The Big Picture
- Godzilla fighting “Zilla” (the American, Roland Emmerich version of Godzilla) in
Godzilla: Final Wars
is a funny and memorable moment, showcasing a one-sided battle between the two monsters in just 30 seconds. - Final Wars
is a kaiju epic filled with non-stop action, paying homage to previous
Godzilla
films and featuring aliens, mutants, and classic monsters. - The film serves as a farewell to the era of practical effects and rubber suits in
Godzilla
movies, with CGI taking over in future installments.
Even though many acclaimed Godzilla movies haven’t featured other monster opponents for the titular king of the monsters to fight, much of the series is still defined by its “vs.” movies. Such films give you what you’d expect from the titles alone and date back as far as 1962’s King Kong vs. Godzilla, the first film where the most famous of American monsters clashes with the most famous of Japanese monsters. When talking about the most iconic fights from the Godzilla series, King Kong vs. Godzilla undoubtedly contains a contender, even if the film as a whole is quite cheesy and probably something of an acquired taste. Some other greatest hits, so to speak, include Godzilla fighting King Ghidorah in 1964’s Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, battling a robotic equal in Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), and then even being memorably defeated in the tense and heartbreaking Godzilla vs. Destoroyah (1995). Yet perhaps the most memorable fight scene of the entire series was saved for 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars, a movie made to commemorate 50 years of Godzilla.
A film loaded with almost too much action, Godzilla: Final Wars is spectacular and messy in equal measure. It runs for just over two hours, and it feels like all but about 30 or 40 minutes are devoted to its human and monster characters throwing down with each other. It’s a kaiju movie epic and references many of the Godzilla films that came before, including the infamous 1998 Godzilla, which was the first — and, for 16 years, the last — time a Godzilla film was made outside Japan. Godzilla: Final Wars’ most memorable moment comes when East meets West, and the ’98 version of Godzilla (sometimes known simply as “Zilla”) goes up against a powerful and “true” depiction of Godzilla, resulting in a hilariously one-sided battle that is easily the funniest scene in an already rather hilarious and over-the-top movie. For what it represents within the long-running Godzilla series, the Godzilla vs. Zilla fight might well be the most entertaining and memorable kaiju battle depicted so far.
What’s the Premise of ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’?
Godzilla: Final Wars is a movie that starts off at 11 and continues to dial things up with every passing scene, steadily becoming more ridiculous and overwhelming in the best way possible. Things begin with Godzilla getting trapped beneath ice in Antarctica, ensuring he can no longer cause destruction. Yet in the world of Final Wars, giant monsters seem like a fact of life, as do superhuman individuals who are known as “mutants,” many of them combating the aforementioned monsters after joining the Earth Defense Force (EDF). But wait, things get crazier, because an alien race known as the “Xiliens” also shows up pretty early on during Godzilla: Final Wars. At first, they seem like capable allies, given they demonstrate their supposed “powers” to humanity by abruptly bringing to a close a series of monster attacks that had been playing out suspiciously all at once within various large cities.
Given this is a Godzilla film, and nefarious alien races have been featured in the series before (including in 1991’s underrated Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, the Xiliens are actually up to no good. They’re busy trying to deceive humanity so they can use the human race as a food source (yes, really). They were behind the attacks that they then “stopped,” and once their treachery is discovered, the Xiliens go for broke and unleash the monsters once more, including numerous old-school Godzilla foes like Rodan, Anguirus, King Caesar, and Ebirah. Naturally, the only chance humanity has lies in the EDF releasing Godzilla from his icy prison in Antarctica and leading him from one monster to another, with the hope that he’ll be angry enough to wipe the floor with the lot of them and assist humanity in eventually defeating the Xiliens, too. Thankfully, Godzilla is more than up to this task, with much of Final Wars’ second half being dedicated to showcasing various skirmishes between Godzilla and other iconic monsters. Yet none play out as memorably— or end as abruptly— as his fight with Zilla, who hadn’t been seen on screen since 1998.
The 50-Year-Long Series ‘Godzilla: Final Wars’ Looks Back On
As you’d expect from any film series that’s had almost 40 entries, there are a decent number of Godzilla films that can be regrettably described as not very good by monster movie standards. Of those, 1998’s Godzilla could well be the worst, as it was a movie that didn’t quite seem to understand what made Godzilla as a character so endearing and compelling. The Roland Emmerich-directed film was intended to take Godzilla to new heights outside Japan, being a huge blockbuster that would have, on paper, taken the Godzilla series out of the realm of being a cult one (again, at least outside Japan) and given the whole franchise mainstream exposure in English-speaking countries. The money was there, Emmerich had made a popular sci-fi blockbuster recently with Independence Day, and the movie’s plot could be boiled down to “a giant lizard stomps around New York City and causes chaos.” What could go wrong?
