Godzilla: Final Wars

Godzilla: Final Wars
Japanese film poster
Directed by	Ryuhei Kitamura
Produced by	Shogo Tomiyama
Screenplay by	Isao Kiriyama Wataru Mimura
Starring	Masahiro Matsuoka Rei Kikukawa Don Frye Kane Kosugi Maki Mizuno Kazuki Kitamura
Narrated by	Kōichi Yamadera
Music by	Keith Emerson Nobuhiko Morino Daisuke Yano Themes: Akira Ifukube
Cinematography	Takumi Furuya Fujio Okawa
Edited by	Shūichi Kakesu
Production company	Toho
Distributed by	Toho
Release dates	November 29, 2004 (2004-11-29) (World Premiere) December 4, 2004 (2004-12-04) (Japan)
Running time	125 minutes
Country	Japan
Language	Japanese English
Budget	$19.5 million
Box office	$12 million

Godzilla: Final Wars (ゴジラ ファイナルウォーズ, Gojira: Fainaru Wōzu) is a 2004 Japanese Science fiction Kaiju film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura and written by Wataru Mimura and Isao Kiriyama. It is the 29th film in the Godzilla franchise, the 28th Godzilla film produced by Toho, and the sixth and final film in the Millennium series. It is also the last Godzilla film to be produced by any studio until 2014's Godzilla and the last Godzilla film to be produced by Toho until 2016's Godzilla Resurgence.

As the franchise's 50th anniversary film, a variety of actors and monsters from previous Godzilla films make appearances in the film. Godzilla: Final Wars held its premiere on November 29, 2004 in Los Angeles, California and was released in Japan on December 4, 2004. Before the world premiere, Godzilla received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Plot

In Antarctica during the 1960s, Godzilla is entrapped in ice after a battle with the original Gotengo. Decades later, environmental disasters cause the appearance of giant monsters and super-humans, dubbed "mutants", who are then recruited into the Earth Defense Force (EDF) to battle the monsters. An upgraded Gotengo, commanded by Captain Gordon, battles and destroys Manda, but in the process, the ship is wrecked and Gordon is suspended from the EDF.

Mutant soldier Shinichi Ozaki is tasked with guarding a U.N. biologist, Dr. Miyuki Otonashi, who's sent to study a mummified monster. They are teleported to Infant Island where they encounter the Shobijin, fairies of Mothra, who reveal the mummified monster as Gigan, an alien cyborg sent to destroy the Earth who was subdued by Mothra. They warn that a battle between good and evil will happen soon and that Ozaki must choose a side. Giant monsters begin attacking several major cities. The EDF engage the creatures, who mysteriously vanish at the same moment when an alien mother ship appears over Tokyo. The aliens, named Xiliens, warn that an incoming planet called "Gorath" will soon impact the Earth. A peace pact is signed between Earth and the Xiliens.

Distrusting the Xiliens, Ozaki, Miyuki, her sister, Anna discover that Gorath is actually a hologram, the Xiliens unleashed the monsters and also replaced several members of the EDF with android duplicates. After exposing them on television, the Xilien Controller reveals their actual plans to use mankind as a food source. The Controller assumes control of all of the mutants except Ozaki. The others escape while The Controller awakens Gigan and unleashes the monsters once again. Gordon convinces the group that only Godzilla can defeat the monsters and the group departs to Antarctica. Gigan is sent to destroy them but is easily destroyed by Godzilla. The Gotengo then guides Godzilla into battle with the other monsters and returns to Tokyo to engage the Xiliens. After penetrating the mother ship, the group is captured and taken to the controller.

Godzilla destroys Gorath just before it crashes, unleashing Monster X. An upgraded Gigan aids Monster X but is intercepted by Mothra, who both perish in the end. The Controller reveals that both he and Ozaki are "Keizer's", super-beings with unimaginable power, and attempts to control Ozaki but is stopped by Miyuki. Ozaki defeats the Controller, who sets the ship to self-destruct. The humans escape in the Gotengo moments before the mother ship explodes. Godzilla and Monster X continue their battle but Monster X transforms into its true form, Keizer Ghidorah. Keizer Ghidorah initially gets the upper-hand but Godzilla emerges victorious in the end. Godzilla prepares to the destroy the Gotengo but is stopped by his offspring, Minilla, who makes Godzilla realize that he must forgive mankind. The survivors watch Godzilla and Minilla return to the ocean.

