Reboot? Remake? Reimagining? What are we calling these and how do we make them stop? Like the lumbering bohemoth it features, there’s a Godzilla reboot on the horizon, and a recent marketing press release hints that the movie might feature more than one big bad lizard.
The press release for Legendary Pictures reboot of Godzilla runs as follows:
Featuring spectacular creatures, thrilling action, epic battles and a legendary monster, Godzilla provides the backbone for a monstrous merchandise offering for fans of all ages and enables compelling cross-category opportunities across mass and specialty retailers.
Not much to go on, but this is a marketing release, not a ‘hey, everyone get excited about this movie’ one. Nevertheless, the phrase ‘spectacular creatures’ is what we’re going off of here. Does this mean that the old nuclear monster is going to bring along some of his friends, like Mothra or Ghidorah, Godzilla’s greatest rival? What about Mechagodzilla? Or are we going to get a brand new monstrosity to entertain us?
We must remember that this is not the first Godzilla reboot. Roland Emmerich tried his hand at it all the way back in 1998, in a film that featured little baby Godzillas and Matthew Broderick. Can we handle another Godzilla? Is the world ready for it?
My answer is a resounding no, but no one listens to me. I’m not entirely certain how anyone is going to make Godzilla relevant to today, what with the monster’s origins coming out of the post-war Japanese experience with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Unless we’re going to have Godzilla created out of a BP oil spill, I don’t see how this is going to relevant. Although that would be an interesting idea, it’s already been hinted that the film will go back to its Japanese roots.
Godzilla has been shooting for several months now, so we can expect some proper images of the monster before long, and maybe some of the other nasties will make an appearance too. Just as long as it’s better than the last reboot.
