Godzilla 2000: Millennium (ゴジラ2000 ミレニアム, Gojira Nisen: Mireniamu) is a 1999 Japanese kaiju film directed by Takao Okawara, written by Hiroshi Kashiwabara and Wataru Mimura, produced by Shogo Tomiyama and starring Takehiro Murata, Hiroshi Abe, Naomi Nishida, Mayu Suzuki and Shiro Sano. Produced and distributed by Toho Studios, it is the 24th film in the Godzilla franchise, as well as the first film in the franchise's Millennium period. The film was also the 23rd Godzilla film to be produced by Toho, and was Toho's second reboot of the Godzilla franchise after the 1985 film The Return of Godzilla. The film, along with the subsequent Godzilla films in the franchise's Millennium era, ignores continuity established by any previous films with the sole exception of the original 1954 film.
Dubbing History[]
The film was dubbed into English twice. As is standard practice for Toho, the film was originally dubbed in Hong Kong for use in Toho's international version. Unlike many of the international dubs, however, this version has not seen a release, as Toho reportedly preferred the Sony-produced dub over their dub. As such, much of the cast, save for Jack Murphy, who had a line retained in the TriStar dub, is unknown.
The American distribution rights to the film were picked up by Sony Pictures Entertainment subsidiary TriStar Pictures, with Sony executive and film historian Michael Schlesinger choosing to create a new English dub, citing the poor quality of the international dub. Sony spent approximately $300,000 to acquire the film, around $1 million to re-edit and dub the movie in English, and under $10 million on prints and advertising. For doing so, Tristar hoped that the film would gross no worse than $12-15 million in North American theaters.
For Sony's theatrical release, the film was entirely re-dubbed by Asian-American voice actors (Michael Schlesinger deliberately made this choice because he did not want the characters to sound like they were "from Wisconsin."). Only one line from the international version ("As long as the beer's cold, who cares?") was used in the re-dubbed North American version. Several Indian versions use the English pictorial elements of the international version, however.
The TriStar English dub runs 99 minutes - 8 minutes shorter in comparison to the 107-minute Japanese version. These edits were done largely to hasten the pacing, and the sound design was completely redone, which included replacing the monster Orga's roar (which recycled Cretaceous King Ghidorah's from Rebirth of Mothra III) with a more menacing one and supplementing Godzilla's roars and growls with those from the 1998 film. J. Peter Robinson composed some new music meant to supplement Takayuki Hattori's music. The dubbing has a somewhat humorous, tongue-in-cheek tone to it, apparently in homage to Godzilla dubs of the 60s and 70s, with lines such as "Great Caesar's Ghost!", "Bite me!" and "I guarantee it'll [Full Metal Missiles] go through Godzilla like crap through a goose!". Dialogue was also reworked in places to change or jettison certain expository details. Toho and Takao Okawara approved all the changes to the film in advance. Originally, the film ended with the words "The End?" in cartoonish lettering, but Mike Schlesinger and Toho felt it was a bit too goofy, so the "The End?" was removed from home video and television releases, though it was retained for the Spanish-subtitled VHS of the film.
Cast[]
| Character | Original Actor | International | TriStar |
|---|---|---|---|
| Yuji Shinoda | Takehiro Murata | ¿? | François Chau |
| Yuki Ichinose | Naomi Nishida | ¿? | Denise Iketani |
| Mitsuo Katagiri | Hiroshi Abe | ¿? | Ron Yuan |
| Shiro Miyasaka | Shirō Sano | ¿? | Jack Ong |
| Io Shinoda | Mayu Suzuki | ¿? | Rachel Crane |
| General Takada | Takeo Nakahara | ¿? | Jim Ishida |
Additional Voices[]
International Dub
|
TriStar Dub
|
Video Releases[]
| Distributor | Year | Format | Region | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sony Pictures | 2000 | 
|
NTSC | United States | 
|
|
1 NTSC | ||||
| 2014 | 
|
A DVB-T | |||
External Links[]
- Godzilla 2000: Millennium at the Internet Movie Database