Year: 2004
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Special Effects Director: Eiichi Asada
In The Suit: Tsutomu Kitagawa (Godzilla), Naoko Kamio (Minilla & Rodan), Kazuhiro Yoshida (Gigan & Hedorah), Toshihiro Ogura (Monster X II, Anguirus, & Ebirah), Motokuni Nakagawa (Monster X & King Caesar)

It's really fitting that this movie is the culmination of our project here. It's not that it just happens to be the final Toho Godzilla film until the 2016 reboot. And it's not just that it's a really fun Godzilla movie. This is film is a love letter to all of the previous Godzilla, and larger Tohoverse, movies. The movie is very much in the spirit of a late Showa film, but makes a point to acknowledge ALL of the Toho eras. There are more kaiju in this film than any other, with a plot broadly similar to Destroy All Monsters. And a lot of references to past movies. So it's very rewarding for us at SuperMegaMonkey to have this be the final film that we watch during our marathons.

The movie starts with a scene that takes place some time in the past. It's a battle between the crew of the flying drill-tipped submarine Gotengo (aka Atragon, but it's called Gotengo throughout this movie) and Godzilla, at the South Pole.

Are you sure? Mebbe you should wait until he's right on top of you.

The Gotengo is commanded by a pair of familiar Toho actors, Akira Nakao (who, even in victory always looks sad) and Koichi Ueda.

But, we'll learn later that someone else of importance is on the Gotengo. For now we just see that guy let out a loud "yahooo!" before firing missiles (That "yahooo!" was very well-delivered, let me tell you.). During the fight, an earthquake occurs, and Godzilla falls into a crevice. They fire missiles at a mountain, burying Godzilla under the ice (which feels like a nod to the end of Godzilla Raids Again).

We then go to that footage, showing the "history" of this film's continuity, which makes an effort to show scenes of Godzilla from every era, as well as monsters from non-Godzilla films. Monsters that won't otherwise appear in this movie include Varan, Baragon, Gaira, Gezora, Megaguirus, and Titanosaurus.

It's said that war and pollution have awakened vicious monsters.

Where's Hedorah? He's the pollution monster.

The final image of Godzilla from this reel is actually one of Godzilla Junior being rejuvenated by radiation from the end of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah.

This led to rumors that the Godzilla in this film was Junior (making this the second time those rumors happened, after Godzilla Millennium). Toho has i believe "officially" confirmed that that isn't the case, but this movie does not get deep into any kind of specific chronology for Godzilla. For example, is the Godzilla that appears in this one the first Godzilla that appeared in the 1954 or, like has been said in other films, did a second Godzilla emerge after that? And if they're showing a scene from Destoroyah, does that again mean that we're in a continuity where "a" Godzilla has died? The answer seems to be that there has only been one Godzilla, who "appeared in 1954 and repeatedly after that". So this movie isn't really interested in trying to consolidate all of the previous films into a single timeline (which would of course be impossible). The use of specific scenes from specific movies doesn't necessarily imply that everything in those movies happened.

One thing that is definitely new is the discovery of mutants living among the humans. The mutants have been recruited into the Earth Defense Force (EDF) under a group called M organization. They kind of remind me of the Power Rangers.

Boring, monochromatic Power Rangers.

To this comic book fan, mention of "mutants" of course brings to mind the X-Men, and it's worth noting that the first two X-Men movies were released prior to this movie. But beyond the fact that there are mutants (all of whom basically just have supreme fighting skills and not specific super-powers), there's no connection to the X-Men (although there is one scene where someone says "Watch it, X-Man" to one of the mutants).

Final Wars actually borrows a lot more from the Matrix films, especially stylistically, and there are also some scenes straight out of Star Wars (Episodes I & II came out prior to this film). The Matrix-style special effects make the film feel a lot more modern, and they make the human scenes a lot more watchable than your typical Godzilla film. Some might say it makes the film feel gimmicky. But the effects don't interfere too much with the monster fights, most of which are much more traditional rubber suit fights.

While we're talking about things that are different for this movie, it's worth mentioning that the soundtrack is partially by Keith Emerson, the keyboardist of the 1970s prog rock band Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. Emerson's keyboards are a definite change in tone, even when he's playing the traditional Godzilla theme, which, to Min's dismay, has been taken out of its odd time signature into a straight 4/4 (something that's especially unusual for a prog rock guy).

