(Gojira Fainaru Uozu)
December 4, 2004
A good chunk of the action in this movie takes inspiration from American films such as The Matrix and Independence Day to name a few. In addition to monster fights we get an abundance of human/mutant fights. So if a motorcycle chase and wire kung fu are your thing, this movie has you covered. If there was ever a Godzilla movie I would refer to as a live action anime, it would be Final Wars. It is quite insane!
As expected, the monster fights are aplenty. One common complaint about Final Wars is directed at the fights themselves, specifically at how short they are. Godzilla pretty much dispatches most of the monsters he encounters at the start in a matter of minutes and it left them wanting more.
I'll give them Gigan and maybe the 4 way brawl between Godzilla, Anguirus, Rodan and King Caesar. But really, I was not expecting others like Kamacurus, Kumonga and Ebirah to last very long and their fights went pretty much as expected.
Also come on, you know you wanted to see Godzilla kill that tuna head in seconds.
The bigger budget meant the effects team was able to go all out in terms of monster suits, sets, explosions and digital effects.
Most of the monsters were suits with some CGI for movements that no suit could perform, but some like Kamacurus and Manda were a mix of puppets and CG. While Manda's CG could be better, Kamacurus' actually looks great when he's flying around.
If you remember Kumonga from Son of Godzilla, that was one large puppet with piano wires moving it's body and all 8 of it's legs. Same results here.
And I'm convinced Zilla's CGI looks mediocre on purpose. And I'm ok with that.
The music in this movie is very techno/electronic rock sounding compared to what we've gotten so far. 3 composers would work on this movie: Nobuhiko Morino, Daisuke Yano and the first American composer, Keith Emerson. I like some tracks more than others, but it does sort of fit a 70's style Godzilla movie well enough.
As a special bonus, the Sum 41 song "We're All To Blame" makes a special appearance in the film.
In a surprising move, the world premiere for Final Wars was held at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood. Godzilla would also be honored with his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Godzilla: Final Wars is one of the more divisive films of the entire series. Some love it, others hate it. I can see how many fans or others in general wouldn't like this movie, but I'd be lying if I didn't say that personally, I love Final Wars. Is it ridiculous, over the top and nonsensical at times? Absolutely. But I feel like this movie doesn't pretend to be anything other than a celebration of Godzilla's 50 year history and it delivers on the fun, flaws and all.
I'd love to tell you that a movie meant to celebrate Godzilla was a success, but despite the crews best efforts it didn't come close to making it's money back eventually being crushed by Howl's Moving Castle and The Incredibles. It sold the least tickets of any of the Millennium films and continues to be one of the lowest grossing films of the franchise.
If Toho didn't already plan to end the series, there was no going back.
Deadly monsters controlled by evil alien invaders begin attacking the major cities of the world. With the earth decimated and humanity on the brink of extinction, the Earth Defense Force has no choice but to rely on their worst enemy, Godzilla, to defeat the monsters and save the planet.
The year was 2004, The United States presidential election was something of a cluster, everybody's favorite swimmer Michael Phelps won 6 gold medals in the Olympics. But the most important thing that happened in our history was that the worlds biggest movie star, Godzilla was celebrating his 50th Anniversary. Despite Shogo Tomiyama's decision to end the Godzilla series due to consistently low ticket sales and box office gross, he knew he couldn't end it and not do something big for the occasion. So with a budget of 1,900,000,000 yen (the largest budget ever given to a Godzilla film), an interesting choice for a director and the largest monster cast ever assembled, Godzilla: Final Wars was set to be the most ambitious film of the entire series.
But did it work? Well...
Let's talk about the human cast first.
Godzilla Final Wars takes place in a universe where Godzilla and a heap of other monsters have attacked since 1954 forcing mankind to join together to fight them off. Thus forming the Earth Defense Force, who's signature weapons are warships capable of fighting in the air and sea. The main one we follow is a reimagining of the war machine named Gotengo, last seen in the 1963 Toho film 'Atragon.' Gotengo is an amazing ship armed with missiles, laser beams and a goddamn drill in the front.
Amidst the members of the EDF are a special group of humans with enhanced strength and abilities dubbed Mutants. Shockingly, instead of treating them like they do in something like 'X-Men', they are instead recruited to help defend the planet. Good on ya EDF!
We also have an updated version of the Alien race seen in 'Invasion of Astro-Monster', the Xiliens, who come to Earth to deal with the increase in monster attacks around the world. Buuuut if you've seen 'Invasion of Astro-Monster', you probably know exactly where this is going...
