Godzilla Movie Mess ups
Send any of the legions of plot problems, inconsistencies, and illogicalities from the movie, using the form at the bottom of this page. We'll post the most insightful and/or witty ones here. Just for fun, there is a ban on references to the inverse square law; we know that any vertebrate that size would be crushed under its own weight, but that's exactly as far as we're willing to suspend our disbelief.
-----------------------------------------------
First off, where do I get headphones like the ones people had in the movie? You know,
the ones that block out sound so completely that you can't hear a helicopter (in Russia)
or a rampaging giant lizard (in New York) until it's twenty feet away?
-- L. Fitzgerald Sjöberg
The helicopters can't outrun him. So why don't they just fly up? It's not like
Godzilla flies or has a great jump shot.
-- David Neilsen
Okay, the heat-seeking missiles didn't work because Godzilla is cold-blooded. Fine.
Then how did they get a lock in the first place? And why did it not occur to anyone in the
entire Army chain of command that reptiles don't have afterburners?
-- L. Fitzgerald Sjöberg
How do you lose a twenty-story creature? If he goes underground, don't you think he's
gonna leave some big-ass holes for everyone to follow?
--David Neilsen
Didn't it seem a little odd that the baby Godzillas could slip around on a bunch of
gumballs? They probably weighed around 1000 lbs., right? They would have just crushed them
flat. It would be like you or I slipping on a bunch of canned peas.
-- Nerissa Taylor
The Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883, is apparently the most amazing piece of
engineering ever designed by man. Even after Godzilla had taken down half of its
superstructure, the span was able to support his weight without crumbling.
-- Rich Bensen
Godzilla managed to lay a bazillion eggs all over the interior of Madison Square
Garden. How does a 30-stories-tall critter fit inside an arena that's maybe five stories
tall? Did he tunnel up from below and then just stick his ass in there and fire these eggs
all over?
-- Mitchell P. Patrie
So they evacuate New York, it's completely deserted except for Godzilla and the Army,
right? Meanwhile, Godzilla's breathing fire breath, helicopters are crashing, missiles are
exploding...in short, there's a lot of flame going around. I know *I* didn't see the fire
department running around - how come the entire island didn't just burn to the ground?
You're going to tell me that two Exocet missiles (or whatever they were) exploding into
the Chrysler building aren't going to start a fire?
-- Eric Rapp
[ Eumenide Note: Godzilla does not breathe fire breath. What happens is that he uses tornado breath (much lamer) to knock over a few cars which explode Hollywood-style. The tornado breath then blows the flames towards the target. Look closely and you'll see. While it's really not much more plausible than fire breath, it's technically different. But Eric still has a point. Even the rain wouldn't have prevented a few towering infernos. ]
Ace Cameraman is climbing out the window, seconds away from chasing the Big Story. He
gives Blond Bimbo one last chance to follow him, and regain the respect (snort) of the Man
of Her Dreams. She takes the plunge to follow her heart...and then takes the time to
change into a stylish trenchcoat, high-heeled boots and kitchy beret.
-- Erik Draeger
You gotta like the idea of jets travelling at three hundred miles per hour hanging
around a bridge until Godzilla shows up. That must be easy.
-- Daniel Jensen
If Godzilla is cold-blooded, how the hell does he move so damn fast when it's cold and
rainy in New York? Wouldn't that slow him down?
-- Matt Atchity
OK, Here's the deal: Shiva opens his eye and you are born. You are born a twenty-story
tall, pregnant, cold-blooded lizard. You notice that you were born in the warm, balmy
climes of the South Pacific ocean. You then notice to your horror that there are not
nearly enough skyscrapers and heavily peopled areas nearby to even begin to whip up a
half-hearted token rampage. What do you do? Exactly! You make a beeline to the more
natural setting for the king (um, actually QUEEN!) of all monsters, New York City, a mere
12,000 miles away. Clever, aren't you?
-- "Big" Matt G.
Godzilla sure looked svelte for carrying 200+ kids.
-- Max Miller
The "stars" enter the Madison Square Hatching Garden through a Godzilla-sized
hole in the floor that leads to the subway system. Yet after the Godzillettes hatch, the
humans are concerned only about keeping the critters from exiting via the doors! I guess
they figure that NYC subway rats can easily mop up the floor with a bunch of Jurassic
wannabees trying to make their escape in that direction.
-- Mark David
Either our defense budget must have really taken a bath or no one in the government
really cares about New York City because I find it hard to believe that a few measly
helicopters lobbing bullets and a scattered pack of poorly piloted submarines was all we
could spare to combat a gigantic lizard stomping out a city.
