Kaiju Blender: Godzilla: Final Wars

With the reduced revenues from Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and Tokyo SOS, Toho decided it was once again to retire the franchise. But they would celebrate Godzilla's fiftieth birthday with a big bang, a more expensive Godzilla film than they had ever before produced, directed by maverick film maker Ryûhei Kitamura. The approach had worked with the excellent and well-regarded Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. But it should be pointed out that director Shûsuke Kaneko had directed three well-received Gamera films before being asked to work on Godzilla. Kitamura had no such experience.



The first sequence is Godzilla being attacked by a flying submarine of the Atragon style. Godzilla falls into a crack in the Antarctic ice, freezing him, in a nod to Godzilla Raids Again. The gunner screams as he unleashes missiles to bring tons of ice down on Godzilla and in that moment, I knew exactly what kind of movie this is going to be.



In the narrative flashback, the audience is shown Varan, the squid from Space Amoeba, Titanosaurus, Gaira, Baragon, and Megaguirus. These kaiju do not appear in anything but stock footage, but it sets the tone. We are going to see a lot of monsters in this film.



We are also introduced to the mutants that protect us from the kaiju. A new race of superman and women have emerged from humanity, better, stronger, faster, and more psychically powerful. They, along with superb purely human specimens such as Captain Gordon, form the Earth Defence Force. After the title sequence, one of the supersubs defeats Manda. Gordon is emblemic of the film itself, big, physically powerful, and only speaking English, while everyone around hinm speaks Japanese, but somehow they understand each other anyway. As with Atragon, the sub fires its Absolute Zero gun, freezing and then destroying Manda. This introductory sequence lets us know how the Earth Defence Forces work.



The Earth Defence Force higher-ups, for reasons that will become clear, have rather Nazi-esque unforms; a grey overcoat with a belt with a black arm band. The Mutants, a scientist tells us, share a certain biological link with the kaiju. The best way to defeat monsters, it seems, is to use them against themselves. The Shobijin, Mothra's fairy communicators show up, and give us a bit of back story. They also tell out Mutant protagonist that he has some kaiju in him (now confirmed by science and mysticism), but that he has a choice, which is very Matrix: Revolutions, and badly presented in that film, as well.



Kaiju begin to wreck cities across the globe, with a similarity to the Kilaak invasion Destroy All Monsters. Anguirus, Rodan, King Caesar, Kamacuras, Kumonga, and even American Godzilla stomp on cities. Zilla, American Godzilla, is a weird sort of nod to the much-reviled 1998 film. Creature designer Patrick Tautopolis was gratified to be included in the Toho Godzilla canon, even though his creation was treated with a certain amount of contempt. Kitamura was determined to embrace as many films in the Toho library as possible, leaving out only Megalon, Destroyah, and King Kong.



Kitamura goes so far as to have an obnoxious, chocolate-mouthed American child call his turtle toy (which looks suspiciously like a Tirtouga Pokemon) a loser, attempting to compare itself favorably to the Gamera franchise. We've seen this behavior before: in 1999 Yonggary, Kraa the Sea Monster, and Gamera, Super-Monster. All these films have the same thing in common: they aren't particularly good, and they only demonstrate their own insecurity by calling other films and franchises names.



The M-Squad is deployed to take down Ebirah, the giant lobster we haven't seen since stock footage in the 1969 All Monsters Attack. Six mutants are deployed with shoulder weapons. There are a lot of pointless explosions, when the team are running, or standing still, or firing theit weapons. It's like each one is a John McClain, and their passing just causes things to explode in their wake. There's a lot of wirework which is well integrated into the miniature work, but it just feels like the director is trying too hard to be exciting, confusing motion with progress. There's a lot going on on-screen, but it doesn't engage me. A cinematic fight should be a story in itself, with a beginning, a middle, and an end. There is no progression here, nothing learned. Just weapons deployed, running, firing, and then it's all over except for the quip.



The monsters, it turns out, are being controlled by aliens, the Xilians from Invasion of Astro-Monster to be precise. They tried to be subtle, in the Japanese alien invasion thing, trying to be friendly, returning the UN secretary to humans. When he doesn't recognize his own dog, the jig is up. Subcommander X shoots the mission commander, promoting himself. The aliens, he announces, are there to make humanity their supply of mitochondria.



