For the final film of the franchise’s Millennium era, which began with “Godzilla 2000: Millennium” in 1999, and Godzilla’s 50th anniversary, Toho Studios made like Gary Oldman in “Léon: The Professional,” and demanded the presence of everyone. If “Destroy All Monsters” was the kaiju equivalent of “Avengers: Infinity War,” then “Godzilla: Final Wars” was “Avengers: Endgame,” beating its predecessor’s head-count of 11 giant monsters by featuring 14 kaiju.
This list included not only A-listers Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan (we’re being charitable here, folks), and an alien-allied (again) Ghidorah as “Monster X,” but also familiar snarling faces Anguirus, Minilla, and King Caesar, as well as the “Destroy All Monsters” seat-fillers, Kumonga the spider and Manda the sea-serpent (the reptilian Varan was not invited, due to total lack of interest). “Final Wars” even scored previous “versus” luminaries Hedorah the Smog Monster, Kamacuras the Gimantis, Ebirah the lobster-like “Horror of the Deep,” and the hook-handed, saw blade-spinning, frill-sporting cyborg Gigan (so cool).
But the least-honored guest everyone still remembers was “Zilla,” the aforementioned American-redesigned Fauxzilla from 1998, who was annihilated in literally less than 20 seconds by the Japanese Godzilla’s atomic breath.