Godzilla: Creating the Animalistic and Masculine Kaiju Monster-Design FX-WIRED

After Roland Emmerich missed the mark with Godzilla in 1998, we had reason to be skeptical of Gareth Edwards’ new remake. Fxguide’s Mike Seymour goes inside the special effects behind the latest incarnation, in which effects company MPC designed the largest Godzilla yet, featuring an animalistic appearance with anthropomorphized traits.


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Godzilla: Creating the Animalistic and Masculine Kaiju Monster-Design FX-WIRED

Starring: Mike Seymour

[nickmitsialis]

I have to admit that I like the "naturalistic" touches they gave Goji: like way the skin around his nostrils & throat moved when he breathed or 'snorted' or when he inhaled to unleash his roar, or the way the muscle masses on his neck & shoulders moved; it did look very 'Kodiak Bear' like.

[GilgameshofBabylon]

So Godzilla's tail moves at Supersonic speeds.

Considering the surface area and its sheer length, if that tail hits anything, the force at minimum even approaching just sonic speed would be near equivalent to a nuke hitting you point blank.

That tail hits anything, it's unlikely to survive unless it's at least equivalent Godzilla's size. 

Just look at a full grown Iguana or a Savanna Monitor. Their tail whips have been known to break the bones of dogs and cats. Imagine that but with Godzilla.

[t.c.g.thecentregod]

I was never really a kaiju fan till Godzilla 2014 and then I wanted to learn more about the kaiju, I know in the old movies they were cheesy and goofy, now there’s nothing wrong with big dumb fun, but I kinda wish the monsterverse kept the same tone in g14. I loved edwards take on Godzilla, a new type of Godzilla movie, it was dark and gritty and suspenseful and I loved it, it was new and unique and dare I saw brilliant. I honestly kinda liked the human characters, Brody was ok, but I felt for the guy, a soldier just doing his job and wanting to get back to his family, but has to defeat the mutos so his family can be safe. A lot of people complain about the amount of time Godzilla had in his movie and he’s supposed to be the main character but the way I see it, he’s the main threat to the enemies and something much bigger than humans, something much bigger than life, he’s bigger than all of us and is the only one who can take down the mutos, that’s why it’s named Godzilla, or at least that’s why I think it is. People complain about the mutos but honestly I think they’re beautiful creatures, yes I know I’m in the minority but it’s just my opinion. I loved how Gareth portrayed the Titans as actual animals, a great example is the bridge scene when the female muto heard the radio and mimicked the sound, it’s so simple yet so fascinating. Gareth also did a very good job on making the monsters feel big by taking the camera shots with the human perspective, it made the monsters feel like gods much bigger than us. In my opinion, I feel like since Godzilla 2014 was a new take in the franchise, it was meant for everyone to watch and enjoy, but a lot of people(mostly fans) didn’t like Gareth’s creativeness and art, so the fans got king of the monsters. I’m in the minority of this too but whenever a g fan says kotm was a love letter to the fans, it makes me think that everything in kotm and gvk was just fan service, movies just for the fans and not really for everyone, I feel like what Gareth Edwards did was try to make something new out of the franchise and what doughtery did with kotm was just a copy and paste of the old Godzilla movies just for the fans, it felt unoriginal and rushed. that’s just what I think, I really don’t mean to sound rude or disrespectful in anyway.

[crcoghill]

wait wait wait....what did he say? 0:20 the king of "Zillas"??? i think you meant king of the "Monsters".

[calvintolentino]

That part that they showed in the video with godzilla was the most epic part in the movie hearing him roar in the theater is truly a heartpounding experience! cant wait for godzilla 2!

[gsamalot]

You know when I see the godzilla model for this films my brain gets scared when it thinks how much polygons they had when making this 3d model, all of the sculpting in scales, muscle, inside the mouth. I swear to god you know someone stood up day and night when you see the final version.

[TrashMojo]

seriously, i want to see that rig, and a turn around of the mesh, makes these longer and show more

[dotmhk_]

yeah, they did an amazing job portraying Godzilla as a beast of a monster

[iamTheEmperuh]

Squeezing years of hard work into a two minute video is just disrespectful to the visual effects and concept art team. If you are going to do a "review" make sure you put time and effort into it. Things like this need to be at least an hour long.

[Foomandoonian]

Another shallow FX video summarising years of work by hundreds of incredibly talented artist technicians into two minutes, still making room for cliches like 'the director wanted to shoot as much for real as possible' [insert clip of a shot being assembled from thousands of complex elements].

Still, nice to see so much exclusive footage from the trailers.

[fartinspartan]

Godzilla was a total badass in this movie

[BigDoener]

wow, thanks for 2mins 15s of talking and 12 seconds of behind the scenes vfx.
appreciate it...

[neutralino]

1:55 His tail is supersonic? He got a nerf, then, since the newest stat claims that he can swing his tail at only a mere 89 mph.

[nobleskywalker]

Godzilla 2014 was a let down untill the fight but Godzilla was fine, they learned their lesson with King Kong

[velociraptoryou]

I LIVE for stuff like this as a film buff! This was cool, seeing the technical process of bringing Gareth's Godzilla to life. :)

[gamerh]

In the next movie make sure you guys focus more on the main characters family drama than the monster. That was my favorite part.

[HUNTERX]

WAIT THATS IT!
MORE GODZILLA VFX BTS!!!

[Resifreak]

the scene about 1:56 - anyone noticed that huge continuty error in the movie? In this shot he leans forward and roas and as the female muto approaches him, he stands WAY back from the position right now o0 Or did I miss sth.?

[XboxAnnihilator]

Supposedly, Godzilla was animated using this program called Maya, which I'm currently using in college. Hard to believe it though. This program seems very primitive and it constantly crashes when performing the simplest thing. I don't know how they do it.

[gojiralife]

"The character is just that much bigger than we've ever seen him before."
At the time, Monsterverse Godzilla was only 8.2m larger than the 100m class Godzilla's of the Toho movies. That size difference is negligible considering the majority of the 100m class Godzilla's foes were as large or larger than him, with 120m for most foes being the standard (ex. Gigan, MechaGodzilla, SpaceGodzilla; Destoroyah, Hedorah, Biollante, ...) and 140m for the Ghidorahs (King and Kaizer).
It's not like the difference in size between the Toho and Monsterverse Godzilla had a revolutionary impact on the tail whips they could give lol.