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.

Look At Them Monsters Go: Godzilla: Tokyo SOS

Godzilla Against MechGodzilla wasn't as successful as GMK, but it wasn't a failure, either. So Toho decided to plot along with the same director, and essentially, the same plot. This is also the only film of the Millennium series to be a direct sequel to another film of the same series.



Our first monster on-screen is Mothra. Again ignoring the Rebirth of Mothra series, Mothra looks much like it did for Godzilla vs Mothra, although it can apparently fly as trans mach speeds. Mothra is no longer sleek and combat-oriented, but again hairy, as she was in her original film. If this is to make her sympathetic, I'm not sure. With her are the shobijin, who shows no signs of having a wicked triplet. The shobijin contact Dr. Shin'ichi Chûjô, played by Hiroshi Koizumi forty years after he first performed the role in Mothra in 1961. They want Godzilla's bones to be returned to the sea.



Less than ten minutes after the film begins, so do the plot problems. The shobijin want Japan to decomission Michagodzilla. When Kaneko's nephew reples that it is their only defence againat Godzilla, the tiny fairies promise Mothra will protect Japan from Godzilla. So where was she the whole last film? Worse, if the humans do not do this, Mothra will declare war on them. But this ultimatum is forgotten as soon as it is spoken.



Mechagodzilla has been nerfed a bit, and is still under repairs from the damage taken in the previous film. The absolute Zero chest cannon has been replaced with a more run of the mill triple hyper maser. But here it also serves as a bone of contention. It is made from Godzilla's remains, the Shobijin want returned to the sea.



Giant turtle Kamoeba, from the obscure Space Amoeba washes ashore, letting everyone know that Godzilla is on the prowl again. Apparently, writer/director Masaaki Tezuka originally wanted this to be Anguirus, but Toho said no. It would have been oddly appropriate, since the cranky old dinosaur's last appearance was the first Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla, back in 1974. Apparently, Toho worried about the audience's reaction to Godzilla killing one of Godzilla's oldest friends. Which is odd, because not two films ago, Godzilla disintigrated Mothra, who is now back.



Where the military has been primarly lionized in the previous Masaaki films, here the vibe is avery different. Are the bones of Godzilla attracting Godzilla? Is military build-up inviting military attack? Godzilla appears for the first time attacking an American nuclear sub, as in Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and The Return of Godzilla. But is the submarine an innocent victim, or should have it not been there in the first place?

The film moves back to Ishiro Honda's attitude, that the military is there for show, but it almost completely ineffectiver against Godzilla. There are some very striking shots of missiles streaking across the Tokyo skyline, and the Hyper Maser is cool-looking, but none of these weapons do much more than inconvenence Godzilla. He sweeps away a phalanx of tanks with a single jet of his atomic heat ray.



Godzilla looks much the same as he did in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, bvut he has a large scar on his chest. So Godzilla is not invulnerable. But Kiryu no longer has the Absolute Zero gun, which caused the injury.



A lot of story beats and plot points are taken directly from Ishiro Honda's Godzilla vs Mothra, which is a little weird since that film doesn't exist in this continuity. In the initial confrontation, Mothra uses its poison scaled on Godzilla, which haven't been used since that 1964 film. But Chûjô was not involved in that, Lahtough actor Hiroshi Koizumi played the part of Dr. Miura) so I wonder how he knows about the scales. Again, for the first time since Honda's 1964 film, The Mothra larvae are twins. Godzilla's defeat is the same. Although Mothra can't take Godzilla down, the two larvae are able to, coating Godzilla in silk. This flies in the face of the shobijin's promise. Mothra can't handle Godzilla on her own.



Mothra, who really hasn't had much religious symbolism since her debut, is at least willing to sacrifice herself for her children, taking a direct blast of Godzilla's atomic ray protecting her children. It plays out rather like her sacrifice in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah. The shobijin get a moment in front of a fallen cross, saying that the living should not touch the dead.





Godzilla: Tokyo SOS is fairly remakable in that there is only one monster showdown. The fight is on-going, and the human action is intercut with it. Again, Mechagodzilla proves to be Godzilla's greatest for, battering him around, knocking him down once. It's not as harsh as the job done by Mechagodzilla II, which temporarily cripples Godzilla. And ultimately, it's very inconclusive. The Mothra Laevae do the heavy lifting.



Ultimately, I struggle to remain interested in the film. The human drama isn't all that compelling. While it was nice to engage someone who wasn't (initially) a pilot, focussing instead on a technician. But he doesn't have much to work with. When Mechagodzilla goes down, he goes ouyt to fix it. Not a lot of character depth there. The Godzilla problem is ultimately solved as Kiryu takes it upon itself to fly Godzilla's silk-enshrouded form to the ocean. The humans do not prodice a solution. It's all done by the Mothra larvae and Kiryu. The protagonists are really just spectators.



In two weeks, the Kaiju Blender, love it or hate 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.