The Future of Suitmation in Toho Godzilla Films

[Tyler]

Well said. If Clash of the Titans is any indication, we should get something somewhat faithful to Godzilla's source material, at least more so than the Transformers films have been. They kept most of the essential elements of the first Clash of The Titans the same, right down to incorrectly calling the giant monster in it The Krakken, which was a monster from Norse mythology, not Greek and resembles a giant squid. The even kept the anticlimactic ease with which the monster was taken out in the first film.

Then again, they did odd stuff like change who Perseus' origin, involve Hades, made Medusa rather easy on the eyes and made the Krakken look like a cross between Cloverfield and Sin from Final FantasyX. I mean, jerky stop-motion aside, the Krakken from the original film looked like some hellish undersea gargoyle, like what one would expect an aquatic titan to look like. The new one just looks like an alien. Whatever happening to just making stuff look real with better SE? Artistic License I guess.

Legendary did produce the Clash remake, but Godzilla will have a totally different crew behind it. They're the ones who'll make it work or not.

[Living Corpse]

If there is one thing GFW did do right it's that they made the suits slimmer and out of newer lighter material so they could be more mobile, faster. Too bad they wasted it by making the fights only 5 seconds long.

If they still use suits I'd like them to do the same thing with the suits so we can have nice T&C fights like back in the old Showa films, and use CGI here and there so the suits look like there breathing. Oh and make the fights longer then a few minutes.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Seconded. I really liked the use of CGI where Godzilla's face froze over in GvsD. I also think that the slimmer suit in Final Wars allowed for more freedom of movement of the suit actor, so their movements translated to the rest of the suit better (The scene where Godzilla gets up from the rubble and shakes it off, the quick turn and roar it made after averting the head on collision of King Seesar, Rodan and Anguiras.). CG would allow for claws and teeth to sink into the "flesh" of the suits so they would not have to be ruined in certain sequences, the same goes with when a monster catches on fire. (Though it was cool looking in Godzilla vs Mothra.)

[Shadow]

Suits or the boot. I made that up myself.

[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.

[Gyaos]

Might I ask why some people think that the chance of a new Godzilla film from Toho is almost non-existant?

Just curious.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

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.

[SaiyanRider54]

I honestly don't care weither or not he's CGI or a suit. As long as it looks good, and IS Godzilla (unlike GINO of course) I really don't mind. I just consider the suit an effect and not a part of the character.

[Tyler]

Might I ask why some people think that the chance of a new Godzilla film from Toho is almost non-existant?

Just curious.

Because they're cranky old farts


Personally I love suitmation and I'd love to see one of his movies look as good as the Heisei Gamera films, which I don't think has been acheived yet. BUT as long as Godzilla looks and more importantly ACTS like Godzilla and the movie is good I don't care.

[CatfaceFourtoes]

Aside from the practicality of having a concrete suit that ensures the quality of reality in the character, my only other reason for it is that through the suit representations of Godzilla the monster has developed a degree of anthropomorphism that makes it unique and easy to empathize with as far as monsters go.

Even the Kraken from the first Clash of The Titans had a degree of anthropomorphism to make it look like what one might expect a titan to look like.
(Spoilers if you have not seen the movies mentioned)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQpgIJUh9D4

It's updated counterpart is a beautiful work of CGI, but it looks nothing like the original creature, it looks way more alien.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=en ... DeJgXmMfLE

a trait that it shares with other CGI monsters like Octalus,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAsEWP2Okmg

Cloverfield,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocb7pXnd ... ure=relmfu

and Zilla

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_ufBleUNos

They all look slick, but you really cannot root for any of them. They all look like mean alien things that Godzilla would kill in its next VS film.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr3nXE70 ... re=related

Of course there's the flip side, Peter Jackson's Kong was CGI and was probably the easiest interpretation of the monster to empathize with. But that's a given since it is a gorilla so the anthropomorphism is a given. Godzilla's anthropomorphism was mostly a byproduct of the way it was originally portrayed, by an actor in a suit.

[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.