The long-awaited “Godzilla” (PG-13) opens Wednesday, and we’re dying to see the monster special effects. Visual-effects supervisor Volker Engel gave us some hints.
A visual-effects supervisor is responsible for creating everything in a movie that is not real. And in this flick, the most “unreal” thing is Godzilla himself. According to Volker, almost 90 percent of Godzilla’s movements were computer generated.
“Ten percent was creature effect done with scale models, like a one-sixth-scale, 22-foot upper torso and a huge head, 10 to 12 feet long,” he said.
Will we be able to tell the difference between the computer-generated Godzilla and realistic models? “Not if we’ve done our jobs,” Volker said.
Why use computer animation at all? Because, as the Godzilla ad says, size does matter – especially with special effects. This lean, mean monster is supposed to be 22 stories tall.
“When you deal with a 20-foot Tyrannosaurus rex, you can use a mechanical T. rex on stage,” Volker said. “But we had to film in Manhattan, then plug in our computer-generated creature – even all the craters it left behind when it was walking.”
That meant special- effects artists, including explosion expert Joe Viskocil, had to help Godzilla kick up dust.
“Joe had to imagine what the surroundings would look like once the creature finished with them” – and then make it so, said spokesman Will Plyler of Centropolis, the group helping with special effects. “When Godzilla was added to the shots, it looked like he was causing the destruction.”
One thing Volker and his team did NOT have to simulate was blood or guts. “It’s not really such a gory movie,” Volker said. “No eating people. When you see Godzilla step down, you see people running away, not going squish between its toes.”
Will this Godzilla be the same old Japanese cornball our parents used to watch? “It’s much less human, less like a man in a suit,” Volker said. “It’s much more like a wild animal. … This Godzilla is full of surprises. But you’ll have to go to the movie to find out.”
HE’S BAD TO THE BONED
Most people agree, the Godzilla of past movies and legends has dinosaurian roots. But exactly what kind?
“Godzilla would be a theropod,” said Kenneth Carpenter, a paleontologist at the Denver Museum of Natural History. “He’d be a sharp- toothed, two -legged carnivore in the same family as Tyrannosaurus rex.”
“He’d be the paleontological Unabomber,” said famed digger Robert Bakker. “Born of atomic interference, evolved from a beast that ate buses. But yes, a theropod.”
Once Godzilla nabbed his three squares, gobbling would be easy. “T. rex had a short, deep skull with powerful jaws,” Carpenter said. “Scale that up to Godzilla size and you’re talking a bone-crushing bite.”
But Godzilla’s 20-story height might be hard to biologically balance, Bakker said. “You could build an animal that big, but the legs would have to get thicker and thicker just to sustain the weight.”
Then there is the problem of heat, Bakker said. “Godzilla might be fine standing still, but put it in the sun, make it run laps, do pushups, push a building over with its tail, and there could be a problem. And I don’t even want to think about when it poops.”
What would Godzilla eat?
Bakker said: “If I were this hot-blooded, immense creature traversing the American continent, I know what I’d do. I’d head straight for the stock yards of Sioux City, Iowa, and snarf up a thousand juicy herefords.”
