The Future of Suitmation in Toho Godzilla Films

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

Ray Harryhausen did have a point when saying suitmation's down fall is that it looks like a man in a suit.

I cannot pride myself over that.

[Cimmerian Dragon]

Avatar and the battle suit sequence from District 9 proves that CGI characters can look real enough

District 9 and the military hardware in Avatar looked suitably realistic, but I thought the organic characters in Avatar looked like cartoons from begining to end. I don't mean that as an insult necessarily, it was a pretty enough flick, but I never once looked at the Na'vi and felt like they were physically present in front of the camera.

Wow, I personally thought that the Na'vi were better realized than the somewhat "floaty" soldiers in the battle suits. That's funny, I thought that the battle suit from District 9 was the most realized CGI effect in that movies and that the prawns themselves tended to look a bit MIB-Mikey-cartoonish.
I can presently only recall one moment of bad motion of a Na'vi in Avatar, where Jake takes a tumble in the forest. His impact and roll across the ground looked unnaturally stiff, like some sequences from Hulk '04 film.

I guess it all comes down to the individual brain. For whatever reason, I am really put-off by a lot of cgi creatures. Maybe its the uncanny valley thing, the better they're rendered the more obvious the tiny flaws.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

I guess it all comes down to the individual brain. For whatever reason, I am really put-off by a lot of cgi creatures. Maybe its the uncanny valley thing, the better they're rendered the more obvious the tiny flaws.[/quote]

Yeah, come to think of it, District 9
seemed to have a lot more instances where the CGI aliens interacted with the live actors, with a lot of it being humorous, so maybe that is what catches my eye.

As far as rubber suits go, the more alive you make the suit look, the more the human actor is obscured. Like the Mr. Hyde suitmation from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Compared to The CGI Mr. Hyde character from Vanhelsing, the suitmation version is a lot more believable.

[Kaiju-King42]

Ray Harryhausen did have a point when saying suitmation's down fall is that it looks like a man in a suit.

I cannot pride myself over that.

None of these look like men in suits to me.

[Living Corpse]

You forgot Biollante.

[Goji]

I love the guy, but Ray has a deeply rooted hatred for Godzilla, and probably suitmation as a whole. I wouldn't worry too much about what he's said.

[Ethan]

None of these look like men in suits to me.

They might to a non-biased observer.

[Cimmerian Dragon]

I love the guy, but Ray has a deeply rooted hatred for Godzilla, and probably suitmation as a whole. I wouldn't worry too much about what he's said.

You've got to have a little sympathy. He was certainly perturbed that Toho was putting out big spectacles with visuals to challenge his, but with less time and money invested than his process demanded from producers.

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

Ray Harryhausen did have a point when saying suitmation's down fall is that it looks like a man in a suit.

I cannot pride myself over that.

http://kaijumodeler.com/images/kaiyodo/ ... legion.jpg

http://www.thiel-a-vision.com/wp-conten ... orga01.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GXcmECXruhk/T ... idorah.JPG

http://images.wikia.com/godzilla/images/5/50/Rodan7.jpg

http://popcultureninja.com/wp-content/u ... ra1999.jpg

None of these look like men in suits to me.

Besides Legion and the forgotten Biollante, the general humanoid structure can still be seen in those suits.

While it is true that two legged reptiles and dragons and what not will have characteristics that humans have because they're bipeds.

However:



compared to...



or




Harryhausen easily captures the proper anatomy for a theropod dinosaur. And it looks convincing.

Understand, I do enjoy suitamation. But it is not the best medium to do a giant monster production nowadays unless:

1: Its done for a TV or low budget movies and must be done efficiently and at the least amount and still look good (like Ultraman).
2: Be done properly and at a high coast, like Del Toro's productions.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Not to mention that the monsters from Toho were usually nigh indestructible, apocalyptic terrors.
Most of the monsters from the movies Ray worked on were relatively easier to defeat, with exceptions being monsters like the giant Quintapus from It came from Beneath the Sea. it looked bigger than Godzilla in some scenes, chomping on atomic submarines like sub sandwiches. The Ymir also took a lot of punishment, and was continuously growing before the military Ko'ed it.

I dunno, Ray Harryhausen's depictions of dinosaurs and the available science at the time behind how they behaved got thrashed by modern paleontologists, so his creatures only tended to look more alive, not necessarily realistic. I personally love both mediums for the monsters that they made and called dinosaurs. Nowaday's they are all just glorified reptile like birds with noticeable flaws and weaknesses.

As for the human shape, that can be obscured by trick photography, creative placing of the actor in the suit (like backwards to give the impression of bug like locomotion in front and back leggs) wire work and animatronics. They already have a prop that gives actors dinosaur like digitigrade legs.

