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By: Jordan Twining
“Well, an historic weekend has come to a close.” That’s what I was thinking as I flew home to Minnesota after seeing the world premiere of Godzilla’s 50th Anniversary film, “Godzilla: Final Wars”. GFW was not only the first Godzilla film to make its world premiere in the United States, but the first Japanese film EVER to make its world premiere in the United States. This film, which was also Godzilla’s 28th film, premiered at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Monday, November 29, 2004. I, however, had arrived in California on the previous Friday to spend the weekend with my good friends from the infamous “Goon Squad”, with very special thanks to Jean Carbajal who drove us all around! We spent the weekend checking out places to buy Godzilla figures (I picked up several of the new GFW Bandai figures), playing the new “Godzilla: Save the Earth” video game, going to the Universal City Walk, and seeing the new Pixar film “The Incredibles” among several other things. However, on Sunday, we went down to Los Angeles to check into the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, the same hotel that G-Fest`2000 was held at. The hotel also happened to be at ground zero for the world premiere of “Godzilla: Final Wars” as well as the ceremony for Godzilla receiving his star on the walk of fame and the Hollywood Holiday Parade.
The Parade
The Hollywood Holiday Parade on Sunday night featured a float celebrating Godzilla’s 50th Anniversary and “Final Wars”. The float was 28 feet long, 12 feet wide, 14 feet tall, and the depicted Godzilla towering over a cityscape and firing his famous radioactive heat ray. The float looked great coming down Hollywood Boulevard and was very colorful. Plus it also played Akira Ifukube’s classic Godzilla themes as it drove down the street. The entire Goon Squad, including new honorary member Armand Vaquer, and many parade goers cheered like mad when the Godzilla float crossed in front of us. The parade also featured several marching bands from all over the country and some VERY talented dancers. Also, in true Hollywood fashion, the parade featured several celebrities (aside from Godzilla) including parade grand Marshal Magic Johnson, George Lopez, Brad Garrett, Kurtwood Smith, and The Simpsons among several others. The whole parade was great, we all had a blast.
Godzilla Gets His Star
Monday morning we got up early to watch Godzilla receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. However, we were still met with a very large crowd of fans… and we were an hour and a half early! Guess that just goes to show the power Godzilla has over his fans. Anyway, once the ceremony got underway, the mayor of Los Angeles spoke on Godzilla’s long career before introducing the King of the Monsters himself. Godzilla, portrayed as a promotion suit with actor Tsutomu Kitagawa inside, then stomped out onto the scene. He entertained the fans for a few moments before joining the mayor at the podium, where he was presented with a scroll that dubbed November “Godzilla Month” in Hollywood. After this, Godzilla star was unveiled, making the Monster King Hollywood’s 2071 inductee to the Walk of Fame (not 100% sure about that number). Godzilla series producer Shogo Tomiyama then took the stage and said a few words before the ceremony ended and everyone dispersed to absorb what they had just witnessed.
The World Premiere
Well, roughly five hours later we all headed down to Grauman’s Chinese Theater and began to form a line to receive the tickets we had won for the world premiere of “Godzilla: Final Wars”. We stood in line for about two and a half-hours or so (we were first in line cheering like lunatics) before we were finally allowed into the theater. Although first we had to walk on the famous red carpet and flashbulbs went off like crazy! After getting our free popcorn and soda and taking our seats the show began with a raffle for some Godzilla merchandise and an interview with Director Ryuhei Kitamura and several members of the cast and crew. The film also attracted several celebrities including Star Wars’ Billy D. Williams (Lando) and Steven Segal. Hollwood directors Sam Raimi and Quentin Tarantino were also said to have attended the premiere, but we never saw them. Well after the talk with the cast and crew of “Final Wars” the lights went down, the curtain opened, and the film began.
The Film: Spoiler Warning!