-- John B. Jaeger
Godzilla is a giant mole when he needs to elude his pursuers, but somehow he's
completely blocked by the tunnel the heroes get stuck in.
-- Bryon Daly
How can you be less than a half block from an entire stadium blowing up, and not get
hurt?
-- Pat Gallagher
While watching the scene when they pile all the fish in the middle of downtown, my
fiancee whispers into my ear, "Why don't they just poison the fish? Why lure him to
the fish and try to blow him up? Wouldn't a lot of poison work on him?" Granted,
Godzilla ends up not eating the fish but using it for his kinder. That is irrelevant.
Couldn't both the military and the scientists come up with the most risk-free way to take
down the giant beast?
-- Derek Giromini
In the real world, one dozen helicopters flying in close proximity plus one city street
lined with tall buildings plus one thunderstorm equals one large, tangled pile of spare
helicopter parts.
-- Josh Thomson
Why did they persist in calling it a "he" after they found out that
"he" was pregnant?
-- Jay Aldrich
Speaking of destroying Madison Square Garden, only two missiles? You're trying to kill
200 monsters that will grow up able to rip holes through skyscrapers, outrun helicopters,
swim faster than torpedos, and (when fully grown) take more missiles than you can shake a
stick at to kill, and you only use _two_ missiles?
-- John F. Meehan
Want to get away from Godzilla? Forget all of those silly helicopters! Just take a cab!
They obviously go much faster than the choppers and Godzilla, not to mention through New
York's easy-to-navigate streets.
-- Scott McDaniel
In the end when they are setting up for the sequel we all see the surviving egg hatch,
one would figure that the military would make a very thorough sweep of the nest area to
ensure such a thing does not happen
-- James Hartshorn
When the two torpedos sink the sub you might figure the subs that launched them could
send a self destruct command to the torpedos before they hit the Anchorage.
-- James Hartshorn
Why were NY and military officials so worried about the video tape getting to the
press? Clearly, people were now aware of Godzilla's existence. Does the old, dying man
muttering God-zil-a really change anything? Does it really make a difference to people if
they know the name of the monster that's squashing them and knocking down their homes?
-- Mike McLoughlin
Where can I get a car like that Taxi Godzilla tried (and failed!) to eat... I can see
the new GM ads:
The new GMC Gristle: It takes a chewing and keeps on moving!
-- Bryon Daly
The ground only shakes with Godzilla's passing occasionally. When Ferris needs to be
warned, earthquakes all over the place. But when the anchorman's on the phone, it's calm
city.
-- Caroline Bennett
Godzilla is so radioactive that we find out that his footprints, as well as the sole
survivor of the cannery boat attack, are irradiated. And yet, when Godzilla
"disappears" in NYC, nobody thinks to break out a Geiger counter to track
Godzilla down, nor do they think about using one to find the "nest" later in the
film.
-- Matt Stinson
Li'l question for you New Yorkers, do y'all got lots of kids runnin' around with
missing arms and legs due to them elevators that ignore obstructions and jest keep closing
til they've met? And sheez, two harpoon missiles and MSG goes up like it was a gasoline
tank, I shudder to think what would happen if someone smuggled a pipe bomb into a Knicks
game.
-- Joe Roos
Physics aside, I doubt that Godzilla would leave such tidy footprints. and where are
the shuffle marks, the divots where the ground was compressed, and all the other things
that would occur. ah well. I'm just disappointed that the ending didn't have a sighting of
a giant flying turtle. now THAT would be cool! (Sing with me..."Gamera is really
neat...Gamera is full of meat")
-- Rev. Harlequin, KSC
Is that a home pregnancy test I see? Godzilla has the same protein sequences as a
human? Similar enough my flaming ass.
-- Bottle_Imp
You know, for a few minutes there I thought they might have replaced Godzilla's Atomic
Breath with a new type of breath weapon: BOAT BREATH. In the scene just after Godzilla
comes ashore in New York (you know, the herky jerky "we aren't gonna let you see the
whole monster yet" scene) he drops boat after boat on nearby cars, people, buildings.
What did he do? Grab every boat he saw on his way inland? Why is Godzilla holding so many
boats? Why does he keep throwing them at everything? And why was this movie so bad? It is
already being dubbed 'Jurassic Park 3: Dinosaurs Eat Manhattan'
-- Brandon Easley
All the angry NYC residents want to go back in to the city without a body proving the
lizard is dead. If it were someone from central NY we would leave a number where
we could be reached in ohh say LA.
-- Amy Long, Ithaca, New York
I know NYC has unpredictable weather, but I noticed that it would be raining when they
showed a scene in Perspective A, and when they showed the same scene from Perspective B,
it wasn't raining...and when they returned to Perspective A, it was raining again. Wow,
that's crazy weather.