What the hell, Emerson? Not good enough. You did it wrong.

After the establishment of this film's history, we come to the present, where the Gotengo is back in action, this time battling Manda in the ocean off the coast of Normandy.

The pilot is Captain Gordon. We'll learn that he was the "yahooo!" guy from the flashback at the beginning of the movie. He's played by Don Frye, a wrestler that spent time in the New Japan Pro Wrestling league. Despite the fact that most of the characters in the film speak in Japanese, he speaks in English throughout. It's a slow halting kind of English, same as most English speaking actors in Toho films. In the past i've speculated that the English is spoken that way to give English speaking members of the Japanese audience a better chance to understand it, but in this case i kind of wonder it is that intentional, given the track record of wrestlers transitioning to film (we can't all be The Rock). That said, i've come to love Frye's role in this film. He plays a larger than life character, and his 'big dumb tough guy' speaking style fits the role well. It's definitely cartoonish but it's awesome.

I have mixed feelings about Frye. He's both awesome and horrible. He's awesomely horrible.

The fact that he's dressed like M. Bison is in theme for the movie as well. Most of the government and M Organization characters are dressed in quasi-Soviet/fascist regalia. There's no indication that the world is a dictatorship. In fact, quite the opposite. From what we see, the world is in a typically Utopian state for a Toho film. The United Nations is once again a powerful, useful organization. Technology is well beyond what it really was in 2004. And the people seem happy and free. But the elite M Organization group nonetheless dress like fascists.

The actors must have been so hot. Everyone else is dressed in spring/fall type clothing with light jackets. These guys are all trench-coated up like it's winter. Then they make them fight and run around.

Anyway, the battle with Atragon is mostly CGI, but it's a cool fight. Manda wraps itself around the Gotengo, so they pilot the submarine deep into an undersea volcano, until it is so hot that the giant snake is forced to let go. Then they race out of the volcano and quickly turn around to hit the pursuing Manda with a freeze ray, and then they drill through his frozen body.

Awesome! And a definite improvement over the original Manda/Gotengo fight from Atragon, which was barely visible.

As soon as the fight is over, Captain Gordon is contacted by the Earth Defense Force commander Akiko Namikawa (played by Kumi Mizuno). His risky use of the Gotengo has earned him a court marshal, and he is imprisoned when the submarine returns to base.

Hey, is the EDF commander one of the Planet X clones from Monster Zero? Cause Kumi Mizuno's character in that was also named Namikawa.

Back at the base, we watch an arena fight between the two main mutant characters in this story, Ozaki (played by Masahiro Matsuoka) and Kazama (played by Kane Kosugi). Ozaki will be our main heroic character, and he's defined in this test battle by holding back when he's obviously won the fight, refusing to go for the kill. Kazama, instead of yielding, takes advantage of Ozaki's hesitation and wins the fight, only stopping when their superior office calls a halt. Kane says that Ozaki is too soft, but Ozaki says that unlike Kane, he has a heart.

Ozaki is then assigned as a bodyguard to a UN biologist named Miyuki Otonashi (played by Rei Kikukawa). She has been called in to investigate a "mummified horror" that has been found off the coast of Hokkaido. Long time Godzilla fans will recognize it immediately as Gigan.

Another scientist, Hachiro Jinguji, working on the find is played by longtime Toho actor Kenji Sahara.

Gigan (not named yet) is said to be 12,000 years old. It's also discovered that he has M-Base in his DNA. It's explained that normal human DNA is made of four nucleotides, Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, and Cytosine. But mutants like Ozaki have a fifth element, called M-Base. And this alien creature also has M-Base. Miyuki suggests that it could mean that the creature is the ancestor of the mutants, an idea that Ozaki finds preposterous.

We next see a reporter interviewing the UN secretary general. The reporter is Anna Otonashi (played by Maki Mizuno), and we'll learn that she's actually the biologist Miyuki's sister.

Could that skirt be any shorter? Her ass is actually touching the chair. Who is going to clean that when she's done sitting on it? And could they not find her a more comfortable chair?

The secretary general is Naotaro Daigo (played by Akira Takarada, who has been with us since the very first Godzilla film).

