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| Godzilla Final Wars(2004); Discuss the film here. | |
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| Topic Started: Feb 8 2006, 11:36 AM (3,186 Views) | |
| packmule | Dec 15 2008, 11:27 PM Post #196 |
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Here's one reason that immediately comes to mind: the director, Ryuhei Kitamura, spent a disproportionately large amount of his alloted budget on location shooting, which meant less budget allotted for, well, let's see...uh, giant monster action and battles. An anniversary film celebrating Godzilla's 50th birthday should have been more about Godzilla and his kaiju co-stars...and less about a motorcycle chase, "Matrix" type action sequences and a synthesizer based score that sounded twenty years old at times. I disagree. Godzilla was little more than a guard dog, an uncontrollable animal unleashed by humans on an alien race too arrogant to realize that Godzilla was too powerful and too unpredictable to be controlled...or stopped. What did you expect Godzilla to do without Minya's intervention...wave at all the human characters and say "Gee. we just saved the world. Guess that makes us buddies. Let's go have some smoothies." ? Perfect for action movie fans. I don't believe for one second that Ryuhei Kitamura is a Godzilla fan. He does not, based on GFW, appear to me to understand the monster at all. Shusuke Kaneko should have directed this film. Think Kitamura did a good job? Check the box office take of GFW: it was a disaster financially. I rest my case. 
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| G2Kmaster | Dec 16 2008, 01:49 AM Post #197 |
BIGGEST GODZILLA NERD HERE!-Monster Island Hall Of Famer
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1.atleast it has some new stuff into the series. And a score that sounds 20+ is ok. No harm no foul. The friggin synth score was kick ass. Alot better than some other stuff we have heard. Like megalon's score. 2. Not really. Remember that speech that grandfather gave his grandson? That was basicaly a kiddie summary of Gojira 3. No, but he could have just walked away like Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla. 4. That was not because of GFW but of other films that were more popular like AVP. Same thing happened to GMMG: TSOS. |
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| crowmagnumman | Dec 16 2008, 01:52 AM Post #198 |
Monsterland Grand Master
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Although I actually had a lot of fun watching this movie, I think this is a pretty bad movie. Even for a Godzilla movie. I won't say it's not entertaining. It was extremely entertaining, at least for me. I couldn't stop laughing. I laughed at the Japanese Keanu Reeves. I laughed at the horrible CG. I laughed at that mustached American character who can't act worth beans, and yet when they went in to get his help while he was in prison lifting weights like some uber-badass, a part of me was saying, "hell yeah, that's badass." We have this incredibly hot woman thrown into the movie, for what plot-related reason I can't remember, nor do I care. The soundtrack was really bad, but it didn't really detract from my enjoyment of the movie until that last scene with Minya. I love how random that whole Minya nonsense is. Remember those two English-speaking guys guarding the frozen Godzilla? That was pretty silly. I laughed. This movie is absolutely packed with mayhem. The whole time I watched it I was thinking about how incredibly stupid it was and at the same time I was in complete awe of it. That stuff at the end where Godzilla fights Monster Zero just got my blood pumping. I don't know why. The effects were awful. The music was awful. Just about everything was awful. But there is a lot of carnage. And on some deep, dark, 12-year-old level I enjoyed it. |
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| bcr1 | Dec 16 2008, 04:46 AM Post #199 |
Monsterland Associate
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i saw azua royal family castle in final wars - how xillians get king ceasear key to wake up king ceasear |
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| packmule | Dec 16 2008, 07:57 AM Post #200 |
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"New stuff" would be, for me, one way to describe it: "bad stuff" works for me also. My problem with that: I'm not a "kiddie". Maybe that was Kitamura's intent from the start: make GFW appeal more to kids. I think to some degree he may have succeeded...which leaves an adult fan of Godzilla whose taste is more for the older G films holding the proverbial bag. GFW still fails to feature the monsters front and center in the film, regardless of what influenced Kitamura's G film. That could sum up my take on GFW. I found it to be a modestly entertaining action film. What I was hoping for was a Godzilla film on an epic scale. That would be K-1 fighter Don "The Predator" Frye. No one will obviously mistake Mr. Frye as an Oscar winning actor but he did okay and had a few good one liners.
