Godzilla Minus Zero needs to copy the most infamous Godzilla movie 5 specific ways

The first trailer for Godzilla Minus Zero just dropped, and the biggest surprise isn’t what happens but where it happens. Set two years after Godzilla Minus One, the sequel continues the story of ex-Kamikaze pilot Kôichi Shikishima (Ryûnosuke Kamiki) and his family after the destruction of Tokyo. But while we see some of the Japanese capital in the trailer, the final shot depicts Godzilla alongside… the Statue of Liberty.

This will be the first time Godzilla has come to New York since the much-maligned 1998 American Godzilla, directed by 1998 American Godzilla. While I realize everybody hates that movie, there are some cool, albeit fleeting, moments in the film. I’m not saying you should go back and watch it, but there are some things about it that I wouldn’t mind seeing emulated or even outright repeated in the upcoming Godzilla Minus Zero.

Here are five of them.

5

Godzilla as a global threat

When he directed Independence Day, Emmerich proved himself as the master of epic, global catastrophe movies, and he brought that same sense of scale to his next film, Godzilla. In this movie, Godzilla feels like he’s the world’s problem, not just New York’s, which is emphasized in a scene where some Japanese fishermen tell a member of the French Secret Service played by Jean Reno the legend of the kaiju.

4

An epic water arrival

From what we’ve already seen, Godzilla Minus Zero probably has this beat, but the arrival of Godzilla in the 1998 film is still pretty cool. It begins with an old fisherman thinking he’s caught something big, only for Godzilla to emerge and destroy the dock and much of a fish market along with it. The scene was so good that the movie’s whole marketing campaign kicked off with it.

3

Wanton destruction of NYC landmarks

I love New York, but I also love seeing New York be utterly destroyed in movies. In Godzilla, there’s plenty of large-scale destruction, including the Brooklyn Bridge and the Chrysler Building, even if the latter is destroyed by a fighter pilot with poor aim.

2

That killer helicopter sequence

Probably the best scene in the whole movie is the helicopter chase. In it, army helicopters weave through buildings to get at Godzilla, and the camera is placed right in the POV of the pilot, just like a really good video game. There were some spectacular airplane sequences in Godzilla Minus One and the way to escalate the action is to place the next air battle low enough in New York City where the buildings are nearly as hazardous as the monster is.

1

The taxi cab chase

No matter how many Uber and Lyft drivers are in New York now, the iconic yellow cabs will always be a part of the city’s landscape. Emmerich understood that when he had Godzilla pursuing a yellow cab for the movie’s final chase scene (while the main characters hilariously argued about directions). The good thing is, even back in 1947, New York City yellow cabs were already commonplace, so if Godzilla Minus Zero director Takashi Yamazaki is going for iconic “Godzilla in New York” stuff in his movie, he’s got to include some action with a yellow cab.