Godzilla: Final Awakening

## Release chronology

"*This could be the end of Godzilla.*"
―News reporter
***Godzilla: Final Awakening*** (also known as ***Godzilla 4***) is a 2023 epic monster film based on the 2004 film, *Godzilla: Final Wars*. A sequel to *Godzilla*, *Godzilla II*, and *Godzilla vs. Kong*, it is the 9th installment of the MonsterVerse. It was released on October 5, 2023.

The film is followed by a direct sequel, *Destroy All Monsters*, as well as *Godzilla: Rebirth and Destruction* and *The Godzilla Complex*.

The film introduces Gigan and Mecha-King Ghidorah into the MonsterVerse.

## Synopsis

*Humanity faces their first ever contact with an extraterrestrial race and becomes entangled in the midst of a civil war. When the aliens unleash their ultimate weapon in the form of Gigan, Godzilla has to intervene and save the world once again.*

## Plot

On Earth, a space xilien spy meets an Earth xilien and takes on his identity, meeting the other Earth xiliens, he subtly activates a device that sends a signal to his ship, an undetected satellite, which then sends a more advanced signal to Planet X, their homeworld. On Planet X, the leader of the space xiliens, Dakūjin, commands his army and prepares to invade Earth, as Gigan and their warships begins activation.

Back on Earth, workers at a mining site is in disarray as the resources have seemingly went missing overnight. One of the engineers is called to the site. A group of scientists from the currently defunct Monarch organization has been working on a case of an undetected MUTO anomaly all throughout the world, many phenomenons of earthquakes and strange sounds have been recorded, with many alluding it to an undiscovered MUTO, they travel to a location that's recently had one of these accidents and meet the engineer, Luke, and they find a strange machine unlike anything they've seen before, they then follow along with the military (in possession of the machine), who tells them of the classified information about the anomalies, and how natural resource mining sites all over the world have been stripped overnight, they show them geological changes of the sites and finally, a visual of the "MUTO", a swarm-like mass of heat signatures.

A xilien spy disguised as a worker then contacts the headquarters and tell them about how one of the machines have been found and the humans are starting to realize. The other xilien then tells him they have a bigger problem, as the space xiliens are en route to Earth and getting closer, with their "project" nearing completion, they might have a chance of fighting back, however they need the aether in order to activate their project. Unknown to either of them, Luke and Sadie had followed the spy because he impersonated a worker who left earlier. They continue to follow the spy into an underground shaft before returning back to base.

The machine that was found was then transferred to the Anderson-Maeda base in the Hollow Earth Research Center, who run tests on it to find out what it is.

Back on the surface, an oil rig is destroyed after an underwater earthquake, Godzilla is seen on the ocean floor and then resurfaces toward a coal mining site. The military is alerted of this and quickly follows Godzilla, at the site, he wreaks havoc and eventually lure out the xilien sentries, with the one on Anderson-Maeda's possession activating and joining the swarm. A **massive battle** then occur between Godzilla, the sentries and the military, with much of the military suffering huge loss of personnel and weapons by the sentries. The battle is closely monitored by the xiliens at their headquarter, whom decide to retreat the sentries.

In another scene, NASA detects an extraterrestrial spacecraft making its way to Earth and alerts the military of this discovery, whom decide to alert the entire world. The news quickly caught on and the various countries collaborate to prepare an offensive plan in case the aliens are hostile. Luke and Sadie then return to the underground shaft in order to find out what was back there, as they get there they found out that it uses eye biometric tech to enter, they ended up destroying it which forces it to open, they see that the buttons are written in alien language, Sadie then pushes the one that looks different, indicating their base.

As the US military is in preparation, the sentries return to the surface, which prompted the humans to attack, a quick and destructive battle occurred before all of the sentries burrow underground to the Hollow Earth. They began scouring the inner Earth for aether, which resulted in a **chaotic conflict** with King Kong and his tribe, as well as Anderson-Maeda, with Rodan and Quetzalcoatl joining the fight. After a skirmish, the sentries manage to harvest enough aether and return to the xilien base, where they prepare to activate their project.

Back at the surface, Godzilla reemerge after sensing the incoming xilien warship, as he and the humans prepare for first contact. The xilien warship finally arrive. After a quick silence, the warship emits a massive shock wave which traverses the entire planet, intending to locate the rival faction. As the Earth xiliens were alerted of this, they relaunch the sentries to the surface and mobilize the entire crew, Luke and Sadie hears the commotion and gets closer to the base. The scene returns to the surface to show a chaotic battle between the military and the warship, with Godzilla waking up to the chaos after being knocked out by the shock wave. As the battle ensues, Rodan swoops in and crash himself into the force-field-protected ship, causing him to drop to the ground and the ship to falter. This prompted the xiliens to release Gigan. Gigan then prepares to kill Rodan before being attacked by Godzilla, causing him to turn his attention to Godzilla instead.

After a few hours being lost, Luke and Sadie finally reach the empty base and explores it. Back at the surface, Godzilla and Gigan had begun **brawling**. Back at the xilien base, Luke and Sadie are caught by one of the xiliens, causing a brief quarrel ending in Sadie shooting them with one of their own weapon. They quickly leave the base as the xilien had alerted the others. Using the dead xilien's eye, they manage to enter the transport pod and pushes a random button which takes them to one of their branches in Japan, the center of the battle. The space xiliens then finally locates their enemies in the US, leading to them and Gigan to travel to the US as Godzilla follows them, albeit slower. Luke and Sadie then finds American military people in Japan and requests to come with them back to the US.

In America, a full fledged battle between the two xilien factions take place, with Gigan intending to open the Earth to destroy their base. As they fight on, Godzilla returns with Rodan, and the two joins forces to fight Gigan once again. Gigan gains the upper hand against both of them, managing to kill Rodan before returning to destroy the base. As the Earth xiliens are losing with Gigan reaching their base, the remaining Earth xiliens activate their main weapon, Mecha-King Ghidorah. To be continued....

## Cast

* Tom Cruise as Luke Thompson, a civil engineer
* Ella Balinska as Sadie, a researcher
* Tamlyn Tomita as Reiko Hirano and Kaede Hirano
* Shun Oguri as Dakūjin

## Appearances

### Benevolent MUTO(s)

GodzillaKing KongMothraRodan †Quetzalcoatl

### Malevolent MUTO(s)

Gigan †Mecha-King Ghidorah
(cameo)Mechagodzilla (remnants)
* Monster X appears in a cameo as one of the selections of monsters in the space xiliens' arsenal.

### Locations

* Earth
	+ Hollow Earth
		- Hollow Earth Research Center
	+ Infant Island
	+ Japan
	+ Underground xilien base
	+ United States of America
* Planet X

### Events

* Xilien Civil War
* Great MUTO War II

### Species

* Humans
* MUTOs
	+ Celestial moth
	+ Fire demon
	+ Gojira
	+ *Magna avem quetzalli*
* Xiliens

### Items

* Aether
* Armor of the King Kong
	+ Axe of the King Kong
* Stargate
* Xilien sentries
* Xilien warship

### Organizations

* Anderson-Maeda Enterprises
* Monarch (mentioned)

## Trivia

* Monarch is still bankrupt at the time of the film, they were forgiven after Gigan's arrival proved aliens did make Mechagodzilla.
* The title is inspired by Final Wars and the Godzilla: Awakening graphic novel.

## References

1. ↑ For the film, there are two xilien factions at war, for simplicity we'll just call them Space xiliens and Earth xiliens
2. ↑ Gigan is shrunk with a UFO beam in order to be carried by the warship
3. ↑ In *Destroy All Monsters*