How many times...

[kiryugoji04]

Yeah, I doubt I'll watch it all the way through again for a long time. I'll never watch it as much as GxMG, that's for sure.

[ebirahsmeg1]

[kiryugoji04]

[Dai]

I bought the R1 Final Wars DVD when it first came out, watched it once, and sold it a few weeks later. It just wasn't what I'd expected at all. I knew that Toho had thrown more money at it than usual and was expecting some amazing looking monster suits. Instead the money seemed to have gone on everything but the suits, and in many ways everything but the monster scenes. Then there was Kitamura's direction. While his films always have that twitchy, caffeine-pumped action to them, I was expecting the film to settle down during the human drama scenes, rather like the way he handled directing Azumi. Instead adrenaline was practically spraying off every second of the DVD as it spun in the player. I knew right away what bothered me about Final Wars: Kitamura didn't want to make a kaiju movie. He wanted to make a SF martial arts epic, and putting giant monster scenes in was his concession to the studio for being given the chance.

A year or more went by and I found myself wanting to watch Final Wars again, so I bought another R1 copy. That arrived this Monday and I've watched it twice since then, enjoying it greatly both times. Now that I know what to expect from it, I can enjoy it for what it is: the first Godzilla film since 1975 not to take itself seriously. It's like a Showa Godzilla movie colliding with a Hollywood blockbuster at the speed of light, exploding, exploding again, and then exploding again. It's certainly no coincidence that every last pre-established monster in Final Wars originated from the Showa era.

Final Wars is a film riddled with flaws, but Kitamura knows it. He revels in it. My only complaint now is that it could have stood to have about 15 minutes chopped out, but regardless it's currently my second favourite movie of the Millennium series, trailing after GMK.