*shakes fist* Ogata!!!!

This interview scene shows a lot of the stylistic choices in this movie. I don't know where Anna is, or why she's interviewing the UN secretary general from a huge empty room. His voice reverberates from multiple speakers throughout the room. It's very surreal, almost Terry Gilliam-ish, but it doesn't seem to be for any particular reason.

At this point the UN Secretary General just wants to tell us that science is great, but he'll figure more into the movie later. We do learn that he has a dog that he loves.

We go back to Miyuki, who is looking through a book about Infant Island. Suddenly, she, Ozaki, and Jinguji are transported to Infant Island.

The Shobijin (Masami Nagasawa & Chihiro Otsuka again) tell them that 12,000 years ago, Gigan came to Earth and destroyed everything, but Mothra fought to stop him. Gigan was evil, and now Ozaki and the other mutants have this evil in their blood. But they don't have to be controlled by it, and "if you don't become Earth's enemy, Mothra will be on your side". They're then transported back to their lab, but they can be sure it wasn't a shared hallucination because Ozaki is holding a talisman given to him by the fairies.

Let's think about this for a moment. Gigan destroyed "everything" 12,000 years ago. But his DNA somehow just magically got mixed in with human DNA? Just like that? I think the Celestials were involved.

We then see the UN SecGen on a plane. The familiar shape of Rodan flies past, and the plane is destroyed.

Oops. He can't help being super sonic.

We then get to the first of several odd "comedy" scenes in this movie. It's actually a very weird scene. The music shifts to hip-hop-ish beat. We're in New York, and a white cop is supervising a car getting hooked up to be towed. The car belongs to a black pimp wearing a fur coat, and he comes out shouting a bunch of jive expressions, telling the cop that he's only been there for five minutes. The cop says "Five minutes, five seconds, doesn't fucking matter. I'm going to bust you up." The pimp then pulls a gun on him. Meanwhile, a black wino, making exaggerated expressions, cheers the whole conflict on.

It's kind of an offensive scene. But i think it's more interesting to look at it as a reflection of what non-US viewers think of depictions of what i'll call for lack of a better phrase "black urban culture" in Western media. In other words, it's like converting, say, Bad Boys to Japanese via Google Translate, and then converting it back to English and getting I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

If he isn't wearing platforms with goldfish swimming in the glass heels, he's not a real pimp.

Anyway, the scene is interrupted by the arrival of Rodan, who lands on top of a building, crushing it.

Oh, Rodan. Why'd you do that? They're already mad at you for that plane thing.

The impact of his landing creates a wind that blows the hats off the pimp and the cop, complete with a cartoon slide whistle.

Rodan then starts flying around the city, causing windows to explode and buildings to fall.

There is no reason for this behavior other than to be a jerk.

Rodan is the first of several monsters to suddenly appear all across the Earth. Including this guy, in Sydney, Australia.

Nice jaw.

More on "Zilla" in a bit.

Anguirus is next, in Shanghai.

It's said that the Karyu is dispatched to fight him. I thought maybe our subtitles had misspelled Kiryu, the name of the Mechagodzilla that the government was using in the previous two Millenium films. But Karyu is actually a flying ship that looks similar to Boba Fett's Slave I.

Next is King Caesar, in Okinawa.

Ok, who sang King Caesar awake?

And next is Kamacuras.

There's also a weird kid with chocolate all over his face playing with his Godzilla toys. He picks up one of his toys, calls it lame, and throws it in a fire. I think it's Gamera and this is a little rivalry between Toho and whoever owns Gamera at this point. But Min thinks it's Squirtle.

What kind of monster kills a Pokemon??!! Who's in charge of this kid?

A lot of scenes, so i apologize if it seems like i'm jumping around. Now we get back to Karyu, which is apparently piloted by Klingons.

That's awesome.

Here's Karyu from the outside.

They are fighting Anguirus, who in this movie has the ability to roll up into a ball and bounce around.

Interesting story behind that: it originated from video games, with a developer giving Anguirus that move in a game (since let's face it, he doesn't really have a lot of options for a special attack). Toho actually fought the developers on that for a while, but relented. And then the move appeared in this movie.

And now we go to Mt. Fuji. And a grandpa dressed like a teddy bear.

