This was the last Godzilla film on which producer and Godzilla creator Tomoyuki Tanaka was credited on. He was the longest-serving "founding father" of the Godzilla series, having worked on every film (and related kaiju films thereof) up to that point. However, Tanaka would have an decreased role in the series due to health and producer Shogo Tomiyama would become his successor in producing future Godzilla (Millennium) films.
This would be the final film score for composer Akira Ifukube whose association with the Godzilla films went back to Godzilla (1954); he retired from film composition following the film's release and died in 2006.
Final film of Momoko Kôchi. She plays Emiko Yamane, the same role she played in Ishirô Honda's Godzilla (1954). She died of cancer three years later.
Despite Toho marketing the film as a grand finale of the Godzilla series, they gave special effects director Kawakita even less time and money than the previous films for the effects. This resulted in only 6 weeks to create all the different scale miniatures and buildings, reduced the actual shooting days to 73, and slashed the post-production time to only 3 weeks. Kawakita noted this was the shortest shooting time given by Toho since Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989). This resulted in some shots being edited into the film in spite of them not being finished with composites. Among the shots are in the opening Hong Kong attack, where footage of panicking people was inserted in most, but not all the footage, resulting in shots of unconcerned citizens visible as Godzilla attacks. Another moment was a brief shot when Bandai figures were used when the JSDF battles Destroyah's aggregate forms. Kawakita lamented the rushed production but his requests for time and money were routinely ignored by Toho.
Intended to be the last Godzilla movie until the 50th anniversary of Godzilla (1954) in 2004, which allowed TriStar/SPE (also the distributor of many of the films in the USA) to make a trilogy of American Godzilla movies starring Matthew Broderick during that time. However, the poor critical response and box-office revenue of Godzilla (1998) caused TriStar/SPE to abandon plans for a second and third film and Tôhô to bring back Gojira sooner than planned with Godzilla 2000 (1999).