What makes Heisei Godzilla so popular?

[TokyoVigilante]

You know what's lame? Two UFC fighters bumping into eachother, despite their capable appendages, because their coaches thought UFC fighters looked gay rolling around on the mat.

So you're saying Heisei battles need more dick punching?

YES, finally somebody gets it.

[Destroyer]

The beams in the Heisei series are pretty cool to behold, but it does get a bit tiring when there's no hand-to-hand going on.

[RedZillaKing]

Beam wars suck. Looks like a bunch of fat guys who can barely move playing laser tag.

[Destroyer]

I'll take the kung fu in Terror of Mechagodzilla any day over beam wars.

[Goji]

I'll take the kung fu in Terror of Mechagodzilla any day over beam wars.

Yeah.

Beams wars would been fun if they were regulated to one or two movies, but it became the standard way to have these characters engage each other on screen, and it got old, fast.

[Rody]

GMK is a good example of a "proper" kaiju battle. The Sokogecki-Goji suit was massive, but designed to give the actor inside plenty of flexibility. We don't see any "kung-fu" monster moves, though; we get realistic tackling, biting, kicking & clawing.

I think that's what TokyoVigilante was trying to say. Godzilla & other kaiju can be convincingly massive-looking and still give good fights. The Heisei suits, however, were basically designed to hinder physical fighting.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Well, I think Sumo is the term I would use characterize Heisei Godzilla's shape. But even those wrestlers move with more energy than the Heisei fights. And I do know of one part that looked terribly sad. Godzilla's "biting" of Battra. All that bug blood but the big G's jaws were not shown closing on any part of the Battra prop. I also dislike that monsters like Rodan and Mothra were shrunk down and given beam weapons, relegating them to beam spamming annoyances when in the Showa era they were big enough to spar with Godzilla.

But as for the design, what do you expect Outside of GMK and Final Wars which allow for much more action? This monster is supposed to be dinosaur-like after all, meaning that its arms will always have to be short, which is probably the reason for the unnaturally large chest, to reinforce the idea that the monster's arms are short and saurian. The head is small and the neck is tapered because many armored dinosaurs like stegosaurus were built that way small body in front, big killer crushing legs and tail in the back.
Then the head looks appropriately predatory with it's double rows of sharp looking teeth, counteracting the docile plant eater look of the proportions, much like how a plesiosaur's predatory head contrasts with its long necked body. Then you have the legs and trunk of Godzilla. Again, being dinosaur-like, the legs would have to be large and give the impression of supporting the rest of the beast's bulk. Since it is neither completely theropod or sauropod, the legs represent a curious blend of the two. The feet have more than just three toes, and the legs are stocky to support the weight, like a sauropod, yet the monster only walks on two legs, like theropods. The plantigrade stance is to necessitated by the suit actor's own legs. All of it comprises the mutated saurian mishmash that I have come to identify with Godzilla. Like the song goes, "With a purposeful grimace and a terrible sound..." Outside of Godzilla and Ray Harryhausen's creations, I don't think a reptilian face can grimace.

[Inferno Rodan]

I'd rather see some scans of that; I've seen bits of it aswell the interiors for the other Mangas by the same artist and the style is excessively cartoony. And the SH Godzilla figures arms look to large to me, probably on account of the joints.

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7153 ... lackou.jpg

The style being "cartoony" doesn't change the fact that they're still hulking monsters with proportions very similar to their movie counterparts.

And the figure's arms aren't any larger than the suit's. They just look longer in some poses because the figure is actually able to move its shoulders. In other words, it perfectly illustrates that the design is limited in the movies solely by its method of portrayal.

Two big props bumping into eachother isn't dynamic and it's repetitive. I can use a wide range of cinematography to amplify the drama, I can shift settings to provide fresh scenery, I can have silent non-human combatants demonstrate their personalities and demeanor in how they move and behave. How am I able to do that with two props that bump into one another and shoot laser beams? How can I shift the battle if they aren't being mobile enough to warrant moving them to a new setting? How many places do I put the camera to watch a static back and forth shoving match and keep it interesting?

