In Hindsight I'm glad the Godzilla series was a little slow to use a lot of CGI

[Chrispy_G]

I used to always be irked that the Gamera 90s films embraced CGI to such a heavy extent that the late Heisei and early Millennium Godzilla films just didn't really seem to do. There was more CGI as the Millennium series progressed for sure.

But any time you watch a film from the 00s or 90s that is super heavy on CGI....the CGI just simply doesn't age well. Many Hollywood films of the mid-late 90s were only having their CGI(And thus, the overall shot) rendered in HD. So when you watch a good blu ray, or heaven forbid a 4K disc, on a proper 4K TV....the cracks and seams REALLY show.

Even Jurassic Park really shows the technical limits of its 1993-era CGI when watched in 4K. Early and mid-00s films that were loaded with CGI creatures and effects just don't hold up under higher modern presentations.

The CGI stuff in the Gamera Heisei films does not look pretty these days. What used to be some of the most exciting moments when Gamera went full CGI for flying or etc are now some of the most dated aspects of those films. When Legion and Iris are CGI, it isn't pretty.

So for what it is worth, hindsight being 20/20 I am quite glad that generally speaking the Millennium Godzilla films still used CGI fairly sparingly. I can't imagine what it would look like NOW if they had gone 100% CGI on Megaguirus or Mothra in any of the films. In general they pick their battles.

I always wanted more and more CGI as a kid (believe it or not, as a 9 year old I loved that "Reptilian" was full CGI instead of a guy in a suit, and now that movie is even MORE unwatchable because of the god-awful CGI) and wanted more and more shots of full CGI Godzilla, now I'm counting my lucky stars that they still stuck almost exclusively with suitmation.

[Lecontinentperdu]

Real trouble here is 4K. What's the use of that stuff? It's not even pretty to begin with...
Better focus on the lighting or the composition of the shots. An ugly shot in 4K is still an ugly shot. It's even uglier.

I'm mostly fine with bluray (some of them are already "too much", losing film grain, messing with colors, making FX jarring... Yes, I'm looking at you StudioCanal Total Recall).
And I have a ten feet screen with my VP...

While I largely agree with you (Legion is, and have always been, awful in CGI), 90's and 00's could also have good CG.
Just saw the 95 Casper and it holds very very well. The "blending" nature of the character might help, mind you

As for Godzilla, suitmation was the good way to go, you're right!
Then came Shin Godzilla. And now, I don't know...

[Chrispy_G]

True. The 4K restoration and presentation must always be done well, it doesn't fix flaws...only makes some of them more apparent. But it often brings an overall image quality, color and detail we were never able to experience before.

I would love a chance to get to see suit-mation be blended and attempted with modern effects one more time.

Imagine the "virtual sets" that Mandalorian and The Batman have used...now think about how great of a shot you could get of a suit or animatronic puppet filmed against those backgrounds with some miniatures mixed in. It would remove almost all of the composting work and maybe yield something very convincing.

I think a hybrid application of techniques could give us some gold.

Everyone wants Godzilla screen time, but ever frame of CGI rendered costs time and money.

If you build a good suit, or a good puppet/animatronic for closeups...you can film it as much as you want. You can cut in closeups all throughout sequences and maximize your "Godzilla screen time" without having to always rely on exclusively driving up costs with rendering.

I feel like the head, tail, hands and feet could all be incorporated with practical effects even if full body motion is better rendered via CGI.

[CyberZilla]

Honestly, I agree that there should be a hybrid use of practical effects and CGI. Some of the newer Star Wars films did that, as I recall, and the aliens and droids that used such combined effects looked pretty great. Not to mention the first couple Jurassic Park movies weaved the two together so well.

I don’t think suitmation is gonna be the future for Godzilla movies, unfortunately, but perhaps some aspects of suitmation can still come back for hybrid effects.

[LegendZilla]

I'll give Japan at least 10 years before they can reach the same level of effects technology as Hollywood on a mass scale.

[DrBreakfastMachine]

Reminds me of something I was thinking about the other day: for as awful as the 2005 Fantastic Four movie is, the practical suit used for The Thing looks pretty good, and holds up well against most CGI of that era. And while I'm sure the upcoming MCU version will be a much better movie overall, it makes me sad knowing The Thing is pretty much guaranteed to be 100% CGI, and it's kind of a crapshoot how it'll turn out, and how it'll age, whereas the 2005 Thing will always look he's really there in the room.

I feel the same about the Heisei and Millennium Godzilla movies. They might not all be winners in the script department, but there is a timeless quality to a guy in a suit smashing miniature buildings that sort of future-proofs them in a strange way. When I revisit them years later they look exactly the same as I remember them. Meanwhile, CGI almost always looks worse when I revisit it, even in megabudget movies like PJ's King Kong. We get better each year at identifying bad CGI, but a guy in a suit is always a guy in a suit. You get exactly what you expect, for better or worse.