In one of the most saddening cases of What Could Have Been in the Godzilla series, the 1994 version of Tri-Star's attempt at creating an entirely-American Godzilla film, was set to feature effects by Stan Winston, and had an entirely finished script written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. The film was also to introduce a new monster to the franchise, the Gryphon; an alien that took the DNA of a cougar, cow and bat and ended up fighting Godzilla.
The film script centres on Jill and Tina Llewellyn, as the two (and Keith, the husband of Jill and father of Tina) end up in a government hunt for a enormous dinosaur called Godzilla; a bio-weapon engineered in prehistory from dinosaur DNA in order to fend off an alien menace. The creature is found deep in the Arctic, where it is awoken and kills everyone in the cavern he was kept in; including Keith. Godzilla emerges and appears near Japan, destroying a village and mentally scarring a man named Junji for life. Junji reveals the creature's prominent folklore history to Marty and Aaron, who also end up entangled in the events; Junji also reveals that another creature, a gryphon-like beast, and reveals it as the adversary spoken of in the legend of Gojira. Meanwhile, in Utah, an alien probe appears and attacks a cougar and a horse, killing them and using their DNA to begin building a body for itself. The emergence of the probe begins disrupting radio signals in the Arctic base, and the probe crashes into a lake, flinging its contents across the land.
As the humans continue to come to terms with the events, the probe cables take bats and incorporate their DNA into what will become the Gryphon; which starts off as roughly five feet tall. It also creates the Probe Bats; mutated from the bats the probe collected in order to assimilate more DNA for the Gryphon's use. Something enters Marty's body unknowingly, and burrows into his eye. Back in Utah, the probes attack a waiting cougar, as well as a vulture. The cat is killed, as is the bird, but the calf survives.
Godzilla attacks a trio of fishing vessels, "Larry", "Curly" and "Moe", and devours all of their fish. Marty is taken over by the entity that entered his body, and eventually he is killed by the alien. Godzilla is revealed to be making his way to San Francisco, and whilst the military tried to combat it, Godzilla decimates the troops and combats two submarines, the Madison and the Lafayette, under the bay's surface. A rain of missiles strikes his back, enraging Godzilla; he barely misses a ferocious charge at the Madison when they initiate evasive maneuvers. Unfortunately, the Madison surfaces right under one of the destroyer-class ships cruising the surface and the cruising ship is capsized. Godzilla's claws nonchalantly reach out, ripping into the hull of the Lafayette; the crew is forced to evacuate. Godzilla unleashes his atomic ray upon the capsized ship, destroying it in a spectacular explosion, and the rest of the fleet are left behind. Godzilla, at this point, is 50 miles from San Fransisco; the titan will make landfall in an hour's time. Eventually, Godzilla makes landfall; however, a tank containing amniotic fluid is still stuck to his neck, and the creature is rendered weak as a result. The military unloads on him, and Godzilla cries out in pain before sinking into the ocean...
Although the humans believed him slain, the Brooklyn Bridge eerily without movement, Godzilla erupts from the water and clings to the centre support of the Brooklyn Bridge. Godzilla spots Aaron, who was on the bridge, and he and the crew run for their lives as Godzilla's teeth slice through cables with ease and the bridge wrenches as Aaron tries to make it to safety amongst the unstable bridge, suddenly moving vehicles and giant beast. The bridge jars and a car is flung into the waters below as the central pylon struggles to hold Godzilla's immense weight, for the creature is climbing the central pylon. The military assaults him again, and Godzilla lets out another sickly cry. Aaron flees as the bridge sways dangerously from Godzilla's weight, cars falling into the bay below. Using a wire, Godzilla pulls himself to his full height, makes a loud roar and collapses, as wires snap all around him, on the bridge as the structure contorts and sways dangerously; Aaron grabs for a handhold as the wires snap, but he's thrown like a rag doll, barely hanging on...
Luckily, the bridge holds as the surreal sight of Godzilla collapsed on the Brooklyn Bridge, one arm dangling from the bridge. Aaron's radio crackles as he continues holding onto the bridge; Godzilla looks to be vanquished. Meanwhile, The Probe Bats attack a church, smashing through the stain-glass windows and waiting at the doors. Stu's border collie fights him when Stu tries to drag it into the church. The dog slips free and bolts for the forest. Stu pursues the dog, but is ambushed and killed by a Probe-bat after his wet coughing, typical of smokers, gives him away. The bodies are taken, once more, to the grey mass, and a massive claw opens and closes; an animal shape begins to form. Once more, the military and fire department attempt to ward off Godzilla with the amniotic fluid; eventually managing to attach a train car to the back of its neck as a sedative. In the hospital, Marty passes away as the military airlift Godzilla away; and the team realize Godzilla's route was a straight line; the legend was coming true, they realize; Godzilla is trying to locate and destroy the alien beast foretold in legend. The reports of strange creatures in Utah and Marty becoming infected by the parasite, allowing the alien to use his body to tell them that Godzilla is trying to find, engage and destroy the creatures and their leader before it can reproduce. The creature has formed, however...
