Godzilla 2000 (1999)

Godzilla saves Tokyo from a flying saucer that transforms into the beast Orga.

Director:

Takao Okawara

Writers:

Hiroshi Kashiwabara, Wataru Mimura

Stars:

Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe, Naomi Nishida

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Takehiro Murata	...	Prof. Yuji Shinoda
Hiroshi Abe	...	Mitsuo Katagiri
Naomi Nishida	...	Yuki Ichinose
Mayu Suzuki	...	Io Shinoda
Shirô Sano	...	Prof. Shiro Miyasaka
Takeshi Ôbayashi
Shirô Namiki
Sakae Kimura
Bengaru
Ken'ichi Nagira
Ken'ichi Ishii
Yoshimasa Kondô
Kôichi Ueda	...	Military Man
Yoshiyuki Omori
Masahiko Nishimura

Storyline

Godzilla returns in a brand-new movie that ignores all preceding movies except for the original with a brand new look and a powered up atomic ray. This time he battles a mysterious UFO that later transforms into a mysterious kaiju dubbed Orga. They meet up for the final showdown in the city of Shinjuku.

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Plot Keywords:

godzilla | explosion | alien | rooftop | military | 

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Taglines:

[Japanese Version] Witness! The New Godzilla Century!

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Drama | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG for monster violence and mild language

Details

Official Sites:

Toho Co.

Country:

Japan

Language:

Japanese

Release Date:

18 August 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Godzilla 2000

Filming Locations:

Japan

Box Office

Budget:

$13,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$4,407,720, 20 August 2000, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$10,037,390, 10 December 2000

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$24,522,891

Company Credits

Production Co:

Toho Pictures

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital SDDS (8 channels)

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The tagline of the film is "let's get ready to crumble" a play on the line used in the boxing/WWE/MMA world namely "let's get ready to rumble"

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Goofs

When we see Shinoda inspecting Godzilla's footprints on the beach, Godzilla's heavy tail dragging behind him seems to have not left a trail among the footprints. Even the very first Godzilla movie included a tail trail in between Godzilla's footprints in a similar scene.

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Quotes

Mitsuo Katagiri: Hello Shinoda. It's been a long time.
Yuji Shinoda: Not long enough. I hoped never to see you again.
Mitsuo Katagiri: I know. You and Miyasaka were a fine team. You should have come with him when I established CCI.
Yuji Shinoda: Not in a thousand years! I could never work for a man like you.
Mitsuo Katagiri: Why not? We both have the same goals.
Yuji Shinoda: Boy that's a real laugh. Godzilla needs to be studied. He's a gold mine of knowledge. But you couldn't care less! You just want to kill him before we can fully analyze him.
Mitsuo Katagiri: And in the meantime, he just levels ...
[...]

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Crazy Credits

Over the closing shot of Godzilla blowing up Shinjuku, a green "THE END" is superimposed, with a red question mark that appears over between the two words. (Theatrical US version only)

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Alternate Versions

Scenes deleted from the US version include:

• Some quick shots of a train station in Nemuro during the film's opening.
• After Yuki asks for directions to GPN's office, she goes into a factory-like complex, and spots a sign (with crude version of the GPN logo), with an arrow pointing up a flight of stairs. She enters the office, but since Shinoda was too busy to help her, he points to his daughter Io, who prepares to give Yuki her membership form in the next scene.
• The scene where the UFO rears right-side up (due to its recharging from the rising sun) was trimmed.
• The sequence with Godzilla's raid in Tokaimura was also trimmed. (The scene where Godzilla sets off the Blast Bombs in the lake was noticably cut, as the tremendous watery explosion was suddenly gone in the next shot, which made for a glaring continuity problem).
• In the Japanese version, said sequence ended when Godzilla was beginning to charge his Radioactive Heat Beam, but was heavily bombarded with jets, and Godzilla's aim was abruptly cut short. This was removed in the US version.
• Right after Io talks to her dad on the phone about handing the GPN's MO discs to CCI, she takes out her magnetic "pinbox" (referred to as her "summer homework" in the Japanese version), and slides a drawing of a flower into it (This was the same pinbox Shinoda used to demonstrate the effects of Organizer G-1 on the formless alien life form in the UFO, just before Godzilla rose from Tokyo Bay). This brief scene was cut in the US version.
• During the sequence where the UFO enters Shinjuku, the scene with the astonished taxi driver in a confusion of heavy traffic was longer in the Japanese version (This scene was a parody of a similar scene in Independence Day).
• When Shinoda finishes decoding the information on the Millennian aliens on Yuki's laptop in the soon-to-be-detonated building, he is about to run out with it until he sees the English word "Millennium" on all of the monitors in the room. He reads "Millennium" in English. This scene was completely removed in the US version.
• In the Japanese version, just after the Blast Bombs are detonated in the top section of the Shinjuki media building (with the UFO perched on top), and the UFO was completely unscratched, it transmits a bilingual (Japanese/English) "message" on all media throughout the city, with words (and images of space exploration and military machinery) like "Earth," "Destruction," "Alteration," "Conquest," "Erase," "Suppression," "Dominate," "Terror," "Eternity," "Prosperity," "Revolution" and finally, "Kingdom." This was just before the UFO destroys the rest of the building (with Shinoda inside trying to escape).
• The scene where Shinoda tries to escape the collapsing building through an elevator was fixed in the US version. In the Japanese version, one is led to believe that Shinoda "perished" in the falling rubble (we hear his scream in that same scene).

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Connections

Follows Rodan (1956)

User Reviews

Now this is the way Godzilla is supposed to be made, Tristar!

Considering the critical and financial flop of the US-made Godzilla (1998), I am very surprised that anyone bothered to release this movie stateside. I am also very glad they did, since this shows exactly how to make a G-movie...you use the original Big G himself!

Even though a lot of the effects in this film still involve the "man-in-a-suit-a-saurus" style of monster, they are excellent! There is a lot of fairly good CGI eye candy and the revamped Godzilla suit is truly a sight to behold. The big guy hasn't looked this good since his initial escapade back in 1954.

It's always hard to figure out where the movie exists in the Godzilla canon (there are basically four eras: The first two movies, the movies after that up until the initial series ended in 1975, then the revivial in the eighties that began with Godzilla 1985 and ended with Godzilla Vs. Destroyah, and now this film), but it seems to begin another era of G-films, with no apparent links to any of the other ones, other than the original movie Gojira.

This is basically just a fun movie...full of action and a bit of suspense and a lot of crunch time! Just what a G-Fan wants!