Monster Discussion: American Godzilla '98/Zilla

[three]

The three of you are too smart to be considering a debate over an innocent joke Plexton made. C'mon guys.

[Starsteam]

Do any of the Kaiju in FW have origins? I mean, Gezora and Titanosaurus were referenced in the prologue but Godzilla was the only one called back on. Yet, the characters already knew the names for all of the monsters let loose, making it seem like they have attacked before.


Nevermind, this is Final Wars we're talking about. Plot holes and continuity errors are only part of its problems.

[cloverfan98]

Do any of the Kaiju in FW have origins? I mean, Gezora and Titanosaurus were referenced in the prologue but Godzilla was the only one called back on. Yet, the characters already knew the names for all of the monsters let loose, making it seem like they have attacked before.


Nevermind, this is Final Wars we're talking about. Plot holes and continuity errors are only part of its problems.

I always felt that Zilla makes his first appearance in GFW during the world wide attack. Every other Kaiju's name is said with the name of the city they are attacking, except for Zilla. They just say "Sidney" and "what the heck?"

[Ookondru99]

Probably because they were just thinking "Oh it's just Zilla lol". That would explain why they didn't send anything to try to combat him with. Seems like he was one of their lowest priorities, they even sent tanks to try and stop Ebirah. Just another jab from toho, or maybe its because no one cares what happens to australia...

[VanHel]

bandai should make a geno toy.

Yes they should. Even though the movie was terrible the monster design was good and I'd like to have a toy of it.

[Jiragozira14]

People seem to have a hard time grasping the idea of one design being used for two characters. It's like if you wanted Minilla to be called Little Godzilla. Oh sure, their designs are much more different but it's obvious LG is supposed to be the Heisei representation of Minilla.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/ed746c895a3 ... 1_1280.png
The three on the left are essentially the same in legal terms, while the two on the right are separate characters from the rest. There are no 'Baby-Zillas', no 'Cyber-Zilla' and Zilla has yet to portray any type of breath weapon.

The Godzilla 1998 trademark logo was abandon because Toho reverted back to the traditional design in 1999, and merchandise tied in to the 1998 movie had since ceased production. Early products for G98 did use the old logo for Godzilla, and Baby Godzilla '98 used the logo for the '93 Baby Godzilla. I only recall seeing the new yellow logos used for Trendmasters and Toybiz.
https://38.media.tumblr.com/08113920dfe ... o1_500.png

In terms of legal terms, the movie, series and such are still under the Godzilla name, yes; I always use "Zilla" to refer to the kaiju and design itself, since those are, in all technicality, Toho-owned (since Zilla was being made and marketed as Godzilla, by extension Toho technically owns it as much as Tri-Star). But when I was a youngin' (before Toho decieded to separate the characters), I called the raptor-babies, if I'm remembering what I said right, "Baby US-Godzilla", and Cy-Z as "Cyber US-Godzilla"; I have no idea exactly why I kept putting "US" in front, but I can gather that it was to distinguish the TriStar and Toho characters in discussions with friends, since I remember being a Godzilla fan back then. Back when I was a kid, "US Godzilla" was the speedy, athletic one while "Godzilla" was the brutish, powerful one, is what I think the distinction I had was.

When I heard that Toho always had the rights to TriStar's creation, I had decided that they were the ones with legal power, so I switched my vocabulary in reference to the character; "US-Godzilla" outside of references to media made before Toho's legal stuff kicked in became "Zilla", but "Cyber US-Godzilla" and "Baby US-Godzilla" remained pretty much intact; I'm not sure if I was aware of copyright laws back then, but I remember I only began using "Cyber-Zilla" and "Baby Zilla" way after the name change for the original. I never, ever used GINO, though; it was either "US-Godzilla" or "Nega-Godzilla" (the latter I think arose because of reruns of Darkwing Duck, but I honestly cannot remember) before 2004.

