And yes I do pronounce it the Cinemassacre way.
Well crap, this is the end. It's such a strange thing to see this series end, I think it has the most definitive ending of all the era's and to think it ended not too long after I was born. It was Godzilla's 40th anniversary and Toho decided to let the king of the monsters end seemingly for good. Needless to say this was a huge deal, even here in the States where we weren't even getting any of these movies until a bit later Godzilla's end made world news. The impact of the film is certainly monumental, but how's the actual movie? Very very good, it's not my absolute favorite of this era probably cause it just puts me in a downer mood but I can't deny the quality. I've heard tale that the production for this movie specifically for the special effects side, which was rushed and had to be completed quite quickly yet I hardly glimpsed any faults. The suits, animatronics, miniatures, all that good jazz looked pretty great. But onto the story, a massive nuclear test has occured making Godzilla become oversaturated with nuclear energy and his body is basically on it's way to meltdown, now you know why the burning Godzilla was such a show stopper in King Of The Monsters, and he only has a few days before he literally Death Stars the entire planet. Meanwhile an organism mutated from the actual oxygen destroyer from the original film starts running amok, now you know why I had to point that out in Biollante, and I find it appropriate that Godzilla has to face a creature born from the weapon that killed the first Godzilla. We get waaaay more than that though to tie it in, Emiko is back for a brief bit once again played by Momoko Koichi who sadly passed away 3 months after the film was released, we see the son of Koichi the boy who was adopted by Professor Yamane and wow what a trip to see a picture of Takashi Shimura in this, they flat out show footage from the 54' movie and spoiler alert it's great. So really this is the book end for the entire Godzilla series, further hammering the point that it truly is the end. And it does strike that hard and true, the ending is amazing and when credits roll it showcases footage from other Godzilla movies, practically pulling an Endgame about 20 years before Endgame. I can't even fathom how much this would affect a Godzilla fan, in Japan, in the year 1995 watching the hero you've seen since you were a wee child end with no possible way to know if it would continue at all. That is the only good thing the 1998 film did, it shit the bed so hard that Toho immediately took back the rights and got a new Godzilla series started up in 1999. Thank God things are better now, not only in terms of american produced Godzilla movies but just the ability to watch these movies. Exactly two Godzilla movies got a theatrical release in my lifetime, Godzilla 2000 and Shin Godzilla. The only way you could see these movies was on TV, either cable or if you were lucky like me satellite, or if by the grace of the cosmos you could find tapes of the various movies only two of which I know of in this series, 1985 and Biollante. Beyond that you were screwed. Granted I had a decent collection of Godzilla movies on both VHS and DVD, but my lord man the fact you can get all the Showa movies on one incredible collection by the Criterion Collection shows how far we've come. And I genuinely have not seen many of the Showa movies so if I have the opportunity and get that collection, we may have a month of Godzilla movies. Christ I should probably get it cause it would include King Kong Vs. Godzilla, which I have to review before the new movie, so be on the lookout. The hero from the land of the rising sun might just be on the horizon. I give this movie 4 stars, another 8/10, great ending to a series and you know what's coming next.
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