That Godzilla movie from 1998? '99? You know the one (Matthew Broderick, I think you're wonderful, but, honey...no).
I mainlined Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1993) and a couple of other flicks featured on Crackle this month and was surprised at how much I dug them. There's no pretending after you've muttered to yourself, "When's he gonna *roar*??"
Anyway, I remember my dissatisfaction with that 90's too-much-what-we-didn't-want version. They redesigned the monster, for pity's sake. I mean, I get why Hollywood might not have wanted to go with a dude in a suit, but Godzilla is supposed to be unnatural. We understand dinosaur physiology better now, but that's no reason to panic. So, Godzilla is an impossible biped--mutant, yo! Even more so!
I know that they were trying to smack-talk Jurassic Park with that ad campaign (for young whipper-snappers, it went something like "Size Does Matter" with Godzilla's big 'ol foot smashing through the roof of a museum and stomping the Cretaceous out of a Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton which was hella amusing to a lot of us).
Thing is, though: nobody really cared about that comparison. Because the film makers went with such a radical redesign, the only thing ol' Hollywood Lizard was being compared to was the original.
Toho (who owns Godzilla) said, "Mm-hm, Mm-hm, we see what you did there. That thing? From now on, we're calling that thing 'Zilla'. No relation."
There's only one King of the Monsters.
