For Godzilla's 50th anniversary film in 2004, "Godzilla: Final Wars", The Smog Monster Hedorah returned for an extremely brief cameo, battling Godzilla alongside Ebirah. Since Hedorah didn’t receive much more than a minute of screen time in the film, I’ll have to comment mostly on pictures I’ve seen of the suit. While definitely not as bulky as the previous suit used back in 1971, this new version of Hedorah still looked pretty interesting. It looked basically like its previous incarnation, except very skinny (another situation of suits being too form-fitting in GFW). Hedorah’s legs were now clearly defined, as was his much larger tail, and the Smog Monster no longer looked very “sludgy” in appearance. The head now sported eyes with one being larger than the other, some kind of red, sludgy whip at the end of his left arm, more colorful reds/yellows in the suit’s design, and organic “vents” that spewed out sulfuric acid vapors. Aside from all that, the new suit was pretty much exactly like the 1971 original. It’s too bad that this new version of Hedorah received so little screen time; I would’ve liked to see it in action a bit more.