Cast

• Masahiro Matsuoka as Shinichi Ozaki (尾崎 真一, Ozaki Shin'ichi)
• Rei Kikukawa as Miyuki Otonashi (音無 美雪, Otonashi Miyuki)
• Don Frye as Captain Douglas Gordon (ダグラス・ゴードン大佐, Dagurasu Gōdon Taisa)
• Kazuki Kitamura as The Xillian Controller
• Maki Mizuno as Anna Otonashi (音無 杏奈, Otonashi Anna)
• Kane Kosugi as Katsunori Kazama
• Kumi Mizuno as Akiko Namikawa (波川 玲子, Namikawa Akiko)
• Kenji Sahara as Hachiro Jinguji (神宮寺 八郎, Jingūji Hachirō)
• Masami Nagasawa as the Shobijin (小美人)
• Chihiro Otsuka as the Shobijin (小美人)
• Shigeru Izumiya as Samon Taguchi (田口 左門, Taguchi Samon)
• Kenta Suga as Kenta Taguchi (田口 健太, Taguchi Kenta)
• Masakatsu Funaki as Commander Kumasaka (熊坂教官, Kumasaka Kyōkan)
• Masatoh Eve as the Xilien General (X星人司令官, Ekkusu seijin Shirei)
• Jun Kunimura as Major Kumoro (小室少佐, Kumuro Shōsa)
• Akira Takarada as Naotaro Daigo (醍醐 直太郎, Daigo Naotarō)
• Tsutomu Kitagawa as Godzilla
• Naoko Kamio as Minilla and Rodan
• Kazuhiro Yoshida as Gigan and Hedorah.
• Toshihiro Ogura as Keizer Ghidorah, Anguirus, and Ebirah
• Motokuni Nakagawa as Monster X and King Caesar

Production

Godzilla's new design for Godzilla: Final Wars dubbed the FinalGoji.

Ryuhei Kitamura accepted the offer to direct the film due to being unsatisfied with the Godzilla films of the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, stating, "I loved the Godzilla movies back in the ’70s, but not so much the ones released in the 1980s and ’90s. Godzilla movies back in the ’70s were never just monster movie, there were always messages and themes that reflected the time and world within which they were made, and they combined this so well with straight-out entertainment. They lost that touch in the ’80s".

Director Ryuhei Kitamura has compared Godzilla: Final Wars to that of a musician's "Best of" album, stating "We picked lots and lots of the best elements from the past and combined it in a new way. It's what I love about Godzilla and what I don't love about recent Godzilla movies".

Like previous Godzilla films, Godzilla: Final Wars makes extensive use of practical effects rather than CGI. The special effects were directed and supervised by Eiichi Asada, who also directed the special effects for Godzilla: Tokyo SOS. Commenting on the special effects, Kitamura stated at the film's world premiere in Hollywood, "We stick to the special effects. That’s what we've been doing for 50 years. And that’s why Hollywood don’t do it. So on the first meeting, I told everybody that we stick to the special effects, and the live action instead of CGI. So it’s a CGI-monster-Hollywood Godzilla versus our man-made live-action monsters."

Music

Main article: Godzilla: Final Wars (soundtrack)

The music in Godzilla: Final Wars was composed by Keith Emerson, Daisuke Yano and Nobuhiko Morino, while the band Sum 41 contributed the song "We're All To Blame" to the soundtrack (and received high billing in the film's opening credits sequence). Some critics expressed concern with the music of Final Wars, arguing that Emerson's score would be better suited for a campy made-for-television movie or video games, while others pointed out that it made a refreshing change from the music of previous Godzilla films.

Akira Ifukube's themes were mostly absent from the movie, though Godzilla's original theme can be heard at the beginning of the film. However, Keith Emerson did cover the Godzilla theme which is available on the film's official soundtrack. The cover is entitled "Godzilla (Main Theme)".

The bands Sum 41 and Zebrahead contributed the tracks "We're All To Blame" and "Godzilla vs. Tokyo" respectively, to the film, however neither song was on the film's soundtrack.

Filming locations

Godzilla: Final Wars began filming in July 2003. The locations of filming included Sydney, Egypt, New York City, Paris, Shanghai, Arizona and Tokyo.

Critical reception

Godzilla: Final Wars has received extremely mixed reviews from film critics and fans alike. As of May 2011, review aggregate Rotten Tomatoes reports that 44% of critics gave positive reviews for the film based on nine reviews.

Steve Biodrowski of Cinefantastique called the film "utterly fantastic" and "a rush of explosive excitement." Jim Agnew of Film Threat gave the film four and a half stars out of five, saying "the good news for kaiju fans is that Godzilla: Final Wars is a kick-ass giant monster flick." Drew McWeeny of Ain't It Cool News remarked, "Godzilla: Final Wars earns a special place in my heart. It's fun. Pure lunatic fun, every frame." Sean Axmaker of Static Multimedia said, "Directed by a true fan of the old school, it's lusciously, knowingly, lovingly cheesy." Craig Blamer of the Chico News & Review called the film "a giddy and fast-paced celebration of the big guy."

