The final entry in the Godzilla anime trilogy, and composer Takayuki Hattori's fifth Godzilla soundtrack overall. Like the entry before it, this score really follows the same basic feeling of the anime trilogy to date. While that does make the three films feel cohesive, it doesn't help in this instance as the soundtracks are pretty middling overall. This entry isn't an exception, feeling bogged down by repeating earlier themes that weren't all that engaging in the first place. It does however feature a pretty solid body of music devoted to the climax of the movie, which helps to elevate the overall material here.
As the score before it, Godzilla: The Planet Eater suffers from feeling too similar to the prior soundtracks in the trilogy coupled with Hattori's penchant for minimal orchestration. Being entry number three, this is especially pronounced with certain themes like "Doubt" and "Nanometal Threat" being returning motifs from earlier films. The new Godzilla theme also reappears here, in tracks like "The Awakening", although the versions here aren't quite as solid as in the prior two films.
Not everything is a retread, though. For example there is the slightly cheesy "Worship" track, which is short but embraces an X-Files extraterrestrial type vibe to it. The guitar heavy "Bilusaludo Rebellion" track also stands out a lot from the other themes on the CD, but it's not particularly good. As for character themes, Metphies gets a theme to himself here, heard in tracks like "Metphies' Speculation" and "Guidance". Unfortunately, said theme isn't very engaging. Ghidorah also has his own theme, heard in the self-titled "Ghidorah" track. This one is long, starting as creepy before leveraging some horn work to give it a bit of gravitas. It kind of meanders, though, during its longer runtime.
In terms of highlights, the best parts are really "The Final Stage", "Ruin and Salvation" and "Farewell" for the movie's climax. All three are a bit more grand than the minimal approach that Hattori tends to favor, with orchestration that feels sweeping and even boasts some dramatic chorus work for "The Final Stage" and "Farewell". They really do feel epic in scope, and it's a shame that these aren't more representative of these three anime scores as a whole. In kind of an odd twist, Hattori's generally more reserved approach to scoring makes these themes actually pop a little bit more as they stand out so heavily from the other themes. That's true across all three scores in this trilogy, but especially for this third entry which is pretty weak otherwise.
Overall, this is a hard soundtrack to rank. Subtract the themes for the climax and this is the least interesting Godzilla soundtrack from Hattori. The fact that it retreads prior themes, which weren't amazing to begin with, gives it a bit of an identity crisis when combined with the fact that most of the newer theme motifs aren't very interesting. However, while weak for most of the score, it does end on a trilogy high with a few solid themes. While I wouldn't petition them to be added to a compilation of the best Godzilla music, they are well done all the same and do elevate what would otherwise be a weak score to be an okay soundtrack.
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