There is definitely something weird going on with the senior community on Mt. Fuji. First it's the old Children of the Corn people from Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster. Now, it's bear costumes.

He's discovered Minilla, but his grandson Kenta Taguchi (played by Kenta Suga) prevents him from shooting it.

And now over to Kamacuras, who is fighting another ship like the Karyu. This one is apparently called the Eclair (although i didn't catch that in the movie; i got it from the internet).

I'm going to assume they're referring to "lightning" and not the pastry, although Kamacuras seems to think it's the latter.

And Ebirah is rampaging through Tokyo.

Well, i see he grew his claw back.

Ebirah is met by an M-Unit ground force, including both Ozaki and Kazama. They are supported by a group of mutants. With hot butter guns! But Ozaki and Kazama take the lead in the fight, using their Matrix moves.

Humans fighting directly with a giant monster is a pretty unique event. It's so rare it almost feels sacrilegious when we see it here. But the interactions between the humans and the monster are pretty good. It's actually believable when Ebirah's claw comes slicing down at the mutants, and they jump out of the way. It's also pretty funny when the mutants shoot their guns up at Ebirah and rubble falls down, and you realize that it's bits of Ebirah that are falling. Eventually they manage to defeat the giant lobster. Kazama delivers the line, "Sorry. I'm a vegetarian", probably the least badass thing ever said as a badass oneliner. But then Ebirah disappears. And soon the same is happening around the world with the other monsters.

This turns out to be the work of a UFO.

The UFO hovers over the Earth Defense Force base. Tons of troops go up to the roof. And then the UN Secretary General is beamed down from the spaceship. He says that the aliens are not hostile. He brings the EDF Commander and the M Organization trainer into the UFO.

Aren't you supposed to be dead? Didn't Rodan blow your plane up?

Inside, they are introduced to the Xilians, from Planet X ("our real name would be too hard for you to pronounce").

Still rockin' the weird visors, i see. Don't trust them, you guys! Look at them. They are oozing bad guy vibes all over the place. Plus, we all know Planet X-ers are jerks.

The Xilian General is played by Masato Ibu, and he looks like Darth Vader without his helmet on.

His sneering #2 guy is played by Kazuki Kitamura. The credits call him the Xilian Regulator.

You know what's disappointing? They aren't making those weird hand gestures when they talk like they did in Monster Zero.

The Xilians tell the Earthlings that a runaway planet, Gorath, is going to crash into Earth. This is, of course, taken from the movie Gorath.

UN Sec Gen appears on roof, says they aren't hostile. The Xilians say that there is only one way to avoid it: concentrate all of Earth's firepower on the exact spot and destroy it.

No no! There's at least one other way to avoid it! Build a giant thruster at the South Pole!

So the UN Secretary General goes to the UN and announces that the United Nations is being disbanded and replaced by the United Space Nations.

This is met by cheers of approval. That's how you know we're in the Tohoverse. In real life, if anyone was even paying attention to what the UN was doing, this would have resulted in howls of protest, especially in the US. The UN Secretary General wouldn't just be able to declare something.

But in the movie, the world is gripped by alien fever, as rallies break out all over welcoming the Xilians (some of the signs, weirdly, say Happy Birthday).

Have you people never watched V?! Stop being so welcoming!

However, reporter Anna Otonashi is more suspicious, as are her biologist sister Miyuki and Ozaki, who i guess is still assigned to protect her, in between fights with giant lobsters. First they note the coincidence of the Xilians showing up right after the discovery of Gigan. Then they analyze the planet Gorath, and realize that it's exactly the same in every photograph, leading them to believe that it's a hologram (it's actually not a hologram, but it's not a runaway planet, either). Then they review footage of the UN SecGen's speech and notice that he doesn't blink once the entire time. Then they go to try to interview the SecGen, but are interrupted when (what i guess is) an anti-alien fanatic tries to assassinate him. They wind up with some of the SecGen's blood on a hankerchief, and when they take the blood back and analyze it, they confirm it isn't human blood. Ozaki goes to relay all of this to the EDF commander, but he backs away when he realizes that she isn't blinking either (they replaced her with a Miss Namikawa clone!). So they instead go to the one guy that they know couldn't have been replaced by a Xilian: Captain Gordon, who has been held in a cell all this time.

