The American Godzilla is in the process of being re-born, across time and media-space and against all the odds, by virtue of one fan’s enthusiasm (not to mention talent) and the wonders of the internet.

In 1998, Tri-Star released producer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich’s Godzilla remake to much pre-event anticipation and even greater post-event disdain.

Whether you think Godzilla (1998) is any good or not as a generic giant monster flick, most commentors, G-fans and Japanese citizens consider it to be a travesty — taking one of the world’s great anti-nuclear monster icons and turning it into a big-animal-on-the-run non-event. The good team of Devlin and Emmerich, responsible for such ‘blockbuster’ films as Stargate, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow, stripped Godzilla of his radiation breath, his ferocity, his ‘heroic’ ambiguity, his invulnerability and his inexorable scorn for military solutions.

With all due disrespect, Ryuhei Kitamura, director of 2005’s Godzilla Final Wars, included the American Godzilla in his ‘genuine’ Godzilla film, naming him “Zilla” — because the American movie had taken the “God” out of “Godzilla”, he said. (In an apparent act of cinematic sarcasm, Kitamura has his Godzilla annihilate Zilla — who is under alien control — in a matter of nano-seconds, along with Sydney’s Opera House.) Another common fan name for Emmerich’s monster is GINO, which stands for “Godzilla In Name Only”. These snippets of pointed humour comment on the fundamental lack of understanding of Godzilla apparent in the 1998 film.

The history of the production of this disappointing American remake is a tortuous and frustrating one, which involved a number of directors (even Terry Gilliam at one point — that would have been cool!), years of negotiation with Toho (Godzilla’s copyright owners) and multiple scripts. Amidst the morass of rumours lies the fact that Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio (scriptwriters for The Puppet Masters and the Pirates of the Caribbean films, among other things) produced a Godzilla script for Tri-Star back in 1994. This script enticed director Jan deBont to take on the project, for which he wanted a budget of $120 million. Tri-Star baulked at this, deBont remained firm, the project languished, then several years later Devlin and Emmerich came on board. They re-wrote the script completely and ended up producing their own less-than-perfect version for $150 million. The film wasn’t a complete financial disaster, but it wasn’t the anticipated success Tri-Star had been pushing for either, and as a result the planned sequel never eventuated (though there was a decent cartoon series produced). Eventually rights to GINO reverted to Toho, hence his appearance in Godzilla Final Wars.

The Elliot and Rossio’s script has long been available and all who have read it agree that it reflects the true spirit of Godzilla and would have made a much better movie. Apart from anything else, Elliot and Rossio were fans of the original Gojira, unlike Devlin and Emmerich, who appear somewhat condescending and dismissive of the Japanese G films in post-event interviews. Rossio’s party ’speech’ (as he puts it) describing his and his writing partner’s input into the 1998 film goes like this:

Yes, we worked on it, but our script got thrown out. We got story credit because they kept some basic elements — but in our draft, Godzilla fought a second monster, and kicked his ass. We realized that Godzilla was the hero, and even if people were afraid of him in the beginning, they wanted to root for him in the end.

The script can be downloaded here.

Now kaiju artist Todd Tennant has decided to do G fans everywhere a big favour by producing a graphic novel version of the original Elliot and Rossio script. Todd produced an insert picture in Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales, edited by Squidites Hood and Pen, and published by the Squidish Cat Spark’s Agog! Press, and has provided cover art for the upcoming sequel volume. He is also the mastercraftsman of the excellent American Kaiju website. This website houses Todd’s ongoing American Godzilla ‘94 project, which he’s pursuing without profit and out of pure enthusiasm (some might say, fanaticism). So far he has created 9 pages, which hasn’t brought us up to the Big G’s entrance yet, but is a start. Go and have a look — and bookmark the site so you can follow the graphic novel as it appears. I think such projects should be encouraged.

Note: you can see what Todd’s Godzilla will look like from assorted “poster” art he has included there.

Here’s the direct link.