New Replies (Page 673)
The King of the Monsters,
That is jarring. Reminds me of the head changes to the MusukoGoji. I've been unable to find any sources confirming whether or not an entirely different suit was built or if the head was merely adjusted during production. Still, it's pretty obvious there's a different head used in the movie depending on the scene:
I forget the original source my fellow editors on Wikizilla found for the existence of the replica head (I'll have to do some digging and see if I can find it again), but one of them did capture a fantastic side-by-side comparison of the heads. It's especially jarring if you're looking for it, because the heads can seemingly change from shot to shot later in the film.
Honestly, I've also considered the possibility that it was given an entirely different head in Son of Godzilla that looks more like the MusukoGoji. I have no proof of this, but I feel the head in this shot looks noticeably different from both the original DaisensoGoji head and the supposed replica:
I too have always been curious about what intentional alterations were made to the SoshingekiGoji. Obviously there is some very visible wear-and-tear by Godzilla vs. Gigan, but the only major change I've ever been able to nail down is the positioning of the eyes in Godzilla vs. Hedorah. In the other films, the eyes face forward, but in Godzilla vs. Hedorah the pupils are further back and seem to face sideways. This seems to have been reversed by Godzilla vs. Gigan.
I can't really nail down any other changes, but I feel like maybe the forehead/brow area was adjusted.
Yesterday was Shinji Higuchi's Birthday! He's 52.
Higuchi worked as a special effects assistant on The Return of Godzilla in 1984. Later he worked with his friend Hideaki Anno as a storyboard artist at the animation company Gainax--There he helped produce Neon Genesis Evangelion.
He would later team up with director Shusuke Kaneko to direct the special effects for the groundbreaking Gamera trilogy in the mid-to-late 1990s. After that he produced the series MM9 (Monster Magnitude 9) and went on to direct his own movies such as The Sinking of Japan.
In 2015 he released his live action Attack on Titan films for Toho. He then teamed up with his old friend Hideaki Anno to co-direct 2016's Shin Godzilla, which earned both him and Anno a Japanese Academy Award for Directing.
Happy Birthday Shinji Higuchi!
TheGMan123,
A lot of what your asking depends on the suit. August Ragone has explained that one of the reasons so many Godzilla suits in the Showa era had wildly different designs was because Eiji Tsuburaya liked to change things up. He was never married to one design. (His death in 1970 may explain why the 1968 SoshingekiGoji suit was used until it was literally falling apart in 1972. Had he lived longer, I think it likely he would've shelved it earlier.)
But there's also the fact that the Showa series suits, built by Teizo Toshimitsu and Nobuyuki Yasumaru, did not use molds. So they couldn't recreate the same exact design even if they tried. They didn't have molds to save the individual designs.
This doesn't mean some suits weren't updated. For example, the head of 1973's MegaroGoji suit was tweaked once for Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla and then again in Terror of MechaGodzilla. Although it's the same suit, it was adjusted for the more serious atmosphere of Megalon's follow-ups:
Now when the Heisei series came along, molds started being used by the new suit maker Tomomi Kobayashi. Although the Heisei movies had five different suits (two of which were heavily updated) the design remained more consistent due to the use of molds.
Additionally, Koichi Kawakita was less interested in playing with Godzilla's design. (Obviously Godzilla's look changed between The Return of Godzilla and Godzilla vs. Biollante, but Koichi Kawakita didn't take over the special effects for the series until the latter film.) According to Ed Godziszewski, "This was his [Kawakita's] Godzilla. So he wanted to keep the basic design the same."
As a result of the more consistent design, the 1989 BioGoji was updated into the 1991 GhidoGoji (and also used for half of 1992's Godzilla vs. Mothra). The 1992 BatoGoji was built from scratch and later used for the battle against Rodan in Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla II. And of course the 1993 RadoGoji suit was also built from the ground up. (The upper half of the RadoGoji was later updated into a version of the DesuGoji used for water scenes only.)
The 1994 MogeGoji was the last suit built from scratch in the Heisei series. It was later heavily updated into the DesuGoji for Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. The crew for these movies would decide whether or not they should build a new suit depending on animatronic advancements/innovations or simply if the current suit was too worn to be used for the entire production.
All of these suits were completed from molds, but because new mechanical components within the latter suits needed more space it would inadvertently change the design's shape. One excellent comparison is when you look at the profile of the 1989 suit with the 1993 costume. Same design, same molds, different suit with different mechanical components inside:
There were some adjustments made on purpose--Such as the eye color, the ribbed neck or a different combination of dorsal plates. Otherwise the pieces were largely the same.
The Millennium series made a more conscious effort to change Godzilla's look since it was an anthology series. By that time Shinichi Wakasa, who was responsible for Rodan (93), MechaGodzilla (93), SpaceGodzilla and Destoroyah suits/puppets, was building Godzilla. (With the exception of GMK.) Molds were used for almost every suit sans the Final Wars costume which he claims to have "sculpted" himself.
I've heard an entirely new costume was made for Megaguirus, despite how new the suit was in Godzilla 2000. I'm not sure I believe that, but it's possible since the molds were available. Obviously the '02 and '03 costumes were new suits, but the bodies were made from molds of the '99/'00 costumes.
It's also worth noting that new suits would often not be used for water sequences in the Showa series. Water ruined these costumes which is why the 1965 suit was used for water sequences in Son of Godzilla, Destroy All Monsters and Godzilla vs. Hedorah--Yet when Godzilla came on land it was a different suit. After the 1965 suit was doused in sludge by Hedorah, the 1967 Son of Godzilla costume was used for Godzilla vs. Gigan's swimming shots. Promotional suits, not built to be used onscreen, would take over this task in the MechaGodzilla movies.
In the latter two series a secondary water suit, much closer to the dry land costumes, would be built specifically for shots in the big pool. The Heisei series had it easy--Sometimes they would just use "dry land" costumes from the prior film if they had a new suit for the current production.
Hopefully that gives you some idea as to how they did things.