By the way, there are a lot of legs in this movie.

Captain Gordon takes a look at the two ladies and tells Ozaki, "Nice work".

You are so gross.

Now that we know that the aliens are bad guys, there's a scene with the Xilian General and the Regulator, with the Regulator wondering why the General bothered to take away all the kaiju. Why not just let them destroy the Earth? The General believes in more subtle tactics, but it's clear the Regulator doesn't agree.

Miyuki is later caught hacking into the EDF commander's computer. Another really weird room.

Where the hell are you people? Why is that computer just sitting in a hallway?

Captain Gordon and the mutants show up to protect Miyuki. They kill one of the Xilians, and we see it start to transform. But they cut away before we see what it turns into.

Ooh, what is it this time? Gorillas? Cockroaches!?

Meanwhile, Anna gets a live interview with the UN SecGen and the Xilian General and Regulator. She is able to trick the SecGen by bringing out a dog that Anna pretends is his dog, even though it really isn't, and he goes along with it.

What have humans done to dogs? This thing has wolf ancestors. It doesn't even have a nose! All it can do is wheeze until death comes to claim it. You did this!

Then Gordon shows up with the dead Xilian.

Gordon shoots the SecGen and his head splits open, confirming that he also was a Xilian.

Some kind of fish thing? That's sort of not threatening. At all.

With the Xilians now out in the open, the #2 guy decides it's time to kill his boss and take over. It's then revealed that the Xilians are able to mentally control the mutants. Ozaki is unaffected, but the rest are. So it's down to Ozaki, Captain Gordon, and M-Unit commanding officer Kumusaka (played by MMA fighter and pro-wrestler Masakatsu Funaki) to fight off the squad of mutants. The Kumusaka volunteers to stay behind to fight the mutants while the others get Miyuki and Anna to safety. But Kazama breaks away from the other mutants and pursues them. So Ozaki winds up fighting him in a protracted motorcycle battle.

Min: Why on motorcycles? They could just, you know, fight each other.
Fnord: Yeah but a motorcycle battle is much more extreme.

Meanwhile, the Xilians release Gigan...

...and then all the other kaiju...

...and a horde of fighter ships.

That's a lot of ships. Why do they even need the giant monsters?

Karyu engages the ships.

We may have phased into the Planet of the Apes universe when no one was looking.

Argh! You promised no more Planet of the Apes!

Meanwhile, way out in a rural area, Teddy Bear Grandpa and Minilla and the kid see the fire in Tokyo...

...and start heading towards it in a pickup truck.

It never seems like a good idea to head towards a city that's on fire, but when you're in the Tohoverse, it seems like a really bad idea. Clearly giant, rampaging monsters and exploding nuclear reactors have to be involved, right?

Ozaki manages to knock out Kazama, and he rejoins Captain Gordon and the others. They regroup at the secret base where Gotengo is stored, and meet up with a crew of presumably non-mutants. But instead of just taking the flying submarine out to fight the Xilians and kaiju, Captain Gordon says that they're going to the South Pole to free Godzilla. It's said that Godzilla does not have M-Base. All of Earth's other kaiju have had their gene structures rebuilt with M-Base so that the Xilians can control them, but not Godzilla. So the plan is to free him.

Godzilla hates waking up. He's gonna be soooo grumpy.

There's a funny scene as the remaining EDF officer say something like, "So all we have to do is make it to Godzilla, free Godzilla, lead Godzilla to the Xilians, have Godzilla defeat all the other monsters and the Xilians, and then defeat Godzilla". And Gordon goes, "Right." He calls it Operation: Final War.

Poor Godzilla, being used this way. You only want him when he's useful to you.

The Xilians send Gigan after the Gotengo as they head to the South Pole.

Another one of our "comedy" scenes involves two guys (i assume more wrestlers) that have been assigned to the South Pole station guarding Godzilla. At this point they assume that it's the end of the world and they're just waiting it out, wearing Hawaiian shirts and partying, until Gordon calls to tell them that he's coming.

These guys just sort of shake their heads, questioning the wisdom of releasing Godzilla. And when Godzilla is freed from his ice prison...

...he of course wakes up breathing fire, and his first move is to blast them.

I told you he'd be crankus.