The film begins with the old Toho Scope Logo with the Godzilla theme From King Kong vs. Godzilla playing in the background. The film then opens up to Godzilla fighting the military and the Gotengo at the South Pole in the 1960s (with Akira Nakao as Captain). The battle, however, causes an earthquake that opens a fissure in the ice and Godzilla tumbles in. The Gotengo then launches its missiles and buries Godzilla alive in the Antarctic ice. After this the credits, done by Kyle Cooper (Spider-Man), begin as a montage of scenes from various Godzilla movies over the years are shown with music by composer Keith Emerson playing in the background. After the credits, we are shown that it is the near future. Thanks to nearly a century of nuclear tests and modern warfare, as well as unchecked scientific advances, have resulted in serious damage to the planet’s environment. These events have also caused the creation or revival of many giant monsters. To combat these monsters, the nations of the world decide to set aside their petty differences and combat these monsters, forming the Earth Defense Forces in order to face this crisis. It is shown that in the past that the EDF has defeated the likes of Varan, Gezora, Gaira, Baragon, Titanosaurus, and Megaguirus (thanks to some stock footage). During this time it was also discovered that a new breed of humans all over the globe were reaching the next stage in evolution, giving them extraordinary abilities. These mutants were soon recognized for their abilities by the United Nations and several of them were brought together to form a special branch of the Earth Defense Forces called the M-Organization.
After this introduction, we are instantly taken to the English Channel, where the new Gotengo, under the helm of Captain Douglas Gordon (Don Frye), is under attack by Manda, who has wrapped himself around the battleship and will not let go. Captain Gordon orders the crew to steer the ship into a nearby underwater volcano in order to get Manda off, but while the maneuver works, diving so deep severely damages the ship. The Gotengo then makes for the surface with Manda in hot pursuit, but the battleship makes a quick 180 degree turn and fires its freeze ray at Manda, freezing the giant sea serpent solid. The Gotengo then rams its drill into Manda, shattering the monster’s body and killing him. The ship is then called back to its hanger in Japan by EDF Commander Namikawa (veteran Godzilla actor Kumi Mizuno), who imprisons Captain Gordon for his reckless actions and also for striking an officer during his court appearance. We are then shown some scenes of the EDF M-Organization mutants training, specifically mutants Shinichi Ozaki (actor Masahiro Matsuoka) and Kazama (Kane Kosagi). Soon after this Shinichi Ozaki is given the assignment to watch over molecular biologist Miyuki Nemu (actress Rei Kikukawa) as she travels to Hokkaido to study a mummified monster discovered there by a paleontologist (veteran Godzilla actor Kenji Sahara). While these they discover that the monster has the M-Base, the same component found in the Earth mutants, within its body. Later, still studying the mummified monster, all three are transported to Infant Island where the Shobijin (actresses Masami Nagasawa and Chihiru Otsuka) tell them that the monster’s name is Gigan and that it battled Mothra 12,000 years ago after arriving from space. The Shobijin also give them a dagger with Mothra’s insignia on it. They are then transported back to Hokkaido just before the film’s audience is transported halfway around the world to New York City, where a cop and a pimp are having an argument when suddenly a huge gust of wind overtakes them. Rodan appears flying over the city, destroying it with his super sonic flight and also destroys the plane of new UN Secretary General Naotaro Daigo (veteran Godzilla actor Akira Takarada). At the same time, monsters are appearing all over the world. Kamakiras attacks Paris, Kumonga arrives in Arizona, Anguirus stomps through Shanghai, Zilla appears in Sydney, King Seesar smashes his way through Okinawa, and Ebirah attacks Tokai. Three giant flying battleships are dispatched to battle Rodan, Kamakiras, and Anguirus while the EDF mutant soldiers are sent to battle Ebirah in Tokai with maser rifles and rocket launchers. The quick and strong mutants overwhelm Ebirah and defeat him, but suddenly the giant shrimp disappears in a flash of light. Meanwhile, the same thing is happening to all of the attacking monsters around the globe. It is discovered that this is being done by UFOs and after getting rid of the monsters, they all converge on Tokyo and form one gigantic ship. EDF forces scramble to engage the UFO, but suddenly UN Secretary General Naotaro Daigo is beamed down by the ship, tells the EDF that he was saved from Rodan by these aliens, and tells the EDF that the aliens are their friends.