X is best described as a tantrum-throwing child, who will literally spazz out every time one of his monsters is defeated. He's an angry, drama-addicted, short attention-span sort of guy, exactly the sort to blow all his advantages and screw up an invasion.



The remains of humanity's defense rests with Captain Gordon and the Gotengo. Gordon decided the situation is desperate enough that he's going to unleash Godzilla, giving the TV Trope of the Godzilla Threshold its name. Godzilla then spends the last half of the film having very brief fights with all the world's monsters. Which is a pity. The technology was available to make these much more engaging and interesting fights, but because Godzilla had to get through so many opponents, each one is truncated.



Only the final fight has any sort of length. Godzilla, having knocked down six different kaiju, now comes up against Monster X. Monster X is an odd creature we haven't seen before, humanoid, with a head beam that also comes out of its shoulders. Now where have we seen a kaiju that has three breath weapons before? After he initial clash, each gets reinforcements, and Mothra faces down an upgraded Gigan.





Meanwhile, X monologues about Keisers, a mutation that happens to one in a million mutants, making them the most powerful creatures like ever. X is one, and so is our mutant protagonist. What a coincidence! Once awakened, he finds his inner Neo, stopping yellow bolts of light, burning with power, and declaiming about choice.



He defeats X, and this causes the alien ship to self-destruct. Monster X grows two new heads, and is revealed to be Keiser Ghidorah, with some very delicate blue among the golden scales. For the first time since the first Rebirth of Mothra Ghidorah has four feet. It no longer has any of the previous Ghidorah cries, and instead, some sort of strangled scream similar to Destroyah's. Other than that, the creature design is likely the best in the film.





It is immensely powerful, stronger than its last form, and Godzilla isn't doing so well until out mutant buddy focusses his psychic energy through the Gotengo, Godzilla receiving it through his spines. With the extra power, Godzilla smashes Ghidorah. He is not a grateful victor, however, and immediately uses his atomic ray on Gotengo. The upcoming massacre is forestalled by Minilla's arrival. Only children can stop the cycle of violence. Godzilla walks away through the devastation that was Tokyo, his offspring following.



The military is treated very differently from other Godzilla films. They are not incompetent, or lionized, but actually working against humanity. The Mutants who make up the Defence Force are actively working against mankind, and only those who choose to do so, mavericks and rogues, stand with humanity. The flying sub commanders who stabnd against the alien invasion are outlandish types, with dreadlocks, long blonde hair, or Captain Gordon.

Eschewing the traditional orchestral soundtrack, the rock sondtrack feels out of place and occasionally intrusive. It does not do the film any favors.

The experience of Godzilla Final Wars is something akin to watching Destroy All Monsters while watching The Matrix on the same screen. Gone is the traditional mystery story structure, in which the humans investigate and uncover and eventually solve the plot problem (in this case, an alien invasion). Instead, we have a group of superhumans who defend the Earth against the kaiju fighting. Drawing from a lot of anime, Kitamura manages to jam a lot of anime cliches into a number of overblown kaiju cliches and nods to previous films. The result feels like he jammed a bunch of movies in a blender, then reassembled it from whatever pieces he could salvage.



Next up, Peter Jackson's take on the Big Ape. All two hundred minutes of it.

All About the Rage: Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack

With the commercial failure of Godzilla vs Megaguirus, Toho looked around for ways to save their beloved franchise. But by this time, they had other irons in the fire. Toho was distributing anime. including Studio Ghibli and the Pokemon franchise, as well as producing low-cost, high return J-horror such as Ring and Pulse. If Godzilla could not perform, then perhaps it would have to be laid aside for a time. To avoid this, they tapped Shûsuke Kaneko, who had done a brilliant job revitalizing the Gamera franchise, to helm their new Godzilla film. This turned out to be a smart move.

As with previous and subsequent Millennium films, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (hereafter GMK) occupies its own continuity. The first Godzilla film is acknowledged, but the other twenty-four are not. Except for the moment when the film casts some shade on the 1998 Godzilla.



We begin with a lecture. Commander Taizô Tachibana is talking to a group of students about the function of the Japanese Self-Defence Forces, which has only been tested against Godzilla. Although this film closely engages the character of the admiral and the military, it does so with a very different bent than have previous Godzilla films. Neither there for a useless show (the Showa series), a serious challenge (any film in which MechaGodzilla is built by humans, including the next two films in the Millennium series), or bumblers causing as much destruction as the monster (Godzilla 1998) the military here is neither valorized nor there for comedy. They are treated as people. The man put in charge of the anti-Godzilla task force is a blustering foot-dragger, refusing to believe that Godzilla is even real at the beginning, and spouting inappropriate military doctrine ("Try attacking it from the side! It must have a weak point!") while his men get killed.



