When Tristar obtained the rights to make an American Godzilla film from Toho in 1992, they were originally going to create a monster that paid homage to the Japanese original. However, once Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich signed on to produce/direct, all that pretty much went out the window. Hollywood creature designer Patrick Tatopoulos, who also worked on “Independence Day,” “Stargate,” and “The Addams Family” among other films, was brought on to design Godzilla and says that when creating this new Godzilla, or GINO as he has come to be known by Godzilla fans, “We were creating an animal, not a monster.” Although the design of GINO does adhere to Toho’s basic design criteria (upright walking reptile with three rows of dorsal plates) the creature is extremely different from any incarnation of Godzilla before or since this 1998 film was released. Being that this “Godzilla” is a mutated iguana, GINO comes out looking like an enormous iguana/alligator instead of Godzilla. Ignoring the true Godzilla’s looks and body posture, GINO instead hunches low to the ground, has reverse shark-fin like dorsal plates, a long snout, a pronounced chin, a lizard-like sack of fleshy skin at its throat, a small nose and eyes, and jagged crocodile-like teeth. The overall look is like a super-up Tyrannosaurus Rex with long forearms, not Godzilla. GINO was also devoid of a radioactive heat ray, has a digitally modified version of the classic Godzilla roar, and overall just did not homage at all to the original, true Godzilla.
