Godzilla's fiftieth Anniversary project, in which Godzilla travels around the world to fight his old foes and his allies plus a new, mysterious monster named Monster X.Godzilla's fiftieth Anniversary project, in which Godzilla travels around the world to fight his old foes and his allies plus a new, mysterious monster named Monster X.Godzilla's fiftieth Anniversary project, in which Godzilla travels around the world to fight his old foes and his allies plus a new, mysterious monster named Monster X.
- Awards
- 3 nominations
Chihiro Ohtsuka
- Shobijin (Twin Fairy)
- (as Chihiro Ôtsuka)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis 28th Godzilla film marked the final use of Toho's Big Pool water tank, which was used for the water scenes for all Tôhô special effects-related films since I Bombed Pearl Harbor (1960), for which it was constructed. The Big Pool was 88 meters wide and 72 meters long. It was given one final performance when it was last used for this film on September 7th and was demolished on October 13th. Toho's decision to destroy the pool was due to "progress of special-effects technology such as CG, and a large-scale reconstruction plan of the studio." This was considered by many to be the end of an era.
- GoofsThe New York cop's mouth and speech are badly mismatched. This is because actor Mick Preston used the F-word repeatedly during filming and was later required to dub over his original dialog with less-offensive language. Viewers can still see him mouthing the F-word in certain shots.
- Quotes
The Controller of Planet X: [after Godzilla defeats 'Zilla'] I knew that tuna-eating monster was useless!
- Crazy creditsAfter Godzilla and his son wade off into the sea with a final roar, the title monster's name appears on screen one last time. The ending credits themselves play over various scenes from the movie, including some that were deleted or removed from the finished cut. These include Mothra flying back to her home island, Hedorah the smog monster with some brief city destruction, more lead up to Ozaki making his way too Douglas Gordan, a fight between Kazama and Kumasaka in the news room, a new shot of King Caesar running, and several different shots of Godzilla. The credits fade to black with the sound of the original Godzilla roar signaling the end.
- Alternate versionsThough the film is already filled with references to past Godzilla movies, the German dub adds a new one by referring to the monster Gigan with the code-name "Monster Zero", as a nod to the film Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965) in which King Ghidorah had that designation.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Cinemassacre's Monster Madness: Godzilla 1998 (2008)
- SoundtracksWe're All to Blame
Performed by Sum 41
Featured review
First, before my review, I have address two points of contention about this film. For starters, the hero (Ozaki), besides having short black hair, black clothes and martial arts skills, no more resembles Keanu Reeves, than a brick resembles a prime-mover. His clothes may have similar pigmentation to the Matrix's Neo but in this film Ozaki is actually wearing white plastic body armour, and his military coat is dark green. Both he and Neo might share martial-arts knowledge. At least Ozaki is from the country that invented a large portion of it! Besides, I thought he looked MUCH more like Noah Wyle. If his coat had been white, perhaps people would say the film was ripping off ER.
The second issue is about the 'Matrix style'. Since even the creators of those films admit that their style harvests greatly from manga, anime, and HK action movies, it would be fair to say that Final War's director, Ryuhei Kitamura is more influenced by his own culture than three blockbuster popcorn flicks. Stopping bullets with telepathy, psychic battles, gravity defying fights, and slow motion have been enjoyed in Japan and mainland Asia for a VERY long time. Unfortunately, many aspects of their fiction have been somewhat hijacked by Hollywood.
The director shows many influences in this film, and it would foolish to deny that the Matrix did not play a part in shaping his approach. However, many film goers are simply unaware of the depth of The Matrix's own influences, and shouldn't attribute too much to them. Anyway, on to the review.
Well, if you are seriously wanting to get anything out of this film, you should probably become a fan of Godzilla and Kaiju genre. Anyone else would probably mistake this film's style, steeped in Kaiju tradition, for faults. It is true that the special effects are mostly 'analogue', and that the monsters are NOT CGI (usually). Yes, they are men in suits wrestling in model cities, but is it a flaw? Heck no! This film is great entertainment, and even a little touching!
The story is simple: a new force threatens the earth and sends monsters to destroy cities and crush humanity. What else? Luckily, the defenders of earth, a collection of mutants themselves, strive to combat the threat and restore peace. Godzilla herself may just be the only weapon left to mankind that could save the human race.
And so stylistically this film is very SF. The human forces wear futuristic body armour and sport hightech weapons. There are flying battleships and alien spacecraft. This may be an angle that some fans don't agree with but atleasy the monsters are all here. I forget how many, but quite a few from the Godzilla bestiary return to wreak havoc, and there are some fantastic clashes between them.