Taizô Tachibana on the other hand, is very much a lead-from-the-front sort of man, who takes responsibility for his actions, and decides to do the dangerous mission himself. He does not relish the thought of combat, and admits to being afraid just before he goes into battle. it is not the military as a whole that this film praises, but the resonsible individuals who do their duty.



At the same time, GMK is well aware of its roots. the Japanese Self-Defence Forces help search for a downed American Nuclear Submarine (shades of The Return of Godzilla) with a new submersible called the Satsuma, a callback to both the man who performed as Godzilla in the Heisei series, as well as the rescue ship from the first Mothra film. When Godzilla comes ashore, we get a quick glimpse of a picture of Lucky Dragon #5, the fishing boat that was contaminated after the Castle Bravo nuclear test. Whwen Godzilla uses its atomic ray for the first time, a teacher looks out to see a mushroom cloud. It's the second most chilling moment in the series, after the crying woman and her children in the first Godzilla. It reminds the modern viewer of a time when Godzilla meant something.



The other protagonist is Yuri Tachibana, Taizô's daugher, a reporter, one of the classic Godzilla roles. But in a subversion of the usual Showa roles, she is a sensationalist reporter, working on bogus supernatural stories. This makes her earnestness in wanting to cover real stories, the story behind the guardian monsters all the more powerful. Perhapsd the earnestness of the character grew from director and writer Kaneko's years of making soft-core romance films for Nikkatsu (the studio that had once produced Gappa the Triphidian Monster).



Kaneko has also brought with him several of his own ideas from his Gamera trilogy. There are good kaiju and bad kaiju. Godzilla is a radioactive lizard infused with the angry spirits of the dead from World War 2. Mothra, Ghidorah, and Baragon are beneficial guardians, equivalent to Gamera. But although they are beneficial, they are still giant monsters, and they kill, even if by accident. The first casualties of the film are a group of obnoxious motorcyclers, crushed in a tunnel as Baragon tunnels by. Originally, Kaneko wanted the guardians to be Baragon, Varan and Anguirus, but Toho, remembering the poor return from Megaguirus, insisted their two most popular kaiju, Mothra and Ghodorah, be used. And it works, Ghidorah is the thousand-year dragon, and Mothra started out being worshipped as a god. Which brings some interesting images to mind. I would have liked to see Varan arise in glory after being charged up the way King Ghidorah was.



The guardian monsters also appear to be moral guardians. The above-mentioned obnoxious bikers break a statue, and get crushed by Baragon cruising by. A group of looters disturb one of Mothra's guardian statues, and they are pulled under the water one by one. Godzilla, on the other hand, does not discriminate. People who are in his way die.



Further, there's a lot of confusion as to what's going on among the film's characters. With only second hand reports, the military cannot determine which monster is which. It's thirty minutes into the film before the military believes that there's more than one montser. There are no grand overarching shots that show them which is which.

Meanwhile, civilians constantly underestimate the deadliness of the monsters. A pair of tourists want selfies in front of the Godzilla and Baragon fight. They don't make it out alive.



Godzilla looks very different here than he did in the previous two Millennium films. He is no longer lean, but almost bloated, his eyes dead white, his snout blunt. The spines are blunt, also, not the long starp ones Godzilla is an ugly brute. He is not a force of nature, not the hero, but a furious engine of destruction, crushing everything in his path.



The monster fights are spectacular. The first one is Baragon against Godzilla. Godzilla is enormous compared to Baragon, and the entire thing is a beat-down. Baragon is clearly outmatched, but it will not give up its attack. Godzilla fires off its atomic heat ray, and Baragon disintigrates, leaving Mothra and Ghidorah to fight Godzilla.



Mothra ahs changed a bit since her appearance in the Hesei Godzilla vs Mothra: Battle for the Earth. It's not as aggressive-looking as the last Rebirth of Mothra, and that's a bit unfortunate. The later evolutions of Mothra were very dynamic looking, with straight leading edges ion their wings. This is a step backwards toward the traditional Mothra, admittedly the one that nearly took Godzilla to the cleaners in Godzilla vs Mothra. But she's less fussy than she has been, not as much a nurturing monster as something that does look ready for a fight. Further, she's been equipped with a battery of stingers, so she does not have to rely on the poisonous scales.



