ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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Hey, I left out another significant similarity between The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Godzilla (1999)!

The Beast attacked a freighter and sank it in a fairly early scene.

Godzilla attacked and beached a large fishing vessel in a fairly early scene.

By the way, I found this gorgeous screen shot from the movie. Compare it to the second picture, a publicity photo (an 8X10 of which I've owned since the 1960s), which was taken right from Harryhausen's animation table.





I never realized that the publicity still really doesn't give us the most appealing view of the Beast's beautifully designed head as other shots do!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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Wow, I reread my post above and was surprised by all the similarities between The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and the 1998 version of Godzilla.

Can anyone think of a few more?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[The Spike]

The hype was as big as the monster to start with!

It felt like this take on Godzilla was advertised for 2 years in advance of the actual release, every time (it seemed) I went to the cinema I was awestruck by little teaser trailers, in fact the one of the old guy fishing and hooking Zilla is a personal favourite...SIZE DOES MATTER! Love it I do. Sadly as most of us now know, the film didn't meet fans and critics expectations at all, but was the film done down by the hype and an expectation of a masterpiece for the genre?.

Well it didn't help that is for sure, but taking aside that problem, the film only glimpses at what might have been. It has many great points that seem to have been forgotten, so sadly we are all too aware of the film's failings on the makers behalf. The build up in the film is excellent, the makers mount the tension in steady strokes, doing what all classic monster movie makers do, they have you waiting with gripping expectation of the creature by a series of scenarios and inventive dialogue. The sound is incredible, making it an essential viewing for those who cherish home surround cinema, while some of the shots and destruction of New York are well worth the viewers time.

But then? Well they throw the good work away by turning the film's focus away from the big lizard to a story line that was only fitting for the cartoon version of Godzooki. Thus rendering the film as a poor man's Jurassic Park, which quite frankly doesn't sit well. Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno and Hank Azaria all deserved better scripting, hell we all did!

It's not the evil stinker some would have you believe, it does have its moments of both good and bad, it is, by definition, very much a film split down the middle. 5/10
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The quality of mercy is not strnen.

[Bud Brewster]

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One of the very clever scenes in this movie occurs when the helicopters chase Godzilla through the streets of New York, and the monster suddenly turns around and lowers his head to roar at them.

His powerful breath blows a car on the street up into the air and causes its fuel tank to explode, resulting in a fireball which blast out right in front of the monster's face!

This quick shot on the screen looks as if Godzilla has the fiery "atomic breath" we see in the original films. But that isn't actually the case.

It's just the filmmaker's way of including a brief moment as a tribute to the original movies' ridiculous idea that Godzilla could blast atomic steam from this mouth.

That is actually one of the silliest aspects of this Japanese movie, one which intelligent people should scoff at when the saw it.

And yet, many years ago I had a spirited debate with an old and valued friend — the one shown in the picture below with his wonderful contribution to our "Jason and Argonaut" movie night in the 1980s — a replica of a skeleton from Jason, standing atop a "sheet cookie" he baked for our party!





My friend adamantly insisted that the brief scene I described above proved that Godzilla actually DID have the "flame breath" it possessed in the original Japanese version!

In my attempt to resolve our disagreement, I showed him the scene in slow motion on my DVD which proved that the eruption of the flames was caused by the explosion of the gas tank from the car that Godzilla's powerful breath blew into the air, right in front of the monster's face!

And yet . . . he remained unconvinced.

Oh well.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)