When Roland Emmerich attacked Roger Ebert in ‘Godzilla’
Roland Emmerich has made some of the biggest blockbusters in Hollywood history, and his creative sensibilities mirror the grandiose American filmmaking methods, evident in films such as Independence Day. While Emmerich has found commercial success, critics like Roger Ebert have attacked him throughout his career.
Especially in the 1990s, Emmerich directed multiple successful projects, including Universal Soldier and Stargate, but he was constantly maligned by Ebert. When the late critic wrote another disparaging review for Independence Day, Emmerich decided that he was going to take their feud to the next level.
While developing his 1998 interpretation of the mythology of Godzilla, Emmerich decided to parody both Ebert and his on-screen partner Gene Siskel. He inserted a character called Mayor Ebert, who shared Ebert’s physical characteristics as well as his surname, while his assistant Gene was modelled after Siskel.
Many people were a fan of Ebert and Siskel’s “Thumbs up/Thumbs down” system, while others felt that it had a reductive effect on the discourse around cinema. Apparently, Emmerich wasn’t a fan of their method either, which is why he parodied it in Godzilla by naming Ebert’s political campaign “Thumbs Up for New York!”
Neither Ebert nor Siskel was impressed by the parody, with the latter labelling it as “petty”. Siskel said: “If you’re going to go through the trouble of putting us in a monster movie, why don’t you at least take advantage of having the monster either eat or squash us.”
In his printed review, Ebert wrote: “Going to see Godzilla at the Palais of the Cannes Film Festival is like attending a satanic ritual in St. Peter’s Basilica. It’s a rebuke to the faith that the building represents. Cannes touchingly adheres to a belief that film can be intelligent, moving and grand. Godzilla is a big, ugly, ungainly device to give teenagers the impression they are seeing a movie.”
Emmerich did what he does best – he replicated his streak for commercial hits, but his version of Godzilla is still considered to be one of the worst in the history of the franchise. While Ebert and Siskel occasionally failed to recognise visionaries, Emmerich was never one of them.
