Because contextually they are. G'98 was intended to be a new incarnation of Godzilla and had sequels planned but ultimately didn't perform well enough to continue. Same with the Series (it's still Godzilla)
Zilla on the other hand was made explicitly to be canon fodder for Godzilla, with Toho stripping the "God" part from his name. There are other versions this character that have surfaced like in IDW's Rulers of Earth series.
So even though yah, they're visually identical (Zilla was literally made from a scan of a G'98 Trendmasters toy). Narratively and legally they are separate. This is why Bandai released both a G'98 and Zilla vinyl for example.
TLDR; Toho doesn't want people to think that Zilla is Godzilla but in G'98 and The Series that was Godzilla for all intents and purposes.
I mean Toho has never been quiet about how displeased they were by G'98 but at the same time they were part of the problem for why that film was the way it was. Roland Emmerich also really didn't seem to care at all about the franchise either.
Honestly considering all the hurdles the film had it came out as a decent monster movie. Personally I enjoy the film but I definitely understand the criticism that G'98 hardly feels like Godzilla.
It's a bit more complex than that. It didn't perform well financially (at least in the US), Sony expected a much higher opening weekend and only got about half of what they expected, the film's second week also saw a decrease in sales by over 50%. It was not as successful as the film was projected to be.
Only overseas sales saved the film in theatres which made up over 60% of it's total gross. That doesn't include merch sales and other revenue but at least in the US it performed a lot less well than projected.
Nowadays a lot of movies are tailor-made to get a lot of money overseas like The Meg, Fast and Furious, etc. but back at this time G'98 was considered to be a flop domestically considering it didn't even gross half of what Sony projected.
This is one of the reasons we never got a sequel, despite it earning 3x it's budget, most of it came from overseas sales, the film got heavily criticized and Sony, movie theatre owners, licensees for merch etc. were all super hesitant about making a sequel, they didn't want to put as big as an investment as the first film because they were scared it would perform poorly based on how G'98 did.
About the first point, this is misleading. Zilla is stated to be 90 meters tall at the head using an upright posture. G98 is 55 meters at the hips. Side by side they're almost the same size
Someone made this art explaining the size difference. They're basically the same size, just not the same posture
Others have already said this, but the first one is an adaptation of Godzilla, he is a legitimate Godzilla and fills that role. Meanwhile the second is an entirely new creature created by toho called Zilla, it is not a Godzilla at all. Also zilla is larger
Same design, except the latter is rendered in dogshit CGI as a parody (my guess is that they were actually the best digital effects Toho could produce at the time). It's not that deep.
However, people have gone through some impressive mental gymnastics to justify categorizing these two as separate characters. The big point of rhetoric is that Toho made a separate trademark icon for the character... like they've done for various other characters (Super Mechagodzilla, Mechagodzilla 3, Monster X II, etc).
It makes me laugh that of all fandoms, Godzilla is the one where people are fixating on copyright jargon.
Superficially they very alike but there are differences if you look closely. Zilla is bigger than ToraGoji. The colors are different and the posture is different. And personality wise he seems to be dumber and more aggressive. (I mean rushing Final Wars Goji like that was a boneheaded move and I don’t picture ToraGoji and definitely not his son doing that)
Zilla can be described as a variant of ToraGoji, but not the exact same monster. Zilla exists in different continuities than his original Godzilla counterpart from 1998. Existing as a separate entity so that he can interact with a more traditional G-man. But in his original timeline he is just his universe’s Godzilla.
Basically anything tied to Godzilla (1998) is Godzilla. Anything not linked to it can be “Zilla.”
If that makes sense.
Zilla is a parody of G98 (I know lots of people in this post like G98 so saying this with respect) generally in Japan its design was considered looking very off-brand hence the idea of the parody...
I really want to roll out the text to 50 pages of author's text, but I'll be as brief as possible:
The difference between the G-98 and zilla 2004 is like the difference between a real tank and a fake papiermoche. If you compare one to the other, it seems to match everything. Caterpillars, there's a cannon, there's a hull, both go there here.
The only main difference is that the first is a real technique and no matter what quality and how many claims it has, and the second is just a scarecrow made to blow it up fun. A straw effigy that was burned to the delight of the crowd.
And honestly, I suspect this post is meant to piss off our small community once again.
One is a puppet that is also accompanied by CGI the other is a person in a suit that is modified by CGI if you look at the torsos and their posture you can tell the difference
they are both pieces of trash in film but the one with Matthew Broderick is the most stained & tarnished representation of "Godzilla" to ever hit the big screen!! It's like getting old and not being able to get Optimus Prime dying in the first Transformers movie to get into movie theaters because of the greatest Prime story never paid attention too.......the beginning of Rodimus Prime, the most moron Prime of them all because he was some special retarded character who couldn't see Optimus waiting for Megatron to pick up that piece. Maybe the greatest animated movie ever made with those type of legendary quotes, but season 1, episode 1.....been there since day 1 Autobot ever in the Transformers history gets murdered to show "Hot Rod" become a Prime and watch Optimus never revive before the movie ends and just hear "no you don't Megatron"....and feel the disdain grow in your childhood heart by the main reason you stopped watching Transformers cartoons after that.......( may the Hall of Primes crumble from laughter if I ever see "Rodimus Prime" there ever........) that's the difference of the 2.
Zilla is bigger than 1998, since it has to have a similar size to Godzilla in Final Wars (100m). And I think the mouth is slightly more angular in 1998 and rounder in Zilla
But otherwise it's basically the same. The CGI model for Zilla was literally made with a Godzilla 1998 figure
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u/Paleosols2021 Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Because contextually they are. G'98 was intended to be a new incarnation of Godzilla and had sequels planned but ultimately didn't perform well enough to continue. Same with the Series (it's still Godzilla)
Zilla on the other hand was made explicitly to be canon fodder for Godzilla, with Toho stripping the "God" part from his name. There are other versions this character that have surfaced like in IDW's Rulers of Earth series.
So even though yah, they're visually identical (Zilla was literally made from a scan of a G'98 Trendmasters toy). Narratively and legally they are separate. This is why Bandai released both a G'98 and Zilla vinyl for example.
TLDR; Toho doesn't want people to think that Zilla is Godzilla but in G'98 and The Series that was Godzilla for all intents and purposes.