Mr_Goji_and_Watch wrote:Yeah. Doesn't help that the Heisei Gamera films looked far better and were made with half the budget, whereas the Showa Godzilla films were head and shoulders above their Japanese competitors. It's worth mentioning that both Tsuburaya and Kawakita didn't strive for pure realism though. The worst thing about the Heisei films is their flat lighting and their aspect ration retroactively looks "made for TV."
This. The first several Showa films and
Vs Hedorah have some beautiful cinematography and overall I think the effects still hold up. They're not photo-realistic, though they're certainly well-crafted and well shot. Very cinematic. Minus his fondness for questionable puppetry and the misfire that is
King Kong vs Godzilla, what else compares to Tsuburaya's special effects output in the late 1950s and early 1960s? Also the composition for the human scenes in Ishiro Honda's films is usually pretty impressive too and don't get enough credit. Excluding
Return of Godzilla and
Godzilla vs Biollante, the Heisei features look like television productions and Shinji Higuchi completely blowing them out of the water with far less money is embarrassing. I also don't care for how most of them were shot or understand the praise for the effects in
Godzilla vs Destoroyah.