Then Gigan attacks.

Damn, Gigan is cut.

Gigan has a working buzzsaw in his chest, and he tries to pull Godzilla to him with cables. But Godzilla is in no mood to play, and he decapitates Gigan with a breath blast.

Ah ha ha ha! If you're going to bother me first thing in the morning, you had better bring breakfast.

I can't believe Gigan was such a chump. He got decapitated in a minute! Tsk. Godzilla's pretty fucking awesome, though, right? I love Godzilla when he first wakes up.

The Gotengo then starts leading Godzilla across the ocean to the various Kaiju that have escaped. The first is basically a warm up act, and a deliberate joke. It's Godzilla vs. Zilla, the monster from the 1998 American film (Toho has renamed it "Zilla" because the Americans took the "God" out of the character).

The fight, set to a nu-metal soundtrack by the band Sum 41, lasts all of three seconds. Zilla is apparently a leaper, and he jumps at Godzilla, who immediately swats him down with his tail and blasts him. Fight over. Cut away to the Xilian Regulator hamming it up while projecting disappointment. "I knew that tuna-eating monster was useless."

Next up is Kumonga, who provides a little more of a fight.

Godzilla, cover your eyeballs!

His webbing has been upgraded from the normal silly string stands to thick yellow rope that balloons into neat looking nets.

Godzilla eventually catches the webbing...

...and gives Kumonga a spin.

Next: Kamacuras.

Min: Oh, please.
Fnord: I don't think so dude. Get a buddy.

Kamacuras is impaled on an electrical tower.

Godzilla continues to rampage after defeating Kamacuras. Kenta asks why Godzilla is destroying the town. Teddy Bear Grandpa says that a long time ago, man did a terrible thing and Godzilla is angry. Godzilla will never forget the huge fire that man created. Minilla hears this and urges his companions to get moving again. Thankfully, Minilla does not actually talk in this movie, but he's still a very silly looking character.

At least his arms are proportional and he sorta has a snout, so he's less gross than in previous movies.

Speaking of silly, but this time awesome silly, it is time for my favorite fight in the movie. Perhaps realizing that going one on one with Godzilla is a losing proposition, Rodan, Anguirus, and King Caesar team-up.

This is a classic Showa fight. A three way battle, sneak attacks...

...wrestling moves, and outraged hand gestures. At one point Godzilla launches himself off of Anguirus' head, jumping out of the way of Rodan who instead flies into King Caesar. In another King Caesar bounces off the side of a mountain like it's the top rope in a wrestling arena. King Caesar is then tossed on top of Anguirus' spiky back, of course. Anguirus ball move...

...allows him to get kicked around like a soccer ball, with King Caesar jumping in the air to kick him and Godzilla using his tail to deflect the shot onto Rodan. Godzilla then makes a jump to block Anguirus like he's a goalie.

Anguirus getting tossed around recalls the rock volleys that were a staple of the Showa era. It's a real fun battle. But of course Godzilla is the winner.

Minilla and his human companions had been watching the fight. When it ends, Minilla grows in size, off panel.

Meanwhile, the Gotengo takes the battle to the Xilian's main ship.

Min has been nervous this whole time that Kazama has not been tied up after he was knocked out (he was mind controlled, after all), but when he wakes up he slips out of the Gotengo into a fighter jet and slips through a hole in the Xilian UFO's force field. He then flies to the center of the ship and destroys its power generator, bringing down the forcefield.

At least they didn't dress anyone up in a bear suit with horns or skimpy underwear this time.

The Gotengo then drills its way into the mothership, but the crew is teleported off before they can fire their maser. They wind up in the command center, with the Xilian Regulator and his top minions. The Regulator explains that the Xilians need human mitochondria to survive, so they intend to destroy human civilization and then keep some humans around as cattle.

Aha! The Xilians have watched V!

One thing that's sort of left out of this explanation is why they showed up now. Earlier it was suggested that it was triggered by the discovery of Gigan. But why? And whose mitochondria have the Xilians been eating for the past 12,000 years?

Meanwhile, the Infant Island fairies send Mothra.

...but they didn't sing the Mothra song! You can't summon Mothra without the Mothra song! It's the rule!

And we see Godzilla emerge from the ocean after tossing Hedorah out. Hedorah lands against a building...