And the IDW comics used the 1998 design under the "Zilla" name, so maybe that also influenced my switch of vocabulary later. I remember the last time I called Zilla "US-Godzilla" or something like that was right around the time that I had heard about Final Wars, the name change and other such things from...I think it was Rodan's Roost, but I can't remember. I know I had started using "Zilla" exclusively after I heard about Final Wars, though. I remember I still used to refer to Junior from the '98 series as "US Godzilla" untill I had heard about Legendary's movie, and then I just sort of lumped him in with the others.

I never used GINO in regards to the character; only the movie. :p

[Godzilla165]

On a side note: Do we have any idea of possibly how old this Godzilla might be, specifically from the actual 98 film?

[Starsteam]

On a side note: Do we have any idea of possibly how old this Godzilla might be, specifically from the actual 98 film?

Maybe a few weeks.
I mean Junior had a quick growth into adulthood.

Except that Godzilla was born right out of a fully developed Godzilla-egg. The first Godzilla was (correct me if I'm wrong, I'm really not sure how this one came about) was born from a heavily radiated iguana egg, from what the film's opening implied.

Plus there was a great deal of time since the bombings and the then-present-day 1998 New York attack.

[three]

On a side note: Do we have any idea of possibly how old this Godzilla might be, specifically from the actual 98 film?

It's supposedly the same Godzilla as before, just newly designed, so it's like 44 - 53 (based on what bomb made it, starting from the Japanese bombing to lucky dragon, which may have happened in 1954. Can't recall right now).

[Maverick Centigrade]

So over the past month, I've fallen in love with the Godzilla 98 design. Contrary to what others say, I see it as a suitable Godzilla. Notice I said "design", just the design. Of course changes are still needed, most pressing is the stace, do away with the full on theropod look, and Godzilla begins to shine through.

So I'm curious. If the 98 movie had the same creature design, but had a more upright stance, thrashed the military, and had atomic breath, would you have liked the design then?

[three]

It did thrash the military.

[Maverick Centigrade]

It did thrash the military.

Did he? He destroyed 3 helicopters, a few hummers, stepped on a tank, and indirectly destroyed a sub. Not a total loss on the military's part. I'm talking about like...Toho Godzilla level of trashing the military.

[three]

It did thrash the military.

Did he? He destroyed 3 helicopters, a few hummers, stepped on a tank, and indirectly destroyed a sub. Not a total loss on the military's part. I'm talking about like...Toho Godzilla level of trashing the military.

He made them look inept and foolish, causing them to destroy manhattan, and subsequently won nearly every enough tee he faced them in, even when trying to escape. He did thrash them, yes, though not on antraditional "but them alive" sense.

[Starsteam]

So over the past month, I've fallen in love with the Godzilla 98 design. Contrary to what others say, I see it as a suitable Godzilla. Notice I said "design", just the design. Of course changes are still needed, most pressing is the stace, do away with the full on theropod look, and Godzilla begins to shine through.

So I'm curious. If the 98 movie had the same creature design, but had a more upright stance, thrashed the military, and had atomic breath, would you have liked the design then?

So basically if the movie was like the Trendmasters toys and commercials?
It would be a whole lot more tolerable, I suppose.

[Godzilla165]

So over the past month, I've fallen in love with the Godzilla 98 design. Contrary to what others say, I see it as a suitable Godzilla. Notice I said "design", just the design. Of course changes are still needed, most pressing is the stace, do away with the full on theropod look, and Godzilla begins to shine through.

So I'm curious. If the 98 movie had the same creature design, but had a more upright stance, thrashed the military, and had atomic breath, would you have liked the design then?

We got that in the form of Jr.

The design has really grown on me too over the past few years, and now I absolutely love it.

[Maverick Centigrade]

The design has really grown on me too over the past few years, and now I absolutely love it.

There is a bit of a downside to it though. The only merchandise there is to buy is old frequently expensive Trendmasters toys from EBay. Won't be seeing NECA or Tamashii make a new G'98 figure. Being a G'98 fan is suffering.

Unless your Castellan Zilla.

