Godzilla: Final Wars (Gojira: Fainaru Uôzu) (2004)

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General		Extras
Category	Action	Featurette-Behind The Scenes Gallery-"Meet The Monsters" Interactive Gallery Notes-Godzilla Filmography Gallery-Production Sketches, Movie Stills Gallery-Poster-Japanese Posters Teaser Trailer Theatrical Trailer TV Spots Trailer-Godzilla-Destroy All Monsters, Inner Senses
Rating
Year Of Production	2004
Running Time	120:09
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (36:10)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Ryuhei Kitamura
Studio Distributor	Toho Madman Entertainment	Starring	Masahiro Matsuoka Rei Kikukawa Kazuki Kitamura Don Frye Akira Takarada Kane Kosugi Maki Mizuno Masami Nagasawa Chihiro Ôtsuka Kenji Sahara Kumi Mizuno Masakatsu Funaki Masatô Ibu
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Dual
RPI	?	Music	Keith Emerson Akira Ifukube Nobuhiko Morino

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	Yes
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     Wars and environmental disasters by humans over the years have awakened a number of monsters so rather than fighting each other humans have banded together to create the EDF (Earth Defence Force). Many of the soldiers in this force are mutants, fighting men and women with superior skills and reflexes, having what is called the M-gene. One group, including the non-mutant Douglas Gordon (Don Frye), crew a new type of EDF supership that is part submarine, part flying craft and manage to trap and entomb Godzilla beneath the South Pole.

     Some years later, EDF mutant soldier Ozaki (Masahiro Matsuoka) is ordered to escort UN Molecular Biologist Miyuki Otonashi (Rei Kikukawa) to look at a creature that has been found. This creature is actually the monster Gigan, currently inert, but Miyuki discovers that the monster has the same M-gene as the mutants. Then, without warning, Rodan attacks New York, Anguirus attacks Shanghai and other monsters simultaneously attack Paris, Okinawa and Sydney. EDF forces go into action to defend the cities from the creatures, but suddenly the creatures disappear and a huge UFO appears over Tokyo. Inside the space ship are an alien race called Xilians, who tell the Earthlings that they have defeated the monsters and that they have come in peace to usher in a period of peaceful co-operation.

     Of course, the Xilians are not as benign as they seem, and Ozaki, Miyuki and her TV reporter sister Anna (Maki Mizuno) soon discover that the Xilians view humans as cattle to be consumed. Recruiting the pugnacious Gordon, with the EDF they resist the Xilians. It seems that the Xilian leader (Kazuki Kitamura) has controlled the monsters all along, and he lets loose Anguirus, Gigan, Rodan, King Ghidorah, Monster X, Kamacuras, King Caesar, and Kumonga to destroy humanity. With the one remaining EDF supership, Gordon and the others release Godzilla from the ice and lure him northwards to fight the monsters that have been unleashed by the Xilians. While Godzilla fights the monsters, aided by Mothra, Gordon and Ozaki make an assault upon the Xilian mothership that will determine the fate of humankind upon the planet.

     To celebrate 50 years since Godzilla’s first appearance in 1954 Toho pulled out all the stops, allocating a budget of $34 million for Godzilla: Final Wars (Japanese title Gojira: Fainaru uozu), almost four times greater than the next best budget for a Godzilla film. As a nod to the past they also reemployed a number of actors who had appeared in previous Godzilla films, including veteran actor Akira Takarada who makes his sixth appearance in a Godzilla film, playing UN Secretary General Naotaro Daigo; he had appeared in the original Godzilla when he was only 19. But for Godzilla: Final Wars Toho obviously wanted something different and hired as director Ryuhei Kitamura who had no track record with Godzilla but was known for action / fantasy films such as Versus (2000) and Azumi (2003). Kitamura also wrote the screenplay for Godzilla: Final Wars along with Isao Kiriyama, another Godzilla novice, the continuity with Godzilla lore being provided by the two men who are credited with the story: Wataru Mimura, who had written four of this Millennium series, and Shogo Tomiyama. Tomiyama is clearly the Godzilla lore specialist here, as he had been involved in producing 12 Godzilla films going back to 1989 with Gojira tai Biorante, as well as three Mothra spin-offs. The result of this collaboration was that in Godzilla: Final Wars Toho got two films in one; a Godzilla film and one that is not!

