Poll: Godzilla 1998 or Godzilla 2014?

[Kolby Jack]

The 1998 movie wasn't perfect, but at least it had characters. Characters with motivations, and personalities. Who develop.

2014 just had boring white soldier guy number 228848945. I couldn't tell you a thing about him, other then the utterly trite fact that he wants to protect his hot wife and kid. And he doesn't change as a person at all.

The obvious answer is Shin Godzilla.

Something is wrong when boring Soldier guy is more blander than Matthew Broderick.

It's hard to do, but they pulled it off.

I remember Matthew Broderick's chacrater name "Nick Tatapolous"

I don't remember the name of generic soldier guy?

And what is hollywoods issue with casting the most bland actors ever?

Remember the main human character in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that was not Gary Oldmen?

I assume that they do it because bland=safe. He has no real personality, so he can't offend anyone. His only motivation is that he wants to protect his family, which pretty much anyone can sympathize with. He's white, like the majority of the audience. And he's a soldier, which has the benefits of giving them an excuse to have a hunky leading man, a character that is involved in lots of action, and a character that appeals to all the patriotism nuts. Why have a flawed, interesting protagonist when you can just have milquetoast?

I mean, criticize the 90s Godzilla all you want, but at least the main characters seemed like real, awkward, flawed people. That films worst sin was being kind of dumb and cheesy. Because we all know that the Japanese Godzilla films were never dumb and cheesy.

Meh, I just don't get it. People keep coming in here to say "well at least the 90's Zilla was fun." Was it? What was fun or funny in it? The main character had a doofy last name, and he said "that's a lot of fish" once. There were also the two Siskel and Ebert pastiches who didn't even die despite being there because the director hated them because they said his movies sucked.

All of this just sounds like people being nostalgic for a movie they probably haven't seen in well over a decade and trying to compare it to a movie that came out two years ago. I'm very skeptical any of you 90's defenders are thinking intelligently about this.

I'm not arguing that the 90's film is a great film. I'm arguing that it sucks less then the completely forgettable 2014 film.

The 2014 movie had totally forgettable, cliche'd charactrers. As I've outlined already, they're the type of characters that feel like they've been created to appeal to a focus group. The types of characters you expect to see in a Michael Bay film, except with even less personality. Their motivations are trite, and they don't grow or develop in any way. As for the story, it follows the completely predictable formula one would expect from a Godzilla film. Whereas some films, like the recent Shin Godzilla, try to experiment a little bit, the 2014 one felt like it was just going through the motions. A bad alien shows up, so now Godzilla has to fight it for some reason before going back to sleep in the water. At least in the original film he served as a symbol for nuclear destruction. What does he represent here? Why does he even exist? Who knows. The whole film feels like its just a setup for giant monster battles. The problem is that the weakest part of the film is the character drama, and that makes up 95% of the movie. You could argue that the movie was just an action series, but it even failed in that regard. They'd set up some big fight, and then you'd just see a cut up version on a television. When the final battle finally arrives, it's a dull and boring as the rest of the movie. Godzilla wrestles around with some dumb bat things, breathes fire once, and walks off. It's about four minutes of action, it's spread out, and it's not even very good. I didn't like Pacific Rim, but at least it had a handful of decent action scenes. The movie was painfully mediocre in some areas, and flat out bad in others. The closest we come to an interesting character is the eccentric, deranged father. He was a sympathetic character. It would have been interesting to see him develop his relationship with his estranged son throughout the film. Instead they kill him off at the beginning of the movie. So, I'm curious, in what areas do you actually think this film succeeded? Because I felt like it failed in every category, even as a dumb summer block buster.

Compare this to the 1998 Godzilla. It wasn't a great film, but it had characters. They had motivations. They had flaws. They changed as the story developed. Nick was a fish out of water that had to rise to the occasion. He was also naive and a pushover. Audrey wanted to be a reporter, but she had to overcome sexism in the workplace. She was flawed because she had commitment issues, and because she was willing to stab people in the back in order to get what she wanted. Victor was too brash to get a story. As for Godzilla, unlike the 2014 version, he felt like he was constantly the center of the film. Even when he wasn't on screen it felt like he was a constant presence. Furthermore, while it doesn't make as much sense as in the Japanese version, he still represents the dangers of nuclear weapons. He represents humanity paying for its mistakes. There's also some environmentalist stuff in there. Furthermore, Godzilla feels like an actual character that the audience can feel sympathy for.

