Godzilla 2000: Favourite Films Series

Godzilla 2000 (1999): Favourite Films Series 

It’s hard to pick one Godzilla movie as being the best (but not hard to pick the worst, I’m looking at you, 98’s Zilla). Although I do have a lot of respect for the original 1954 black-and-white classic, Godzilla 2000 always stands out as my personal favourite. 

The first Godzilla movie I ever saw was the shitty 1998 American remake directed by Roland Emmerich. As a kid who didn’t know better, I liked it for the action, but not much else. I was a big fan of dinosaurs, so the fact that Zilla (as he’s become known) looked like a more literal cross between a T-rex and a Stegosaurus than his Japanese counterpart didn’t bother me. 

My first-ever glimpse of the King of the Monsters

The video store I always went to only had two Godzilla movies: the American one, and Godzilla 2000, which has one of the coolest covers/posters of all the Godzilla movies. At that time, Godzilla 2000 was the last one to be released in North America theatrically; that’s why it was the only Toho-produced one to be found at my video store. I remember watching it with my dad, and the first thing to pop on screen was an ad for other Godzilla movies, which started abruptly with a clip (from Godzilla 2000, no less) of the camera zooming in on a guy standing on a building and he shouts “GODZILLA!”, then it hard cuts to a shot of Godzilla mid-city destruction. This was the first time I ever saw what the real Godzilla looked like in action. Looking back on it, the shot is not very impressive, but at that very moment as a young child fresh to the idea of the world’s largest movie monster, it scared the hell out of me and I hid behind the couch. 

Even though I knew Godzilla was still just a guy in a suit, he looked considerably more threatening than the cgi iguana-looking version I had seen before—much more like an actual monster than a dinosaur. Many fans consider the suit used in Godzilla 2000 (called MireGoji) to be one of the best designs for the giant monster. I completely agree, and find it funny that the most despised design (the 1998 American version) was followed by one of the greatest, like a flower growing out of a dung pile.  

One of the many problems with the ’98 movie was the lack of monster battles Godzilla fans had come to expect. Of course, having never seen a true Godzilla movie before, I didn’t care. In fact, I likely enjoyed the ’98 Godzilla as much as I did because it was more like Godzilla mixed with Jurassic Park than a traditional, true Godzilla movie. 

"I've never seen Godzilla this close before."

Godzilla 2000 manages to point out some of the flaws with the American film, doing so right from the opening scene. It begins with the main characters (members of the Godzilla Prediction Network, who speak of Godzilla as a force of nature) encountering Big G at the end of a tunnel, which has been destroyed, so they meet with him face-to-face. A similar moment occurs in Godzilla ’98, with Matthew Broderick’s character being sniffed then roared at by Zilla at point blank range after Broderick takes a picture of him. Casual movie-goers may have marvelled at the giant iguana getting so close to Ferris Beuller—I mean Mr. Broderick—but true fans went, “wait, what?” In Godzilla 2000, one of the characters takes a picture of Godzilla when he’s up close. What does Godzilla do? Let out an earth-shattering roar and smash his hand down at them, trying to kill them. Then he goes and stomps on a city. That’s what the real Godzilla does when you mess with him. 

Godzilla 2000 was faithful to the roots of the character, and is a traditional Godzilla movie in many respects, including having him fight a rival monster. By the end of the movie when I first saw it, I was cheering for Godzilla to annihilate the villain Orga, an equally ferocious giant, but even more malicious alien creature that attempts to take on the form of Godzilla, and then consume him to become a clone. I thought for sure Godzilla was going to die when Orga began eating him at the end. Then I saw his spikes light up, and my face lit up along with them, as I realized Godzilla had tricked Orga, and he destroys him from the inside out with his atomic breath, literally blowing Orga away. 

Godzilla vs. Orga

After that, I wanted to see more Godzilla adventures, but as a kid growing up when VHS was going extinct and DVD was taking over, it was difficult to find any Godzilla movies beyond the American one and Godzilla 1985—the other non-American Godzilla to be released in North American theaters. I rented Godzilla 1985 on VHS once, but never got to see the end, because the video cassette was so old and worn out, the VCR literally ate the tape, like some kind of ravenous monster. I asked for the 1998 American version for Christmas but ended up getting Godzilla: King of the Monsters! which was the American re-edit of the original 1954 Japanese film. I actually really liked it, even though all my friends thought it was silly and boring. 

For a Godzilla movie, there isn’t that much that’s silly about Godzilla 2000. The dubbing is bad, but it’s purposefully bad, to homage the movies of the 60’s and 70’s, and the replacement dialogue is pretty comical, which offers a nice contrast to the darker monster scenes. It feels like a mix of every Godzilla movie—some campy scenes, some jaw-dropping scenes, some effects that hold up really well, some that don’t hold up at all, plus all the elements pulled from all the greatest movies and injected in such a way that doesn’t make it feel like a re-hash.

This is one of those rare cases where the American version is actually better than the Japanese cut, which only runs 8 minutes longer. The plot unravels at a great pace, the monster Godzilla fights is one of his more original and harrowing enemies, and as mentioned before, Godzilla himself has never looked cooler. What I like most is Toho made the film as a giant middle finger to Hollywood, saying “Look, you dickheads don’t know how to make a Godzilla movie, now THIS is how you do it!” (I’m paraphrasing, of course). It’s still baffling to think Godzilla 2000 was shot and released within a year of the 1998 American rendition, and it came out as great as it did. 

The movie didn’t impress everybody; it definitely has flaws. The plot isn’t anything special, nor is the music, and some characters verge on annoying at times. It got mixed reviews from critics upon its North American release, but so have most Godzilla movies. As of writing this, I have seen almost all of the Godzilla films ever made more than once, including the new American reboot that came out in May of 2014. If I had only one chance left to watch a Godzilla movie and could only pick one, there’s no question about which one I would pick. Of all 28 original Japanese titles, Godzilla 2000 will always be the most special to me. 

For more on Godzilla 2000 and all the other movies starring the raging reptile, check out C.C.C. lists #23, #25, and #26, as well as Brief History of Cinema #2.