Posted on 03/03/2004 7:04:43 AM PST by yankeedame
Last Updated: Wednesday, 3 March, 2004, 14:39 GMT
Final battle looms for Godzilla
Japanese cinema favourite Godzilla's next film appearance will be his last, ending a 50-year series of 28 movies. The giant lizard will star in Final Wars this December - ending a movie franchise that has attracted almost 100 million fans in Japan alone since 1954.
In that time, he has become an icon of Japanese culture and a global star.
But he may return if a "new generation of directors emerge or a brand new film-making method is found to create a whole new world", the film studio said.
The new film "will compile the fruits of 50 years' work and put an end to the series", according to Yukihiko Mochida, spokesman for the Toho studio.
Topical
Final Wars will feature 10 monsters from past Godzilla adventures.
They will include the new, stronger Monster X and will go on the rampage in New York, Shanghai, Sydney and Paris.
Godzilla has taken breaks from his big screen roles twice previously - once in 1975 when the popularity of television saw the number of cinema-goers fall, and once again in 1995.
The green monster was resurrected as a computer-generated creature in a Hollywood blockbuster five years ago but the $120m (£65.5m) film was a flop.
The first Godzilla film featured the lizard emerging out of the sea after being awakened by a US atomic bomb test at Bikini Atoll in the South Pacific in 1954.
Up to 1,000 people per day flocked to see an exhibition on the character in Tokyo in 2002 - double the number that usually went to the Japanese museum where it was held.
(all photos mine -- YD
Needs more milk.
My wife actually got misty-eyed at the end of GODZILLA vs. DESTOROYAH. The final scenes actually had an emotional kick, and G's death was truly sad.
In the movie series, he had two kids. The first one disappeared after 1968, so he was assumed to be dead. Second one was born in 1993.
I'm a BIG fan of these flicks. As a bonus, they're all perfectly appropriate for young children, so I'm looking forward to watching my tapes with my son.
I did some more research into this story...seems that Toho is only "retiring" Godzilla for 5-10 years. The ticket sales have dropped off recently, so they're going to wait a while, and bring himm back after the demand grows again.
He was "retired" for ten years from 1974-1984.
Just for information's sake: Godzilla has had three separate movie series now. The first, from 1954-1974, was known as the "SHODAI" series, in which he was 150 feet tall and went from villain to hero. The second, or "HEISEI" series was from 1984-1995, and in it, he started at about 200 feet tall and further mutated to 300 feet. This series ended with him being killed in 1995.
He returned in the so-called "MILLENNIUM" series in 1999, with "GODZILLA 2000". There have been four movies in that series so far.
Each series has its own continuity and "look" for G. They all take as their origin the 1954 original, and go from there.
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