General Daigo and Commander Namikawa, as well as another lead EDF officer are all beamed aboard and are met by the alien leader and other aliens. The leader says that they come from a far away planet and to call them the Xiliens. They have come to warn Earth about an impending danger, that the Planet Gorath is currently hurtling toward Earth and will destroy the planet unless all of Earth’s weapons are concentrated and fired at Gorath at one time. The Xiliens say that they have the coordinates of Planet Gorath and will tell them to the humans. General Daigo, Commander Namikawa, and the EDF officer are all returned to the surface to report on what they have been told and the world is unanimously behind the Xiliens, in fact they absolutely love the aliens (well most of them anyway). However, when watching a tape of General Daigo making a speech about the Xiliens, reporter Anna Otonashi (actress Maki Mizuno) makes a discovery, which she shares with Shinichi Ozaki and Miyuki Nemu, not once during his entire speech did the general blink. They also discover that Gorath is just a hologram created by the Xiliens (or so they think). They then go to interview General Daigo himself, but while doing this he is attacked by an assassin and cut. Ms. Otonashi goes to tend to his wound, but the general refuses treatment and hurries on his way, but not before Ms. Otonashi has some of his blood on a handkerchief. They take the blood and have it analyzed, revealing that the general is not human. They take this information to Commander Namikawa, but find that she has also been turned. They then go to release Captain Gordon from his cell and together go to face Commander Namikawa and the EDF officer that has also been turned. They kill the Xilien imposters, which then change back to their true form, and bring the body onto a live talk show where Ms. Otonashi is interviewing General Daigo, the Xilien Leader, and his associate. Captain Gordon tosses the body onstage on live TV and the Xiliens begin to panic. The fake General Daigo is then shot by Captain Gordon and his skull splits open to reveal the Xilien within.
Trying to salvage the situation, the Xilien leader begins to stand, but is shot in the head by his associate! The Xilien (actor Kazuki Kitamura) then makes the Xilien intentions known: they have come to Earth to make humans their food. Xiliens must consume the mitochodrate in humans to survive, humans will be cattle for them, breeding only to be eaten. They also control all of the monsters that were attacking the cities, having reconstructed their DNA to include the M-Base so that they could control them. Captain Gordon then calls in the EDF mutant soldiers, but thanks to the M-Base in their bodies, which is also in the bodies of the Xiliens, the aliens can control them. All mutant soldiers, except for Shinichi Ozaki, then turn on the humans and try to attack them, but Kumasaka, the Commanding Officer of the Mutant Soldiers, holds them off while the rest escape via a large van. However, the van is attacked and tipped over by mutant soldier Kazama, who is riding a motorcycle and is still under the control of the Xiliens. Ozaki too gets on a motorcycle and the two mutant soliders battle until Ozaki manages to hit Kazama with his motorcycle, knocking him out and ending the Xilien’s control over him. Meanwhile, the new Xilien leader sends all of the monsters that were transported away back to the cities that they were attacking. They also send thousands of smaller Xilien vessels to destroy any resistance. All three of the battleships that were sent to stop Anguirus, Kamakiras, and Rodan are destroyed by those monsters and the cities they attacked are left in ruin. At the same time, Captain Gordon comes up with a plan to take the new Gotengo back to the South Pole and release Godzilla, who is not under alien control because they did not know about him and didn’t reconstruct his DNA. However, on the way to the South Pole the Xiliens awaken Gigan and send him after the Gotengo, but the battleships manages to blast away the ice and awakens Godzilla, who after a brief battle decapitates Gigan with his radioactive heat ray. He then heads after the Gotengo, which makes a hasty retreat with Godzilla in hot pursuit. Godzilla still thinks the battle he had with the Gotengo back in the 1960s is still on and he follows it wherever it goes, battling monsters all along the way as the aliens teleport them in Godzilla’s path. Godzilla battles and defeats Zilla in Sydney, Kumonga in New Guinea, Kamakiras along the Japanese shore, Anguirus, King Seesar, and Rodan at Mount Fuji, and Hedorah and Ebirah in Tokyo.
