Goofs for
Godzilla (1998) More at IMDbPro »

• Continuity: Godzilla's footsteps make cars bounce, but nearby pedestrians are unaffected.
  
  
• Continuity: Godzilla's size compared to the skyscrapers around him changes constantly through the movie.
  
  
• Continuity: The subway Godzilla crawls out of and the the tunnel the characters drive into near the end of the movie are the same size, yet Godzilla can't fit into the tunnel near the end though he could fit into the other one.
  
  

• Continuity: Cars in the beginning of the film jump on the streets when Godzilla approaches, but throughout the movie, they stop bouncing when he approaches.
  
  
• Factual errors: The missiles used do not have enough explosive power to blow the top off the Chrysler building. Additionally, the missiles do not have the power to destroy Madison Square Garden in such a huge explosion with just two shots.
  
  
• Continuity: We see the top of the Chrysler building being knocked off early in the film. When there is a long shot of Madison Square Garden after the air strike the Chrysler is shown intact.
  
  
• Factual errors: The AH-64 Apache helicopter does not have a machine gun mounted on its "chin". The gun it carries is located underneath the cockpit. Also, the muzzle flash from the gun if mounted on the side would interfere with the pilot's and the gunner's night vision.
  
  
• Continuity: When Victor runs out of the diner you see a hydrant with water pouring out. When he pushes the tape in (two shots later) it is gone.
  
  
• Continuity: The length of the pier the man is fishing from varies between shots when Godzilla first attacks New York.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: Microphones are visible underneath the actors' wet shirts at the end.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: The device that makes the cars jump can be seen under the nearest car during the mayor's speech.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: In the opening sequence of nuclear explosions, we hear sounds from the first blasts simultaneously with seeing them, although our view is from some distance away.
  
  
• Continuity: Throughout the chase scene near the movie's end, the advertisement light on the taxi roof is on/off between shots. In addition, sometimes it appears firmly fixed in place, while at other times it is obviously loose and sliding all over the roof.
  
  
• Continuity: Near the end, when the taxi is caught between Godzilla's jaws, the vehicle changes position between shots.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: A crewmember is reflected in the side of Philippe's car as he drives off screen.
  
  
• Factual errors: If the suspension cables on a suspension bridge did fall down, as they did at the end, the bridge would collapse.
  
  
• Factual errors: When fighters are locking onto Madison Square Gardens with their missiles, they say "Selecting LGB's" or (Laser Guided Bombs). On the screen the pilot is looking at it says "Weapon AGM-84 HARPOON (2)". Harpoon is a radar guided anti-ship missile, not a laser guided bomb. Later the F/A 18s are commanded to release their Mavericks, yet another type of missile - primarily an anti-tank weapon.
  
  
• Revealing mistakes: One of the footprints in the beginning is set in a manner that would have required Godzilla to hop on one foot to make it.
  
  
• Continuity: When they are on the transport plane, the exterior shot shows it to be during a thunderstorm at night, while during the interior shots sunlight is clearly showing through the windows.
  
  
• Errors in geography: During the final taxi chase sequence we see Godzilla run by a Carl's Jr. billboard. All Carl's Jr. franchises in New York are called Hardee's, revealing that the scene was shot in L.A.
  
  
• Factual errors: O'Neal is addressed as "sir" and is saluted to. Only officers are referred to in this manner. O'Neal is a sergeant, meaning he is enlisted and not an officer.
  
  
• Continuity: Colonel Hicks refers to Rodgers as "Captain" at first, and then "Lieutenant" later on in the film.
  
  
• Continuity: In one scene Lieutenant Anderson has his sleeves rolled up Army-style and the next, they are rolled Marine-style.
  
  
• Continuity: On the bridge, one of the Caprice's headlights is burned out in live action shots, but both are working in the wide CG shots.
  
  
• Factual errors: When Godzilla jumps into the water (just before the submarines attack), there is no wave triggered afterwards, which is very unlikely, considering the mass Godzilla has.
  
  
• Continuity: When the three fighters destroyed Madison Square Gardens the leader used 2 missiles. However later on when Godzilla the leader has 4 missiles just like the others when he already used up two.
  
  
• Continuity: In the beginning when Godzilla comes cars bounce as he walks. Yet later on in the chase sequence he was much closer to them and their car remained on the ground even when they were underneath him.
  