However, Final Wars is as much a human story as it is one of mass destruction at the hands of giants. Yes, that was a little difficult to say. But there is quite a lot of focus placed on the human protagonists this time. They are fighting a new and mysterious new foe. Many of the action sequences, and in fact often the longest ones, involve humans in hand-to-hand.
Even if this raises the hackles of a few Kaiju fans, I can understand: bring on the rubber-suited titans and all that. Yet I think that this dual focus adds an engaging dramatic quotient to the film. The action sequences may also draw a few comparisons to a certain fizzled out sci-fi trilogy, and all I can I say to that, is written above. And the words "get", "over" and "it".
The acting skill of the players varies between that of a seasoned performer to that of a pro-wrestler grapling with his lines. Oh wait, I think he is a pro-wrestler. I feel though, that if viewers are looking at acting skill in a film like this, they missing out on the bigger picture. Rest assured however, that this is definitely not like Devilman, where store-front manikins could have acted better.
Reportably, Final Wars is an anniversary film, and it is, though doubtfully, the last in the Godzilla series. For that reason, regardless if it remains that way, I was very happy to see the film stay true to the heritage it is a part of. It provides a fitting farewell. There is something refreshing, watching rubber-suited actors trample miniature sets - actors pretending to be monsters, waving their claws about. Sure the such things are cheesy and yes the rest is overly stylised, but the film makes no excuses for that, and it shouldn't.
Bring it on!
The second issue is about the 'Matrix style'. Since even the creators of those films admit that their style harvests greatly from manga, anime, and HK action movies, it would be fair to say that Final War's director, Ryuhei Kitamura is more influenced by his own culture than three blockbuster popcorn flicks. Stopping bullets with telepathy, psychic battles, gravity defying fights, and slow motion have been enjoyed in Japan and mainland Asia for a VERY long time. Unfortunately, many aspects of their fiction have been somewhat hijacked by Hollywood.
The director shows many influences in this film, and it would foolish to deny that the Matrix did not play a part in shaping his approach. However, many film goers are simply unaware of the depth of The Matrix's own influences, and shouldn't attribute too much to them. Anyway, on to the review.
Well, if you are seriously wanting to get anything out of this film, you should probably become a fan of Godzilla and Kaiju genre. Anyone else would probably mistake this film's style, steeped in Kaiju tradition, for faults. It is true that the special effects are mostly 'analogue', and that the monsters are NOT CGI (usually). Yes, they are men in suits wrestling in model cities, but is it a flaw? Heck no! This film is great entertainment, and even a little touching!
The story is simple: a new force threatens the earth and sends monsters to destroy cities and crush humanity. What else? Luckily, the defenders of earth, a collection of mutants themselves, strive to combat the threat and restore peace. Godzilla herself may just be the only weapon left to mankind that could save the human race.
And so stylistically this film is very SF. The human forces wear futuristic body armour and sport hightech weapons. There are flying battleships and alien spacecraft. This may be an angle that some fans don't agree with but atleasy the monsters are all here. I forget how many, but quite a few from the Godzilla bestiary return to wreak havoc, and there are some fantastic clashes between them.
However, Final Wars is as much a human story as it is one of mass destruction at the hands of giants. Yes, that was a little difficult to say. But there is quite a lot of focus placed on the human protagonists this time. They are fighting a new and mysterious new foe. Many of the action sequences, and in fact often the longest ones, involve humans in hand-to-hand.
Even if this raises the hackles of a few Kaiju fans, I can understand: bring on the rubber-suited titans and all that. Yet I think that this dual focus adds an engaging dramatic quotient to the film. The action sequences may also draw a few comparisons to a certain fizzled out sci-fi trilogy, and all I can I say to that, is written above. And the words "get", "over" and "it".
The acting skill of the players varies between that of a seasoned performer to that of a pro-wrestler grapling with his lines. Oh wait, I think he is a pro-wrestler. I feel though, that if viewers are looking at acting skill in a film like this, they missing out on the bigger picture. Rest assured however, that this is definitely not like Devilman, where store-front manikins could have acted better.
Reportably, Final Wars is an anniversary film, and it is, though doubtfully, the last in the Godzilla series. For that reason, regardless if it remains that way, I was very happy to see the film stay true to the heritage it is a part of. It provides a fitting farewell. There is something refreshing, watching rubber-suited actors trample miniature sets - actors pretending to be monsters, waving their claws about. Sure the such things are cheesy and yes the rest is overly stylised, but the film makes no excuses for that, and it shouldn't.
Bring it on!
- UberNoodle
- Oct 5, 2005
- Permalink
Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Final Wars of Godzilla
- Filming locations
- Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia(Arizona scenes)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $19,500,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $9,167,302
- Runtime2 hours 5 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.35 : 1
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content