In War of the Gargantua's, the physicality the suit actors had was incredible; Sanda pleading and hesitant to battle its brother, with Gaira darting around like a spooked animal is not excessive extrapolation, it's clearly there in the body language of the final battle.

I never said the Heisei style of fighting was more entertaining than the Showa style. I'm just saying the Heisei style isn't nearly as stupid as people often make it out to be. It makes sense and it works. If you don't think it's as visually stimulating, that's fine. Just say that. But when you start saying it looks lame and silly, that's where I have the issue.

And even though it hasn't been brought up here, I especially take issue when people that complain about the Heisei Godzilla battles praise that joke that was the ground battle between Gamera and Iris in G3. 'Cause that makes the Heisei Godzilla bump battles look like martial arts.

Because there are different standards for two different things? Ultraman is a lighter-hearted property with a generally more fantastic flair with a superhero-ish edge. There are different expectations in regards to suspension of disbelief. If Godzilla was doing anything Ultraman was doing, yeah that'd be really weird and the two times anything remotely similar occurred in the Godzilla franchised, it's written off as a "product of its time" that wouldn't really be welcomed back, and when it was brought back it wasn't really met with particularly open arms (Final Wars). But nobody complains about Ultraman doing Ultraman-y things.

For the record, I wasn't talking about Ultraman himself fighting that way. I was talking about Gomora, Red King, etc doing it.

Oh shit, looks like I'm totally wrong in every regard on account of a stupid typing error.

Nah, I was just ribbing you about it. I figured that should have been obvious.

First of all, don't make this one of those back and forth's where you ignore points to make a stupid quip about how I'm not mentioning yours, and secondly, you didn't make a point about sumo wrestling; but lets play imaginationland and pretend you did and you didn't just go back and edit that into your post.

I added it all of 15 seconds after I posted, dude. It's not like I went back and added it after you posted.

Sumo-wrestling is a sport with a goal to push the other dude out of a circle with standardized combat techniques and sizes for the combatants. A monster movie has a plot where the events change the dynamic of how a fight would take place between combatants who, more often then not, are not physically comparable. There are no rules or standards for how the fights take place, so the sumo wrestling analogy doesn't work.

Okay? Even if there weren't such rules on style, I guarantee they wouldn't be fighting much differently. If a sumo wrestler got into a street fight with an MMA fighter, he'd still be fighting by shoving and throwing his weight around.

[Legionmaster]

I think it's also important to realize how much more dynamic the monster battle sequences in Godzilla vs Biollante and Godzilla vs King Ghidorah are than the rest of the Heisei series. There you have two films with ample time for planning and execution, whereas the rest of the films are "churned out in a year" entries. Time is important here. When you have urban battle locales, you don't have the time and budget to film those battles as cinematically.

Actually, I'll add Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla to that list, as although it was one of the hastily made films, it did a good job of varying Godzilla's attack styles. He chokes, tail slaps, tosses, and beam fights. Why they added more in this film than in the previous or subsequent entries, I don't know, but the choreography is there (even if the cinematography isn't).

Overall, once again (for the zillionth time), this thread is bitching and moaning and calling either other stupid because of differing aesthetic preferences.

And some people shouldn't steal other people's points about sumo wrestling.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Sorry. I was trying to say that Sumo wrestlers tend to move with relative quickness when wrestling and I was also trying to point out that Heisei Godzilla is built like one, huge muscular legs, slimmer but still stocky arms, a relatively small head and a large bulky body. The lack of energy in the fights is due to the limitations of the effect, and the bigger-things-move- slowed down style of giant monster filming.

[Legion1979]

I think it's also important to realize how much more dynamic the monster battle sequences in Godzilla vs Biollante and Godzilla vs King Ghidorah are than the rest of the Heisei series. There you have two films with ample time for planning and execution, whereas the rest of the films are "churned out in a year" entries. Time is important here.

