Godzilla - Die Serie

Back when this show was on the air, I had avoided it since the 1998 Roland Emmerich-directed Godzilla was such a letdown. But after hearing that the series was coming to DVD one year I decided to try it. When I was watching it for the first time, I thought to myself, "What have I been missing?" Turns out I missed a lot.

Fantastic kaiju creatures (some mutants, some aliens) and a main cast featuring Ian Ziering and Rino Romano (and some returning from the 1998 film) all combined to bring a lot to the table. Good plots, major mysteries, a few guest stars, and a new beast or two in addition to the titular kaiju himself. If only we humans had our own respective creatures that bonded to us. Just pray they don't run amok in our cities or eat anyone. Maybe this show was a casualty or got caught in the crossfire during the Pokemon-Digimon heyday battle. Whatever the reason, it made a good 40-something episode run. And that's not bad for a short-lived show. Now if only they could do a continuation in the form of a comic book or a reunion movie. Don't know if the latter is feasible but I'll accept the comic book part.

I remember when this used to air on t.v., it was always on way too early in the morning and I rarely got to see it. All I had of this show was a VHS copy of one of the episodes. Now I got two DVD's, but unfortunately there is only three episodes on each disc, for a total of 6 out of 39, wow that sucks. I can't even find any other episodes, did they just release the 3 DVD's? where's the rest of the seasons. They should be boxed together and re-released on Blu-ray, but that's not likely to happen any time soon.

This was a great idea for an animated series, continuing the story of the surviving Godzilla and pitting him against other monsters. The monsters aren't as grand as the Toho one's, but that doesn't matter much, I'm just glad to see Zilla fighting other monsters. There is even a Mecha-Godzilla, which was made from the original Godzilla, funny how that happened later in the millennium series with Kiryu. There is even a three part episode that is a remake of Destroy all monsters, so we get some references to the original Japeneese Godzilla films. Heck we even see the American Godzilla in Tokyo.

The animation looks fantastic, I wish it was still done like this, now-a-days it's all done with CGI, which looks like crap, much like most of the animated programming lately. This show has one of the greatest, if not the greatest opening credits for any t.v. show in history.

The characters are okay, nothing special. I do find nick's voice to feel out of place with the other voice actors, he sounds so stock, if you know what I'm talking about....generic is what I mean. I like the N.I.G.E.L. robot, he's cool, and he is also voiced by Tom Kenny, that I didn't know.

I think this show needs to be discovered by more people, it is actually pretty good. Even with me being older now, I still find this show very entertaining. I would like to know James Rolfe's opinion on this series, he wasn't too fond of the movie, but this offers more than the movie did, at least in terms of monsters.

I recommend this, although I am disappointed in the lack of episodes on DVD, it's still worth checking out.

I highly recommend Godzilla: The Series to anyone who enjoys well written stories, great monsters and characters you can really root for. The stories are imaginative and filled with Fil Barlow's fantastic creature creations. A big plus is the inclusion of strong female characters. Monique Dupre, Elsie Chapman and even Audrey Timmonds are brave, intelligent and capable.

The underlying relationships of the characters are often what makes the show such fun: Randy Hernandez' endless quest to impress Monique, his teasing friendship with Mendel Craven, and Mendel's quiet longing for the oblivious Elsie truly hooked me on the show. Characters are also multi-dimensional and capable of change. Mendel is often used as comic relief, but his creative genius often saves the day and he can be selflessly heroic should the need arise.

Check Godzilla: The Series out. You won't be sorry.

I grew up watching this show every saterday morning. I loved the first movie, but always hated the originals. But one thing I have noticed is that people who liked the originals actually like this series,and the people who loved the newer series love it more.

It keeps the new Godzilla (1998) but adds more of the classical aspects from the originals. I even enjoyed this show, to this day.

Some monsters I didn't like, like the huge insects, but most were pretty cool, and amazing.

The characters we actually pretty developed, and Godzilla was more like the original, meaning he could be violent and rampaging at times, but in the end he was sort of on the good side. He was an unpredictable creature that could be on your side or the other. ANd his decision would make or break you.

Really I enjoyed this series, its to bad it had to end because of the lame Digimon and Pokemon wars that ensued at this time.

This is my second, more carefully constructed review for this series. As said, i won't cover the ground details as i did before, but offer a second opinion.

I still like this series, and I do think it's better than the movie, in that it has better, more believable characters, and Godzilla acts more like Godzilla than he did in the remake.

The main problem is that, in his own cartoon show, Godzilla is rarely seen, and often treated as a mere Deus Ex Machina!

Sure, there are some interesting monsters, and they get plenty of screen time, but most of them are just large insects, and any potential mystery about their appearance is ruined, since they usually are completely seen in the prologue before the opening credits.

And yes, the human characters are more than just cardboard cut outs, they earn our interest, and interact instead of just act towards each other. In other words, the almost exact opposite of the characters from the 70's Hanna-Barbara show (but even they had good intentions).

But, unfortunately, while the the humans and monsters are often interesting, the producers of the show forgot one thing: this is called "Godzilla: the Series", so why is it he only shows up twice an average episode?!? And when he does show up, its usually when he either makes his first appearance, gets injured, then comes back in at the end to kill the monster after the humans fail.

While the humans don't fail always, whatever plan they do have requires Godzilla uses him as a plot device, and without it, he probably wouldn't have shown up in the episode at all!

Its like in most of the Gamera (re: flying-turtle Godzilla knock-off) movies: Cool evil monster comes in, humans stare at it, Gamera comes in, get wounded, retreats, humans attempt to kill cool evil monster, fail, then either Gamera comes back and kills it himself or becomes integral to the human's attempts to kill it. (also, for fun, add in tiny short wearing children who are "friends of Gamera")

Basically, take this formula, replace the boring Japanese people with the interesting cartoon characters, take out the tiny-short wearing kids and put in NIck Tatopolous, and (this is the worst part) replace Gamera with Godzilla, and you have generally every episode of the series, though not as lame as the older gamera movies, but not as good as the recent ones.

also note: While Godzilla and Nick in the show have a relationship somewhat like Gamera had with whatever small kid he was saving, Godzilla is not under Nick's control. And while Godzilla does often protect Nick, it is often not his main reason for being in the story. Also, while Gamera mostly followed the kids, Godzilla and Nick often follow each other to wherever the story takes them.

However, the episodes where Godzilla is the center of attention are absolutely excellent! The episode where Godzilla is cloned, where he is being mind controlled, where Nick and Monique go inside him to stop a virus, are all great shows.

Especially great is the one where Godzilla meets up with another monster like him, and becomes a surrogate mate. That episode takes everything good about the series (character development and interaction, monster fights, and drama), and rolls it into a perfect episode. Heck, they even have a giant mutant turtle in that one! An obvious nod to Gamera, and a monster fight Kaiju fans would kill to see.

Overall, "Godzilla: the series" is good, a great improvement on the movie, and its worth seeing every episode, but it could have been great if only Godzilla himself were in it more.