My Thoughts on "Godzilla" (1998)
Note:
This was originally written on August 18, 2023. I wrote this around the same time that I wrote those reviews for Michael Bay's Transformers movies and Armageddon ☄️, which is also a Michael Bay movie. Looking at the dates again, I wrote it after I wrote all of those, I wrote it three days after I wrote the Armageddon ☄️ review. Now, unlike those, this review is not excerpt from an explosion compilation video 💥, it's an excerpt from the description of a forward/inverted edit that I did of Brandon Tenold's review of Godzilla (1998). I've mentioned him before, I've never really explained who is, and I'm going to now since I'm sure many of you reading don't even know who he is.
Basically, Brandon Tenold is a Canadian film reviewer 🇨🇦 on YouTube. He used to be on Channel Awesome briefly, but he has since moved away from that website, and has shifted his focus entirely onto YouTube. So, he's a YouTuber more or less who makes his money 💵 through a combination of sponsorships, his most common sponsorship deal being with Squarespace, you know the website that makes websites, and of course Patreon. Those are the two main revenue streams that keeps YouTubers a float these days, sponsorships and Patreon. That's the only way these people make their money 🤑. And here I am, not making any money 💵 from this blog, at least not yet.
But, anyway, regardless of how makes his money 💵 from his YouTube content (there's that word again that Patrick Willhems hates so much) and pays the bills, Brandon Tenold specializes in reviewing cult movies, which are basically movies that have a dedicated fanbase, or cult following as they say. Usually, movies that become cult movies are ones that are outside of the mainstream, that are weird, that are ultra violent, that are risqué in some way. Sometimes these films were hated by critics when they first came out, or were box office failures when they first came out. But, still manage to gain a dedicated following through unconventional means, usually through home media and word of mouth. Like, "man, this movie's so crazy, you gotta watch it." Sometimes these cult movies are genuinely well made movies that just weren't appreciated enough in their time, while other times, they're poorly made movies that everyone can tell is bad and people like watching because they like to laugh and make fun of them 😄.
This is kind of where the "So bad, it's good" community intersects with the cult film community, but keep in mind, these are different things and they don't always intersect. A lot of the movies that Brandon reviews on his channel tend to be B movies or even Z movies that are pretty poorly made, but still have a lot of entertainment value all things considered, whether it's incompetence and unintentional comedy, or whether it's their strange plots and visuals. But, a bit more recently, he has been interspersing genuinely good movies that are well made and are well liked, like he reviewed In the Mouth of Madness, a John Carpenter movie, he reviewed The War of the Worlds (1953), he reviewed two Arabian Nights movies, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad and The Thief of Bagdad, with The Thief of Bagdad being the older of the two movies dating back to 1940, he reviewed Dog Soldiers 🐺, and he reviewed Phantasm. There are others, but those are the main ones I can think of off the top of my head.
He's also reviewed movies that used to be hated a long time ago, but nowadays are well liked, such as Super Mario Bros. (1993) or Johnny Mnemonic. Godzilla (1998) also falls into that category. Speaking of which, the videos that Brandon is probably known for the most, and the videos that are his most popular are his Godzilla videos. He's reviewed pretty every Godzilla movie so far except for Godzilla (1954), Godzilla Raids Again, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, Godzilla, Mothra, and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (AKA GMK), Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, and Godzilla Tokyo SOS. And also, the MonsterVerse and the Reiwa films, but those are little bit too recent for him. He's still made videos on them, just not full scripted reviews. Instead, he's been doing vlogs for those. So far, he's done one for Shin Godzilla and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) each. I'm sure he'll make one for Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla Minus One, and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire at some point.
He reviewed Godzilla (1998) as his 300th episode because he always reviews a "special" movie whenever he reaches a video milestone. He reviewed the sci-fi horror film, Lifeforce his 100th episode special, and he reviewed the divisive Godzilla: Final Wars for his 200th episode special. So, it was only a matter of time until he did a review of Godzilla (1998), and there was no way he was going to do it as a regular episode of his review show. He was saving it for a special occasion, and that's exactly what he did. But, he was a lot nicer to the movie than I, and many people, were probably expecting him to be. Basically, his final verdict was that it was an entertaining and fun movie, if a bit stupid, and that it's a Roland Emmerich movie, and as a Roland Emmerich movie it's perfectly fine.
In fact, he said he liked it more than Armageddon ☄️, which he said has all the same problems that Godzilla (1998) has, but worse, and tends to get a lot less shit than Godzilla (1998) does. But, while he does say that movie works on its own as a dumb fun blockbuster of the late 90s, he does say that it fails as Godzilla movie, with a design and depiction that is nothing like how the character's supposed to be. That's pretty much the same conclusion that Cody came to in his review on his channel, PointlessHub recently. Speaking of which, now all three of the movie channels I frequent the most on YouTube have done their own reviews of Godzilla (1998). Brandon Tenold of course did his review, then JoBlo Originals did their review as part of their "Awfully Good Movies" series, and finally Cody has done his review on his PointlessHub channel.
If I were to rank them from best to worst, I would go PointlessHub's reviews first, then Brandon Tenold's, and then Awfully Good Movies's review. Not to say, the Awfully Good Movies review is bad, it's not, but it's probably the one I like the least, even if it's the one that has the most film knowledge. It's the one that's the harshest and most critical of the movie. Cody and Brandon were a lot nicer to the movie by comparison. But, the host of Awfully Good Movies, Jessy Shades did admit that he does have nostalgia for the movie, as he grew up with it, and it was his introduction to Godzilla, which is also my experience. Godzilla (1998) was my introduction to Godzilla as well, and I'm very nostalgic for it.
This is the exact opposite of Cody, who didn't watch Godzilla (1998) as a kid and thus doesn't have the same level of nostalgia for it as Jessy and I do. His introduction to Godzilla was the first Atari Pipeworks game, Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee. Ironically, that's the only one of the Atari Pipeworks Godzilla game that I didn't play or own or even rent. Because you could also rent games from video rental stores back in the day, in the 2000s when I grew up. I rented at least one game from Hollywood Video, I went some from GameStop back when you could rent games from there, and I might have rented a couple of games from Hastings, but I'm not sure about that. I might be misremembering that last one. I might also be misremembering GameStop offering game rentals. Anyway, back to the Atari Pipeworks Godzilla trilogy. I only played Godzilla: Save the Earth 🌎 and Godzilla: Unleashed, which is usually considered the worst of the trilogy or at the very least, the weakest of the trilogy. But, I still like it, I still like Godzilla: Unleashed.
Did you know that the 98 version of Godzilla was going to be in that game under the new name, Zilla, which Toho gave him after they bought the rights to use him in Godzilla: Final Wars? I didn't know until I visited the Wikizilla page for it. Apparently, Pipeworks decided against putting him in the game because of the fan backlash against the character. This was still when the Godzilla fanbase was still very much against Zilla, and hadn't fully accepted him as his own character separate from Godzilla. So, he's one of the many scrapped characters that were considered but rejected in Godzilla: Unleashed. Had Zilla been in the game, he would've been apart of the Mutant faction.
There is one thing that I did talk about in this review, but didn't go in as depth about as I think I probably should have. And that's the fact there was going to be a sequel to this before the movie received all the backlash from the fans, and from some in Toho themselves. We don't know what the title of that sequel would've been, but I'm going to assume that it was going to be called Godzilla 2. I mean, this was still a time when most movie sequel had a number in its title.
From what I've heard about the plot of Godzilla 2, it was going to focus on the last surviving Godzilla offspring, known simply as Godzilla Jr., sort of like the animated series did. But, unlike in the animated series, Godzilla Jr. was not infertile, and was still capable of asexual reproduction just like his father. He leaves New York City to form a nest 🪹 of his own. Dr. Niko "Nick" Tatopoulos is forced to unite with Philippe Roaché to trace Godzilla Jr.'s path, and kill his offspring before they can threaten humanity. Eventually, they find him in Australia 🇦🇺, but by then it's already too late as Godzilla Jr. has not only formed his own nest 🪹 and laid his own eggs 🥚, but the eggs 🥚 have already hatched, and his offspring have already grown to adolescence. These adolescent Godzillas are referred to as "Teenzillas."
But, Godzilla Jr. laid a lot less eggs 🥚 and had a lot less offspring than his father did, so it's easier for Nick, Philippe, and the other human characters to kill Teenzillas, which they eventually do. Or maybe they don't because Nick feels guilty about killing the other Godzilla babies from the first movie, I don't exactly remember. But either way, Godzilla Jr. himself is kept alive because Nick doesn't want to wipe his entire species and wants to keep him alive to preserve it.
And it's a good thing they kept Godzilla Jr. alive because another monster shows up, and starts attacking. It's a flying insect creature that the humans simply refer to as "Queen Bitch." I'm not exactly if Queen Bitch was the only one, or if like her name implies, she is the queen of a colony or hive of other flying insect creatures. Either way, Queen Bitch becomes a threat to Australia 🇦🇺, and to the entire world, and the humans must rely on Godzilla Jr. to defeat her. I kind of wish that the Teenzillas were kept alive in the script, so that they could all help their father kill Queen Bitch, especially if she a whole hive of smaller insects at her command, if she's like a eusocial insect.
I do wish that this script had got made into an actual movie, if there was a sequel to Godzilla (1998) because on everything I've heard about it, I think people would've liked it a lot more. Sure, they might've still not liked the design, but they would've appreciated the fact that Godzilla actually fights other monsters in this movie, and is not just a scared animal that runs away from danger, or hides, and has actual atomic breath ☢️ and not just a breath that creates a strong gust of wind and makes things explode. They were going to do pretty much what they should've already done in the first movie.
I don't know many of the other human characters from the first one would've returned besides Nick and Philippe, or if it would've just been them and a bunch of new characters. Would Elsie have returned in the movie? Would Mendel have returned? Would Hicks have returned? Would Audrey have returned? Would Animal have returned? It make sense for Elsie and Mendel to be there since they're scientists, and they worked on the team that was dealing with Godzilla in the first one.
It also would make sense for Hicks to return since he's a US Army colonel 🇺🇸 (or major if you go by the animated series), and he dealt with the first Godzilla in the first movie, and the US military 🇺🇸 would immediately respond if another Godzilla popped up somewhere. They're on the side of eradicating any trace of Godzilla's species because even just one can produce enough offspring to threaten the entire world. Plus, this is Australia 🇦🇺, and there are US military bases 🇺🇸 there. Australia 🇦🇺 hosts quite a few of them since they're one of the US 🇺🇸's most key strategic partners and allies in the region.
So, if a monster attack happened there, you know that the US military 🇺🇸 would respond as well as the Australian military 🇦🇺. They'd be working together in tandem with each other to deal with the kaiju threat threatening the Land Down Under, or should I say mutation threat since the monsters in the Godzilla 98 universe are referred to as "mutations" since the majority of them were created through normal animals being mutated by human activity, whether it be nuclear radiation ☢️, pollution, genetic engineering 🧬, or even chemical weapons ☣️ as was the case with El Gusano Gigante, if we go by the animated series. But, given that Godzilla Jr.'s a good guy who's fighting against Queen Bitch, who's the bad guy (or bad gal if you prefer since she's female ♀︎), the US military 🇺🇸 and the Australian military 🇦🇺 would've had to work alongside him too to defeat this greater threat.
But, it would've made less sense for Audrey and Animal to be there since they just work for the local news. Why the hell would they even go to Australia 🇦🇺 in the first place. Unless, Audrey and Animal decided to work at a national news network like CNN, MSNBC, or CBS News or ABC News after Audrey quit her job at WIDF. Then, maybe it would make sense for them to go Australia 🇦🇺 to report on Godzilla Jr. and his offspring and be there to witness all the events of the film. Speaking of Australia 🇦🇺, I'm assuming that the whole movie would've taken place there since I don't recall any other locations being mentioned in videos talking about the script.
So, we would've seen Godzilla in the Outback, and then the final battle with Queen Bitch probably would've been in an Australian city 🇦🇺 like Sydney, or Canberra, or Melbourne. Probably Sydney since it's easily the most well known and largest city in Australia 🇦🇺. Gotta give Godzilla a big enough canvas, a big enough arena for him to do battle with other monsters. With the majority of the movie being set in Australia 🇦🇺, I thought of the perfect tagline for Godzilla 2. Since Godzilla (1998)'s tagline was "Size does matter," I was thinking Godzilla 2's tagline could be, "This time, he's going Down Under" or "This time, he's Down Under." Get it 😉? Because he's in Australia 🇦🇺.
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These are my thoughts on the 1998 monster film, Godzilla, directed by Roland Emmerich, produced by Dean Devlin, and starring Matthew Broderick, Maria Pitillo, Hank Azaria, Jean Reno, Kevin Dunn, Harry Shearer, Michael Lerner, Vicky Lewis, Malcolm Danare, and Doug Savant. I love this movie. This was my first introduction to Godzilla. I watched this movie long before I actually watched an actual Japanese Godzilla movie from Toho 🇯🇵; the first Toho Godzilla movie I saw BTW was Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla from 2002.
So, I didn’t know that Godzilla didn’t look like the Godzilla from the Japanese films 🇯🇵, and I didn’t really care. And even after I did see some Toho Godzilla movies, I didn’t really have issues with the design. To me, it was just Godzilla, and every bit as Godzilla as the Godzillas from those Toho films. I also don’t have a problem with how Godzilla’s portrayed in the movie. I don’t mind that he’s portrayed as more of an animal that runs from the military when threatened.
To me, you can interpret that in a way that doesn’t make him a coward. You could easily interpret that as him being clever, and luring them the military into traps, or using their own technology against them. This Godzilla still fights against the military, just not in the same way the Toho Godzilla. Because he’s vulnerable to conventional weaponry, he can’t take on the military head on and absorb damage, so he has to use his wits and his speed and agility to take them down. And because this Godzilla is vulnerable to conventional weaponry, the military actually stands a chance against him. It makes it a fairer fight, and adds more stakes and tension. With the Toho films, there are no stakes or tension because we know that the military’s never going to stop Godzilla, and Godzilla’s never going to get hurt or die. Plus, a Godzilla that’s fast and agile is a nice change of pace for once; even Brandon thinks so. And hey, the animated series did redeem this Godzilla design and portrayal, didn’t it?
And I liked the emphasis on reporters in this movie since a lot of the human characters in the older Godzilla movies, especially those from the 60s and 70s were often reporters. Even in the 1956 Americanized re-edited version 🇺🇸 of the original 1954 Godzilla movie, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the main character, Steve Martin (Raymond Burr) was also a reporter. So, in that sense, it is true to the spirit of the Godzilla franchise, only they did put a nice spin on it by adding a cameraman character into the mix to kind of spice things up, and make it fresh. We never really had a cameraman character in the Toho Godzilla movies before this movie, or even in the ones after it.
I also didn’t mind that they altered his origin a bit to have the French 🇫🇷 be the ones responsible for Godzilla’s creation rather than the Americans 🇺🇸 like in the Toho films. I know why they did it. They wanted Godzilla’s origin to be more up-to-date and closer to when the movie came out, and the most recent nuclear testing ☢️ in the world up until that point were the French nuclear tests 🇫🇷☢️ conducted in French Polynesia 🇵🇫, which didn’t officially end until 1996. They also probably didn’t want to offend any Americans 🇺🇸 by vilifying the US 🇺🇸 in any way by implying that Godzilla was our fault, and that we reap what we sow; something that would’ve been a bit rich coming from a German director 🇩🇪.
Even Godzilla’s atomic breath ☢️ wasn’t really atomic breath ☢️, it was something that ionizes oxygen to the point it turns into heat. Obviously, the reason why they wanted to change Godzilla’s origin to being created by Atlanteans is the same reason that Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin changed Godzilla’s origin from being the result of American nuclear testing 🇺🇸☢️ to being the result of French nuclear testing 🇫🇷☢️: they didn’t want to offend American audiences 🇺🇸 by having the US 🇺🇸 sort of be at fault for creating Godzilla. But, give Emmerich and Devlin some credit, at least they maintained the nuclear part ☢️ of Godzilla’s origin. This earlier version of the movie was going to strip out the nuclear element ☢️ entirely; something that I imagine would not have sat over well with some fans.)
Would it have been cool if he had got the original version of this movie with the Gryphon? Yes, it would have, and that version probably would’ve kicked off a franchise in its own right. But, I also don’t hate what we ultimately got with this movie. BTW, the movie that Jan de Bont directed instead of Godzilla was Twister 🌪️. It came out the year that Godzilla was supposed to come out, and it had the actors that Jan de Bont wanted to cast in the movie, mainly Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt. The reason why he stepped away from the project, and why that version was scrapped was budgetary concerns.
You see, Jan de Bont wanted to have a budget of $120 million 💵, saying that was what was necessary to actually do the things that they wanted to do in the movie, all of the stuff that was in Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio’s script. But, Sony thought that was too much money 💵, and didn’t want the movie to go over budget, so they said “No,” and Jan de Bont just walked away. Then, years later, after the success of Independence Day, Sony brought in Roland Emmerich and his producer partner and long time friend, Dean Devlin to come in and do the Godzilla movie instead. They of course said “Yes,” and that’s how we got this movie; so the movie went from having a Dutch director 🇳🇱 to having a German director 🇩🇪.
But, it ended up costing way more than the original proposed budget, at around $130 million-$150 million 💵, which makes the whole thing more insulting because Jan de Bont’s proposed budget was way less, and yet, he didn’t get to do it. But, Roland Emmerich got to spend as money 💵 as he wanted to no problem; the movie was essentially his playground. I can understand why the budget ended up getting that big. Making a Godzilla film with modern CG visual effects requires a lot of money 💵; especially back then when the technology was still pretty new, and was way more expensive than it is now, even though it is still pretty expensive. So, it’s better to go big, than to scale down especially since the Toho films already do that. What’s the point of doing an American Godzilla 🇺🇸 if you can’t make it big?