Meanwhile, the Gotengo reaches the Xilien mothership and drills into it after mutant soldier Kazama sacrifices himself in order to take down the force field surrounding it. The crew of the Gotengo prepares to fire its maser into the heart of the ship, but it is stopped by the Xiliens who beam aboard and capture the crew. They bring them to the Xilien leader who goes into a long monologue about their plan and how the humans are inferior. Ozaki asks why he was not controlled by the new Xilien leader earlier and the alien tells him that he is special and has not yet realized his full power. It seems that both the Xilien leader and mutant soldier Shinichi Ozaki are “Kaisers”, a rare mutation of the M-Base that gives them extraordinary power and the ability to control energy and creatures containing the M-Base. The Xilien leader then turns their attention to Godzilla, who is standing in Tokyo when suddenly the Planet Gorath appears in the skies above. Godzilla plants his feet and tail and unleashes a mighty blast of his radioactive heat ray that tears through the planet and destroys it in a giant explosion that decimates Tokyo. The explosion leaves only a giant smoking crater, ruins, and Godzilla, who stands tall and bellows as Monster X descends from the sky. Godzilla and Monster X battle as Mothra suddenly arrives from Infant Island, but the Xiliens send the newly repaired and upgraded Gigan after her. Gigan manages to temporarily defeat Mothra and then goes after Godzilla with Monster X. The two monsters double team Godzilla until Mothra returns and takes them both down. Mothra then destroys Gigan and seemingly herself as Godzilla and Monster X continue to battle.
Back on the Xilien mothership, the Xilien leader blasts Ozaki with some sort of energy that makes him become a “Kaiser” and turn on his friends. However, once Miyuki Nemu stabs him with the Mothra dagger, Ozaki regains his senses and battles with the Xilien leader. The real General Daigo, Commander Namikawa, and EDF officer then appear and kill two Xilien officers, opening up a path of escape for the other humans while Ozaki battles the Xilien leader. Ozaki finally manages to defeat the Xilien leader and joins the others onboard the Gotengo as they escape the mothership before it self-destructs. Meanwhile Godzilla is still battling Monster X, but just when victory seems immanent for the King of the Monsters, Monster X transforms into the towering Kaiser Ghidorah, a four-legged beast with two tails and three heads. Kaiser Ghidorah knocks Godzilla around for awhile and nearly kills the Monster King by draining his energy, but Ozaki uses his new found “Kaiser” powers to give Godzilla a dose of energy through the Gotengo. Godzilla springs back to life and throws Kaiser Ghidorah around like a rag doll, destroying two of his heads before blasting him into the sky and totally destroying Kaiser Ghidorah with a super-charged red blast of his radioactive heat ray. Godzilla then turns his attention back to the Gotengo, which was knocked down during the fight, and prepares to attack. However at this point, Minilla, who was discovered earlier in the film by a child and his grandfather, rushes out and blocks Godzilla’s path to the Gotengo and its crew. After a few tense moments, Godzilla turns and heads for the ocean with Minilla behind. The heroes of the film then breath a sigh of relief and happiness as Godzilla and Minilla swim off into the sunset and the credits roll, showing several scenes that were cut from the film in the background.
