Ash Ketchum

There's a good article from Tokyo in today's New York Times on how traditional Japanese special effects--rubber-suited monsters and superheroes in miniature sets--are gradually being phased out. The correspondent reports from the set of the newest Ultraman movie. (The Japanese continue to do new Ultraman, Kamen Rider and Sentai/Power Rangers movies every year.) The reporter even interviews Shinji Higuchi, who directed the special effects sequences for the three 1990s Gamera movies. The interviewees lament the fact that younger workers aren't being trained in the time-honored techniques. When the current generation of craftsmen retire, that's it.

Here's the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/wo...lla-roars.html

TGM

I don't buy it, someone will always produce hokey shit like this... because it's cheap.

Solid Snake

Always wondered when this would happen. It was getting closer to it and it is heavily aged to the point where it isn't as dynamic as it was.

I love that work they do but it doesn't look good anymore. At least to me and in this time. I'd love to see another Toho Godzilla film done in this method but even the millennium series had a clash of imagery with its effects. The problem with all this is that Japan isn't as amazing as it was in film. I do think if you gave a G film to a very good director you'd be able to bring a dynamicism of filmmaking to it. Unfortunately Toho has mostly done what was done to Bond. Thought of it as a product from a machine line. No unique level of authorship/creativity.

majorjoe23

Good, it's about time Japan got its rubber monster problem under control. 60 years is too damn long to let an issue like this slide.

Dr. DVD

Interesting article. However, I too believe it is time for this stuff to move aside. I actually am kind of shocked it's lasted into the 21st century.

Solid Snake

I've never been amazed by the CGI work in their films. Do they not have great CGI studios over there or they just plop enough money for foregin studios to do what needs to be done and then just roll with it?

There is NOTHING wrong with a CGI G if it's done right. But there is also something entirely wrong with Japan not moving on with it's mythology in film and evolving with the filmmaking.

Orbi-Wan Techno

Thanks for posting. I am always interested in reading about practical vs CGI effects.

Matthew Chmiel

Godzilla: Final Wars.

I rest my case.

islandclaws

Nice, albeit brief, article. I've been a big fan of tokusatsu films for as long as I can remember. They're right, nothing can beat a tangible suit allowing for unexpected takes and a sense of realism. But, sadly, modern audiences rarely appreciate these things any longer, which leads to a rise in CGI characters and environments. Personally, I like to see a mix of the two in newer kaiju films. I'm not exactly a big fan of the millenium era of Godzilla films, but they did provide a good blend of rubber suit elements alongside CGI. I'd like to see future productions do the same, though it's unlikely to happen. Especially if they pull off Godzilla '14, there's no way audiences in U.S. or Japan would accept a regression back to man-in-suit when CGI had worked so well.

brainee

I see it like stop-motion monster effects. It was part of some great movies, but it's a technique whose time has past.

They do need to get better CGI. Nothing quite tears me out of a monster/fantasy movie like bad CGI. And I've seen a number of recent Asian movies with jarringly bad CGI that spoiled otherwise good movies. It can be done well on a budget, but you don't want to go down the road of SyFy Channel original movies.

Solid Snake

To what? It was a pretty fun film but it wasn't great. Issues even calling it a solid good. I enjoyed seeing all that shit happening with the Kaiju but was it the way you'd want the big G end for the way it did? No. Godzilla hasn't been great for years. He's always been awesome cuz he's...the big G. No. Godzilla has sucked for years.

As a combination of CGI and practical effects? It was at best ok. There is no creativity in that CGI. Even for that year it's not up to par.

I thought the article was nice but severely short. That's to blame that I love that filmmaking type in Japan. In the modern era...I'm not sure the rubber suit Kaiju looks all that great. Mostly to blame on failure to color time Kaiju suit fight with everything else, undynamic use of the camera, failure to get a good CGI studio or put enough money into it, creative imagination, etc.

They've lived on the standard of merely good for a while. Blame it on Toho, blame it on whomever but it's true. They went for fresh and different but never pulled solid quality storytelling. I did really enjoy 2 or 3 of the millenium series.

Ky-Fi

I kind of have mixed feelings about that. I LOVE the Japanese work from the mid 50's to the mid 70's. At its best, it was really creative, cool and fun, and really brought something unique to those movies and tv shows. While I still like a lot of Godzilla and Gamera movies from the 80's, 90's and 2000's, there really wasn't the same charm to them. The suitmation and miniature effects still looked pretty good, and still looked better than bad CGI, but yeah, maybe the time for those effects is past. I think with both stop-motion and suitmation, they didn't usually look real, but they looked cool and really added to the vibe of the movies--and movies aren't always about creating worlds that are realistic.

But yeah, it will probably go the route of stop-motion, where it may occasionally be used for effect (Terminator, Army of Darkness), but you won't really have films built around it.

TheMadMonk

With the Fukushima radiation leaks, they'll soon have real giant rubber monsters to worry about!

Anzeo

Eh, give it five years and hipster will hit Japan. Then you'll have about 50 different directors throwing it in because it is retro and chic. I wouldn't count it out just yet, nor would I see it as a dying art, yet.

fujishig

I think Super Sentai returned to miniatures a couple of seasons ago (Gobusters) and after a semi-drought it made a big difference. It seems like Kamen Rider and Super Sentai are getting destroyed in the ratings to stuff like Pokemon, though the merchandise sales are still pretty good. But if there are still jobs around, isn't the economy in Japan such that some young people would come learn the craft to have a job?

majorjoe23

I thought hipster came from Japan. Based on the movies and photos I've seen they had it 10+ years ago.

Or is this one of those things where no one knows what that damn word means (I'm including myself in that)?

Mattflix

Great, without rubbers STD's will run rampant throughout Japan.