  
• Continuity: During the part where Godzilla has the cab in his mouth, the back windshield is perfectly fine, yet earlier in, the windshield is broken.
  
  
• Factual errors: During the flight to New York, Dr. Elsie Chapman suggests that the beast is a "sauropoda Allosaurus." A true paleontologist would know that the Allosaurus was a theropod, not a sauropod.
  
  
• Continuity: When the old man is fishing from the pier his line is reeling out quickly but his bobber is still just floating in front of him.
  
  
• Continuity: When Godzilla is approaching the News Studio the light inside is shaking, yet when he is right outside the window and still walking at the same pace, there is no vibration or shaking of the light.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the Apache helicopter-Godzilla chase sequence, the Apache's have three weapons hard points on each weapon wing; all Apache's have only two hard points per weapon wing.
  
  
• Factual errors: In the cockpit, we see that the machine guns fire in pairs; Apache's only have one automatic cannon. Also, from an outside view, we can see the fired rounds coming from the wings; the Apache's gun is mounted underneath the nose.
  
  
• Crew or equipment visible: When Nick and the French guys get in the van and drive off to return to the city, you can see the camera man in the side windows of the van
  
  
• Factual errors: Based on the width and depth of the Hudson River, it would be impossible for a Los Angles Submarine to navigate submerged, let alone high speed turns.
  
  
• Continuity: When the Broderick character leaves town in a cab we see pouring rain through the plain-glass rear window of the cab. Later, when the cab stops to reveal the driver as French secret service, we see the rear window over Broderick's shoulder suddenly now has defroster wires embedded in the glass.
  
  
• Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Niko is in the taxi and is asking where Philippe is taking him, Niko's lips don't match up to what he's saying. For example when he say "Let me go!", his lips do NOT match what he's saying.
  
  
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Elsie suggests that Godzilla's footprints may belong to the dinosaur Allosaurus, and Nick corrects her that Godzilla is much too big to be a dinosaur. A true paleontologists wouldn't have considered this in the first place, as Godzilla's footprints are already larger than most dinosaurs. It's also impossible to determine the genus of a dinosaur from just a footprint, so Elsie's guess couldn't have been any more specific than a "theropod dinosaur" (bipedal carnivorous dinosaurs).
  
  
• Continuity: When the French guy shoots through the metal double doors at the babyzilla behind them, he pops off numerous rounds from a rapid-fire machine gun. However, after he is done firing, there are only eighteen holes in the door. As long as he fired the weapon, there should have been countless holes in the doors.
  
  
• Factual errors: Jet Aircraft cannot fly so close behind each other when in a line formation, the engine exhaust from the first Jet would extinguish the seconds jet engine, having momentarily eaten up all the oxygen in that path.
  
  
• Factual errors: Cold blooded animal does not mean its blood is cold, it means it does not regulate temperature by itself. To move a mass of that size, you would need a lot of energy and you probably would dissipate a lot of heat (this goes for the tracking missiles, and the fact that the animal seemed to move very fast in cold water which does not agree with previous sentence). Also, it would probably be easy to track on land with seismic triangulation.
  
  
• Continuity: When Dr. Niko is standing in his "sample" (i.e., the footprint), Colonel Hicks uses a ladder to climb out of the footprint, but they never descended a ladder to get into the footprint in the first place. A long shot of the scene reveals that all sides of the print are vertical - there is no sloped side that they could have walked down.
  
  

• Plot holes: SPOILER: After Godzilla has entered Manhattan, Nick goes off to buy several home pregnancy tests, presumably to check whether Godzilla is pregnant or not. But after he has found Godzilla indeed to be pregnant, why does Nick react so surprised as to show that he hadn't even contemplated that possibility? (The novelization does explain that Nick was doing it more as a joke than having seriously considered Godzilla being pregnant.)
  
  
• Factual errors: SPOILER: When Nick buys the home pregnancy test, one of the boxes given to him by the pharmacist is a "Duane Reade" brand box. Dunae Reade is a large chain of drugstores in NY that sells their own brands. Small drugstores do not sell the Duane Reade brand.
  
  
• Plot holes: SPOILER: Most of the last hour of the movie is concerned with trying to keep the hatchlings contained inside Madison Square Garden, but they ignore the fact that there's a huge hole in the floor of the arena leading to the sewers. The search team has to know about the hole - it's how they got into the building themselves.
  
  

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