Sony really overplayed their hand in 1998 with “Godzilla.” Not only did they overestimate the appeal of a Godzilla unlike Toho’s Godzilla, but they also accompanied the movie with a bunch of merchandise no one liked, and a series that lasted forty episodes total. So if you have fourteen hours to kill, you can check out what happened after the end of “Godzilla.” Whether you call him Zilla, Godzilla, Notzilla, or GONI (Godzilla In Name Only), the extension of the 1998 Roland Emmerich is given more mythos than it deserves, with its focus more on genetic monsters and underwater creatures than anything.
Directly after Godzilla dies on the bridge in New York in the movie, Nick warns the military to go back to Penn Station to look for the leftover eggs. They’ve all but died, save for one egg that hatches in front of Nick after he slips and falls in to a pit. The baby Godzilla is imprinted with Nick’s image viewing him as its mother, thus attaching itself to him as a maternal figure. The annoying original cast of the movie are sidelined in favor of a more diverse and kid friendly group of scientists that help Nick. Though sadly, Nick (voiced by Ian Ziering) is still the hero of the reboot. I’m not sure why they insisted on keeping the framework of the movie, rather than focusing on a more interesting new hero that could have replaced Nick.
All he did was gawk and spout nonsensical exposition. That said, among the new characters, there’s a cowardly scientist, an Afircan American intern, a new love interest, and a talking robot named N.I.G.E.L. placed in the series solely to crack wise, and become a punching bag for the Godzilla monster. Soon Nick finds a use for the new Godzilla, implementing his team to study its biology, all the while helping to fight off threats to New York. What the series garners that the movie severely lacked, was a villain for Godzilla to fight. Rather than walk around and do nothing, Godzilla is able to battle various giant menaces for almost every episode, while Nick tries to tame the beast. Sadly, since this garners its own continuity, there are no new or classic versions of monsters like Mothra, or MechaGodzilla.
The animation for this series seems to be taken up by the same creative team behind the “Men in Black” animated series. Except the style for this spin off is slightly shoddier and less aesthetically pleasing. The aforementioned series was tolerable at least because if the slick animation, while “Godzilla: The Series” is still just more bland pseudo-Kaiju antics with less than stellar animation style. If you thought Godzilla was non-threatening in the movie, his offspring is even less so, as it looks like just a carbon copy of its mother, and acts mainly as an ornery dog that Nick begins to train with every episode. It then learns how to toughen up by battling assorted monsters. The series is available in its entirety here with all forty episodes spread out among four discs. There are no special features, but you at least get the options of playing the episodes individually or in one shot.