The Best Movies of the Year: Facing the End of the World in Shin Ultraman

In the realm of action movies, the end of the world is a routine threat. Whether it’s a nefarious supervillain scheming to deploy a doomsday device or an all-consuming menace from beyond the stars, countless stories have dangled the fate of everything before our eyes to keep us on the edge of our seats. However, there’s a problem with this approach, particularly if you’re a seasoned moviegoer: Seeing this scenario play out over and over again eventually becomes numbing. It can feel like every other high-octane climax escalates its stakes to such gargantuan proportions that it becomes difficult to wrap your head around their scale. These kinds of shifts can also sideline the more grounded concerns of its characters, whose problems become dwarfed by the sheer size of what’s in front of them. We can easily relate to the day-to-day issues of people trying to get by, but can we fully grasp what facing the end of the planet would be like? Well, it turns out that, given the right framing, we at least partially can. Although Shin Ultraman is another story that builds towards an apocalyptic scenario, it makes the most of this premise through imagery that appropriately communicates the grandeur of this concept and the cosmic dread it inspires.

For those unfamiliar, Ultraman is a long-running Japanese TV show following a superhero who grows to giant proportions so he can battle similarly large monsters. It’s a tokusatsu series, a term used to describe the FX-heavy live-action productions that followed in the wake of Godzilla (1954), and that frequently feature either kaiju, masked do-gooders such as Kamen Rider or Super Sentai (which was adapted into Power Rangers in America), or combine them in the Kyodai Hero subgenre, which the original 1966 run of Ultraman helped popularize. Shin Ultraman is a standalone film that reimagines this setup and was written by Hideaki Anno, the legendary creator of anime like Neon Genesis Evangelion, and directed by Shinji Higuchi, who has collaborated with Anno in the past and worked on several tokusatsu projects.

While this is another case of a beloved series being reenvisioned, Shin Ultraman is far less interested in altering tone or texture to cater to contemporary audiences. It doesn’t make the proceedings “grittier” or more nakedly self-aware. Instead, its special effects and aesthetic seek to directly replicate the campy thrills of a posing, laser-beam-launching vigilante who battles big lizards and nefarious aliens. Shin Ultraman even feels structured like a TV show, with a sequence of initially separate threats that escalate over time, including subterranean monsters, Machiavellian would-be conquerors, and an almost unfathomable final foe. This earnestness very much works in its favor, and it’s this last enemy, which threatens the destruction of everything, that sets up the film’s most compelling plotline.

After defeating many previously alluded-to massive creatures and interstellar invaders, Ultraman (Takumi Saitoh) is greeted by Zōffy (Koichi Yamadera), an adjudicator from his former planet. We learn that by interacting with earthlings and exposing them to size growth technology, our hero has gone against the code of his people and demonstrated that humans could be potentially used as “bioweapons” due to their compatibility with the tech. Because they could eventually be repurposed into killing machines, Zōffy callously rules that their home must be annihilated, citing that the loss of one out of 13 billion intelligent lifeforms will make little difference in the grand scheme of things. He summons the Ultimate Celestial Suppression Weapon, Zetton, a being so large that even though it’s stationed in outer space, it can still be seen from Earth’s surface. In a short time, the creature will fire a beam that will destroy the entire solar system. Ultraman informs his companions of this threat and, believing that he’s humanity’s only hope, flies to intercept this adversary. But he’s no match for the creature and is quickly thrashed before crashing back down to the planet below.

On its face, these absurd turns seem like they would run into the exact problems that plague many final acts, blowing up the scale to such cartoonish proportions that the proceedings lose all meaning. However, that doesn’t come to pass. The most straightforward explanation for this is that, over the course of Shin Ultraman, we’re introduced to a natural escalation of seemingly impossible-to-defeat extraterrestrial foes, making it so that when we finally meet one that can obliterate entire planetary systems, this threat doesn’t feel particularly out of place.

But more than this, the appearance of what may as well be a wrathful deep space god materializing from the heavens connects perfectly with Shin Ultraman’s growing sense of cosmic horror. As the members of the S-Class Species Suppression Protocol (SSSP), an anti-kaiju force helmed by pitiful Earthlings, face increasingly insurmountable opponents, we feel as they, and the rest of humanity, are overwhelmed by their smallness compared to an incalculably vast universe that’s suddenly revealed itself. Merely contemplating the theoretical scope of outer space invites a feeling of vague nihilistic purposelessness, but for these people, the hypothetical harshness of this greater world has been made literal, as a harbinger of doom. In response to this creeping dread, they’ve increasingly clung to Ultraman while tacitly admitting that they’re defenseless against these previously unimaginable forces. So, when he is swatted out of the sky like a gnat by Zetton, much of Earth’s leadership resigns itself to oblivion.