Admittedly these are the absolute basics of film making, but the movie does at least strive to meet a certain standard. That's more then I can say for the 2014 version, which was potentially the blandest film of the year. The 90's film, while heavily flawed, had character arcs, character flaws, character motivations, and a clear central focus. The 2014 version lacked all of these things, and was a lesser film for it.

EDIT: And I'll say this as well. Some flaws are endearing, whereas others are just painful. The delightfully doofy characters of 1998 zilla are dumb, but somewhat adorable. Godzilla hiding in a sky scraper, or living in the tunnels, or laying eggs in a sports theater are stupid, but at least they're a groan worthy stupid. There was absolutely nothing interesting about the 2014 characters or events.

Sweet fucking essay, dude. It reads like someone who goes into modern movies trying to hate them while holding up the movies of their childhood on a pedestal of pure nostalgia. Anyway, I'm done. I'm at least glad the poll shows most people aren't huffing that 90's nostalgia high, even if the posts in the thread are full of that shit.

 

[TrulyBritish]

Sweet fucking essay, dude. It reads like someone who goes into modern movies trying to hate them while holding up the movies of their childhood on a pedestal of pure nostalgia. Anyway, I'm done. I'm at least glad the poll shows most people aren't huffing that 90's nostalgia high, even if the posts in the thread are full of that shit.

Well, not sure what to tell you mate. You asked why people would like the movie outside of nostalgia and he gave you the reasons why he preferred the movie.
For my part, nostalgia has nothing to do with it. I'd have been pretty young in 1998 and I only saw both 1998 and 2014 Godzilla within this year and I still preferred the 1998 version.

 

[jademunky]

See, I loved the 1998 Godzilla and still think it holds up today. I am admittedly a big Hank Azaria fan so I'm biased, but still. I think the problem is that I am not much of a fan of the original Japanese films so I did not care that the monster itself deviated so much from the source material.

The 2014 was pretty decent too, just felt kinda emotionally heavy for a popcorn movie with giant monsters. Kinda makes the same mistake that the DC films are making. "The Gods and Monsters from your childhood brought to life with 200-Million-Dollar-budgets on the Silver Screen! Now lets all watch as everyone in the films get all sad and realistic about it."

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

See, I loved the 1998 Godzilla and still think it holds up today. I am admittedly a big Hank Azaria fan so I'm biased, but still. I think the problem is that I am not much of a fan of the original Japanese films so I did not care that the monster itself deviated so much from the source material.

The 2014 was pretty decent too, just felt kinda emotionally heavy for a popcorn movie with giant monsters. Kinda makes the same mistake that the DC films are making. "The Gods and Monsters from your childhood brought to life with 200-Million-Dollar-budgets on the Silver Screen! Now lets all watch as everyone in the films get all sad and realistic about it."

I am curious why so much of the voice cast for the Simpsons were in that movie.

 

[Fox12]

The 1998 movie wasn't perfect, but at least it had characters. Characters with motivations, and personalities. Who develop.

2014 just had boring white soldier guy number 228848945. I couldn't tell you a thing about him, other then the utterly trite fact that he wants to protect his hot wife and kid. And he doesn't change as a person at all.

The obvious answer is Shin Godzilla.

Something is wrong when boring Soldier guy is more blander than Matthew Broderick.

It's hard to do, but they pulled it off.

I remember Matthew Broderick's chacrater name "Nick Tatapolous"

I don't remember the name of generic soldier guy?

And what is hollywoods issue with casting the most bland actors ever?

Remember the main human character in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that was not Gary Oldmen?

I assume that they do it because bland=safe. He has no real personality, so he can't offend anyone. His only motivation is that he wants to protect his family, which pretty much anyone can sympathize with. He's white, like the majority of the audience. And he's a soldier, which has the benefits of giving them an excuse to have a hunky leading man, a character that is involved in lots of action, and a character that appeals to all the patriotism nuts. Why have a flawed, interesting protagonist when you can just have milquetoast?