Ghidorah is much the same, if a bit smaller smaller he has been. It does take on a couple of power-ups in the course of the fight.



The second battle, with Mothra, Ghidorah, and Godzilla in Yokohama, is one of the best kaiju battles ever put to screen. Godzilla is a brute, smashing everything. When Mothra attempts to lansd on a tall building that happens to contain soldiers, Godzilla sends its atomic ray through it, killing the men, destroying the tallest building in Yokohama.



After the first ten minutes, the fight is no longer shot over complete buildings, but the rubble of structures already destroyed. This helps with the overall sense of dark weight this film has. Men are being killed, buildings are being destroyed, and this is reinfoced by repeated viewings, giving the destruction a sense of permanence.



Godzilla, while it has its teeth in one of Ghidorah's necks, casually swats Mothra aside with its tail, a move borrowed later in Godzilla 2014.



When both Mothra and Ghidorah go down temporarily, the military moves in. While the display is impressive, it only attracts Godzilla's destructive attention. Godzilla sweeps his atomic ray across the men, annihilating entire platoons, then blowing a destroyer out of the water.



From the smoking shore, Godzilla roars his triumph.



But at least it keeps Godzilla from destroying the helpless guarsian monsters. Very seldom have human and kaiju worked in such good harmony.

Mothra, wings on fire, confronts Godzilla again, only to be disintigrated by a close-in blast. Like Biolante, she disintigrates into golden particles. These flow into the downed Ghidorah, who awakens, now with a forcefield surrounding it like a clould of electrons.





Godzilla lays into this with a long blast of its heat ray, but Ghidorah collects the energy and returns it to sender in a gigantic ball of destructive energy. At last, Godzilla is wounded.



This doesn't prevent him from unleashing his ray on Ghidorah, and creating a frikkin' huge explosion as the three-headed monster disintigrates.



With the Guardians gone, Tachibana pilots his submersible literally down Godzilla's throat, and relesases the drill torpedo from inside. Godzilla collapses and sinks, pouring blood into the water. Attempting to use its heat ray, Godzilla manages to destroy itself, leaving only a heating heart at the bottom of the bay.



The film is political, and I'm not steeped in Japanese culture enough to honestly reflect on Japan's relationship with World War II. But Kaneko is clearly making a statement that Japan is in denial of its responsibility for many deaths in the Pacific during that conflict. Far from destroying the film, which was released as a double-bill with Hamtaro, an animated film about a hamster, this is the most successful film in the Millennium series.



Despite, or perhaps because of the layers of subtext, this is one of the best Godzilla films out there. The dark edge appeals to me, and the extended monster fight at the end of the film is everything I could ask for. The writing isn't embarassing, there are no random experts who show up with impossible answers, the characters are well drawn. Shûsuke Kaneko turned Gamera from an extended Mystery Science Theater 3000 gag into an excellent trilogy of kaiju films. He brings the same love and devotion to kaiju film making here. Visrually, the story is exciting and Godzilla is seen with a badly-neede fresh set of eyes.

Of further note is director's excellent choice for score. Kô Ohtani has worked with director Kaneko on his three Gamera films, and the score is excellent. Unlike Michiru Ôshima, who provides a full orchesttral score, Ohtani gives us something a little more electronic, but it's a thrilling, beautiful bit of work.

Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Giant Monsters All-Out Attack was a financial and critical success, considered by myself and many other fans as the best of the series. So naturally, Toho returns back to, director of Godzilla vs Megaguirus for the next film.

King Ghodirah Killed the Dinosaurs: Rebirth of Mothra III

Toho's general plan is to produce one kaiju film a year. With Tri-star making Godzilla in the United States, they turned to their second most popular character, Mothra. 1996, 1997 and now 1998 each saw a Rebirth of Mothra film. THe franchise is more for kids than the mainstream Godzilla franchise. And I can see Toho wanting to keep their hand in Kaiju production. They were planning to return to Godzilla around 2005, and didn't want to get rusty.

The usual Rebirth of Mothra accoutrements are here. A beautiful Mothra, respendent in its colors, the twins Lora and Moll, as well as their black-wearing sister Belvera. A child protagonist is involved, but he's in the mould of the series, reasonably competent, not annoying in the way Sohwa-era Gamera protagonists were. Gone is the heavy-handed environmental message that was problematic in the last two films.