     Godzilla: Final Wars opens with a bang as Godzilla is trapped under the South Pole and then an EDF supership is attacked by the monster Manda. But after this opening sequence Godzilla disappears for over an hour and when he does return he shares the remaining time with another, consecutive plotline. Here the filmmakers show the influence of a raft of science fiction films including a bit of Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), a bit of Starship Troopers (1997) and a healthy chunk of Independence Day (1996), although the strongest influence was clearly The Matrix (1999). Thus, in Godzilla: Final Wars we have a hero who does not know his true potential, 360 degree camera moves with extreme slow motion bullet time, fights where characters hang suspended in the air, costumes for the mutants that are Matrix-like and even a scene which is a straight copy of the one where Neo stops the bullets coming towards him and sends them back the way they came.

     The two plots in Godzilla: Final Wars do overlap, but not a lot. The first half of the film has the EDF mutants fighting various monsters utilising their superior athletic skills, like leaping long distances, but after the Xilians arrive and reveal their intent we basically get Ozaki and Gordon fighting the Xilians in the air and on their spaceship while Godzilla faces his adversaries on the ground, trashing numerous building as they go. The battle with the aliens is initially Independence Day with flashing aircraft, lasers and rockets, and then transforms into The Matrix with bullet time and wire work. On the other hand, the creature fights are traditional Godzilla battles using men in suits, models and lots of explosions and pyrotechnics with limited CGI, which is just as well as the CGI Manda looks very fake. As well, the need to move Godzilla onwards towards Tokyo results in some of the creature fights being over quickly, although the climax involving Rodan, Monster X, King Ghidorah and Mothra is worth waiting for. Both sets of action are colourful, loud and exciting, and seeing Sydney icons the Opera House and Centrepoint Tower being trashed by creatures is good fun. It is good to know that, in terms of creature action, Sydney landmarks have come of age with those of Tokyo, New York, Shanghai and Paris!

     Godzilla: Final Wars is a Godzilla film, and more than a Godzilla film. The human side is certainly far more developed than usual in Godzilla and the actors do it justice, especially Masahiro Matsuoka as the mutant who is required to make a choice and American actor and former boxer Don Frye, who speaks English throughout, injects a lot of humour into the part and seems to be having a whale of a time. Due to its consecutive plotlines, Godzilla: Final Wars is the longest of the Godzilla films and the most expensive by far. If the two plotlines don’t quite gel, Godzilla: Final Wars remains an explosive, colourful and exciting spectacle that is very entertaining and sends the Godzilla Millennium series out with a bang.

Video

     Godzilla: Final Wars is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, the original theatrical ratio, and is 16x9 enhanced.

     This is a hard print to judge by usual standards. Filmed digitally using a Sony HDW-F900 camera, the detail in Godzilla: Final Wars of monsters in close-up is sharp and crisp. The print evinces a fair amount of noise reduction, however the film has also been extensively colour manipulated, with sequences in different colour tints including red, yellow, brown, blue and white, so in fact the grainy image seems to fit well. Otherwise colours can be very vibrant, such as in the alien ship, and there are a number of “hero” shots that look spectacular, such as Godzilla framed by Mt Fuji (77:37) or the classic shot of Godzilla and Minilla walking off into the sunset (115:13). Blacks throughout the film are affected by the noise reduction but are OK, shadow detail is acceptable, skin tones natural, while brightness and contrast do vary deliberately.

     The print was otherwise without artefacts.

    Subtitles in American English are in a yellow font and seemed error free. There are some quirks; when the twin fairies of Mothra speak in unison the same lines, the subtitles translate the line twice, which seems a bit unnecessary.

    The video is good.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

     Audio is a choice between Japanese Dolby Digital 5.1 or English Dolby Digital 5.1, both at 448 Kbps.