I mean, when Toho let these Hollywood movie studios have a license to make Godzilla movies, their thought probably was, “This is America 🇺🇸, they have more money 💵 and resources that their disposal than we do, and they can make it bigger and badder than we ever could.” Badder, in that case, meaning good; I don’t think Toho was thinking at the time that Sony would make a terrible Godzilla movie, otherwise they probably wouldn’t have given the license; whether or not you think this is a bad Godzilla movie (bad as in bad) is kind of up to you, and you’re interpretation.
As for the planned sequel for this movie, I wish that it happened. Not just because I like this movie and wanted to see more, but also because I think people would’ve liked it a lot better than this one. It was basically going to do all the things that people wanted to see this movie, but didn’t, including giving Godzilla his signature atomic breath ☢️, and making him more durable to conventional weaponry. BTW, the Godzilla in the proposed sequel was going to be the offspring of the Godzilla in this movie. It was going to the Baby Godzilla that hatched at the very end of this movie, and we were going to see it grow into an adult, and take on the mantle of Godzilla, his father. So, it was basically, Godzilla Jr.. Just the fact that Godzilla fights another monster alone, would’ve made the sequel more appealing to fans.
But, we never got that sequel because the backlash to this movie was so hard, not just from fans, but also from several Toho filmmakers, including one of the suit actors who portrayed Godzilla; it’s rumored that he walked out of the theater when Godzilla was finally shown in his full glory, and when Godzilla ran away from the military. Plus, it didn’t make nearly as much money 💵 as Sony was hoping it would make. It did still make money 💵, it grossed about $379 million 💵, and it was the third highest grossing movie of 1998, meaning that it did turn a profit.
But, it was a far cry from the box office gross from Roland Emmerich’s previous movie, Independence Day, which made $817.4 million 💵 worldwide, and the movie was ultimately considered a box office disappointment, especially because it also had an $80 million marketing cost 💵; Sony definitely poured a lot of money 💵 into the movie’s marketing, and it didn’t pay off nearly as well as they had hoped.
So, in the end, all we got as far as a followup to this movie was the animated series, Godzilla: The Series, which is actually pretty good and does hold surprisingly well considering that it premiered in 1998 and aired until the year 2000. It probably is the best animated show based on a movie ever made. The only one that I think comes close to matching the quality of Godzilla: The Series is Men in Black: The Series, which was made by the same people. It’s also the best animated Godzilla series, like it sure beats the hell out of Godzilla: Singular Point, which I thought was a huge disappointment.
The characters are all either boring or unlikable; the college girl ♀︎ is both. The plot is full of holes, and is extremely convoluted. There are entire characters and plot lines that are completely pointless and go absolutely no where. And in the end, the show is just a rip-off of Shin Godzilla. Everything that this show tried to do was done better in Shin Godzilla, like making Godzilla more of an otherworldly being that’s beyond our understanding or comprehension, adding geopolitics, adding domestic Japanese politics 🇯🇵, adding Japanese cultural elements 🇯🇵 that most Westerners won’t understand, and having a big bombastic ending where Tokyo just gets obliterated; like they fuck that city up in this series.
The only elements of this show that I thought kind of worked was Jet Jaguar and the Otaki Corporation or whatever it was called. Like, whenever Jet Jaguar and the Otaki Corp. characters appeared, I was like, “Can we just focus on these guys? Can we just stop switching between them and the college girl ♀︎, and just focus solely on them and cut the college girl ♀︎ and her little AI friend out entirely?” I did also like some of the things they did with the other monsters in the show like Rodan, Anguirus, and Kumonga. When Godzilla’s the least interesting and least exciting part of your show, you know you did something wrong. Like, literally, it’s a Godzilla show, and yet, Godzilla’s one of the worst parts about it. This should’ve just been a Jet Jaguar show, the Jet Jaguar stuff were the only good parts about it. Even Godzilla’s design looks ugly in this show, not just earlier forms, but his final design as well; it’s one of the worst Godzilla designs of the entire franchise.
I liked the opening theme, I thought it was pretty nice, but I didn’t really like the closing theme, I thought it was pretty generic anime outro music and I just skipped the end credits every time they came on because of it. I also liked the song that recurs throughout the show, “Alapu Upala,” which is actually a plot device in the show. In the show, they say that it’s based on an Indian folk song 🇮🇳 or an Indian lullaby 🇮🇳. But it’s not, it’s a completely made up song. It was probably written by a Japanese person 🇯🇵 or a couple of Japanese people 🇯🇵, and has no actual history in India 🇮🇳.
Regardless, it’s still a good song, and is what makes buying the soundtrack worth it, along with the Otaki Corp. theme, called “Otaki’s Sortie.” There are about four versions of “Alapu Upala” on the soundtrack, and I have all four of them. There’s the “Popular Song Version,” the “Choir Version,” the “Requiem Version,” and the regular version just called “Alapu Upala” and nothing else. My favorite versions of the song would have to be the Popular Song Version and the Choir Version, though the Requiem Version is good too. Other than that, this show was just worst. I don’t think it’s good at all, I don’t ever want to watch it again, and I don’t think you should watch it. I might be in the minority about this show, but I don’t care, I hate it, goodbye.)
I think the best way to view this movie is with the same mindset as Michael Bay Transformers. They’re movies based on nerdy IPs, made by directors who weren’t really fans of those nerdy IPs, and basically reimagined them to make them as palatable to themselves and to the general audience as possible; Roland Emmerich was basically doing what he wanted to see in Godzilla movie (like what he thought a Godzilla movie should be), and what he thought the general audience wanted to see in a Godzilla movie.
Obviously, Michael Bay was more successful in his efforts with Transformers than Roland Emmerich was with Godzilla, but it was basically trying to do the same thing; for better or for worse. It’s a different, alternate take, and you can either take it or leave it. It doesn’t destroy or diminish what came before or after. In the case of Godzilla, what came after was much closer to what fans wanted to see. Not only did get more Toho Godzilla films in the form of the Millennium series in the 2000s, but we did eventually get American Godzilla movies 🇺🇸 that weren’t ashamed of their source material.