My Review
Alright, now its time to review this film. “Godzilla: Final Wars” set out to be the greatest, most epic Godzilla film of them all. At trying to accomplish this, the film fails. However, at being entertaining, giving the fans lots of kaiju and putting forth a fairly decent story line, it definitely succeeds. I actually found the movie to be very entertaining and I really stress that word because I walked away having had a good time watching the film. It wasn't the greatest, but it definitely wasn't the worst either. There were a lot of things in the movie that really stood out as cool or fun to watch, but there were also some things that literally had me shaking my head in my hands. Some of the better parts of the film were the entrances that the monsters had to the film. These scenes looked as though they were really focused on, because they were built up well and the special effects were decent, especially Anguirus and Rodan’s entrances. Anguirus’ rolling attack, which could have looked horrible, actually was pulled off very well. Rodan's opening scene, with his sonic attacks, was something new to see and looked great as he destroyed New York. The suits and marionettes looked great on screen for the most part, the CGI, however, was not the greatest, but I’ll get into that in a bit. King Seesar looked a bit disheveled with his googley eyes and form-fitting suit, Monster X had the same problem. The worst suit, in my opinion, was the Kaiser Ghidorah suit. The suit just looked very poorly done. It was a good concept, and he had some interesting powers, but the suit just looked ridiculous. It looked like it was put together with duct tape and a golden tarp, plus he hardly moved his body at all. Pretty bad for the final, ultimate monster foe for Godzilla to face, but the transformation of Monster X to Kaiser Ghidorah looked very cool. However, other than that, the other suits looked great. Godzilla moved really well and didn’t look nearly as bad as in some of his publicity photos, Kamakiras and Kumonga were well articulated, and I think Rodan and Anguirus really stole the show. Don Frye (Captain Gordon) and Kazuki Kitamura (The 2nd Xilien leader) both stole the show. Don Frye, while not the greatest actor ever, had some hilarious lines that made him sound cool. Kazuki was outstanding in his role. He took it and ran with it, and was the perfect bad guy for this film. The rest of the cast put on a pretty good performance too, it’s just too bad that they seemed to be struggling to hold the whole monster/M-Base plot together.
My main complaints about this film would have to definitely be the inclusion of Minilla and the rushed-looking special effects. The scenes with Minilla were all beyond bad and did nothing for the film except bring it to a grinding halt every time the son of Godzilla appeared on the screen. There was no need to put him in this film at all and it just brought a lot of unnecessary goofiness to the film. The overall special effects looked a bit rushed, but then again quite a few looked pretty good. Some of the explosions looked fake, Kumonga’s webbing looked completely like a yellow rope and the webs even turned into nets in mid-spray, which looked totally unconvincing. Godzilla’s arrival in Sydney, Australia also looked very poor. I believe that one of the bigger downfalls of this film was definitely the CGI. Now while Zilla looked pretty good, you could obviously tell that it was based on the Trendmasters Giant-Sized GINO toy that came out back in 1998. The CGI for Manda and Rodan looked pretty awful at times as well, CGI is definitely not one of Toho’s strong suits, too bad they didn’t have more money to spend on the film, even though they did spend quite a bit more on this film than past ones. Besides that, I would have to complain about things like Hedorah only appearing for a split second before being destroyed, all the other extremely brief monster fights, and the obvious rip-offs from American films like The Matrix. Also, I would like to point out that the pimp/cop scene in New York before Rodan’s attack did take place, but the use of the F-word was dubbed out of it.
Summary
Overall this film is just pure Godzilla-related entertainment. They simply tried to cram too many ideas into one film and what came out was an extremely fast paced film that seemed even quicker thanks to the rock/techno music score that really did not fit the film well. Then to top it off, in true Toho fashion, they only gave the film one year to be worked on, this film should have been worked on for at least two years if not more. The film is a mess of thrown together concepts from several of Toho’s older sci-fi films, The Matrix, Independence Day, Return of the Jedi, Aliens, the X-Men, and several other American films. At times the film even feels a bit like a parody of these films. I believe that Toho should've stuck with a director that they were already using like Tezuka or Kaneko and just spent more time on the film. This could have eliminated many problems and more than likely given Godzilla a better send off. The film certainly had plot, but in the end they just need to spend more time and money on these films if people are going to respect them because this film was definitely not worthy of Godzilla's 50th anniversary, but it was in itself a decent entrance into the series. Maybe Toho can figure this out during Godzilla’s latest hiatus from the big screen. To sum it up, some people are really going to like this movie, others are going to hate it, and I am afraid that the majority are going to find it mediocre at best. My advice, watch it and try to get whatever entertainment out of it that you can, it is a Godzilla movie after all. Anyway, all judgement on the film aside, I would like to say thank you to J.D. Lees and G-Fan for the ticket to the premiere and would also like to say Happy 50th Anniversary Godzilla!