[SuperSaiyan4Godzilla]

Not to mention that the monsters from Toho were usually nigh indestructible, apocalyptic terrors.
Most of the monsters from the movies Ray worked on were relatively easier to defeat, with exceptions being monsters like the giant Quintapus from It came from Beneath the Sea. it looked bigger than Godzilla in some scenes, chomping on atomic submarines like sub sandwiches. The Ymir also took a lot of punishment, and was continuously growing before the military Ko'ed it.

I dunno, Ray Harryhausen's depictions of dinosaurs and the available science at the time behind how they behaved got thrashed by modern paleontologists, so his creatures only tended to look more alive, not necessarily realistic. I personally love both mediums for the monsters that they made and called dinosaurs. Nowaday's they are all just glorified reptile like birds with noticeable flaws and weaknesses.

As for the human shape, that can be obscured by trick photography, creative placing of the actor in the suit (like backwards to give the impression of bug like locomotion in front and back leggs) wire work and animatronics. They already have a prop that gives actors dinosaur like digitigrade legs.

It doesn't matter if Toho makes indestructible monsters or not. It has nothing to do with the abilities of the monsters. It has to do with the designs.

We're discussing something technical and pragmatic. Not stylistic. It doesn't matter about the science of the time, but the effect of the spfx

That is HOW you can make a man in a suit not look like a man in a suit. But that isn't what they DO.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Then we can take a short look on which technique has been nearly all but rendered obsolete by CGI yes? When was the last giant monster movie where the effect was done in Stopmotion? As gimmicky as suitmation may seem, it has survived in the mainstream while stopmotion has been all but outmoded. I can honestly look at the suit used in Final Wars and say that it in no way shape or form resembles a human actor anymore than
the suits used in;

The original TMNT films

John Leguizamo as Clown from the live action Spawn film.

Harry from Harry and The Hendersons


Rick Baker's suit used in the Mighty Joe Young Remake.


Rick Baker's Atar gorillas from the remake of Planet of The Apes

The Raptor suits in Jurassic Park

Jabba The Hutt

Goro from Mortal Kombat

The monsters from Where The Wild Things Are

And any number of Jim Henson's Creature Shop's more sophisticated creations.

As for the aforementioned Japanese monster suits, I really do not see a man in either King Ghidorah or Rodan in those pics.
Other than that what is it? The quality of being able to stand upright and possessing arms with greater range of motion than your average dinosaur? Suitmation can look as real and alive as much as the artists actors and puppeteers can make the suit act.

[hammysammy59]

The difference between the suits and puppets you listed and Godzilla monsters is that Godzilla monsters not only have to look like living things, they have to look like living things that are about twenty times bigger than they actually are (with the exception of Mighty Joe Young... maybe? never saw it). That's hard to convey with suits and models and the human eye/brain is likely to know that (if only on a subconscious level) even the best looking suits and models aren't actually 150 feet tall. There are a lot of great camera tricks (that really don't seem to get used often enough) that can help, but it's still an uphill battle. It doesn't help that water, fire, smoke, etc. can't really be miniaturized. (In Ghostbusters they had to use white sand for the erupting fire hydrant when Stay-Puft stomps through)

The flipside is of course that physical suits, puppets, models, actors, etc. allow for "happy accidents" to happen on set--unpredictable little quirks (everything from a monster stumbling to an explosion going off differently than expected) that make the scenes feel more real or lend more personality. Plus having live actors interact with each other and a physical set helps bring out better, more alive performances. CGI is still growing, and only the best of it manages to not look like shiny, washed-out, plastic cartoons. Only the very best CGI can manage to look like real physical objects being photographed, but it does exist... at a high price.

The future for this series is mo-cap... it's a happy medium that combines the actor's performances you get from suit acting with the detailed imagery possible with CGI. Toho likely doesn't have the cash to do it awesomely, but I'd think/hope Legendary does.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

I actually I take back what I said about Stopmotion. The only real reason it is not seen nowadays in portraying large beasts is because CGI now does it, with just a little more believability at times than what has been achieved with Stopmotion. I'm basically comparing some of the smoother animation from Robocop 1 and 2 to the animation of some of the Velociraptor sequences in Jurassic Park.

And I think I missed the point about what Stopmotion is naturally able to do. Create a creature with shapes and movements not hindered by the limitations of a human body inside of it. Essentially it is bringing a sculpture to life. Cain and ED-209 compared to Robocop would probably be a good example. And you can do the same thing by comparing the CGI bugs in Starship Troopers to the Suitmation bugs in the Aliens films.

But to be honest, mainstream media is in love with anthropomorphic characters. This is almost always a beast head on a human torso, that is almost always a humanoid creature that stands upright on digitigrade legs. Aside from some interesting attributes found in machines, like retractable weaponry, and the animal kindom, like wings or fins, fanciful creatures tend to embrace humanoid body structure.