Conversely, David Nusair of Reel Film gave the film one and a half stars out of five, saying that "the battles are admittedly quite entertaining" but felt that director Ryuhei Kitamura "is absolutely the wrong choice for the material." David Cornelius of eFilmCritic gave the film two stars out of five, calling it "the dullest, weakest Godzilla movie I've seen in a long, long time." Ty Burr of the Boston Globe gave the film one and a half stars out of five, saying it focused too much on action and not enough on story, and calling it "35 minutes longer than is necessary."

Among kaiju-related websites, J.L. Carrozza of Toho Kingdom "absolutely love[d]" Final Wars, saying "[it's] no masterpiece, but it is such insane fun that quite frankly it's hard not to adore it." Mike Bogue of American Kaiju said "the film is flawed, but nonetheless entertaining," saying there are "too many [Matrix-style] battles" but that the film "makes excellent use of its monsters" and "Kitamura keeps things moving at a brisk pace." Japan Hero criticized the "[lack of] character development" but concluded that Final Wars is "a very entertaining movie," saying that "Kitamura did a wonderful job making it an interesting and great looking film worthy of being the final [Godzilla] movie."

Stomp Tokyo said "the monster scenes are generally well done" but criticized the film's "incoherence," saying: "It's a shame that Kitamaura couldn't choose a tone for the film, instead shifting the movie's mood wildly from scene to scene." Lenny Taguchi of Monster Zero criticized Keith Emerson's soundtrack but gave Final Wars an overall favorable review, calling it a "fun and good" movie that "tries many things, and generally succeeds at almost all of them."

Director Kitamura commented at the film's world premiere that the reason why he agreed to direct the film was because he wanted to update Godzilla and recapture the same spirit seen in the later Godzilla films from the Showa era. He wanted to incorporate the same speed and power seen in films like Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, which he believed was lost somewhere within the series, stating, "The Godzilla series had lost that kind of taste. I think that back in the '70s Godzilla movies had more power and speed. He was very fast and he was very strong. So in my Godzilla, you know, less dialogue and more action. That’s more fun than watching people discuss and what we should do about Godzilla. As a Godzilla fan I want to see Godzilla punching and kicking, beating up all the other monsters instead of somebody talking again, you know, discussing the operation. That's what I wanted to do is to revive that, but not in the same way, I have to update. This is the updated version of '70s, crazy, monster movies."

Box office

At roughly $19,500,000, Godzilla: Final Wars was the most expensive Toho-produced Godzilla film of all time.

Any hopes Toho had of Godzilla: Final Wars ending the series with a box office bang were stifled when the film opened in Japan on December 4, 2004. In its opening weekend, it came in third at the box office with $1,874,559. At the holiday season box office, it was beaten by Howl's Moving Castle and The Incredibles, both which also pursued the family market. It eventually grossed roughly $12,000,000 at the Japanese box office, with 1,000,000 admissions. Not only was it the least-attended film in the Millennium series, it was also the least attended film in 29 years since Terror of Mechagodzilla.

Home media releases

Sony - Blu-ray (Toho Godzilla Collection)

• Released: May 6, 2014
• Picture: 2.40:1 (MPEG-4 AVC) [1080P]
• Sound: Japanese and English (DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1)
• Subtitles: English, English SDH, and French
• Extras:
• Godzilla: B-Roll to Film (SD, Japanese DD 2.0, English subtitles, 17:54)
• Theatrical Trailer (Japanese DD 2.0, English subtitles, 2:11, HD)
• Teaser 1 (Japanese DD 2.0, English subtitles, 0:41, HD)
• Teaser 2 (Japanese DD 2.0, English subtitles, 0:41, HD)
• Teaser 3 (Japanese DD 2.0, English subtitles, 0:42, HD)
• Notes: This is a 2-Disc double feature with Godzilla: Tokyo SOS.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

• Released: December 13, 2005
• Aspect Ratio: Widescreen (2.40:1) Anamorphic
• Sound: Japanese (Dolby Digital 5.1) English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English and French
• Supplements: Behind-the-Scenes Featurette (comparison of B-roll footage to finished film)(17:53 min); Trailers for Final Fantasy VII Advent Children, Steamboy, Dust to Glory, MirrorMask, and Madison
• Region 1
• MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for Intense Sequences of Violence.

External links

• Godzilla: Final Wars at IMDb
• Godzilla: Final Wars at AllMovie
• Godzilla: Final Wars at Rotten Tomatoes
• Official Site in Japanese
• Godzilla: Final Wars at Toho Kingdom including several reviews