The problem this time is Ghidorah, and in a nice tribute to the character's 1964 debut, Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster arrives via meteor. Only this time, it's a bit different. The meteor breaks through the Earth's crust, freeing Ghidorah, rather than carrying him.



This is not the four-legged Death Ghidorah from the first Rebirth of Mothra film. This is more the classic Ghidorah, two legged, golden scales, two tails, and with horns. The suit looks great. It has the cry of the Heisei Ghidorah, rather than the ringing Showa one, but that's not a huge loss. The yellow lightning like breath is back, and in keeping with the multiple attacks of all the kaiju in the Rebirth series, it also has an energy beam that trickles from its wing-vanes. I'll also note that the Ghidorah of the Rebirth of Mothra films is finally not under anyone's cotnrol. for most of its films, Ghidorah has been beholden to the Futurans, the Roaches, the Kilaaks, or the Xilians. Here, he seems to be a free agent, destroying for food, rather than someone else's agenda.



Ghidorah is now stealing children, which is also a variation from its past behavior. This device children in the forefront of the plot. Previously, Ghidorah had killed all the dinosaurs. Now he's collecting kids in some sort of cocoon, probably to eat them later. We get several scenes of worried parents, and their concern for their missing children. This gives the film a bit more conext than the usual isolation of the child during the adventure.

Mothra is summoned to defeat King Ghidorah, and the two kaiju fight. But Mothra's energy beams just bounce off Ghidorah, while the latter's gravity beams hammer at the monstrous moth. In the end King Ghidorah is simply too powerful for Mothra, so she must defeat Ghidorah the same way it was defeated in Godzilla vs King Ghidorah. But Mothra knows that after it travels back in time, it will not be able to return.



And so Mothra returns to the time of the dinosaurs. They are primarily puppets, as even the mighty reptiles aren't nearly as large as kaiju. There's a touch of irony as a tryannosaur attacks a triceratops, only to ber interrupted and eaten by the 160 million years younger version of Ghidorah. Younger Ghidorah breathes fireballs rather than lightning, and its faces are rilled with horns.



There's just a tiny Reptilicus not in the middle of the Mothra/Cretacious Ghidorah fight. A part of Ghidorah's tail is severed, which then burrows into the earth in order to regenerate into an entirely new Ghidorah.

Mothra looks like it is losing the fight until Lora sings, conencting to Mothra through some hundred and sixty million years. Then Mothra, with a touch of inspiration and a little magic, escorts Ghidorah down the throat of an active volcano.



This causes present Ghidorah and its imprisoning bubble to vanish. But Mothra isn't dead, but dying. As is lies on the ground, three prehistoric verions of Mothra larvaa arrive, and cocoon the fallen warrior. Like the first Rebirth of Mothra, also directed by Okihiro Yoneda, the death of Mothra is genuinely touching, emphasized by music and a more somber mood.



But Ghidorah isn't dead, of course. It arrives the way it did in the Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, a fireball from the sky turning into Ghidorah.



And just when Moll and Belvera think they are going to have to take on Ghidorah by themselves, a closeby ridge crumbles, revealing an ancient egg. Mothra emerges, its wings drying almost instantly. It hadn't been dead all this time, merely resting. And now it's time to defeat Ghidorah again. Eschewing energy beams, Mothra uses her sharp wing leads to slice off Ghidorah's wings. She then passes through Ghidorah, causing it to explode.



Although I haven't talked much about the human aspect of the film, the end is good. Father and son reconnect in a non-chlche way, the boy having gotten his validation from the Mothra triplets.

This is, incidentally, Tsutomu Kitagawa's first time in a suit, after being a stunt man for ten super sentai television series. He would go on to be Godzilla for the majority of the Millennium series.

Rebirth of Mothra III is probably the strongest film of the Rebirth series. The themes are less heavy-handed, the costumes and monsters better designed. the film is aware of its predicessors, and there are small jokes here and there. There's a depth to the series, involving the parents, sowing discord between the usually-united twins. It made a good interim series between the Heisei and the Millennium series. Continued on this trajectory, Toho could have made some excellent films after the Millenneum series. Ah well.

Next up, a cheapie from a new continent. Gargantua, from Australia.