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Here's Brandon Tenold's review of Godzilla (1998):
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Note (Friday August 18, 2023):
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It’s kind of funny that I bring up the Michael Bay Transformers movies because Roland Emmerich was actually considered to replace Michael Bay as director on one of them. You see, after Transformers: Dark of the Moon, Michael Bay was ready to move onto other things. He felt like he did everything he wanted to do with those movies, and there really wasn’t anymore that he could do with or add to Transformers. I mean, it is pretty hard to top the Chicago battle, and really none of the Transformers movie he directed after Dark of the Moon were able to top it.
But, because Transformers: Dark of the Moon made $1.124 billion 💵 at the worldwide box office 🤑, Paramount and Hasbro only saw dollar signs $, and wanted to make more. So, they eventually talked him to doing more, and that’s how we got Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight, which might explain the quality of those movies; those movies come across as being made by someone who was reluctant, and only did them out of obligation.
But, before Paramount and Hasbro convinced Michael Bay to come back, they actually considered replacing him with another director, just in case they failed to convince him to return, and he still said “No.” And one of the directors they considered was Roland Emmerich. Obviously, Michael Bay agreed to come back (albeit with caveats), so Paramount and Hasbro didn’t have to hire Roland Emmerich, but it is kind of an interesting thought. What if Roland Emmerich did direct Transformers movie? Would it be any better or worse than any of Michael Bay’s Transformers movies? Would it have more CGI? Emmerich’s movies post-The Patriot 🇺🇸 tended to be a lot more CGI-heavy than Bay’s movies.
We’ll never know because we’re well past this period in Transformers film history, as Paramount and Hasbro seem to want to make movies that are closer to G1, and hand them to lesser known directors that they can more easily control rather than these more well known directors with big egos that want to control everything, and want to reimagine Transformers into something less recognizable from G1. Plus, I don’t even think Roland Emmerich would be all that interested in doing a Transformers movie anyway.
It seems like he just wants to do his own thing, rather than coming onto these franchises with already established fanbases; he was probably burned from his experiences on Godzilla (1998) to want to do that ever again. It’s kind of the same mindset that Michael Bay has right now, where he just wants to do his own thing, and doesn’t want to come to another already established franchise with an already established built-in fanbase. He’s already done five of those movies, and all they really did was ruin his reputation as a director in Hollywood. The Transformers movies are the reason why Michael Bay is such a disliked director who’s the subject of ridicule, and why he’s seen by nerds alike as franchise poison. A man ♂︎ who comes in, and “ruins your childhood.”
Asking, what if Roland Emmerich directed a Transformers movies? Is a lot like asking, what if Michael Bay directed a Godzilla movie? It definitely would be a different kind of Godzilla movie what we’re used to, it would probably be really long (Michael Bay can get a lot more long-winded than Roland Emmerich), it probably wouldn’t be the best Godzilla movie, but it would be an interesting curiosity to witness. Seeing G fans reactions to it would be worth the price of admission. I imagine if Michael Bay did ever come onto to direct a Godzilla movie, most G fans would probably lose their fucking minds 🤬. They’d probably say, “He’s going to ruin Godzilla just like Roland Emmerich did, maybe even worse!”
But, speaking of American Godzilla movies 🇺🇸, this is kind of unrelated, but why hasn’t there been an American Gamera movie 🇺🇸? You’d think that considering that an American Godzilla movie 🇺🇸 was being made back then, some studio would’ve thought to purchase the rights to make an American Gamera movie 🇺🇸 to compete with it. Or even nowadays with the MonsterVerse, you’d think somebody would’ve thought that making an American Gamera 🇺🇸 movie and launching a cinematic universe off of it would be a worthwhile venture. But, sadly, there hasn’t been an American Gamera movie 🇺🇸, or any Gamera movie really.
The closest thing we’re getting is that upcoming anime series released on Netflix, Gamera: Rebirth. But, that’s a series (an ONA to be exact), not a movie, so it doesn’t count. There was going to be an American Ultraman movie 🇺🇸 with Will Smith as Ultraman, but I don’t really care about Ultraman, so I didn’t care about that project, and I didn’t feel anyway about it not getting made; I don’t even if it was an actual real movie in development or if it was just a rumor.
Plus, Hideaki Anno Annoed up Ultraman with his Shin Ultraman movie in 2022. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know Shinji Higuchi directed that movie, but Hideaki Anno was still heavily involved as writer and producer, and had a lot of creative control over the movie, to the point where you could make the argument that the movie was ghost directed by Anno; plus it has “Shin” in the title, and Anno was the one who started that whole “Shin” nonsense with Shin Godzilla.
If they did ever make an American Gamera movie 🇺🇸, I’m not sure who I’d want to direct it, but I do sort of have in mind which studio I want to buy the rights to Gamera, and produce the movie. Definitely not Disney, they’d just ruin it and make it to kiddie, and like all of their bland stuff like the MCU or their Star Wars content. Definitely not Warner Bros. because they’re a total hot mess, and plus they already have Godzilla and the MonsterVerse.
Wouldn’t be much of a competition if they have Godzilla and Gamera under the same umbrella ☂️, and I don’t really want Gamera in the MonsterVerse; it’s already big enough, and I think Gamera deserves to have his own cinematic universe rather than piggybacking off of Godzilla’s. And Paramount’s got enough on their plate with Transformers, G.I. Joe, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 🐢, Mission: Impossible, and Star Trek, I don’t think I would want to add a kaiju property to that. Plus, I don’t think Gamera fits in aesthetically with Paramount, I just don’t see it.
So, for me, it’s gotta either be Universal or Sony. Universal seems like a decent enough home for a Gamera movie, they aren’t as egregious or obnoxious as Disney or Warner Bros., except for how much they push the Fast and the Furious franchise; but, considering that franchise continues to rake in billions of dollars 💵, it’s kind of hard to blame them. And if Gamera ended up going to Sony, then it would kind of be a full circle moment since that was where Godzilla was originally. Plus, they already kind of have a relationship with Kadokawa, the company that owns Gamera because of those CG 3D animated Resident Evil movies they make under their Stage 6 label. So, they wouldn’t have to do too much to set things up with Gamera.
