Movie - Godzilla released - 1998 Director - Roland Emmarich Cinematography - ueli steiger VFX - Viewpoint DataLabs Practical / Animatronics - Tatopoulo & his studio
Godzilla is a 1998 Monster movie which was originally a concept of japan, the Japanese had done a few films in the 1950's and Godzilla was portrayed as a fire breathing dragon which could stand against any weapon that was used against it! The US version of the movie had a modified fresh looking Godzilla since it's origins in japan. The movie is also one of its kind as it did not go to ILM or stan winston (who were the kings in the VFX / Animatronics), instead they went with in-house & mostly new studios & teams.
The film starts with a nuclear explosion and some iguanas getting affected by it! it's an effective way to set the stage with no big theme park tours, and when a group of fishing trollers pick up a strange reading on their radar they has nothing to do but to sit n watch what unveils in front of them. attacked by a giant creature only one survives.
Ripped fishing boats, big footprints are shown with devastated land marks to build up the scale of the creature. This is one of those exaggerated moment's where some one with a little idea of realism will throw away the idea of sharp cut footprints on hard ground! but still the audience bought it!
The previous Japanese made Godzilla movies mainly used stop motion or people inside suits. 1998 Godzilla mainly used CGI to portray the refreshed fast moving creature. The creature is almost 30 stories high and moves faster and is able to manoeuvre itself within small spaces, either making no big deal or at times taking down entire skyscrapers with it's tail. The CGI is very good as it shows no signs of faking. The Apache chases and the explosions all add in to the story line too.
instead of showing water ripples, the Godzillas aproach is depicted by harsh & very big shakes. cars fly a few feet up & the finger nail of a foot is as big as a car's hood!
When the giant moves within the city, the damage done to the surroundings are maximum and the scene of Taxies thrown all over & rain all ad up to the final effect!
While the military tries to take down the city, the group led by the french secret service agent find the nest where 100s of eggs lie around. the eggs were all made and the hatching baby Godzillas were guys inside latex suits. The movie wen't onto be a moderate hit, all the future films were scratched due to being not a big hit as expected!
If a movie had so much hype, then this was the movie that had it all. After the success of the original, which captured fans young & old around the world, it was no easy task to create a movie that delivered what the audience wanted.
The movie's effects worth noting starts with a young girl who wonders into the woods attacked by a small pack of compies. The small dinos who are portrayed as a bunch who coordinated and hunted in packs are a great way to start as it was a moment for humour & fear. the special effects used a mix of puppets for the closeups & CGI for group shots.
how the puppets worked. look at their eyes, how realistically they work.
how the Remote controlled latex puppets were used to depict being eaten alive, this shot was actually planned for CGI but the clever stan winstons team stole it from them with practical effects.
Hey Mr. get up! compy looks at his prey, the size doesn't matter when your numbers are bigger!
As Dr. Sarah meets a baby dino stegosaurus, animatronic effect comes into play and the life size model is the key here for natural reactions by the actress. how ever when her camera jams and scares away the baby dino stegosaurus which triggers the parent stegosaurus dinosaurs attacking Dr. Sarah practical effects plus CGI is used.
The Hunting shots are fun to watch and use CGI mostly. whats amazing is that the shots never feel they are animated nor used fake animals of any kind. Spielberg, with inputs from various individuals in many fields, had the secret formula to fool the audience to think these creatures are actually alive. Each capture of individual dinosaur type & reaction is unique in its own, Just think how much of story boarding and thinking went into this to pull such a neat shot. I'm still amazed at how the human flies around as the dino swings him, the action & the reaction is so perfect you will not feel that it's fake, but it uses CGI.
Steven Spielberg could have gone to simple captures for every creature type, instead he went on to create dino specific capture vehicles, and this pays off adding depth into the shots.
Jurassic park I had it's own iconic auto driven jeeps & the sequel needed something badass too. The Benz jeeps with the camo & special fit-ons with flood lights attached around them make up a very aggressive feel.
Then comes the trailer, this with the other two jeeps gets rolled over a cliff n blown, but still with those window grills and camo paint on it makes you feel very comfortable about how strong it will stand against dinos. but that idea of security is blown away when the T rexes attack it and destroy it like cardboard boxes.
Once the Hunting of Ingen stops for the night, the other team make their way into the camp and release the captured dinos, The stupidity pays off at the end when they are attacked by every known prehistoric predator.
this particular & rather stupid move to fix the baby T rexes broken leg, which lures the angry parents to the trailer uses two animatronic models, one for closeups where it's on the table, and another full Remote controlled version to carry around.
Getting chased by the Trex is pretty awesome! when at the actual set all you had was a cardboard cut out of a Trex head prop. These shot's with fully CGI Dinos added later, with the camera shake to mimic the giant footsteps made an impact on the audience.
When the balled guy arrives to help & pull back the trailer hanging on the edge of the cliff, the T rexes come back for a happy meal. eaten head first, this scene was one of the most scary ones in the movie, feeling that your safe inside the jeep for a moment, and then getting the roof ripped off was enough to jump out n run for your life, instead the guy keeps on pulling back!
This scenes uses practical effects & the timing to build up tension which make the audience jump out of their seats! You don't need big Dinos to build up tension in this film.
Most of the time when the Trex appeared ramming cars & busses, it was an animatronic model on a track which did it on close up shots.
When the T rex comes to the mainland & makes it's way to the sleepy neighbourhood & stops for a zip at a swimming pool (you know the rest if you watched it!) The Dog gets what it deserves for disturbing the Trex. Still the practical application of such incidents add up to the whole story.
The city scenes are a joy to look at and uses a mix of Animatronics & CGI models, If your a VFX lover, you should watch this movie soon. If you read through the entire writeup please be kind to leave a comment! how my writing is (English is not my primary language) I do this to improve my writing skills as well as to keep in track with the movies i have watched!