Can Godzilla locate and destroy the Gryphon and its Probe-bat minions before the genetic horror can conquer all life on Earth? Well, you'll need to read the official screenplay
to find out.
The script has also been adapted into a finished fan-made comic, and additional background at SciFi Japan.
The script probably did not go to waste, as elements of it ended up in other kaiju movies. Some have noted the plot of a reptilian guardian monster being created by an ancient civilization to protect the world from a bat-like destroyer is very similar to the backstory in the later Heisei Gamera series. Additionally some scenes and plot lines present in this script reappeared in the the 2014 Godzilla reboot. Thankfully later on Terry Rossio got his chance to write a Godzilla movie when he was brought into the writing team for Godzilla vs. Kong.
This unmade film screenplay provides the following tropes:
- Adaptational Backstory Change: Godzilla's origin is greatly changed from an irradiated prehistoric reptile to being genetically engineered by an ancient alien race to defend against hostile invaders. Coincidentally, this revised origin would be used more or less wholesale by the Heisei Gamera trilogy.
- Adaptational Wimp: While not to the extent of Godzilla (1998), Godzilla is given a Kryptonite Factor he didn't have before that gives the military an advantage (and putting Godzilla at a disadvantage during his fight with the Gryphon).
- Alien Invasion: The Gryphon, obviously; It's an alien organism that, if left unhindered, will kill all life on the planet so its masters can move in.
- The Assimilator: The alien probe consumes animals (including humans) and uses their DNA to make the Probe Bats and the Gryphon. Near the end, the Gryphon eats a government agent and gains his knowledge (and even his Character Tic) from it.
- Bat Out of Hell: The Probe Bats and to a lesser extent, the Gryphon, take on the likeness of bats, including leathery wings, after absorbing their DNA.
- Better the Devil You Know: At the end, the military is convinced to spare Godzilla, who has been weakened after fighting the Gryphon, because others like the Gryphon may appear in the future.
- Benevolent Precursors: The prehistoric race which created Godzilla to defend against the Gryphon and left a genetic memory bank behind to warn future races of the Gryphon's coming and Godzilla's awakening.
- Bioweapon Beast: Both Godzilla, who has a radically altered origin into a genetically engineered dinosaur, and his opponent, the Gryphon, an extraterrestrial war-beast sent by an alien race to decimate life on Earth in preparation for their future colonization.
- Breath Weapon: Unlike the remake we eventually got, this Godzilla had his iconic atomic breath attack which one character even clarifies is not actually fire.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The Gryphon is eviscerated, snapped in two, decapitated, blown up and its head is piked on the Brooklyn Bridge.
- Defiant to the End: Even after being sliced apart, blown up, ripped in half, and beheaded, the Gryphon continues trying to attack Godzilla to its very last breath.
- Destructive Saviour: Godzilla, despite most the entire story being centered on eliminating him, is allowed to live when he kills off the Gryphon, despite the protests of the military.
- Double Meaning / Ambiguous Syntax: When asked how the military can kill Godzilla, the Marty!Alien simply answers “you can’t”. Which can be interpreted as meaning that it’s impossible to kill Godzilla or that the alien is telling them they shouldn’t.
- Drama-Preserving Handicap: Godzilla is weakened during the fight with the Gryphon because of a restraining bolt planted on him that prevents him from using his atomic breath. When its removed, the Gryphon finds its no longer a match for Godzilla.
- Expy: The way the Gryphon is described (made to wipe out all life on a planet, electric powers, spiked tail, horns, wings), give him 3 heads and he's basically King Ghidorah in all but name. Marty's warning of its arrival is even rather similar to the alien spirit's warning of Ghidorah's arrival. Indeed, Godzilla's opponent was originally intended to be Ghidorah until the writers found out his rights had to be licensed separately at additional cost, so instead they came up with an original monster that was similar.
- General Ripper: Pike takes this up to twelve, the only thing that seems to matter to him is killing Godzilla, consequences be damned. Whether said consequences are the Gryphon having free reign to destroy the planet or the city of New York and the over 18 million people living there burning in a nuclear holocaust.Pike: Fire through the building!
Gunner: Sir...that's the Empire State Building.