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Note (Saturday August 19, 2023):
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Something I forgot to mention in my previous note from yesterday is that this movie, Godzilla (1998) features a couple of actors who would go on to be in Michael Bay’s Transformers movies. Those actors are Kevin Dunn and Glenn Morshower. Kevin Dunn played Colonel Hicks in this movie, the main guy leading the military operations against Godzilla. He returned to voice Hicks in the animated series, who for some reason was demoted to Major, despite him ultimately succeeding in killing the first Godzilla, and still being a relatively respected military commander; the Godzilla in the animated series is the second Godzilla in that continuity, the son of the first one. And while Hicks’s reputation is destroyed when he decides to protect Godzilla Jr. at Nick Tatopoulos’s request, he was already demoted to Major before Godzilla Jr. even hatched from the egg.
Kevin Dunn then played Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf’s character)’s dad, Ron Witwicky in the first three Transformers films. He didn’t return in the fourth or fifth movie because the Witwicky family’s role in the series had ended once they shifted the focus onto Cade Yeager (Mark Wahlberg’s character). The only reference we get to the Witwickys in the movies after Transformers: Dark of the Moon is in Transformers: The Last Knight, when the Order of the Witwiccans is introduced, and it’s explained that Sam Witwicky and his great, great grandfather, Archibald Witwicky were apart of the order…somehow.
When exactly did either of them become apart of the order is never explained. But, it doesn’t really matter anyway, since Sam is already dead by the time the events of Transformers: The Last Knight take place; fans speculate that he died in-between the events of Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Transformers: Age of Extinction, likely at the hands of Cemetery Wind. All that’s left of him is that goofy photo of him with bedhead that he used as his eBay profile pic, and Anthony Hopkins’s character, Sir Edmond Burton keeps a portrait of in his mansion; of all the pictures of Sam that Sir Edmond Burton could’ve used, he used his goofy eBay profile picture.
Glenn Morshower played Kyle Terrington in this movie. He’s the US State Department guy 🇺🇸 who picks up Nick Tatopoulos (Matthew Broderick’s character) from Chornobyl, Ukraine 🇺🇦, and takes him to Panama 🇵🇦 to meet Colonel Hicks. In the Michael Bay Transformers movies, Glenn Morshower played a US Army general 🇺🇸 named General Morshower; yeah, they really didn’t put much effort into his name, and just gave his character his real name.
He was in the first three Transformers movies, where his role had evolved from just being a regular Army general stationed at an ill-fated military base in Qatar 🇶🇦 (and was presumed dead after Blackout’s attack on that base), to being the top leader of NEST, or Non-biological Extraterrestrial Species Treaty, a human/Autobot military alliance created to defend the Earth 🌎 from the Decepticons after the events of the first Transformers movie in 2007; which then expanded to serving American foreign policy interests 🇺🇸 such attacking Iran 🇮🇷’s nuclear facilities ☢️ in order to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons ☢️ in Dark of the Moon 😅.
Yes, NEST did attack Iran 🇮🇷 in Dark of the Moon. It was clandestine operation which NEST denied having any involvement in after it caused an international incident; they said the Autobots acted alone, but that the Director of National Intelligence, Charlotte Mearing (Frances McDormand’s character) saw through NEST’s lies and knew that they ordered the attack. Of course, the reason why the Autobots agreed to get involved in human conflicts, was after the events of Revenge of the Fallen, there weren’t any Decepticons left to fight; they were either killed, or they fled Earth 🌎 back to the Nemesis ship on one of Saturn 🪐’s moons (it’s never specified which moon it was located on), or they went into deep hiding on Earth 🌎.
So they decided to “help solve human conflicts,” and willingly became a tool for the US government 🇺🇸 to fight America 🇺🇸’s enemies aboard such as Iran 🇮🇷. The Autobots’ reasoning or rationale being that they would be protecting the humans from destroying themselves, when in reality all they’re really doing is becoming lapdogs of the US government 🇺🇸 to do their bidding just like Superman did in The Dark Knight Returns comic.
Although it does seem in the film that the US government 🇺🇸 itself had very little to do these operations, and NEST was kind of acting alone without any oversight from the US 🇺🇸 or any other government (something that would end up happening to their replacement, Cemetery Wind), which is why the DNI was so upset at them for launching an attack on Iran 🇮🇷. They did it without any authorization. It would sort of be like if NATO the organization decided to launch attacks or covert operations into countries like Iran 🇮🇷, North Korea 🇰🇵, Myanmar 🇲🇲, Cuba 🇨🇺, Eritrea 🇪🇷, and even China 🇨🇳 and Russia 🇷🇺 against the wishes of the governments of the member states, especially those of the US 🇺🇸, the UK 🇬🇧, France 🇫🇷, and Germany 🇩🇪; that’s basically what NEST was, it was basically NATO but with giant alien robots.
Anyway, General Morshower was absent in Transformers: Age of Extinction, and then he came back in Transformers: The Last Knight, which was his final appearance in the series. In that movie, he was the leader of the TRF, or Transformers Reaction Force, an anti-Transformer military unit or military alliance under the direct control of the US military 🇺🇸 (and other militaries around the world like the UK military 🇬🇧), that was created to replace Cemetery Wind after the events of Age of Extinction.
Cemetery Wind, for those that don’t know or remember, was a CIA Black Ops unit that was created to eliminate the last remaining Decepticons on Earth 🌎 after NEST was disbanded after the events in Dark of the Moon. But, it went rogue under Harold Attinger (Kelsey Grammer’s character), and wiped out the Autobots left on Earth 🌎 instead; I don’t even think they actually killed any Decepticons, we never see them go after any Decepticons, just Autobots. Despite this though, the TRF targets both the Decepticons and the Autobots, so what exactly was the problem with Cemetery Wind? The TRF is doing exactly what they did, only they’re doing under the auspices of the military instead of the CIA.
The only thing I think of for why Cemetery Wind might’ve disbanded is that Harold Attinger had some shady dealings with a tech company, KSI, and they basically supplied them with the remains of the dead Autobots they killed, and then KSI smelted them down, and used them to harness the metal that they’re made of, which they patented as “Transformium,” and then used it to make their own Transformers which I like to call the “KSI Bots.” And then, Attinger had formed a secret pact or alliance with a neutral Transformer bounty hunter named Lockdown, who helped Cemetery Wind kill Autobots, something that of course went against the official policy of both the CIA, and the US government 🇺🇸 as a whole.
