The thing about Godzilla 1998, at least for me, is that if they had called it anything else...literally anything else. Reptilasaurus, Dino Invasion, Jurassic City....ANYTHING, and if they had, I would have accepted it as a cheesy disaster/creature flick that was common in the 90s, like Anaconda.
But, the fact that it was called Godzilla raised certain expectations from lifelong fans like me, and that was only going to be met with massive disappointment.
Despite all that, I will say that, at the very least, good things came out of the movie being released, and here's muh list of them!
1) We got the animated series which is of this statement, my favorite animated Godzilla (We shall see if Singular Point changes that). What the 98 film lacked, this show had in spades. It still had to work, for the most part, within the framework of the 98 film, but it definitely felt more in line with classic Godzilla, borrowing elements from the films and even the old Hanna Barbara series.
2) The 90s Heisei films from Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah to Godzilla Vs. Destroyah FINALLY got stateside releases. I was finally able to watch this huge part of Godzilla's history and complete the second series, and I believe it was the 98 film that got the ball rolling on getting those released.
3) Its a small thing, but I'm going to count it. Edy's Ice Cream released a chocolate swirl Godzilla themed ice cream that had Godzilla shaped chocolate chips in it and it was DELICIOUS. Seriously, it ruled. Its kind of like how Batman and Robin was a bag of shit, but the Pop Tarts used to promote the film? Fucking awesome. I'll take the Ws where I can get them.
4) I mean this one only happened because the 98 film sucked, but because it sucked, Toho felt compelled to make more Godzilla movies to make up for it, giving us a whole new string of films with the Millennium Series, and at the very least, we got a cool new version of Mechagodzilla with Kiryu and GMK is a top ten entry at least, and most of the films are, at the very least, fun. Its hard to stay mad at one movie, when its disappointment led to us getting 6 new ones.
5) And this is probably the most important, but for all its faults, the 98 film did create new fans. Some kids grow up with that movie and that was their gateway into the larger world of Godzilla, and for that, I can't fault. I'm sure some of my lesser favorite Godzilla films like Godzilla's Revenge and Godzilla Vs. Megalon created fans too, so who am I to fault that?
