Godzilla (2014) - - - - Part 13

[Gabe99]

KaijuCast 07.19.2014:
Godzilla Screenwriter Max Borenstein

 

[GoblinWhirlwind]

These blu ray set statues never seem to look that great in person, but that's pretty cool. I wonder if that's gonna be sold here in the US.

 

[serendipity]

Seeing Dawn of Apes tonight, and a question just came to me. Could mo cap performances be beneficial to the next Godzilla film?

Thoughts?

 

[Wildcard]

Probably not. A little bit of mo-cap could be beneficial but going full on with it would end up coming off as a guy attempting to act like a giant monster. In other words, it'd almost be like putting a guy back into a rubber suit.

 

[Deserana]

Godzilla doesn't really lend itself to the intimacy of a character like Caeser or Gollum. They rely on a personality whereas Godzilla could just be a giant monster. It doesn't need a man to do his movements.

 

[John Locke]

Didn't they say that Serkis helped with the motion capture for this film? So we've already got it.

 

[Zeus]

Godzilla releasing in Japan this Friday...Get ready for mega explosions of box office cash flow

 

[Drizzle]

Seeing Dawn of Apes tonight, and a question just came to me. Could mo cap performances be beneficial to the next Godzilla film?

Thoughts?

As far as body movement, maybe, but not facial expressions. I doubt they could ever use mo cap for monsters like Ghidorah or Mothra.

 

[Jaspertian1105]

Mo Cap would be ridiculous, its not needed in Godzilla at all, the animators did a terrific job with all the creatures. Frankly its not needed for Gollum, Cesar or any of those characters, its better than having a tennis ball but the performance could be done by skilled animators. They re do a lot of it anyway but the director wants sometimes something tangible to work with on set , but for godzilla it would be totally ridiculous for a million reasons. And to say that mo cap is the only way to bring personality to life, that's a really big misconception, its a fancy reference but it should be seen like that, reference.

On the other hand something like original Predator, that i would give the actor a lot of props for the performance, but in cg the characters are so different from bone structure, weight shifts etc that the final product is the product of a lot of departments. The actor on set its a really small part of it, but the animators can use some of it as reference, stay close to it or pretty much re do the whole thing, depends on what the director is looking for as always at the end of the day

Anyway, Godzilla has an entirely different mass, bone structure, walk cycle , center of gravity etc than a human begin. Someone could act out some of it, but just for reference. I loved the animation on godzilla and the MUTOS , super job from the crew, i dont see any need to change directions, just improve on what was learned

 

[A Necessary Evil]

The CGI in Godzilla was spot on, there's no need for Mo-Cap.

 

[Roose Bolton]

Didn't they say that Serkis helped with the motion capture for this film? So we've already got it.

He did some work for it, but it was very minor compared to his usual stuff. Most of Godzilla was key frame animation, with a few shots here and there done by Serkis to add some personality or what have you. Edwards cited that scene where Godzilla and Ford get face to face as the big moment Andy did.

 

[redhawk23]

Serkis's company worked on the film, it was confirmed that Serkis himself didn't do any mocap work though.

 

[redhawk23]

Jeeeez, people are STILL arguing the SAME point they were when the film first came out? No wonder I haven't popped in here in a long time.

Well its not like the film changed.

 

[weezerspider]

Again, ITS NOT ABOUT THE TOTAL SCREEN TIME. Its the fact that that his presence in the film is pretty much tangential to the plot.

Godzilla doesn't show up until pretty far into the original film, but the entire film is about people trying to figure out what is going on with the mysterious boat destruction, or of dealing with getting rid of Godzilla. Everything is in reaction to him, even if he's not actively on screen.

Take Godzilla out of the new film and you still have the awakening of the MUTOs leading to the death of Mrs. Brody, Cranston and Ford dealing with her death, Cranston obsessing with the MUTO mystery, the mutos escaping, the Mutos destroying things, the Mutos trying to mate, the government trying to find a away to destroy the mutos etc. The MUTO's drive this movie pretty much entirely. Which would be fine if it wasn't titled Godzilla and intended to reboot and re-establish the character.