 Actually two: Rei Kikukawa and Maki Mizuno. I still sometimes think about Maki Mizuno's beautiful legs(she was the reporter Anna Otonashi).  I liked the background music in this scene, taken from Godzilla Vs The Cosmic Monster(1974). The two guys in this scene were K-1(MMA) fighters Ray Sefo and Gary Goodridge. |
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| crowmagnumman | Dec 17 2008, 03:33 AM Post #201 |
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Monsterland Grand Master
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Ha, yeah. Final Wars had that going for it. Rei Kikukawa was just the one I noticed the most. I didn't notice the Ifukube Cosmic Monster music the first time I watched it. I should watch that part again. |
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| Godzillaheisei546 | Jan 27 2009, 12:37 AM Post #202 |
Godzilla Fan
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i think there are proplems with the film, but the spx and the atmosphere where great, acting was good, i like don frye playing gordon. the fighting thing was ok, and i honestly disliked the goji suit, the head was small and the fins not well done, i meen goji 2000 fins are awsome, but the other is just, yah. |
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| packmule | Apr 26 2009, 11:30 PM Post #203 |
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Out of curiosity what things did you dislike about GFW the most? |
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| packmule | Apr 27 2009, 11:03 PM Post #204 |
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Godzilla Final Wars - Revisited Getting a hankering to watch another Millennium Godzilla movie this evening, something of a rarity since I don't usually watch any DVDs on work nights, I decided to watch Godzilla Final Wars on R1 DVD, in Japanese language with English subtitles. This film, which originally released to theaters in Japan in December, 2004 was supposed to be a 50th anniversary film celebrating 50 years of Godzilla in cinema, as well as a "retirement" sendoff of sorts, since Toho had announced that this would be the last Godzilla movie for quite some time, the legendary monster placed on hiatus after this film. I like Godzilla Final Wars...as an action film. It has plenty of gun play, explosions, one decent motorcycle chase, some better than average fight sequences and a surprisingly effective villain. As a 50th anniversary Godzilla film "GFW" fails, and does so miserably. Observations, both positive and negative - Thumbs up: 1. the Godzilla suit: it's lean and mean, reminding me somewhat of the "Soshingeki" suit. Godzilla's eyes are narrower, a point of criticism by many but it also IMO lends a more menacing, no-nonsense aura about the monster. 2. the overall fighting styles of many of the monsters: the kaiju in this film are no longer stiff, lumbering leviathans that move about in a deliberate, plodding manner. I admit to being used to watching these monsters this way so seeing them move about more quickly, and with a lot of agility, was not only different but a welcome change for this old Showa era G fan 3. Maki Mizuno's legs: simply awesome 4. Don Frye's character, the Gotengo Captain "Douglas Gordon". Don Frye is in no danger of ever winning any awards for his acting ability but he was surprisingly decent as the gruff but honorable Gordon. His lines were, thankfully, brief but not without some memorable one liners, including two of my favorites: "Godzilla will take care of the monsters. Me, I wanna kick that Xilian kid's ass", as well as another remark after seeing the human doppelgangers revert back to their original Xilian form: "Well, at least we'll have a souvenir." 5. many of the effects sequences in this film were IMO marvelous: Rodan's slipstream damaging buildings and blasting out windows in NYC, as well as the final battle between Godzilla and Kaizer Ghidorah. The yellow colored gravity beam effects of KG looked terrific. 6. the motorcycle chase: yeah, it was far fetched but I liked the music in this scene, Kazama and Ozaki dueling at high speed on a couple of low profile ninja bikes. My favorite part of this sequence was when they spun around each other, firing at each other from point blank range and still managing to dodge each others bullets. 7. the inclusion of veteran Toho Godzilla movie actors like Akira Takarada, Kumi Mizuno and Kenji Sahara. A very nice touch and it was great to see all these familiar faces one more time. Thumbs down: 1.the brief appearance of Hedorah, so brief as to make me wonder why the director, Ryuhei Kitamura, would even include the pollution monster in "GFW", Hedorah's appearance comprised of dropping down out of the ship and then being promptly blasted to oblivion by Godzilla's oral beam. 2. the ending of the Godzilla vs Kumonga battle: Godzilla simply hurled the giant spider away into the distance. Didn't strike me as well thought out. 3. the presence of Minilla: still annoying after all these years. Still, give credit to GFW's director for not using the audio of a braying donkey for the small(er) and people friendly monster. 4. the sequence in which the mutants battle Ebirah. It seemed too long and the wire works were way over the top, in essence giving both Ozaki and Kazama the ability to fly. Ebirah put up quite a fight and gave the term "pincer movement" new meaning with it's fight vs the defense force. 5. with an exception here and there, I disliked the score by Keith Emerson. It just sounded, at times, too electronic. 6. the battle between Godzilla vs Rodan + King Seesar + Angilas: the battle reminded me too much of a soccer match 7. the overall appearance of King Seesar: the monster looked IMO like an overgrown bobcat 8. the casting of K-1 fighters Ray Sefo and Gary Goodridge as monitors for the South Pole facility maintaining Godzilla in his icy lock up: yeah, right.  I could list a few more negatives but there's no need. My overall feeling about GFW hasn't changed since I first saw this film(on Region 2 DVD). I consider it a modestly entertaining action film that happens to have giant monsters in it. To me it's not, in any way, a film befitting a farewell to a legendary cinematic monster like Godzilla. My rating overall for GFW: 6.5/10 |
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| crowmagnumman | Apr 28 2009, 12:18 AM Post #205 |
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Monsterland Grand Master
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I pretty much completely agree with your assessment of GFW packmule. |
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| Rodan70 | Apr 28 2009, 01:55 AM Post #206 |
Kneel before ZOD
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King Ceasar looked better in 1974 than he did in this movie. |
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| packmule | Apr 28 2009, 07:15 AM Post #207 |
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I always thought the crystalline eyes of the '74 King Seesar were the coolest feature of the monster. Obviously they were absent in the GFW version of the monster. The overall physique of King Seesar in GFW was fine but the monster's eyes looked too large and made KS look almost dog-like in the face. The roar of KS in GFW was good. My biggest disappointment with GFW was that the monsters, overall, were not the focal point of the movie, but rather the action between the human(and alien) cast members. I've always believed a kaiju film, while needing a good story line, should also spotlight the monsters, something not done nearly enough in GFW. From what I've read GFW director Ryuhei Kitamura wanted to make a Godzilla movie that appealed to a broader spectrum of people, particularly young people, hence the heavy action elements and nods to movies like "Alien"(the scene where Akira Takarada's head splits apart) and "The Matrix"(the motorcycle chase sequence and combat sequences between the young Xilian leader and Ozaki). |
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| G2Kmaster | Apr 28 2009, 08:05 PM Post #208 |
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BIGGEST GODZILLA NERD HERE!-Monster Island Hall Of Famer
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Well, I can see your points but I disagree with some of your aspects of GFW. |
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| packmule | Apr 28 2009, 08:06 PM Post #209 |
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Regarding which "aspects"? 
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| josh TX | Apr 29 2009, 11:02 AM Post #210 |
Monsterland Hall Of Famer
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These guys, as well as Don Frye were huge in Japan at that moment due to their success in K-1 and Pride FC. Their must have been some big fans at Toho to get these guys onboard. |
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