I mean, criticize the 90s Godzilla all you want, but at least the main characters seemed like real, awkward, flawed people. That films worst sin was being kind of dumb and cheesy. Because we all know that the Japanese Godzilla films were never dumb and cheesy.

Meh, I just don't get it. People keep coming in here to say "well at least the 90's Zilla was fun." Was it? What was fun or funny in it? The main character had a doofy last name, and he said "that's a lot of fish" once. There were also the two Siskel and Ebert pastiches who didn't even die despite being there because the director hated them because they said his movies sucked.

All of this just sounds like people being nostalgic for a movie they probably haven't seen in well over a decade and trying to compare it to a movie that came out two years ago. I'm very skeptical any of you 90's defenders are thinking intelligently about this.

I'm not arguing that the 90's film is a great film. I'm arguing that it sucks less then the completely forgettable 2014 film.

The 2014 movie had totally forgettable, cliche'd charactrers. As I've outlined already, they're the type of characters that feel like they've been created to appeal to a focus group. The types of characters you expect to see in a Michael Bay film, except with even less personality. Their motivations are trite, and they don't grow or develop in any way. As for the story, it follows the completely predictable formula one would expect from a Godzilla film. Whereas some films, like the recent Shin Godzilla, try to experiment a little bit, the 2014 one felt like it was just going through the motions. A bad alien shows up, so now Godzilla has to fight it for some reason before going back to sleep in the water. At least in the original film he served as a symbol for nuclear destruction. What does he represent here? Why does he even exist? Who knows. The whole film feels like its just a setup for giant monster battles. The problem is that the weakest part of the film is the character drama, and that makes up 95% of the movie. You could argue that the movie was just an action series, but it even failed in that regard. They'd set up some big fight, and then you'd just see a cut up version on a television. When the final battle finally arrives, it's a dull and boring as the rest of the movie. Godzilla wrestles around with some dumb bat things, breathes fire once, and walks off. It's about four minutes of action, it's spread out, and it's not even very good. I didn't like Pacific Rim, but at least it had a handful of decent action scenes. The movie was painfully mediocre in some areas, and flat out bad in others. The closest we come to an interesting character is the eccentric, deranged father. He was a sympathetic character. It would have been interesting to see him develop his relationship with his estranged son throughout the film. Instead they kill him off at the beginning of the movie. So, I'm curious, in what areas do you actually think this film succeeded? Because I felt like it failed in every category, even as a dumb summer block buster.

Compare this to the 1998 Godzilla. It wasn't a great film, but it had characters. They had motivations. They had flaws. They changed as the story developed. Nick was a fish out of water that had to rise to the occasion. He was also naive and a pushover. Audrey wanted to be a reporter, but she had to overcome sexism in the workplace. She was flawed because she had commitment issues, and because she was willing to stab people in the back in order to get what she wanted. Victor was too brash to get a story. As for Godzilla, unlike the 2014 version, he felt like he was constantly the center of the film. Even when he wasn't on screen it felt like he was a constant presence. Furthermore, while it doesn't make as much sense as in the Japanese version, he still represents the dangers of nuclear weapons. He represents humanity paying for its mistakes. There's also some environmentalist stuff in there. Furthermore, Godzilla feels like an actual character that the audience can feel sympathy for.

Admittedly these are the absolute basics of film making, but the movie does at least strive to meet a certain standard. That's more then I can say for the 2014 version, which was potentially the blandest film of the year. The 90's film, while heavily flawed, had character arcs, character flaws, character motivations, and a clear central focus. The 2014 version lacked all of these things, and was a lesser film for it.

EDIT: And I'll say this as well. Some flaws are endearing, whereas others are just painful. The delightfully doofy characters of 1998 zilla are dumb, but somewhat adorable. Godzilla hiding in a sky scraper, or living in the tunnels, or laying eggs in a sports theater are stupid, but at least they're a groan worthy stupid. There was absolutely nothing interesting about the 2014 characters or events.

Sweet fucking essay, dude. It reads like someone who goes into modern movies trying to hate them while holding up the movies of their childhood on a pedestal of pure nostalgia. Anyway, I'm done. I'm at least glad the poll shows most people aren't huffing that 90's nostalgia high, even if the posts in the thread are full of that shit.