I'm pretty sure that production time for Biollante and King Ghidora was pretty much the same as the later Heisei films. Sure, there was a longer pre-production time for Biollante's ideas and story since the movie was in development hell for years, but the actual production of these two films was no longer than the other movies.

Just because there were no Godzilla movies made in 1988 and 1990 doesn't necessarily mean that there was work being done on the films released in 1989 and 1991 in the meantime.

[Legionmaster]

Longer preproduction is what I meant. Preproduction is far more than working on ideas and stories. It's planning.

[Legion1979]

Longer preproduction is what I meant. Preproduction is far more than working on ideas and stories. It's planning.

But in the end the stuff that REALLY matters in movies like this - the special effects and the finalizing of designs of the monsters - was all done during the main production of the films. I don't think anyone was really thinking "Godzilla vs King Ghidora" in 1990. That's not how Toho worked.

[Legionmaster]

Longer preproduction is what I meant. Preproduction is far more than working on ideas and stories. It's planning.

But in the end the stuff that REALLY matters in movies like this - the special effects and the finalizing of designs of the monsters - was all done during the main production of the films. I don't think anyone was really thinking "Godzilla vs King Ghidora" in 1990. That's not how Toho worked.

Congrats, you have no clue what you're talking about. The more planning, the better the film can be. The bulk of the important work is done in preproduction. The more time to plan, the better and more efficiently production moves. That's how it works from direct marketing commercial production to feature film production. Period.

[Legion1979]

Congrats, you have no clue what you're talking about.

Is it possible that, maybe, you could carry on a civil discussion without coming across like a jerk, or is that too much to ask for, Legionmaster? Did I say anything that warranted such a snippy-ass comeback? Why would I want to continue this back and forth with you if you're going to make asshole-ish comments like that? Could I be wrong about what I'm saying? Maybe. I don't mind being corrected...as long as I'm not being talked to like I'm some damn retard.

I love that about the internet. It gives people carte blanche to be faceless dicks behind a computer screen, treating harmless film discussion as an argument akin to a virtual dick swinging contest. Try getting away with a comment like "Congrats, you have no idea what you're talking about" in real life without getting punched in the face.

The more planning, the better the film can be.

Obvious statement is obvious.

The bulk of the important work is done in preproduction. The more time to plan, the better and more efficiently production moves.

BUT....

Do you even have PROOF that Godzilla vs King Ghidora even had more pre-planning than the later Heisei films, or are you just assuming it did because there was no Godzilla film made in 1990? And even if it did have more preproduction work than later films, it certainly doesn't show on film. Godzilla vs King Ghidora is entertaining as all hell, but it's still pretty brainless and poorly written.

[Goji]

I know this is off topic, but I'm actually curious when any work started on VS. KING GHIDORAH, considering Toho was trying to get "Godzilla vs. King Kong" going for a while there. I wonder when they gave that up, and started up on the '91 film we ultimately got.

[Tyler]

Didn't they try to get Godzilla vs. Mechani-Kong made too? I read it was going to be like Fantastic Voyage inside Godzilla. Mechani-Kong was going to inject divers into Godzilla's bloodstream to destroy him from the inside out.

[Gyaos]

But didnt Mechani-Kong break apart like a cheap toy from falling off Tokyo Tower? One punch from Godzilla would probably have the same effect.

[Legion1979]

But didnt Mechani-Kong break apart like a cheap toy from falling off Tokyo Tower? One punch from Godzilla would probably have the same effect.

Because the Mogera from Space Godzilla was the exact same one from the Mysterians, right?

[Gyaos]

But didnt Mechani-Kong break apart like a cheap toy from falling off Tokyo Tower? One punch from Godzilla would probably have the same effect.

Because the Mogera from Space Godzilla was the exact same one from the Mysterians, right?

Because they where totally gona make Mechani-Kong as good as MOGUERA, right? Pfft.