...and then Godzilla tosses Ebirah on top of him.

I don't like being this close to you. You're gross.

And then Godzilla blasts them both. We all know it's not that easy to kill Hedorah. You have to pull the ping pong balls out of him and then subject him to intense heat. But i guess that's enough to keep Hedorah subdued for now.

Godzilla next turns his attention to Gorath, the fireball that is still approaching Earth. It was said earlier to be a hologram, but it's real enough that Godzilla needs to do something about it. So he grounds himself, sticking his feet and tail deeper into the ground, and then draws a big radioactive breath.

He blasts the supposed runaway planet.

Godzilla is so great. He blasted the planet! With his breath weapon! With an "oh, this bullshit" expression! *sigh*

But even though there's a big explosion, something comes out.

Now what?

Godzilla faces off against this "Monster X".

Some more fun rubber suit fighting.

It's hard to get a good look at him at this point, but one thing about Monster X is that his "shoulder pads" are actually shaped just like partial versions of his head. That's a clue!

And so is his swirly lighting attack.

Mothra arrives at this point...

...but the Xilians also deploy a repaired Gigan. And by repaired, i mean that his scythe claws have been replaced with dual-chainsaws!

Min: You're trying too hard. You look like a douche.
Fnord: Oh, c'mon! That is awesome!

Mothra goes after Gigan with her patented wing-wind attack, but Gigan recovers from that, flies after Mothra, and clips one of her wings.

So Gigan is able to gang up on Godzilla with Monster X.

Dude, don't be cocky. Godzilla decapitated you when he was still groggy.

Here's some better shots of Monster X.

Monster X is able to grab Godzilla and hold him for Gigan's chainsaws.

But at the last second, Godzilla spins around, so that Gigan chops Monster X in the back instead. Then, while they're staggered from that, a recovered Mothra flies up behind them and knocks them both to the ground.

I would have loved to see Godzilla acknowledge Mothra in some way. Does he know her in this continuity? Does he appreciate the help? They don't interact.

Hey, did you bring any of them eggs?

Gigan shoots some spinning blades out of his chest at Mothra. She dodges them.

She then either knocks some of the blades back or just gets out of the way as they boomerang back towards Gigan, but either way the blades fly at Gigan. He stands motionless for a second...

...and then his head falls off again.

*shakes head* What did the Xilians do? Tape your head back on? So sad for you.

There's a final explosion, and Mothra flies through the flames. She's on fire but she incinerates Gigan as well. That's the last we'll see of either of them.

Why did she do that? She didn't need to do that. His head fell off. That's a win. You won the fight, Mothra. Just go home.

Occasionally we're torn away from these awesome monster fights to see what the humans are up to. The Xilian Regulator tells Ozaki that he is a "Keizer", basically a super-powered reality warping mutant. The Regulator thinks that Ozaki will become evil like him once his Keizer abilities are awakened, so he uses a lighting ability to repeatedly zap Ozaki. And it works, at least at first. But Miyuki stabs Ozaki with the talisman they got from Infant Island, and it restores Ozaki to his right mind. So now the two super-powered Keizers fight while the rest of the good guys try to flee the ship, fighting their way past Xilians and mind-controlled mutants. Oh, it also turns out that the EDF commander and the UN Secretary-General are still alive, and they participate in the escape as well.

Er...

Ozaki uses his powers to stop all the lasers coming from the grunts, helping the others escape.

The escape is aided by Godzilla, who looks up from the battle at one point to blast the Xilian mothership. Just because it's there, i'm sure.

He always knows who's fucking with him.

Captain Gordon is a badass with his big sword.

Ozaki almost morphs into Keanu Reeves during the final battle.

Ozaki's fight with the Regulator is paralleled with Godzilla's fight with Monster X.

Ozaki defeats the Regulator and the good guys escape the mothership, which is destroyed.

But it's not over yet, because Monster X has a secondary form. He transforms into - did you guess? - King Ghidorah. He opens up like a Mad Fold-In in reverse.

Nooooow what?

Min: I can't believe they squished all of King Ghidorah into that tiny suit. That must have been uncomfortable.
Fnord: Kaiju spanx.

