Goofs

(at around 11 mins) When Dr. Niko is standing in his "sample" (i.e., the footprint), Colonel Hicks uses a ladder to climb out of the footprint, but they never descended a ladder to get into the footprint in the first place. A long shot of the scene reveals that all sides of the print are vertical. There is no sloped side that they could have walked down.

The top of the Chrysler Building is knocked off early in the film. When there is a long shot of Madison Square Garden after the air strike, the Chrysler is shown intact.

Colonel Hicks refers to Rodgers as "Captain" at first, and then "Lieutenant" later on in the film.

Although Godzilla's size remains mostly consistent throughout the film (with the apparent size changes being illusions given by camera tricks) there are still a few instances where it does change. A few examples are when Godzilla's eye opens behind a soldier, and one of the shots of its appearance during the first fish bait sequence.

Near the beginning, Godzilla is walking and the cars bounce. Yet later on in the chase sequence he was much closer to them and the cars remained on the ground even when they were underneath him.

Based on the width and depth of the Hudson River, it would be impossible for a Los Angeles Submarine to navigate submerged, let alone make high speed turns.

(at around 2h) If the suspension cables on a suspension bridge did fall down, as they do at the end, the bridge would collapse.

Jet aircraft cannot fly so close behind each other when in a line formation. The engine exhaust from the leading jet would extinguish the jet's engine behind it, having momentarily eaten up all the oxygen in that path.

In the river scene, one of the submarines is destroyed by one of its own torpedoes, after Godzilla passes underneath. For this to happen, the torpedo had to make a 180° turn. Ever since the 1950s, modern torpedoes have a safety mechanism that disables the explosive when a full turn is detected. This is to avoid hitting its own ship or one in the same formation. In fact, submarine crews have an emergency maneuver in case of a "dry run" (the torpedo become armed inside the submarine) consisting in manually rotating the torpedo to prevent an explosion.

(at around 1h 24 mins) The officers aboard one of the submarines wear caps reading "USS Utah SSBN 745". "SSBN" refers to ballistic missile submarines, which are large, heavy and slow, therefore unsuitable for pursuit tasks. A fast attack submarine (SSN) would make more sense.

The cargo ship seen washed up on the shore after Tatopoulos examines the footprint is different to the ship attacked at the start of the film. The ship at the start has a single superstructure at its rear, whereas the washed up ship has front and rear superstructures.

Godzilla is first encountered by a Japanese fishing boat and the one survivor is brought to Tahiti. Then how does the creature end up in NYC? It wouldn't be able to travel through the Panama Canal; and certainly not around Cape Horn as the water would be too cold for a cold-blooded reptile. But Godzilla could travel around Cape of Good Hope, which is considerably warmer than the Cape Horn.

Near the beginning of the movie a reporter says New York has seen more damage than the World Trade Center bombing. But in the next scene the Twin Towers are still standing. The reporter is clearly referring to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing which failed to destroy the towers, not the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Another more obvious reason they would not be talking about September 11, is the fact the film was released a full 3 years before the September 11 attack even happened.

One of the footprints in the beginning is set in a manner that would have required Godzilla to hop on one foot to make it.

(at around 1h 24 mins) After Godzilla jumps in the water, in the first scene when the camera passes by the first submarine, an American flag is clearly visible painted reversed onto its hull. No submarine in the US Navy, or any other navy, have flags painted on them.

(at around 1h 24 mins) When Godzilla jumps into the Hudson River over the West Side Highway, the resulting water splash is by far too small for an object that big.

(at around 14 mins) When Nick is talking to Dr. Elsie Chapman during the jeep ride in Jamaica, it is obvious that the whole scene was filmed on the same short stretch of road; the same characteristically tall, slender tree can be seen behind both actors several times, in both the shots and reverse shots.

When the Hummers start chasing Godzilla after it starts to flee after eating the fish, they drive across the cement as if it was undamaged as opposed to being damaged by the weight of Godzilla's foot as Godzilla started running away.

After the failed initial attack on Godzilla by the helicopters and Godzilla starts chasing them, the pilots seem to have forgotten that they could have climbed up to escape him, rather than remain close to ground level.

Arriving at the search site inside the tent Audrey steals the top-secret videotape from Nico that the military obtained from the French authorities. This is the tape they just received when Nico first landed in Panama. Except during the news broadcast showing the stolen footage there is a helicopter shot that shows Nico standing in the giant footprint, which would have been impossible since that scene takes place after they acquired the tape.

(at around 2 mins) In the opening sequence of nuclear explosions, we hear sounds from the first blasts simultaneously with seeing them, although our view is from some distance away.

When the mayor's helicopter lands on the dock by the river, the main gear touches down first, then the nose wheel gently touches straight down. It makes a screech sound as if the aircraft is landing with horizontal speed, as on a runway.

(at around 1h 10 mins) When Niko is in the taxi and is asking where Philippe is taking him, Niko's lips don't match up to what he's saying. For example when he says "Let me go!", his lips do NOT match what he's saying.

(at around 2h 5 mins) Microphones are visible underneath the actors' wet shirts at the end.

A crewmember is reflected in the side of Philippe's car as he drives off screen.

When Nick and the French guys get in the van and drive off to return to the city, you can see the camera man in the side windows of the van

Godzilla approaches Manhattan from the open ocean, crosses the FDR Expressway, and makes first contact at the Seaport District. However the fish markets and the district sit near the East River and across from Brooklyn. Moreover, Manhattan does not directly sit on the open ocean and is surrounded on almost all sides by relatively narrow bodies of water.

(at around 1 min) In the opening sequence under water swimming iguana are shown at the island of Mururoa. Swimming iguana are only indigenous to the Galapagos islands.

In the Jamaica sequence you see a military jeep transporting Tatopolous with a left side (American) steering column. Jamaica has English roads.

(at around 2h) After Madison Square, characters drive toward the Brooklyn Bridge because it's "the closest suspension bridge" to their location. In fact, they'd have to pass the Williamsburg and Manhattan Bridges - both suspension bridges - to get to the Brooklyn Bridge.

(at around 1h 55 mins) During the final taxi chase sequence, Godzilla runs by a Carl's Jr. billboard. All Carl's Jr. franchises in New York are called Hardee's, revealing the scene was shot in Los Angeles.

Iguanas are herbivores, not carnivores. Therefore, having Godzilla eat and subsequently store up fish for his babies is biologically incorrect.

(at around 1h 24 mins) Aboard the submarine a crewman replies, "Aye-Aye," to an officer's question. In the Navy "Aye-Aye" is only spoken in response to an order.

(at around 20 mins) Elsie suggests that Godzilla's footprints may belong to the dinosaur Allosaurus, and Nick corrects her that Godzilla is much too big to be a dinosaur. A true paleontologists wouldn't have considered this in the first place, as Godzilla's footprints are already larger than most dinosaurs. It's also impossible to determine the genus of a dinosaur from just a footprint, so Elsie's guess couldn't have been any more specific than a "theropod dinosaur" (bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs).

When Nick is speaking to the camera, he says "Each of these amazing reptiles are born pregnant." Grammatically, since he began describing them in the singular, he should have said "Each of these amazing reptiles is born pregnant", although given the stress of the situation, he might be forgiven for misspeaking.

The system operator in Madison Square Garden's control room says, "There's no Ranger game tonight!" No New Yorker would ever make this mistake. Their hockey team is the New York Rangers (plural).