The more abstract creature shapes that can be achieved via Stopmotion or CGI are usually geared toward villainous roles. Compare how Robocop bears more resemblance to a man when compared to his Stopmotion counterparts Cain and ED-209. Only in videogames have I seen the lines blurred in this trend, via motion capture animated polygons. That is what is so nice about motion capture. It emulates real movement so well, that it takes on flaws of suitmation, like the bobble head effect where the head just kind of lolls about on the neck, just like a head prop on a costume. I'd rather see that appear time to time in CGI characters than flaws in the overall movements of the visual effect like excessive blur or wonky physics.

As for the size issue, there is no real issue, I've already seen it done in fancy commercials where they have giant people, and at least one totally believable suitmation sequence in The Nutty Professor where Sherman Clump appears to grow to Kaiju size. With computers, screenshots of water and fire at the right scale can now be digitally inserted into shots to get the needed effect. It's the ultimate evolution of what green screen set out to accomplish.

The rest is just artists having a creativity overload once they learn that the creatures they must create no longer have to bend to the constraints of human anatomy or camera angles that don't let you see the whole monster, creating bizarre spectacles like creatures with multiple eyes, unhinging jaws filled with ungodly amounts of teeth, and arms and tentacles the likes that nature has ever seen.

[Kaiju-King42]

Another thing I noticed about suitmation compared to stop motion. With suitmation, the slow, non-jerky movement in the giant monsters looks a bit more realistic than the comparable fast, jerky movement of giant stop motion monsters. Not to mention the destruction scenes look more realistic too.

[omgitsgodzilla]

Jerkiness in stop-motion isn't the technique, it's the animator.

Anyway, Both have their pros and cons, and I think they're best used in a combination where the use of each technique is tailored to its strengths.

[Tyler]

It's interesting to note thought that stop motion is basically obsolete while suitmation is still being used. But I'm not black and white in my opinion. I really like both. It depends on what I want to watch at the time. I really appreciate both when they're well done.

But Catface did bring up something that I like a lot about Eastern style monsters. Most Western monsters are basically huge animals while ones from the East are very elemental and unstoppable. It's an aspect I like a lot and I don't think there's ever been a truly Japanese style American monster film.

[Kaiju-King42]

I'd say the closest eastern style western monster is Clover or the Giant Claw, but I havn't seen a lot of western giant monster films. I wish I could get my hands on some.

[Living Corpse]

I'd say the closest eastern style western monster is Clover or the Giant Claw, but I havn't seen a lot of western giant monster films. I wish I could get my hands on some.

I find it odd one of the biggest complaints about Clover was "the design is weird". I can't speak for everyone but I rather we get a new original weird design then just "oh it's just another giant bug/squid/dinosaur movie".

[CatfaceFourtoes]

It's interesting to note thought that stop motion is basically obsolete while suitmation is still being used. But I'm not black and white in my opinion. I really like both. It depends on what I want to watch at the time. I really appreciate both when they're well done.

But Catface did bring up something that I like a lot about Eastern style monsters. Most Western monsters are basically huge animals while ones from the East are very elemental and unstoppable. It's an aspect I like a lot and I don't think there's ever been a truly Japanese style American monster film.

The Black Scorpion, It Came From Beneath The Sea and Cloverfield are the only three American films I can think of where the things were practically unstoppable. Maybe The Blob, if that even counts. And the goofy Giant Claw. The big bugs in Black Scorpion were practically mini Godzillas in their durability, only getting Ko'ed by other Scorpions or a prolonged electric shock to a weak point. And the giant octopus from ICBTS seemed to be impervious to electrical shock, and torpedoes that were meant to destroy enemy submarines. Fire drove it's tentacles back though.

Speaking of the jerkiness of stop motion, it is true that it tends to be up to the animators in making Stopmotion look more smooth. The smooth quality of the animation in The Black Scorpion managed to suspend my disbelief on a number of occasions. It was like watching Starship Troopers in black and white. This animation was done by Willis O'Brien and his second apprentice Pete Peterson. Peterson was able to produce extremely smooth animation in his own Stopmotion creatures, namely The Los Vegas Monster and his strange looking "Beetlemen". I think you can still find the clips on youtube. Some incredibly smooth animation given that this was before Phil Tippet came up with his Go-motion technique. And then you have Ray Harryhausen's myriad achievements in making the movements of his creatures look more realistic and less jerky. It's mostly just that dithered look that makes the animation stand out, kind of like the full motion video sequences of most Playstation titles. Like how animation suddenly changes in the polygon rendered characters when they interacted with pre-rendered background animations in FF7. It gets all "flickery".)

"Another thing I noticed about suitmation compared to stop motion. With suitmation, the slow, non-jerky movement in the giant monsters looks a bit more realistic than the comparable fast, jerky movement of giant stop motion monsters. Not to mention the destruction scenes look more realistic too."

Ah, but the truly magical effect is when you get to see a stopmotion animated creature crashing into a real miniature prop and watching the minature crumbling as if under the stopmotion creature's weight or momentum. I find that makes the stopmotion a lot more believable, when the things it interacts with are real props.