Actually, this is a quadruped King Ghidorah, making him more like Desghidorah from Rebirth of Mothra. And that's why i use the same Monster Appearing tag for the two characters.

I don't know why they're using Desghidorah in this final Godzilla movie. Everyone knows King Ghidorah is Godzilla's archenemy. Why is he getting a lame variation for this final fight?

Anyway, he may not be the King, but he's pretty powerful.

Ah ha ha ha! Sucks to not have wings, huh?

Monster X II (as the credits call him; the creature is also called Keizer Ghidorah) then starts biting Godzilla, and draining energy from him.

Again with this? He's not even a Godzilla clone. I'm calling shenanigans!

So Ozaki channels his own power through the Gotengo to transfer it to Godzilla.

This gives Godzilla the power he needs to fight back.

And Godzilla starts using his breath to blast off Ghidorah's heads. A lot of decapitation in this movie, huh?

Godzilla then does a couple of the old "grab 'em by the neck and flip 'em around" moves for old times' sake, and then blasts what's left of Ghidorah into space. With a red rage blast.

Godzilla immediate turns on the Gotengo. Like, hey dude, don't you remember we just helped you? But maybe he thinks that they were attacking him, or maybe he doesn't think it outweighs their earlier attacks, or maybe he just doesn't care.

Maybe he knows that humans are jerks that always turn on him when they don't need him anymore.

But then it's Minilla to the rescue.

Grandpa says it's time for Godzilla to forgive the humans for all they've done.

Meanwhile, the grandson makes sure that the humans don't attack Godzilla (not that there was much they could do).

It's a good scene, and a nice end to the Godzilla franchise, especially after being the "villain" of the films in the Heisei and Millenium periods. I half expected Godzilla's face to morph into the friendly super-hero version from the late Showa period.

Eventually Godzilla turns, looking a little disgusted with the situation.

"Fine. I was gonna get some breakfast anyway."

At the very end, Ozaki cryptically says that it's the end of the war, but the beginning of a new war. Not sure what he's talking about.

Mebbe now that his Keizer powers are activated, he's going to enslave all the humans. That Infant Island talisman didn't really make him good again. He just couldn't stand that Regulator dude and wanted to kill him anyway.

During the end credits we see that weird kid playing with his toys again. If nothing else, it's a way to slip in a few monsters that didn't otherwise appear in the film, like Orga, Moguera, and i think even Matango.

I see Titanosaurus!

Min had a more negative opinion of Final Wars when we first saw it. It's definitely the case that, even with all the monsters in the movie, most of the screen time goes to the humans. And it would have been nice to have more drawn out fights between Godzilla and, say, Hedorah. But i think i enjoyed it more than her the first time, and having gone through all our Toho films, i now think it's really awesome how this movie has managed to bring together so many elements, from the monsters to the Gotengo to planet Gorath to all of the old school actors. To put it in comic book terms, it's sort of the equivalanet of a Secret Wars or something like that.

Look, i just want to see big monsters wrestling with each other. But, ok, you need some people in there. Fine. Just don't interrupt my monster-fighting scenes with them and their awkward budding romances or whatever. And if you're going to create a group of super soldiers, can we see them doing kewl stuff, too? You know that scene where Commander Kumasaka tells the rest of them to go while he holds off all the mind-controlled M-Unit soldiers? He walks away from that fight cause you see him in the end scene where Minilla faces off with Godzilla. That means he kicked the crap out of all those mutant soldiers. Can i see that fight? I bet that fight was fantastic!

There are some elements that make it not like a classic Godzilla movie: the soundtrack, the focus on super-powered humans, the stylistic lifting from movies like the Matrix (although borrowing from other movies is a Toho tradition). And the overt comedy scenes could have been dropped. But those are minor flaws. It's a really fun film, and really nice way for Toho to retire the franchise (or at least put it on hiatus for over a decade).

Minilla does grow in size with no explanation, and there's plenty of "science", but we're forgoing the Drinking Game this time around. For a movie so much in the tradition of the Showa era, there are surprisingly few of those tropes. So we'll end with a toast to Godzilla and his friends.

Monsters Appearing: Anguirus, Ebirah, Gigan, Godzilla, Hedorah, Kamacuras, King Caesar, Kumonga, Manda, Minilla, Monster X, Mothra, Rodan, Zilla