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Godzilla Fans Breathe Fire Over New Movie
This is what American Godzilla fans waited five years to see?
That Munch-like scream you hear emanating from the nation's multiplexes is courtesy of die-hard Godzilla loyalists who think Sony's new big-budget, U.S.-made flick is trashing their beloved monster's legacy.
"It's a let down to me," says "scampering field mouse" author Aaron Smith, the online keeper of the unauthorized Godzilla News. "I devoted my whole Website to the new film...It just was a total let down."
Chicago-based G-supporter Ed Godziszewski says he liked the movie okay as a monster movie. But as a Godzilla movie?
"I think it's gonna leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths," says Godziszewski, who once edited the fanzine, Japanese Giants.
John Roberto, organizer of this weekend's G-CON '98, an all-Godzilla, all-the-time Godzilla convention in the Chicago area, says "8 out of 10 people" he has talked to concur: They don't like it, either.
"The first thing [they say] is, 'It's not Godzilla.' The second thing is the story. The third is the acting," Roberto says.
Unlike Smith and Godziszewski, who both bought tickets for Wednesday's opening day, Roberto didn't storm the box office.
He was holding off on seeing the movie until Friday night, when a busload of G-CON attendees, including the two actors who "played" Godzilla in the Japanese series, was to descend en masse upon a local theater and do the group-experience thing.
Roberto said he hoped he'd see a good film. But like other devotees of kaiju eiga (the Japanese term for monster movies), he didn't expect to see a Godzilla film.
Fans left cold by the new Big G, with its Madonna-toned arms and legs, say they accepted that makers Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin were going to tinker with their beloved reptile. They just didn't figure on how much.
No radioactive breath. Not much in the way of back-plate armor. None of that shoot-bullets-at-me-see-if-I-care swagger.
"It's not as noble or majestic as the real Godzilla," says Smith. "It's just an animal. It's just a big, scared animal. Period."
Says Godziszewski, who spent a night on the Los Angeles set as an extra: "It's actually kind of astounding to think [Sony] could have bought this property...to totally ignore [its history]."
A panel discussion on the new movie was on the docket for this weekend's convention. And Roberto expected a charged debate.
"American fans have been waiting since 1993 [when plans for a U.S.-made Godzilla first surfaced] for this to happen," Roberto says.
Japanese studio Toho made 22 rubber-suited Godzilla movies from 1954 to 1995, when the monster was offed in Godzilla Vs. Destroyer.
Aaron Smith, for one, says he doesn't count Sony's Godzilla as No. 23. His opposition is resolute. He's even vowing to make the ultimate fan sacrifice.
Says Smith: "I'm not buying any [of the American-made] toys."
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