[Jiragozira14]

Something on the name debacle; I was looking around the internet today, when I found an article from 2005 about Final Wars (from an interview by Henshin Online, which is also credited to Keith Aiken); the quote suggests something I'd always suspected; Sony never owned Zilla as a character (which, since they used Toho's copyright, was kind of expected on my end), only the materials used to make the 1998 movie and, of course, the film and series themselves. Here's the section he says it, right from the article (well, emphasis via italics is my own addition, of course);

H!O: Whose idea was it to include the American Godzilla?
TOMIYAMA: [laughs]
H!O: You've probably been asked that question a lot during this press junket...
TOMIYAMA: It's been a very popular topic today. Mr Kitamura asked me if it was possible for us to use the American Godzilla in FINAL WARS, so I checked our contract with Sony Pictures and found out we could use it. [Toho fully owns the character and likeness of the American Godzilla while Sony retains all materials (digital, props, suits, animatronics, etc) used to make the monster for the 1998 US movie] Since this was the 50th anniversary film, I thought "Why not include the American Godzilla?" There is some special meaning to having him in this film-but mostly, we just wanted to show which Godzilla is stronger.

I'll try to make this more to-the-point, just so I can try to avoid misunderstandings; the 1998 creature outside of it's media/universe (ie: copyrights, legal jargon, etc.) is Zilla, and inside of it (the movie and animated series) is Godzilla; I just refer to it as "Zilla" universally because it bears more resemblance to the 2004 creature than any other Godzilla designs, which, in my own opinion, would be enough to lump the 1998 and 2004 designs into the same trademark. It's sort of like how trademarks refer to the 1954 and 1974 Godzillas as the same character; they're strikingly similar, to the point that both designs can uphold the same name even if it's not 100% confirmed that they have the same name (which, I'll admit, may be the case, though I'm no legal expert, nor am I a super highly-popular reporter; I'm a teenage Canadian with a pechant for this sort of thing, about the furthest thing from a expert in law as possible. :p).

I may or may not be getting my point across; the point is that copyright is complicated, and the 1998 character has an in-canon name that, outside of that canon, was dropped in the early 2000's (Godzilla) and an non-canon but copyrighted name that's been in use since the early 2000's (Zilla).

For the TL;DR version....Godzilla-USA = Zilla outside of canon and in Final Wars, Godzilla-USA =/= Zilla in the canon of the 1998 film. That should (hopefully) be at least a semi-understandable stance on the Zilla name debacle, but that's just my own (potentially shoddy) attempt to reconcile the ever-tangled topic of the Godzilla-USA/Zilla debate.

If I'm repeating myself, that's my bad. ;p

[Starsteam]

For god's sake, Keith Aiken already explained, Toho did not rename the 1998 Godzilla 'Zilla'. Godzilla 1998 is the same thing as every other Godzilla, and Zilla is its own thing, regardless of how similar they look. It's not about being in or out of canon. Keith even addressed that interview and how it was taken out of context.

Sony never owned Zilla, Sony didn't create Zilla, Toho created Zilla using the 1998 design for Godzilla, and Toho created Godzilla.
There's Godzilla, and then there's Zilla. Guess which one the 1998 Godzilla is?

No one cares if you want to use Zilla as a fan-name for the '98 Godzilla, it works just as good as GINO. I'm not trying to dump a load on you, but the Zilla/Godzilla name debate is over.

[Legion1979]

but the Zilla/Godzilla name debate is over.

It should never have begun...

[Godzelda]

http://www.trademarkia.com/godzilla-75423143.html
http://www.trademarkia.com/logo-75503990.html
http://www.trademarkia.com/logo-75503991.html

I trust an official trademark website more than an illustrator who claims that Toho couldn't change the name of the monster if they wanted to (even though they own the rights to the character) and cites the fact that the 1998 film is still called "Godzilla" as proof of this (Sony owns the rights to the film itself, so only they could change its name). The way I see it, we don't have any definitive proof either way.

But anyways, even if he/she/it is still legally called "Godzilla," a mutant iguana that runs away from the military, has no atomic breath, and is killed by regular missiles is still not really Godzilla. At best, he/she/it is a completely separate character that just has the same name as the King of the Monsters.