Unlike past Millennium entries, the characters in Final Wars are not the most interesting, possessing only surface level motivations. Really, the only character with a meaningful arc is the mutant Ozaki (Masahiro Matsuoka), even if it is just a simple 'super powered being figuring out he has power beyond his understanding and figuring out what to do with it' storyline. None of the main cast is terrible by any means, it's mainly the bit players that ham it up quite a bit. Side note: the scene in New York with the pimp, the cop and the bum is 100% accurate, no questions asked.
Like the last few movies, Final Wars gives us a good number of roles played by veteran cast members including Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara, Akira Nokao, Koichi Ueda. We even get the "star" of the first Godzilla, Mr. Handsome himself, Akira Takarada.
However, the best and most memorable character without a doubt is the gruff voiced, trench coat wearing, katana wielding, mustache having Captain Douglas Gordon, the manliest man who ever manned! Played by former MMA fighter Don Frye. Despite his somewhat dry delivery, his character is just so fascinating and entertaining, you cant take your eyes off him.
Runner up for most memorable character goes to the Xilien leader (Kazuki Kitamura). This guy gloriously chews the scenery dipped in Wasabi and downs it with a pint of Sake.
In all honesty, Final Wars more than makes up for its shortcomings with the humans with an abundance of monster action.
Godzilla, played one last time by Tsutomu Kitagawa, gets an awesome new look with a leaner body and a fearsome looking face that sort of looks like a cat.
The rest of the monsters that appear are a mix of the popular monsters and obscure ones that haven't been seen since the 60's/70's. We get Rodan, Anguirus (FINALLY!), King Caesar, Kamacurus, Kumonga, Manda, Ebirah, Hedorah, my best boy Gigan also makes a much welcomed return sporting a super badass redesign and even Minilla shows up for some wacky antics. Every monster gets a fantastic update to their look, however I gotta be honest and this may sound like a weird complaint, I think Rodan looks too much like a guy in a suit compared to past incarnations.
The year was 2004, The United States presidential election was something of a cluster, everybody's favorite swimmer Michael Phelps won 6 gold medals in the Olympics. But the most important thing that happened in our history was that the worlds biggest movie star, Godzilla was celebrating his 50th Anniversary. Despite Shogo Tomiyama's decision to end the Godzilla series due to consistently low ticket sales and box office gross, he knew he couldn't end it and not do something big for the occasion. So with a budget of 1,900,000,000 yen (the largest budget ever given to a Godzilla film), an interesting choice for a director and the largest monster cast ever assembled, Godzilla: Final Wars was set to be the most ambitious film of the entire series.
But did it work? Well...
Let's talk about the human cast first.
Godzilla Final Wars takes place in a universe where Godzilla and a heap of other monsters have attacked since 1954 forcing mankind to join together to fight them off. Thus forming the Earth Defense Force, who's signature weapons are warships capable of fighting in the air and sea. The main one we follow is a reimagining of the war machine named Gotengo, last seen in the 1963 Toho film 'Atragon.' Gotengo is an amazing ship armed with missiles, laser beams and a goddamn drill in the front.
Amidst the members of the EDF are a special group of humans with enhanced strength and abilities dubbed Mutants. Shockingly, instead of treating them like they do in something like 'X-Men', they are instead recruited to help defend the planet. Good on ya EDF!
We also have an updated version of the Alien race seen in 'Invasion of Astro-Monster', the Xiliens, who come to Earth to deal with the increase in monster attacks around the world. Buuuut if you've seen 'Invasion of Astro-Monster', you probably know exactly where this is going...
Like the last few movies, Final Wars gives us a good number of roles played by veteran cast members including Kumi Mizuno, Kenji Sahara, Akira Nokao, Koichi Ueda. We even get the "star" of the first Godzilla, Mr. Handsome himself, Akira Takarada.
Godzilla, played one last time by Tsutomu Kitagawa, gets an awesome new look with a leaner body and a fearsome looking face that sort of looks like a cat.
Mothra joins the battle eventually with Masami Nagasawa and Chihiro Otsuka reprising their roles as the Shobijin (although they're not the same characters from Tokyo S.O.S.)
The most surprising monster appearance in this movie is none other than the American Godzilla from 1998, now dubbed: "Zilla." Since Tristar let their rights to Godzilla expire in 2003, Toho was given free reign to do whatever they wanted with the controversial creature. As a kid watching this movie, seeing the real Godzilla fight Zilla BLEW. MY. MIND!
