or "she" without first checking that animal's gender? It's quite possible that is what was going on. It's also possible that since GINO looks too 'ugly' to call it a female, they refer to it as male since it certainly looks more like a masculine animal, like most reptiles. But that's just the product of stupidity on people's part.
Nick is a biologist. Just because he's played by a horrid actor doesn't mean he's a horrid scientist. Since he made such a big issue of the baby Zillas, I'm sure he would have had no problem dropping the bomb "Oh, and it's a chick."

Perhaps Zilla is like a hyena and has a clitoris that looks like a penis?
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by edgaguirus »

Zilla could be both, but parthogenesis seems the more correct theory. Remember that Zilla's fluids reacted to a pregnancy test. Those test are designed to pick up female hormones. All a female performing parthogenesis needs is some form of stimulation to lay eggs, and radiation would be a strong stimulation.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

Tyler wrote:This is kind of creepy/funny:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/110/2802 ... ad5639.jpg

But yeah, a male that reproduces asexually. Apparently D&E watched Son and thought that's how it worked.
...in that case, can you blame the poor idiots? Toho has never explained Minilla really. Most idiots DO think Godzilla laid the egg.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

Inferno Rodan wrote:
In the other thread, I wrote:GINO is a male that reproduces asexually and lays eggs. This is confirmed. Does it biologically make any sense? Nope, but that's too damn bad because that's what he is.
And to bring a post directed at me from there:
HeiseiGodzilla117 wrote:I refuse to take anything the writers of that movie spew out of their mouths as fact. It makes no sense... period. What did he lay eggs out of? His ass? I'm pretty sure males don't have the equipment needed to do that.
How little sense it makes is irrelevant. He is confirmed to be male no matter how much you don't like it. Nick even went out of his way to emphasize that fact in the dialogue when questioned about it.

Nick: "He's pregnant."
Audrey: "...He?"
Nick: "Yes, he."

As for your question of where he laid the eggs out of, the proper term is cloaca. It's the universal opening that all birds, reptiles, and amphibians have (regardless of gender) for both waste excretion and reproductive purposes.

No Inferno Rodan... just no. As I made perfectly clear previously, I don't give a damn about what is confirmed. If something in a work of fiction happens contrary to what happens in real life and there is no explanation as to why... I won't buy it and will refuse it until the day I die. The 'cloaca' point is entirely irrelevant when talking about a male laying eggs... it takes much more reproductive 'equipment' than that.

And JVM, Nick was a horrid scientist. He rarely went into detail on any of his scientific findings with the exception of worms. They owe us an explanation for a male laying eggs... period. Until then it's parthenogenesis or something of the likes.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

I'm pretty sure the neutral pronoun is 'it'. But the default is the masculine pronoun.... according to my English professor anyways. And even if you refer to something as 'he' doesn't make it a male.Which is my whole point. GINO can't possibly be male.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

Word of God is word of god. Dean and Emmerich, as fucking stupid as they are, they made the movie, they know what happened better than we do. For we know, they have a fine explanation and just haven't said it.

Frankly, if you're ignoring what's said in the movie, well then as far as we're concerned, all of the Godzillas are female.
The 'cloaca' point is entirely irrelevant when talking about a male laying eggs... it takes much more reproductive 'equipment' than that.
While it doesn't explain it, I wouldn't say it's ENTIRELY irrelevant - it proves there's external equipment. Just not internal.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

Equipment not exclusive to reproduction and reproductive organs.... >_> Especially when it comes to males laying eggs. The thing is... Toho never said Godzilla laid eggs and always said 'he' or at least 'it'. D&E said GINO is a male... but lays eggs. If they're doing that they owe us an explanation. If they haven't said it, then I will continue to refuse it.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

Equipment not exclusive to reproduction and reproductive organs.... >_> Especially when it comes to males laying eggs. The thing is... Toho never said Godzilla laid eggs and always said 'he' or at least 'it'. D&E said GINO is a male... but lays eggs. If they're doing that they owe us an explanation. If they haven't said it, then I will continue to refuse it.
They strongly imply Godzilla lays eggs.

They claim Minilla is Godzilla's son, and we see an egg. Toho has never explained this, either.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by Green Blockhead »

A person who does not want facts to be right wrote:No Inferno Rodan... just no. As I made perfectly clear previously, I don't give a damn about what is confirmed. If something in a work of fiction happens contrary to what happens in real life and there is no explanation as to why... I won't buy it and will refuse it until the day I die. The 'cloaca' point is entirely irrelevant when talking about a male laying eggs... it takes much more reproductive 'equipment' than that.

And JVM, Nick was a horrid scientist. He rarely went into detail on any of his scientific findings with the exception of worms. They owe us an explanation for a male laying eggs... period. Until then it's parthenogenesis or something of the likes.
You are one that disagrees that Zilla is a male, correct?

Well, Zilla is a male and theres nothing you can do about that. Zilla is a god damn mutant and anything weird can happen in a god damn story. It's just a story. It's not in real life.

Well, you and everyone who wants to try and debate that Zilla is a female have to accept the fact that he is a male and he lays eggs.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by Hedorah »

Damn it you are dense Blockhead, he is an ASEXUALLY reproducing species, these usually don't have a gender, but like SS4G said, the neutral pronoun is he, which is why he is a he.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by HeiseiGodzilla117 »

JVM, no they don't. You see an egg but they never say he lays eggs. Hell, Minilla looks nothing like Godzilla in the first place. And in the Heisei series it's pretty damn obvious Godzilla did NOT lay the egg. So no, it's not 'strongly implied'.

Green Blockhead, you STILL are not explaining how. And until I get an answer on how a MALE is laying eggs I will refuse it. Yes, anything can happen in a story. But if we use that as an excuse it justifies any stupid thing in any stupid movie.

Inferno Rodan, I can suspend disbelief a little better when it comes to physics. Otherwise I wouldn't be watching Star Wars contently. But if Luke Skywalker started laying eggs... I would have some major problems.
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Re: Zilla: The Asexual Weird Thing

Post by JVM »

@Heisei: I never said anything about Heisei. But in Showa, an egg shows up with what is stated to be a baby Godzilla, and Godzilla shows up to claim it. If you hadn't seen other Godzilla movies first and/or hadn't done online research, I'm sure you'd have a damn strong feeling Godzilla could've been the mom.

Technically Godzilla has never been confirmed as a male. Nobody's seen his penis in-series or out. Hell if I remember right Banno once said when he wrote Godzilla vs. Hedorah he intended for Godzilla to be female. All we really have to go off that Godzilla is male is Toho's word. And if you disregard the word of the writers of G98, Toho's word isn't law either.
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