More than just intellectually communicating the scope of this ultimate big bad, these ideas are hammered home by Shin Ultraman‘s grandiose, often biblical imagery. Zetton, who floats above our planet in the shape of a perpetual cross, drifts in front of the sun, adorning it with the golden crown of a halo. When Ultraman flies into the upper atmosphere in an attempt to fell this being, a choral arrangement conveys the celestial scale of this battle, and as our hero’s energy blasts bounce ineffectually off Zetton’s otherworldly carapace, it becomes clear this is a hopeless duel between a lesser Angel and a mighty Seraphim. As the protagonist faces defeat, the leaders of Earth resolve to keep their impending demise a secret from the rest of humanity as a last act of mercy.

However, while there is a palpable sense of grim resignation here, what we see next is a firm counterpoint to these undercurrents of cosmic nihilism. Higuchi and Anno deliver a montage of people going about their daily lives: Working, playing and just simply existing, intercut with images of the looming Zetton as an elegiac score plays. Despite our smallness, despite our seeming insignificance in the grand interstellar configuration of things, like Camus, we can still snatch meaning from this absurd meaninglessness.

It’s a sentiment that plays into the conclusions of Anno’s previous works in compelling ways. Neon Genesis Evangelion, his most well-known and influential project, is a story with multiple finales, each portraying the end of things through a different lens. The first captures the interior arc of its protagonist, Shinji, in a collection of abstract, half-finished sketches. The second, the film End of Evangelion, is full of overwhelming rage and apocalyptic imagery as the world and its characters are thoroughly destroyed. It’s a turn often viewed as a reflection of the author’s mental state following the abusive fan response to the end of the original TV show. “It all returns to nothing,” sings Arianne Schreiber on “Komm, süsser Tod,” as the Third Impact eviscerates humanity into primordial goo; a field of ethereal crucifixes, sea of red, and a pair of depressed teenagers are all that’s left in its wake.

While these first two climaxes successfully used metatextual framing and grandiose destruction to capture the enormity of the end, it’s the third and arguably most optimistic conclusion present in Evangelion: 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time that feels closest to Shin Ultraman. Following a massive disaster, survivors persist in the wreckage, forming small communities where those left look after each other. Here, the end of everything may be apparent, but life goes on the same as always, the human spirit intractable and unbroken despite everything. The montage of people carrying on despite Zetton looming above in Shin Ultraman rings with this same resonance, a counterpoint to the hollowing vastness of the cosmos and the annihilation it may very well bring. We may be tiny, but our lives still mean something, and it’s this affirmation that keeps these characters going even when Ultraman is routed and it seems like things are over.

Because, of course, this loss isn’t final, and using the data provided by their hero, humanity gathers itself in the face of its imminent destruction. A theoretical physicist from the SSSP, Akihisa Taki (Daiki Arioka), who had previously fallen to despair in light of their extraterrestrial foes, bands together with other scientists from across the globe to develop a countermeasure to Zetton. After thorough deliberation, number crunching and analysis, they devise a plan to repurpose the alien technology they’ve discovered to trap their foe in a black hole. Armed with this knowledge, Ultraman carries out the plan and defeats the creature, and Zōffy is so impressed with humankind’s tenacity that he calls off Earth’s obliteration.

Shin Ultraman’s climax proves that no matter how rote a particular plot device may seem (i.e., bad guys threatening to destroy the world), these moments can still land given the right context. Celestial imagery conveys the seemingly unassailable magnitude of the final boss, stylishly embellishing this ultimate showdown. More profoundly, it captures how these characters aren’t just fighting a massive space god, but the very idea of existing in an uncaring universe. They’re initially consumed by helplessness and interstellar dread as they’re suddenly confronted with the enormity of what lies in the stars. More than just introducing a planet-destroying threat to up the ante, Shin Ultraman’s near-apocalyptic conclusion gives its characters a chance to slay this lingering hopelessness and embrace their small place in a greater cosmos. It makes for a finale that measures up to its larger-than-life scale.

Elijah Gonzalez is an assistant TV Editor for Paste Magazine. In addition to watching the latest on the small screen, he also loves videogames, film, and creating large lists of media he’ll probably never actually get to. You can follow him on Twitter @eli_gonzalez11.

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