New Fan Editing Project: Godzilla (1998)
Yep, I’m at it again with fan editing!
I recently completed my third fan edit, an edit of The Relic (1997) (if you’re interested in checking it out, just send me a message), and started thinking about what I could work on next. I considered returning back to my Godzilla vs. Space Godzilla fan edit, but that got me thinking instead about Godzilla (1998).
G’98 is a movie with issues.
I’ve had a bit of a roller-coaster relationship with G’98. I saw the movie in theaters when I was 12, but unlike most I’d actually already seen EVERY Godzilla movie (including the then-recent and not yet released in America Heisei movies, which my parents had bought me imported fansubbed bootlegs of) and walked of the theater having thoroughly enjoyed it. It wasn’t until I read the next issue of G-Fan and saw that every other Godzilla fan in the world had hated it that I suddenly switched gears (so fast my parents were confused) and decided I hated it too. It wasn’t until five years later that I revisited it and my opinion softened, deciding I didn’t hate it after all but just didn’t care much for it. The last time I revisited it - now almost a decade ago - I was struck by how boring a movie it is, and that that’s its greatest sin. Not Godzilla’s radical redesign, not Godzilla’s personality - frankly, nothing to do with Godzilla himself - but the story of the movie is just DULL.
Lots has been written about how much people dislike Maria Pitillo’s character and performance, but that’s just a symptom of the real issue: the movie WANTS to be a Romantic Comedy. From the start of the film until about 30 to 35 minutes in, the movie is deceptively...fine. More than one person has told me (and it’s happened to me too) that upon revisiting the first Act is actually quite decent and lulls you into thinking maybe you’ve been too hard on it. Then the second Act starts and the film decides it’s going to be a bad Romantic Comedy from now on, often forgetting about Godzilla for LOOONG stretches. Which maybe could be tolerable if Matthew Broderick and Maria Pitillo had chemistry, but they really don’t. What’s worse, neither character really DOES anything - all of the actual decisions in the movie and actual agency rest with the two main supporting characters played by Hank Azaria and Jean Reno. I’ve felt ever since that the movie would’ve been significantly stronger and more watchable had those two been the leads, and the Broderick/Pitillo story reduced to a subplot.
Part of why I hadn’t attempted this before was because, well, I didn’t think there was enough to work with. The movie’s only an 1h 50m, I kept telling myself, and if I made all the alterations I had in mind I’d be left with, what? An hour? There just wasn’t enough there. Except, I’M A MORON. It was while thinking about it again earlier this week that I actually stopped to check what the runtime is, and my jaw dropped:
Godzilla (1998) is 2h 18m long!!
That’s WAAAY too long, and means there’s over 40 MINUTES I could theoretically cut and still be an acceptable feature length (around 1h 30m)!
So that’s what I’m doing.
Cut back on scenes with Matthew Broderick, Maria Pitillo, and their storylines to reduce them to supporting characters.
Rearrange scenes to improve pacing and create a greater focus on Godzilla, Hank Azaria, and Jean Reno.
If possible, radically reorganize the second half of the film to eliminate the Baby Godzillas storyline which always felt tacked on, derivative of Jurassic Park, and there to pad out the film.
Alter the ending to make Godzilla’s death more ambiguous, or maybe even change it so he lives (had the idea of ending with his eyes reopening, then cutting to black with the sounds of his roar and people screaming).
Examine the feasibility of changing the music choices, as I felt the musical tone is too...whimsical?
I was planning to work on this today but, alas, some stuff has gotten in the way. Still, I’m hoping to give this a try this coming week and see what I can do with the movie.