-- Michael Cornett, Takoma Park, MD
Is it just me, or did they evacuate all ten million residents of New York City in a
couple of hours. That include hospitals, old folks homes, and those annoying people that
would want to have a disaster party and not leave their home until they're dead. It'd take
longer than that to get Wall Street cleared.
-- Brandon C. Rector
Obviously, the army brass felt that the best and most efficient way to debrief M.B. the
scientist on the appearance of a gigantic mutated lizard was to let him stumble into a
radioactive footprint while babbling about earthworms. I mean, no need to actually tell
him about it on the twenty hour trip from Chernobyl to Panama or anything . . .
-- Mark Fleming
Why were the baby 'zilla's eating popcorn? I thought they were busy tracking down the
'heroes" because they "smelled like fish"!
-- Mark Smith
The government brought in Ferris because he is an expert on atomically-mutated animals.
Why does Ferris have this big revelation that Godzilla is--gasp!--an atomically-mutated
lizard halfway through the movie? And why is the gov't so surprised? Why? Why?
-- Joel Erb
In Madison Square Gardens, the phone lines were down, but hey! The MODEM was still
working!
-- Daniel Howell
When my college was rattled by an earthquake one morning, classes were cancelled for an
entire day so that buildings could be inspected for life-threatening structural damage.
When our hero the lizard (and I really was gunning for him to devour everyone and anything
in this piece of crap movie) is proclaimed dead, it's an immediate all clear? Sure, return
to Beirut...no problem.
-- Augie Harrigan
Personally, I liked the equating of the Hudson River and the Atlantic Ocean. Since when
is any modern sub (let alone three) able enter and maneuver successfully in a river that's
barely deep enough to accomodate cruise ships.
-- Mac Snyder
Wow, Godzilla attacks the city, takes down a few buidlings, stomps cars, etc, etc, and
there's not ONE DEAD BODY!!! I challenge you to find one dead body on screen! Where are
the fire engines? The ambulances?
-- Blofeld
Ok, this is a bit more specific, than, say, why not make a nest somewhere the missle
dropping, helicopter flying tiny humans live, but for those who know anything about
military gear, the planes fired anti-SHIP missles at Mad. Sq. Garden to sink (?) the nest.
Why? Because they look cool. Just like every B- Sci-Fi flick uses paintball guns to look
"futuristic."
-- Matt Edmonds
Nobody else got this one, so I'll step in here. Blondie finally gets her moment in the
spotlight with her "Live from Godzilla Square Garden" scoop, easily the story of
the century. A quick goo-goo eyed interview with dorkboy, a quick shot of the nursery, and
then she signs off, giving the whole story slightly less air time than a human
interest piece on a local crafts fair. Any real reporter would have kept broadcasting till
the camera was eaten.
-- L. Fitzgerald Sjöberg
Whenever my factory ship gets attacked in the middle of the Pacific in moderately bad weather, and its [sic, dammit, there's no apostrophe in the possessive] hull's integrity was breached with several massive gashes, it doesn't bob merrily across the waves and get deposited high and dry on a beach. No, my factory ship, and indeed, 4 out of 5 ships surveyed, recommend sinking under these circumstances. -- Eric Slosser
Did the prop master run out of non-black umbrellas? -- Eric Slosser
Godzilla-Raptor's most impressive ability is being able to grow and shrink as needed.
Running through buildings, he is relatively small and nimble, eating fish in Central Park,
he is bigger than all the buildings.
-- Scott Demond
Godzilla stomps, cars shake. Godzilla stomps, telephone poles stay perfectly still. No
one can find Godzilla, not even with a seismograph.
-- qma3x
How come, when Gojira was really far away, every taxi cab and police car within miles
was bouncing three feet into the air, and then when GZ was right on Ferris's butt in the
Taxi, it had a fairly smooth ride? Also, did all that happen in one night? The sky never
got light. If so, then they got all the residents out in one day? Where were all the
traffic jams that we saw in Deep Impact (tm)?
-- George
Okay Godzilla is highly radioactive, so are his footprints, the boat he eats and the
people on it, yet they are walking in the foot prints, climbing on the boat and
interviewing the survivors without protections next thing you know they will mutate into
huge humans with 7 hands and will be able to have babies by clicking their heels
-- fubu
I knew the military was cuttign costs, but when did they get rid of a backseater in
Apache's? Did they jsut get a really good auto-pilot?
-- Mark Smith
Ok, we know about Godzilla, we have an idea of where he's headed, so why don't we
intercept him? We've got tons of ships out in the Atlantic, yet none of the do anything!
-- Mark Smith