Godzilla (1998)
Hey, Do You Remember...?
Christopher Schrader
4.8 • 676 Ratings
🗓️ 20 March 2020
⏱️ 125 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Back in 1998, hearing that the team responsible for Independence Day was now mounting a big budget American remake of Godzilla was actually pretty exciting. There was a great teaser trailer, a chart-topping soundtrack album, and a genuine curiosity about this top secret new creature design they were keeping under wraps.
And then we saw it.
To say Godzilla was a disappointment would be a massive understatement. Fans quickly dubbed this new iteration G.I.N.O. (Godzilla In Name Only) and poor word of mouth contributed to a much lower than expected box office take.
All these years later, we had to find out if it was as bad as we remembered and whether or not its reputation was deserved. We also track the evolution of this project and how it transformed from a more faithful adaptation of the Japanese films into... this.
Topics include: why it took so long for an American version to get the green light, the original creative team that was involved and how their version of the movie fell apart, the reason Godzilla's rights holders signed off on such a revisionist take on the material, how an accelerated production schedule left them no time to revise their script or hold test screenings, the traps most Godzilla movies tend to fall into, and much more!
Patreon / iTunes / Stitcher / RSS / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, do you remember Godzilla? |
| 0:06.4 | Hello and welcome to Hey Do You Remember, a show where we reminisce about a movie or TV series we grew up with, then take off the rose-tinted glasses to see how it holds up. |
| 0:32.1 | I'm Chris. |
| 0:32.8 | I'm Donna. |
| 0:33.5 | And I'm Carlos. |
| 0:34.1 | And today we're revisiting Godzilla. |
| 0:53.1 | Yeah. and I'm Carlos. And today we're revisiting Godzilla. It's the longest-running film franchise in history. Since 1954, there have been 36 Godzilla movies, |
| 1:01.4 | 32 of which were produced by Toho Studios in Japan. The title character is one of their most |
| 1:07.1 | recognizable pop culture exports. Even if you've never seen any of the films, |
| 1:11.4 | you know the name, what he looks like, and the distinctive sound of that roar. Now, given Hollywood's |
| 1:17.3 | fixation with known IP, you might think that a big budget American remake was a no-brainer. But that |
| 1:22.9 | wasn't really the case. Although Toho had always been fiercely protective of the property, |
| 1:28.8 | even after they warmed up to the idea of licensing out this brand, it still took over a decade to find a studio here in the |
| 1:34.1 | states that was interested in the project. The biggest obstacle, and something that would |
| 1:39.0 | remain a point of conflict throughout the entire development cycle, was Hollywood's belief that this |
| 1:43.9 | was all too |
| 1:44.6 | hokey and campy. A man in a rubber suit stomping his way through a miniature city certainly has |
| 1:49.9 | its charms, but the notion of translating that into a major motion picture that Western audiences |
| 1:54.7 | were supposed to take seriously just wasn't something they could fully wrap their heads around. |
| 1:59.6 | So there's a whole lot of information I'm condensing here, but the Cliff's Notes version is that TriStar Pictures wound up |
| 2:05.6 | being the only studio willing to roll the dice on this. And although negotiations with Toho |
| 2:10.4 | were extensive and exhausting, Godzilla's rights holders were actually really excited about the |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Christopher Schrader, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Christopher Schrader and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.