So you cry about people not being critical, and then you throw a hissy fit when someone looks at the films critically? You can't say I'm giving it nostalgia points when I criticized both films. I see you lack the faculties for a duscussion, though, so it's probably for the best that you've decided to leave the thread.

 

[Fox12]

The 1998 movie wasn't perfect, but at least it had characters. Characters with motivations, and personalities. Who develop.

2014 just had boring white soldier guy number 228848945. I couldn't tell you a thing about him, other then the utterly trite fact that he wants to protect his hot wife and kid. And he doesn't change as a person at all.

The obvious answer is Shin Godzilla.

Something is wrong when boring Soldier guy is more blander than Matthew Broderick.

It's hard to do, but they pulled it off.

I remember Matthew Broderick's chacrater name "Nick Tatapolous"

I don't remember the name of generic soldier guy?

And what is hollywoods issue with casting the most bland actors ever?

Remember the main human character in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes that was not Gary Oldmen?

I assume that they do it because bland=safe. He has no real personality, so he can't offend anyone. His only motivation is that he wants to protect his family, which pretty much anyone can sympathize with. He's white, like the majority of the audience. And he's a soldier, which has the benefits of giving them an excuse to have a hunky leading man, a character that is involved in lots of action, and a character that appeals to all the patriotism nuts. Why have a flawed, interesting protagonist when you can just have milquetoast?

I mean, criticize the 90s Godzilla all you want, but at least the main characters seemed like real, awkward, flawed people. That films worst sin was being kind of dumb and cheesy. Because we all know that the Japanese Godzilla films were never dumb and cheesy.

I mentioned this before but I want to know your opinion of it.

The trailers for Godzilla 2014 lead me to believe that the movie is going for a "disaster movie" angle with Godzilla being the badguy, a force of Nuclear Destruction made flesh, basically I was thinking it was gonna be Speilberg's War of the Worlds , just replace the Tripods with Godzilla:


And the earlier Trailers gave me that impression especially the ending where you clearly only see Godzilla:

Well, that would at least be more interesting then what we got. That's actually a pretty fair representation of Shin Godzilla, except you get the bureaucratic view of the events instead of the civilians eye view. The problem with a Godzilla film is that, if you focus on the human characters, you actually have to make them interesting. If you focus on Godzilla himself then you actually need to make him a force of nature. I would actually be interested in the kind of film you've described, if it was handled well.

 

[balladbird]

1998 for me.

2014 godzilla trailers promised us Godzilla vs Walter White, and failed to deliver.

1998 godzilla promised nothing and delivered less. However, the inept jabs at movie critics and occasional narmy line read made it enjoyable.

 

[Kolby Jack]

So you cry about people not being critical, and then you throw a hissy fit when someone looks at the films critically? You can't say I'm giving it nostalgia points when I criticized both films. I see you lack the faculties for a duscussion, though, so it's probably for the best that you've decided to leave the thread.

Of course I can. You listing off traits about the movie that are supposedly strengths does nothing to change that. That guy who said he watched both films for the first time recently, fine, he has bad taste but fine. Can't blame nostalgia. You? You've done nothing to convince me you aren't idolizing a film from your childhood and then attaching flimsy reasoning to justify it after the fact.

The reason I'm so annoyed by this is because the 90's Zilla damaged the brand immensely for American audiences. It was a failure on every level, it insulted Toho, and it made Japan lose faith that America could make a decent Godzilla film. The 2014 movie fixed that nearly two decades later, thankfully, but with people like you now trying to speak up on behalf of the old movie for its "merits" beyond being so bad its good leaves me thinking people just do not learn or they aren't Godzilla fans. It's like trying to argue that Batman and Robin was a good film. You're just fucking wrong. Backlash against the current trend of gritty films is one thing, but Batman and Robin and Zilla are NOT the solution, they're what MADE things the way they are.

 

[Fox12]

Of course I can. You listing off traits about the movie that are supposedly strengths does nothing to change that.

You mean the basic elements of good writing? Yes, I would call those strengths. Certainly over a bland summer film that blends in with all the others.