Pike: And? - Godzilla Threshold: The Gryphon gives the cast a reason not to kill Godzilla.
- Good Is Not Soft: Despite being slightly more heroic than most incarnations of the character, this Godzilla WILL NOT hesitate to attack any humans that piss him off, and he was even willing to raid a coastal village for it's fish and trees after being reawakened.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The Gryphon and Probe Bats are meant to be a vanguard to wipe out a planet's preexisting civilization before the alien race that created them can move in. This alien race never appears in person, their only relevance is being the origin of Godzilla's opponent.
- Half the Man He Used to Be: The Gryphon is torn in two by Godzilla.
- Healing Factor: The Gryphon is able to heal from injuries very quickly, and even survives being ripped open lengthwise and having its head torn off. It takes Godzilla completely incinerating its exposed innards and impaling the decapitated head on the Brooklyn Bridge to finally kill it.
- History Repeats: The fact that Godzilla was created millions of years ago and human legends of both him and Gryphon are known from ancient cultures around the world indicate the two have clashed more than once before (although it does raise the question of if the probe seeks out the same animals for the Gryphon's genetic base each time, because it's implied it takes on the same appearance each time).
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The ultimate fate of the Gryphon's head.
- Irony: The origin of Godzilla in this film as a fail-safe meant to counter another monster is extremely similar to the origin his old box office rival, Gamera, would get in his own reboot, Gamera: Guardian of the Universe.
- The Juggernaut: Godzilla is depicted in this manner, as opposed to the film which would be released in 1998. When Jill asks the Marty/alien hybrid how to kill Godzilla, it responds that they can't. The Gryphon on the other hand...
- Kill It with Fire/Made of Explodium: How Godzilla destroys the Gryphon's body: He breathes his nuclear breath into it, causing the entire thing to erupt into flames and detonate.
- Kryptonite Factor: Godzilla is able to be weakened by the red amniotic fluid which he was found preserved in, and can be put to sleep by enough of it. However, he's able to force himself awake when he senses the Gryphon has appeared
- Laser-Guided Karma: Pike is eaten by the Gryphon when its snake tongues grab him by his legs and waist.
- Living Dinosaurs: Godzilla is mentioned as a bio-engineered dinosaur.
- Living Weapon:
- Godzilla was engineered specifically from dinosaur DNA by an alien race that formerly inhabited Earth in prehistoric times to defend Earth from the impending Gryphon.
- The Gryphon itself was designed by another race to wipe out a planet's population for later invasion and colonisation.
- Moby Schtick: When Godzilla awakens, he inadvertantly kills Keith Llewellyn, sparking a hunt for the beast by his widow, Jill Llewellyn.
- Monumental Damage: The United Nations headquarters, Southbridge Towers, and Statue of Liberty are destroyed by the Gryphon, while the Empire State Building, Brooklyn Bridge, and the Golden Gate Bridge are also damaged over the course of the story.
- Nominal Hero: Godzilla is presented as an aggressive and destructive beast who doesn't hesitate to attack humans unprovoked, but he's the only one who stands a chance of defeating the Gryphon, whose explicit purpose is to wipe out human civilization.
- Noodle Incident: Apparently Earth had three moons back during the time of Godzilla's creation. It's never mentioned what happened to the other two.
- Pet the Dog: Although depicted as merely being the lesser of two evils for the most of the film, and otherwise a destructive and aggressive monster, at the end (of Don Macpherson's version of the script), Godzilla shows this isn't all he is when he rescues the helicopter with the main characters in it.
- Satanic Archetype: The Gryphon is a very blatant example, being a villain that wants to conquer the world having horns, hooves, snake tongues, bat-wings, claws, a spiky tail, and being the leader of numerous demon-like entities. It's spelled out even more obviously when it knocks over a date clock reading 999, flipping it upside.
- Shock and Awe: The Gryphon is described as being able to fire bolts of electricity from its wings.
- Slasher Smile: The Gryphon has somewhat of a sadistic streak, and is described as doing what appears to be smiling several times. Such as after it absorbs Pike, gaining his memories, and thus knowledge of Godzilla's weakness.
- Too Dumb to Live: Marty ends up being assimilated by a self-propelled alien nanomachine because he decided to remove his hazmat suit visor in the middle of an actively radioactive containment zone.
- You Are Who You Eat: The alien entity that becomes the Gryphon starts out as a single alien probe and gains its form by absorbing the DNA of other lifeforms, starting with a swarm of bats, then an entire herd of cows, a vulture, a mountain lion, snakes and humans and animals from a Utah town before absorbing everything into one massive form. It devours Pike in the climax, gaining his distinctive personality traits and memories.