Also there's a ton of dinosaur scenes in Jurassic Park. For a comparison, imagine the great slow build up of the water rippling the plastic cups, with lex and Tim freaking out, the T-Rex shows up and roars and its really exiting- BUT THEN IT CUTS AWAY TO A LITTLE KID SITTING ON A COUCH (As Edwards chose to do with the Hawaii fight) Imagine if the rest of that great scene, which continued the excitement and supsense- Lex and Tim stuck in the car with t-rex breathing down on them, Grant and Malcom trying to distract the T-rex with flares, the Lawyer getting eaten, the t-rex pushing the car over a cliff that suddenly exists - imagine if none that happened, if the film cut away because it was saving it all for 2 seconds of the "When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth" banner fluttering down. Would Jurassic Park still be as great as it is? Would you praise it for its "restraint"?

This guy gets it.

You're the first, if not the only person who I've seen complain on these boards that he has nothing to do with the plot,

Where have you been? This is one of, if not the biggest complaint about the film. Or have you, like many others, interpreted that as us complaining about a lack of screen time? Get it through your heads yo, it's not a Godzilla film. That's why it's not that great. It's a MUTOs film featuring Godzilla. Why? because they drive the plot. Not because they have more screen time. Here's an example of this forum's favorite blockbuster film:

The Dark Knight is a Batman film. At it's most basic root, everything in the plot is caused/driven by Batman. Copy-cat Batmen appear because of Batman. Joker appears and causes all of his havoc for Batman. Rachel dies because of her connection to Batman, which causes the creation of Two-Face. People complain about Batman's screen time in that film, but Batman drives the whole film.

Now look at Godzilla: MUTOS cause the lab accident which causes Cranston all those years later to sneak into the contained area with his son, which gets him caught. MUTO attacks, he dies, Aaron Johnson gets thrown into all of this still. MUTOS reak havoc as they try and unite to mate. They unite, they mate. So far I've managed to get to the climax of the film, the last 25 minutes of the film, without even mentioning Godzilla. He hasn't driven the plot at all. He's simply there to resolve it. He's the big red button that our action star hits at the last minute to save the day. That's all he is! A plot resolver. The film's not terrible(it's not great), but I'd venture to say its a pretty awful Godzilla film.

 

[redhawk23]

I got one of the NECA Godzilla toys. Its articulated in ways I never expected, like in the ankles and things. Very cool figure. I love Bearzilla.

 

[Terminator]

Godzilla releasing in Japan this Friday...Get ready for mega explosions of box office cash flow

Any word on how it did over there?

 

[Super Kal]

hasnt been released yet.. it comes out tomorrow

 

[Sithborg]

If it ends up doing more than Final Wars' $12 million or Pacific Rim's $14 million, I will call it a victory.

 

[scifiwolf]

hasnt been released yet.. it comes out tomorrow

It IS tomorrow over there.

 

[Wildcard]

I'm curious as to what numbers it's doing over in Japan since nothing has surfaced yet from what I can ascertain. I'd safely assume it'll put the worldwide gross (at the very least) at around $520 million.

 

[Sithborg]

It looks like it did somewhere between 6-7 million. Which isn't bad at all.

 

[AVEITWITHJAMON]

While I am glad Edwards is back for the sequel, the whole less is more approach needs an overhaul, it just got annoying in the end in the 1st movie.

 

[Wildcard]

While I disagree with that view of it being annoying, I'm pretty sure it's an approach that would only be used for the first/origins movie. Wouldn't really be any point in doing it in the sequel since Godzilla has been fully established.

 

[redhawk23]

There' was really no reason to use it after the first half of a first movie either.


That said, I love the MUTOs

 

[Venom75]

The film really made me wonder if Toho will ever do more Godzilla films,or have they given up and just passed the character on to America? I'd love to see more G films from Japan but maybe that might be a case of overkill with Godzilla(with films being made in both the US and Japan)?