I now make it a point to watch that one particular moment every Christmas.
We do get one new monster in Final Wars, Monster X. Unoriginal name aside, he does look cool and saying more about him might spoil part of the final fight for some of you.
Ryuhei Kitamura, was chosen to direct this ambitious entry in the series. Kitamura would say that he was a bigger fan of the Godzilla films of the 70's (Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla being his all time favorite) and wanted to make his movie in that same style. Final Wars wears its focus on over the top action with no real message or meaning to it on it's sleeve.
I now make it a point to watch that one particular moment every Christmas.
We do get one new monster in Final Wars, Monster X. Unoriginal name aside, he does look cool and saying more about him might spoil part of the final fight for some of you.
Ryuhei Kitamura, was chosen to direct this ambitious entry in the series. Kitamura would say that he was a bigger fan of the Godzilla films of the 70's (Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla being his all time favorite) and wanted to make his movie in that same style. Final Wars wears its focus on over the top action with no real message or meaning to it on it's sleeve.
A good chunk of the action in this movie takes inspiration from American films such as The Matrix and Independence Day to name a few. In addition to monster fights we get an abundance of human/mutant fights. So if a motorcycle chase and wire kung fu are your thing, this movie has you covered. If there was ever a Godzilla movie I would refer to as a live action anime, it would be Final Wars. It is quite insane!
I'll give them Gigan and maybe the 4 way brawl between Godzilla, Anguirus, Rodan and King Caesar. But really, I was not expecting others like Kamacurus, Kumonga and Ebirah to last very long and their fights went pretty much as expected.
Also come on, you know you wanted to see Godzilla kill that tuna head in seconds.
The bigger budget meant the effects team was able to go all out in terms of monster suits, sets, explosions and digital effects.
Most of the monsters were suits with some CGI for movements that no suit could perform, but some like Kamacurus and Manda were a mix of puppets and CG. While Manda's CG could be better, Kamacurus' actually looks great when he's flying around.
If you remember Kumonga from Son of Godzilla, that was one large puppet with piano wires moving it's body and all 8 of it's legs. Same results here.
And I'm convinced Zilla's CGI looks mediocre on purpose. And I'm ok with that.
The music in this movie is very techno/electronic rock sounding compared to what we've gotten so far. 3 composers would work on this movie: Nobuhiko Morino, Daisuke Yano and the first American composer, Keith Emerson. I like some tracks more than others, but it does sort of fit a 70's style Godzilla movie well enough.
As a special bonus, the Sum 41 song "We're All To Blame" makes a special appearance in the film.
I'd love to tell you that a movie meant to celebrate Godzilla was a success, but despite the crews best efforts it didn't come close to making it's money back eventually being crushed by Howl's Moving Castle and The Incredibles. It sold the least tickets of any of the Millennium films and continues to be one of the lowest grossing films of the franchise.
If Toho didn't already plan to end the series, there was no going back.
THE KING'S UNCERTAIN FUTURE...
I do love the Millennium series overall but it's hard to tell just why the films didn't succeed as much as the others. Maybe they were made too soon or at the wrong time, but the early to mid 2000's were not kind to Kaiju films. Even when Gamera come back to the big screen in 2006, it failed to leave an impact and had no chance of continuation.
Despite Shogo Tomiyama's claims that Godzilla would return one day, there's no denying that it really did feel like the absolute end. Toho even went so far as to demolish the big pool that was used to film the water scenes for the films.
For the better part of a decade I and many fans alike would wonder and wait, looking for any sign of hope of the Big G's return. But as we all know, Legendary Pictures would make their film which invigorated interest and eventually inspired Toho themselves to get back in the game and reinvent Godzilla for his many fans new and old. I feel it safe to say that there's never been a better time to be a Godzilla fan than right now.
Despite Shogo Tomiyama's claims that Godzilla would return one day, there's no denying that it really did feel like the absolute end. Toho even went so far as to demolish the big pool that was used to film the water scenes for the films.
For the better part of a decade I and many fans alike would wonder and wait, looking for any sign of hope of the Big G's return. But as we all know, Legendary Pictures would make their film which invigorated interest and eventually inspired Toho themselves to get back in the game and reinvent Godzilla for his many fans new and old. I feel it safe to say that there's never been a better time to be a Godzilla fan than right now.
Till next time, I have been your host Gryphon
and thank you for joining me here in my lair.
So long...
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