That guy who said he watched both films for the first time recently, fine, he has bad taste but fine. Can't blame nostalgia. You? You've done nothing to convince me you aren't idolizing a film from your childhood and then attaching flimsy reasoning to justify it after the fact.

Again, don't see how I'm idolizing it. I'm not pretending its Shakespeare. I'm just acknowledging that its better then the 2014 film. And, for that matter, better then some of Toho's more embarrassing endeavors.

The reason I'm so annoyed by this is because the 90's Zilla damaged the brand immensely for American audiences. It was a failure on every level, it insulted Toho, and it made Japan lose faith that America could make a decent Godzilla film.

Well, if the 2014 film is anything to go by then maybe their right.

The 2014 movie fixed that nearly two decades later, thankfully, but with people like you now trying to speak up on behalf of the old movie for its "merits" beyond being so bad its good leaves me thinking people just do not learn or they aren't Godzilla fans. It's like trying to argue that Batman and Robin was a good film. You're just fucking wrong. Backlash against the current trend of gritty films is one thing, but Batman and Robin and Zilla are NOT the solution, they're what MADE things the way they are.

Because all of the Japanese Godzilla films were a bastion of seriousness? So far you haven't actually given any reasoning for why one film is good, and the other is bad. All you've said is that everyone who defends the 90's film is drunk on nostalgia, and that the 2014 film is better because reasons. If anyone tries to compare the two then you essentially put your fingers in your ears. I fail to see how I'm the one who has to convince you of anything. I've already give you my reasoning, and is had nothing to do with nostalgia. You chose to ignore it and replace it with your feeble strawmanning.

And, for the record, I don't think Godzilla 1998 was a great film. I certainly don't think it was Batman and Robin levels of bad, though. It was mostly sort of average. It wasn't any worse then the recent Thor movie, for instance. The only major criticism I had was that, yes, it was heavily Americanized for a western audience. Despite this, it still managed to be better then whatever that awful 2014 movie was.

 

[Hawki]

Looks at thread, wonders if I can really weigh in, since I've only seen the 1998 film, comes to the only sane conclusion...

"Let them fight."

 

[crimsonspear4D]

Yeah, I'm going with the unpopular opinion on here: Godzilla '98 all the way. I mean Zilla's design on it's own is fucking awesome, I mean, when I think giant, ferocious lizard I think Zilla. Godzilla never really looked that scary or even that powerful when I saw him in the movies. DO NOT GET WRONG, the Japanese movie series are far, far, far superior than Godzilla 98, but then so it is to the Godzilla 2014 remake. Those movies always seemed to be grounded in "realism" where as the Japanese movies were creative and exciting, I didn't even mind having to sit through the normally insufferable human characters since at least they were more emotionally investing despite being mostly generic.

I know I'm probably reaching, but if you remove Godzilla from the title, the movie would've probably been a little more - enjoyable since you wouldn't have to compare it the far more iconic monster. I really wish that they would've kept the Zilla design and used it in something else rather than jokes in the movies. The cartoon series was okay, and felt like what the Zilla franchise could've been since it "tecnically" acted as a sequel to the movies, but I kinda hoped we would've had our own Godzilla series with our own pantheon of monsters for it to fight.

 

[Remus]

Funny story, Matthew's character in the 1998 film was named after the graphic artist who helped create 'Zilla's look as well as produced the Underworld films and did effects on just about every major sci-fi or disaster movie you've heard of - Patrick Tatopoulos. He's a frequent judge/host of Syfy's FaceOff.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I tried watching the 2014 one a couple weeks ago when FX played it. Right off the bat I feel like the makers of the film kinda missed the point when they demonstrated a nuclear bomb going off as a way to defeat Godzilla in the 1950's but even looking past that, I couldn't muster up any emotion other than apathy when I was presented with the human cast. I felt bad about Cranston losing his wife but I like Brain Cranston in general (though not enough to have watched Breaking Bad, that show was just fine when it was called "Weeds" and featured a 100% different cast and tone).

When it comes to 98 Godzilla, I too watched that as a kid and I too enjoyed it as a kid. It's silly and bits of it don't make any sense at all but I still liked it even if I wouldn't put it on and watch it now.