In addition to employing the help of a Transformer bounty hunter, Attinger made a deal with this bounty hunter to hand over Optimus Prime alive in exchange for a special explosive device 💥 called a “Seed,” which turns anything in its blast radius into Transformium. Then, Attinger would hand over the Seed that Lockdown gave him to KSI, who would then detonate it in a desolate and unpopulated area (like a desert) to avoid human causalities and collateral damage and make more Transformium to make more KSI Bots. And then, in addition to giving KSI the Seed, Attinger would also give them a very lucrative contract 🤑 to develop more of these KSI Bots for the US military 🇺🇸 and also probably the CIA itself. So, you obviously have conflicts of interest, illegal activity, and corruption at the highest level of the Cemetery Wind leadership.
So, the US government 🇺🇸 backs away, and then dissolves the unit, in favor of creating the TRF with more Congressional and Executive oversight (hopefully). Or maybe it was that the Pentagon wanted to have more of a say in how the US 🇺🇸 dealt with Transformers from then on out, and felt excluded when the CIA was chosen as the sole authority standing against Transformer activity on Earth 🌎. So, after the failure and collapse of Cemetery Wind following Attinger’s death, the President and the Congress decided to back the military’s efforts to take down the Transformers instead. They rejected the CIA, and gave all Transformer hunting duties over to military, overseeing the creation of the TRF, along with several other nations’ militaries.
Yes, the TRF is an intergovernmental organization, and it does operate internationally in multiple countries, as opposed to only operating stateside like the Cemetery Wind did; except for when they went to China 🇨🇳 to accompany KSI, and then fought Cade Yeager and the Autobots in Hong Kong 🇭🇰 while the KSI Bots—led by Galvatron—ran amok in the city. How Cemetery Wind’s activity in China 🇨🇳 and Hong Kong 🇭🇰 didn’t spark an international incident, and cause a major scandal for the US 🇺🇸 is beyond me. That’s why the TRF chased after Cade Yeager in London, the UK 🇬🇧 is one of the countries that they operate in, and I believe that there are also maybe some British troops 🇬🇧 within the TRF’s ranks; I mean, they do have a headquarters in London, so I would surprised if they also had British troops 🇬🇧.
The only country that the TRF isn’t allowed to operate in is Cuba 🇨🇺 because Cuba 🇨🇺 has a pro-Transformer policy, and the Cuban government 🇨🇺 doesn’t like the TRF because it’s an American-led organization 🇺🇸 (or military alliance, I’m not exactly sure what the TRF can be classified as), and the Cuban government 🇨🇺 of course hates America 🇺🇸. So, yeah, that’s another connection between Godzilla (1998) and the Transformers film franchise.
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Note (Tuesday August 22, 2023):
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I forgot to mention that in addition to being directed and produced by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin each respectively, Godzilla (1998) was also written by the both of them. It’s a pretty important detail, that bares mentioning that I forgot to include in the main description, and couldn’t find a place for it anywhere else. Basically, Emmerich and Devlin wrote the script together, and are thus the only credited screenwriters on the film, and they wrote the story and share credit with both Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio.
Even though, of course, none of the story elements from Elliot and Rossio’s script were used in the final product. But, they still received credit for their work on the film, even if none of it ended up being used. This is indicated by the fact that in the credits, it says “Story by Ted Elliot & Terry Rossio and Roland Emmerich & Dean Devlin.” If it says the word “and” instead of the symbol &, that means they didn’t work together, but it does say the symbol & instead of the word “and,” that mean they did work together.
So, just a little did bit for you for when you look at film credits in the future. Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio and Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin had worked completely independently from each other, and wrote their own stories for the film, and Elliot and Rossio’s story was tossed out in favor of Emmerich and Devlin’s. But, Elliot and Rossio still received credit for their work on the film; I’m surprised that they still received and accepted credit on the movie despite none of their work being used.
Now, of course, the reason why Emmerich and Devlin didn’t just use Elliot and Rossio’s story and script is that they wanted to have full control and ownership over the project. They didn’t want to just come in, and film somebody’s else script, and continue somebody else’s work. They wanted to do their own thing, and start completely fresh from the ground up, with their own crew that they’ve worked with on all of their previous movies. That’s why they didn’t use Stan Winston’s design, and had Patrick Tatopoulos come up with a new design. They had worked with Patrick Tatopoulos on both Stargate and Independence Day, and thus had a prior relationship and rapport with him, something that they didn’t have with Stan Winston. Their vision, and what they wanted to do with this movie was completely at odds with what previous crew was doing.
And look, Emmerich and Devlin are not the only filmmakers who have done this or do this. Every director, writer, and producer that comes into a project already in development throws out whatever the previous guys were doing, in favor of starting completely from scratch and doing their own thing. Most filmmakers don’t just like finishing the work of somebody else because they feel it isn’t truly theirs, and they just feel like a hired gun or fix-it man. They just want to do their own work so that the final product is fully their own, and not the vision of somebody else. In addition to this, most filmmakers like working with their own crews.
They like working with the same group of people that they worked with in the past on other projects because they have a prior working relationship with those people, they have a rapport, a synergy, and an understanding that they simply don’t have another crew. These people know what the director and/or producer want, and are willing to do anything to make it happen to the best of their ability. You can get that with a completely new crew that you’ve never worked with before, and was working with someone else.
Loyalty is everything in the film business, especially the on-the-ground production level stuff, and directors and producers like working with people who are loyalty to them, and been loyal to them for years. If they just came onto a project with a completely different crew than the one they were used to, they might not feel the same sense of loyalty from those people, and they might feel that they might be more loyal the guy or gal they replaced.