As it turns out, a surprising amount, because in the long-running series, nothing quite rubbed fans of Godzilla the wrong way as much as the 1998 movie bearing his name did. Many old Godzilla films from the 1960s and ’70s had been cheesy and silly, sure, but they had a certain charm to them that still shines through to this day, what with the endearing rubber suits, over-the-top/kid-friendly action, and increasingly preposterous plots that were knowingly silly. 1998’s Godzilla didn’t really feel like it hit the mark as a homage to these sorts of movies, if that was the intent, and neither did it satisfy the same way more serious Godzilla films had. After all, the chilling 1954 original and 1984’s The Return of Godzilla had demonstrated that the titular monster could be taken seriously, and be an effective threat within the disaster movie genre. 1998’s Godzilla was a disaster movie only in the sense that the movie itself was a disaster, leaving things wide open for future Japanese Godzilla films to come in and redeem the central character once more, reminding viewers he was the king of the monsters while properly paying homage to all the wonderful and zany Godzilla films that had come before.
Why Godzilla vs. Zilla is Such a Great Moment
Called Zilla because the character was said to have taken the “God” out of “Godzilla,” the monster from the 1998 film initially appears in Final Wars as a creature attacking the city of Sydney. Like the other monsters under the control of the Xiliens, Zilla is teleported away, only to be brought back when the alien race decides to decimate humanity for real. As such, Zilla is one of many targets for the actual Godzilla to take down after being unleashed, with the clash of these two monsters being over remarkably fast. Backed inexplicably by Sum 41’s “We’re All To Blame,” the fight involves the two monsters staring each other down, Zilla sprinting at Godzilla, Godzilla nonchalantly blasting him into the air with his atomic breath, and then smacking him with his tail into the Sydney Opera House, with Zilla letting out a pitiful squeak in the process (naturally, the iconic Sydney landmark also explodes rather comically).
Adding insult to injury, Godzilla then lets out another blast of his atomic breath, further decimating both the Sydney Opera House and Zilla while the leader of the Xiliens (Kazuki Kitamura) melodramatically wails at Zilla’s ineptitude. All this happens in just 30 seconds, with the brevity being hilarious in a way that has to be seen to be believed. Plus, it’s all capped off with the aforementioned Xilien saying, “I knew that tuna-eating lizard was useless,” referencing the way Godzilla infamously ate “a lot of fish” in the 1998 film. The entire scene functions as a cinematic middle finger to the derided 1998 movie, assuring fans that those behind the character similarly disapproved of that particular attempt to bring him recognition outside Japan. It would seem petty if 1998’s Godzilla film was genuinely good, but it really wasn’t (despite its surprisingly high box office gross), so it feels like a strangely triumphant way to re-crown the true Godzilla. And it further seems like the right thing to do in a movie designed to celebrate the lengthy series that carries his name.
Why the Worst ‘Godzilla’ Movie Isn’t as Bad as Its Reputation
It may not be the best and most refined kaiju movie, but can we cut Zilla some slack?
‘Godzilla: Final Wars,’ in Hindsight, Feels Like the End of an Era
Godzilla has continued throughout the 21st century, so it’s not accurate to call Godzilla: Final Wars the Godzilla movie to end all Godzilla movies. After all, there was a more successful American take on Godzilla in 2014 that kicked off the ongoing MonsterVerse, and Japanese productions like Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One have taken the series into interesting new directions, both having particularly good human-focused storylines on top of exciting monster action. But to this day, Godzilla: Final Wars is the last Godzilla movie that didn’t entirely rely on CGI, with many of the monsters here being brought to life by actors in suits. In that sense, it feels like a farewell to that style of kaiju film, with rubber suits and other practical effects defining much of the Showa and Heisei eras of Godzilla, and a good chunk of the Millennium era, too. Similarly, many of the iconic monsters featured in Final Wars haven’t been seen in live action since — none beyond Godzilla, Rodan, Mothra, and King Ghidorah, at least.
At least the MonsterVerse seems like it’s being pushed more towards delivering Showa era thrills, with 2021’s Godzilla vs. Kong being goofy fun, and 2024’s Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire looking to keep that momentum going. And, given the popularity and acclaim of Minus One, maybe more serious takes on Godzilla on the Japanese side of things are here to stay, and that’s okay, especially if the following films can prove to be as compelling as Minus One was. Godzilla fans in the mood for senseless and silly spectacle will always have Final Wars to look back on and revisit, at least, much in the same way that Rick and Ilsa will always have Paris. It’s the kind of movie that gets better and more enjoyable the more one knows about Godzilla and the series’ history, and it contains some all-time great action, especially the aforementioned one-on-one fight between Godzilla and Zilla. As far as hilarious and memorable statements about a complex and long-running cinematic franchise go, few scenes can claim to be better.
Godzilla: Final Wars is available to rent on Apple TV in the U.S.
