I still don't get it

You are right that it has received unfair hate, and I say this as someone who is only a semi-fan of this movie. Sometimes when this comes on TV, I happily watch it from the opening credits up through the helicopter chase scene, and then I switch channels and come back to watch the last ten minutes. The first act and the finale are a lot of fun for me. It's all of that boring stuff in the middle with the love story and the baby monsters that loses my interest. For me, as someone who admires a great many of the original Japanese films, it's one of those in-the-middle movies. Not good, not terrible, in the middle.

It's not even Emmerich's worst. For me, that's "Stargate." (I'm under 25, by the way, and I've seen that film.) That was insufferably bad. You discover a way of traveling to the other side of the universe. Sounds exciting. What are you going to see? What's it going to be like? What are you going to find there? The movie's answer: a big, boring desert with a bunch of rag-wearing idiots and one of the most laughable villains in cinema history.

I am not trying to be a troll. I grew up on Godzilla movies and I even like this one. I am also into history and historical films so I do like Dowton Abby too.

Probably doing something else. I never saw Mars Attacks. What was wrong with it?

It's a scared animal. Scared animals run and cause havoc.

Or you'll actually hear people, "average jokes, mate" say it's a *beep* movie and only for those with the mentality of a four-year-old. Grow up and wake up. It sucks, and most people will say it sucks.

"And I think that that fuss with the Ebert-Siskel reference was exaggerating. I found it harmlessly funny actually. It was a fact that they weren't big fans of blockbusters like this, so they just put it as an inside joke. And the actors resembling to them made it even funnier!
http://media.baselineresearch.com/images/224821/224821_full.jpg
I don't understand why some people take some things so seriously..."

Actually both Siskel and Ebert have been vocally supportive of blockbusters that have good scripts - it's just the brainless ones that irk them. At the time their show was the best known and most watched movie review show in the US so taking a pop at them was a cheap and dumb move - it alienated the reviewers who critique your movies and gave the perception that Roland Emmerich had gotten a bit too big for his boots.


"But reading your paragraph, I understand that you justify Godzilla's size, and you say that this was the right choice. No?"

Yes. The original Godzilla (which towered over skyscrapers) was a mutated dinosaur. By contrast, 'Zilla '98 was an iguana which was changed due to exposure to atomic radiation - it would have been ridiculous to make him bigger.



"So...I'm a head of a big Hollywood studio...I make a movie with Japan co-producing it...I put a lot of money...and I want it to fail. So, what you're basically saying, is that the Columbia-TriStar guys were retarded. Right?"


Groan. No dude, At the time Columbia-TriStar was owned by Sony (which it still is) and Sony wanted to develop some of their Japanese properties into viable international blockbusters. The OTHER companies (which weren't owned by foreign investors) didn't want that to happen - so they launched a smear campaign against Sony Pictures.

P.S. Bizarre as it may seem, there ARE cases of studios wanting their own product to fail. For example, if a new studio head arrives, the first thing he does is dump the previous studio head's product. Case in point being Adam Fogelson the head at Universal Pictures, who greenlighted '47 Ronin' which cost 175 million to produce. After Adam was pushed out of his post, the movie was dumped at a crowded date with minimal publicity and was left to die a slow death at the box-office by the new heads at Universal. Why? So that the new heads can claim that THEIR upcoming product is better than the previous ones! Miramax head, Weinstein is another creep who edits non-European films until they are practically unrecognizable - all just to spite directors he doesn't like.


"And anyway, the question wasn't why this movie failed at the box office. Many good movies fail at the box office for many reasons. The question was why all that hate."

The heads of the studios didn't want competition from young upstarts like Devlin and Emmerich - Spielberg, Zemeckis, Ridley Scott and Tony Scott all had suffered some sort of commercial disappointment in the 90s. Also, the perception was that Emmerich had gotten too big for his boots and was incredibly arrogant. Plus, the funding for many of their movies cam from foreign sources - so most of the profits went overseas. Plus, Godzilla is a property that was owned by Toho, which was a Japanese company - if the property was a success, then the residuals would have gone to Japan instead of staying in the USA. Also, Hollywood is worried that if ONE foreign-owned property is a success, then the foreign entity holding the rights may suddenly grow a brain and realize that they DON'T NEED The American studios to produce their films - they'll seek financing elsewhere, produce the movies themselves and get foreign actors for the parts - shutting the Hollywood movie studios out. THIS is THE reason why they're so paranoid about allowing Foreign-owned properties from becoming Box-Office successes.

P.S. If you're wondering why they don't have a problem with producing a Godzilla movie NOW it's simple - the international box-office is greater than the US one for the Hollywood studios.



"I think I hadn't seen a Godzilla movie in my life before I saw Emmerich's movie.And I had a great time.I saw a huge monster destroying a city, that's what I paid for."

I saw a couple of Godzilla movies - on the small screen. Godzilla '98 was the first time I was the big lizard in all his glory on the big screen for the first time! Enjoyed it thorougly! In fact, I actually saw Godzilla '98 and the latest version of Godzilla back to back on my big-screen TV and safe to say, I enjoyed the '98 version more, believe it or not!


"It wasn't a masterpiece, and it had its flaws, like Broderick (nothing wrong with him, he's just not for blockbusters), but I can't think of myself walking out of the theater saying "oh, what a terrible movie, I wasted my money!" Have you seen "Transformers 3 and 4"? THESE are terrible movies... And they did awesome at the box office. That's life."


Broderick was a recipient of the 'Bar Mitzvah' style ethnic nepotism prevalent in Hollywood, i.e., he got the lead role because he's a 'semite' in an industry run by 'semites'. BTW, I thought that while some of the characters were miscast, the characters in Godzilla '98 were much more better, funnier and memorable than the boring zombies in the latest version of Godzilla. Heck, Jean Reno and Hank Azaria MADE 'zilla 98 memorable - I liked and cared about their characters. I cannot remember any of the people in the new Godzila movie. BTW, you're right - Michael Bay makes TERRIBLE movies. Only difference is, Michael
is a Hollywood insider who is a white American re-hashing an intellectual property owned by an American toy company - so all the profits go back to the US. That's all that matters. Quality be damned.