     I listened to the Japanese audio and sampled the English. Effects in both were similar and the English voice dub seemed better than usual.

     Dialogue was clear and the front speakers had separation and reasonable clarity. The surrounds are used very aggressively right from the first battle and continue with music, engines, weapons, explosions and creature screams. The rears were utilised for a number of panning effects such as rockets and alien aircraft. The sub-woofer gave great support to the music, the explosions, the destruction of buildings and the thump and rumble of monster feet.

     The original score is by Keith Emerson, the keyboard member of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Nobuhiko Morino and Daisuke Yano. None had worked on a Godzilla film before Godzilla: Final Wars and the result is a different sounding score full of electronic riffs that does mostly work although it occasionally is somewhat intrusive.

     Lip synchronisation was occasionally out in the Japanese audio track, and the English dub was approximate, although perhaps better than usual.

     A loud, aggressive and effective audio track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     An interesting range of extras for this last film in the Millennium series.

Behind the Scenes

     On set footage showing how some of the sequences were filmed. This is fascinating, and gives footage of the directions given to the men wearing the creature suits, some of the models and the scale model backgrounds. The segments are:

• Ocean Walk (2:50)
• Godzilla vs Kumonga (2:06)
• Godzilla vs King Caesar (3:48)
• Godzilla vs Rodan & Monster X (8:23)
• Fiery Mothra (0:37)
• Godzilla vs Monster X (1:38)

”Meet the Monsters” Interactive Gallery

     An interesting extra, giving a summary of many of Godzilla’s adversaries. Fifteen monsters are listed on the creature menu and, in a nice touch, moving the cursor over the name gives a silhouette of the creature. For each there is a one page screen that gives the creature’s statistics, powers / weapons and origin. Then, for all except Godzilla, there is a “Play battle sequences” option that provides a selection of creature action from a range of films. The creature and the time of each battle sequence film is: Anguirus (4:21), Gigan (5:40), Hedorah (0:44), Rodan (2:12), Keizer (King) Ghidorah (5:01), Minilla (5:28), Mothra (2:33), Monster X (3:45), Kamacuras (1:37), King Caesar (1:23), Kumonga (1:09), Zilla (1:35), Godzilla, Ebirah (4:39) and Manda (2:38).

Godzilla Filmography

     A single silent text page listing the 28 Toho Godzilla films broken down into the Original Series (1954- 1974), Heisei Series (1984-1995) and Millennium Series (1999-2004). The specific year of release of each film is not provided, which would have been useful.

Production Galleries

     These sections are silent and the remote is used to advance to the next still. Sections are:

• 15 Production Sketches
• 6 Japanese Posters
• 16 Movie Stills

Original Trailers

     The Teaser Trailer (0:39), Theatrical Trailer (2:02) and TV Spot (0:33)

Madman Trailers

     Trailers for Godzilla – Destroy All Monsters (2:30) and Inner Senses (1:34).

     The Region 2 Japanese standalone release of Godzilla: Final Wars comes as a three disc Special Edition or a Standard edition, with an audio commentary and lots of special features but neither features or extras have English subtitles. The Region 1 US version has an extra called “Godzilla B-roll to Film” timed at 17:53, which is most likely to be the behind the scenes featurette we have.

     While there have been various box sets of Godzilla films released in Region 1, there is no equivalent of our complete “Millennium Series” collection elsewhere as most box sets include a mix from the various Godzilla series.

     Region 4 is the pick for English speakers.

     To celebrate 50 years since the first Godzilla film was released in 1954, in 2004 for Godzilla: Final Wars, the last in the Godzilla Millennium series, Toho pulled out all the stops with a budget four times larger than any other Godzilla film, bringing together enough monsters and explosive action to send Godzilla out with a huge bang.

     The video is interesting, the audio is excellent; extras are worthwhile.

     Godzilla: Final Wars is included in the Madman 6 disc box set Godzilla Millennium Series along with Godzilla 2000 (1999), Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000), Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001), Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla III (2002) and Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003). For a RPI of $39.95 the box set is still a fabulous way to stay in touch with “the original monster of mass destruction” during his later reincarnations.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall