Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies here and all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.
”ALRIGHT GUN IT, GUN IT, GO, GO, GO, GUN IT!”
- Despite all the criticism, this version of Godzilla's maneuverability and guile is impressive to say the least.
- The whole "Godzilla falls to Missiles" really isn't a detraction. The kind he was up against is one of the strongest conventional missiles, able to sink a warship with just one missile. He took twelve. SO, in a way, it's a Dying Moment of Awesome.
- This Godzilla really is quite a decent kaiju in its own right. He's durable, if not actually ''entirely'' immune to human weaponry. He's strong enough to cause major destruction to anything in his way. He's surprisingly intelligent. He's quick, agile and, thanks to his hermaphroditic egg-laying ability, poses the threat of creating more of his kind. If it wasn't for the part where it's supposed to be Godzilla, the monster itself probably would have had a better reception (and indeed, countries with less of an idea of what Godzilla is supposed to be did tend to think better of the movie and its monster).
- Really, while the movie does have its flaws, if the filmmakers hadn't named it "Godzilla" and had given the beast its own identity, it might have been more well-received.
- The helicopter chase is easily one of the best remembered moments of the film.
- Animal actually chasing down Godzilla, not only managing to catch the creature on camera but also surviving being stepped on! Well, okay, only just barely avoided being stepped on. But still.
- Godzilla's intelligence is really shown in this film, particularly in one scene. After being shot when going for the first military booby trap, he learns his mistake. When a second fish booby trap is set up, he sees the spotlights and, instead of going for the fish, leaves. He's smart enough to not fall for the same trap twice!
- "That's affirmative! Let me spell it out for you! I want you to blow up Madison Square Garden!"
- Colonel Hicks is awesome in an understated and professional way. For all his initial bluster, he's competent, clear-headed, and genuinely cares for his men, reacting with surprising anger and frustration when he loses them. He's also determined to protect New York and neutralize the threat Godzilla presents, regardless of interfering bureaucrats. He's not like other movie generals.Mayor Ebert: You don't have the authority to do that!
Colonel Hicks: Try and stop me!
- Colonel Hicks is awesome in an understated and professional way. For all his initial bluster, he's competent, clear-headed, and genuinely cares for his men, reacting with surprising anger and frustration when he loses them. He's also determined to protect New York and neutralize the threat Godzilla presents, regardless of interfering bureaucrats. He's not like other movie generals.
- Phillipe Roache is this incarnate. Doubly so for (along with his men) utterly averting the Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys trope.
- Doubly (quadruply?) so when Phillipe decides to stay behind with his men in the nest, holding the Baby 'Zillas in place long enough for an air strike to destroy it. To a man, none of them blink when he gives the order. It's not their country, and it's all to correct a mistake their own made decades before, but it doesn't matter; they're willing to die fighting a legion of baby kaiju, if that's what it takes to get the job done.
- Admit it. You thought the cab chase was awesome.
- Audrey, Nick, Animal, and Phillipe calling in an air strike directly on their heads. Made doubly awesome in the fact that they had to contact the military by cutting into live TV coverage, making it Audrey's first (and, at that point, likely LAST) TV news reporting appearance; and that it rubs it into the military's nose that Nick was right about the nest all along. Further awesome that if they hadn't done so, the human race would likely have been extinct in a few years.
- While a small moment, it was most satisfying to watch Audrey finally stand up to Caiman at the end of the film.