That’s why on the 2005 King Kong remake, Peter Jackson chose to work with the same exact people that worked with him on the Lord of the Rings trilogy, or why Zack Snyder chose to work with nearly the same exact people who worked with him on 300 when he came on to direct Watchmen (2009), a movie that had been in development hell for about two decades, and had a revolving door of writers, directors, and producers. It’s also the same reason why Michael Bay worked with the same people who had worked with him for years on all of his previous movies when he directed those Transformers movies.
To use another example from Peter Jackson, when Guillermo del Toro’s Hobbit movies fell through, and Peter Jackson took over, instead of working with the same people that del Toro was working with, Jackson brought in his own people to make the Hobbit movies; which went from just being two movies under del Toro to being three movies under Jackson. The list really goes on, with many other directors, writers, and producers who came onto projects that were already in development by the time they came on.
It’s not even just the big name directors that everyone knows about and knows by name, it’s also the “no-name” directors that hardly anyone knows that well or knows by name. Like, for example, The Meg 🦈 was a project that had been in development hell for years, and changed hands many times, going from studio-to-studio, director-to-director, writer-to-writer, and producer-to-producer. It just had been passed around all over Hollywood until it finally got made by Warner Bros., Di Bonaventura Pictures, Maeday Productions, Apelles Entertainment, Flagship Entertainment, and Gravity Pictures; about two or three of those are Chinese companies 🇨🇳, since the movie ended up being an American-Chinese co-production 🇺🇸🇨🇳.
And in case you’re wondering, yes, Di Bonaventura Pictures is Lorenzo di Bonaventura’s production company. The very same Lorenzo di Bonaventura who’s produced all of the live action Transformers movies, and has the been the cause of much frustration in the Transformers fan community 😤 for his refusal to call the two latest Transformers movies, Bumblebee 🐝 and Transformers: Rise of the Beasts reboots, even though they clearly are, and his insistence that they’re prequels to the Michael Bay movies.
Anyway, the director of The Meg 🦈, Jon Turteltaub completely threw out any and all work done on the project by the other directors that were attached to the project at some point, like Guillermo del Toro, Jan de Bont, and Eli Roth, who was the director who Turteltaub had replaced. Roth was going to be the director of The Meg 🦈, but left the project due to “creative differences”; probably because he probably wanted to make it R rated horror film (and a hard R horror film at that) just like his usual work 🙄, while the studio wanted to make it a PG-13 action film with wide audience appeal.
So, they picked Turteltaub to take his place. Slight correction: Guillermo del Toro and Jan de Bont were both attached to the project at the same time, with del Toro serving as producer, de Bont serving as director, and some guy named Shane Salerno serving as writer. But, either way, Turteltaub didn’t use any of the work that any of those guys had done (if they did any at all), and instead, did his own thing with a new set of writers, Dean Georgaris, Jon Hoeber, and Erich Hoeber. BTW, in case you’re wondering, no, Jon Turteltaub did not return to direct Meg 2: The Trench 🦈, he was replaced with another director named Ben Wheatley.
Oh, and Jon Turteltaub was also one of the directors considered to replace Michael Bay as a director of Transformers 4 (what eventually became Transformers: Age of Extinction). Jason Statham was also rumored to star in the movie before ultimately Michael Bay decided to come back one last time, and he decided to cast Marky Mark in the lead role. I guess, Turteltaub decided to cast Statham in the lead role of The Meg 🦈 after Transformers 4 fell through, and Michael Bay came back to direct it and cast Mark Wahlberg.
Although, considering how Transformers: Age of Extinction and Transformers: The Last Knight both turned out, perhaps Jason Statham would’ve been a better choice for the lead than Mark Wahlberg. Probably wouldn’t have made those movies better, but Statham would’ve been a way more believable badass tough guy than Marky Mark was; certainly the whole knight thing would’ve made more sense with Statham since he’s a Brit 🇬🇧. But, besides that, I would actually like to see Jason Statham in a Michael Bay movie; maybe not a Transformers movie (that ship has sailed), but an original action movie directed by Michael Bay that isn’t apart of an already established franchise. I would be very curious what a Michael Bay directed Statham would be like, what he would bring to the table. Especially, seeing how Statham was when he was directed by Neveldine/Taylor in the two Crank movies.
But, going back to Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, I would like to point out how much of a close and tightly-nit duo these two were in the 90s. These two had worked every movie together up until that point, starting all the back on Universal Soldier. These two were true partners in every sense of the word, and they seemed pretty inseparable at the time. So, it really wasn’t any surprise that they ended working together again on Godzilla (1998), especially after Independence Day was such a massive success. The last movie they worked together on was The Patriot 🇺🇸, and they ended up parting ways afterwards.
Then, they reunited years later to finally make a sequel to their biggest hit, Independence Day in the form of Independence Day: Resurgence. They even planned on making a third movie in case the second movie was a hit; which they were fully convinced that it would be. Of course, Independence Day: Resurgence was not a hit, in fact, it was the complete opposite of a hit. It underperformed badly, only grossing $389.7 million 💵 against a $165 million budget 💵 😞. For all the China pandering 🇨🇳 in the movie, not even China 🇨🇳 was able to save Resurgence’s box office. This completely dashed their plans of making an Independence Day 3, and making a Stargate 2, because they also wanted to make a Stargate sequel as well, and the two parted ways again.
Dean Devlin made his directorial debut the following year, with the sci-fi disaster movie, Geostorm. The movie ended up performing even worse than Independence Day: Resurgence, only making $221.6 million 💵 against a $120 million-$130 million budget 💵 😬. And Roland Emmerich hasn’t escaped from the box office hole either, as the two movies he made after Independence Day: Resurgence, Midway and Moonfall 🌕 were both box office bombs 💣.
Midway only grossed $127.4 million 💵 against a $100 million budget 💵, and Moonfall 🌕 did even worse, grossing only $67.3 million 💵 against a $138 million-$146 million budget 💵 😬. Moonfall 🌕 had a bunch of Chinese production companies and investors 🇨🇳 involved, and had some China pandering 🇨🇳 as well though not to the same degree as Independence Day: Resurgence. And in the end, it all for nothing since China 🇨🇳 did not save that movie’s box office. Needless to say, these two are no longer at the heights of their careers. Godzilla (1998) truly was the last movie they made together when they were at the peak of their powers.
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