It only took 70 years, but Godzilla has finally gone home with the gold. Godzilla Minus One made history at the 96th Academy Awards, securing the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, a first-time win for the Godzilla franchise. Given how important Godzilla has been to nearly a century of international film, it’s a long overdue accolade that couldn’t have gone to a more deserving entry. Minus One isn’t just a great movie, but a prime showcase of director Takashi Yamazaki’s strong artistic vision and proof that Godzilla’s ability to change with the times is unparalleled among film characters.
But there is another lesson that Hollywood should take away from Godzilla Minus One’s landmark achievement. How did a movie with a small VFX team of 35 artists and a frugal budget of $15 million show up the entire Hollywood blockbuster apparatus? Part of the answer lies in the film’s leaning into a distinctly 1990s way of depicting CG effects.
When Did CG Become ‘Bad’?
More so than resources or manpower, I would contend that the issue ultimately comes down to attitude, and how Hollywood has spent the past couple of decades denigrating the entire field of visual effects artistry. What was once a brand new field of exciting technology that was supposed to expand what was possible within the medium by a wide margin has instead spent much of the 21st century being treated like a laborious obligation that many filmmakers and audiences wish would go away. Even though it’s now virtually impossible to find studio movies that don’t implement VFX to some extent or another (you’d be surprised how much invisible effects work is used in mid-budget dramas and action films), many promo tours for even gargantuan blockbusters like Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Top Gun: Maverick spend much of their time touting their reliance on “practical” effects and making bold claims about how everything was done “for real” on camera.
These claims are, of course, not the whole story. Blending in-camera and digital VFX work is the most prevalent method for most movies, and the fetishization of practical effects is largely a marketing tactic to appeal to jaded filmgoers who are overly hostile to CGI, even when they often can’t tell when CGI is actually being implemented. More substantively, this attitude of thinking of VFX as “lesser” has bled into the next generation of filmmakers, even incredibly talented ones. Robert Eggers, the acclaimed director of The Witch and The Lighthouse, said in an interview with Polygon that “I whip myself every night” for using CGI in his 2022 film The Northman, even though the finished product features almost 400 VFX shots. The trades have also gotten in on this false mythology of VFX-lite movies, such as The Hollywood Reporter describing Dune: Part 1 as “putting the focus on physical production, with far less CG saturation than most of its recent genre brethren” even though the film (which also won an Oscar for its visual effects, mind you) contains 1700 VFX shots. And yes, even we at IGN have given in to this trend occasionally ourselves.
‘I could just go to someone’s monitor, approve things, give them direction.’ -Director Takashi Yamazaki
With how much Hollywood seems to hate but can’t help but use CGI, it’s remarkable to hear how different of an attitude Godzilla Minus One director Takashi Yamazaki takes towards his Oscar-winning VFX team. In an interview with IGN about the black-and-white version of Godzilla Minus One, Yamazaki had this to say about working on the movie’s VFX:
“I was right there the whole time, on site, on the same floor, I could just go to someone’s monitor, approve things, give them direction, and get another feedback loop in the time that perhaps people have to send dailies or wait for notes to show up… I had a clear goal, more perhaps than other directors, because of my VFX background.”
That last part is particularly important, because beyond writing and directing, Yamazaki has worked for many years as a visual effects supervisor, often directly contributing to the VFX teams on his projects. He shares this trait with fellow Godzilla director Gareth Edwards, who also created some of 2023’s best visuals with his Oscar-nominated film The Creator.
CG Is Not a Band-Aid
That’s not to say that you have to be an effects artist to know how to implement them, but approaching the CG sequences as integral components of your film that require care and craft, and not thinking of them as a band-aid that can be slathered all over whatever doesn’t work in post-production, is a key reason why Godzilla Minus One looks as good as it does. Purposefully designing shots in pre-production with attention to how the VFX will be blended with the rest of the shot later on leads to far better results in the final edit. We’ve discussed recently on IGN how poor planning and constant post-production tinkering can balloon blockbuster budgets out of control, and Hollywood’s lackadaisical attitude towards VFX is another part of the same problem. When directors and executives don’t know what they want before they shoot the movie, it causes problems later on because the assets they have don’t blend effectively, leading to ridiculously expensive but garish-looking final products.
When watching Minus One in particular, some easy lessons can quickly be taken away from how incredible Godzilla looks in all of his big scenes. A focus on naturalistic lighting, without any fancy grading, and a consistent color palette help sell the computer-generated elements as part of the same frame because they don’t have to contrast with other eye-drawing visual components. Yamazaki also pays attention to how weight and scale would affect Godzilla’s movement: He’s always portrayed as lumbering and even kind of stiff, creating a sense of verisimilitude because a creature of that size would move in that manner. Godzilla feels authentic because the production and creature design, the cinematography, lighting, framing, coloring, and the visual effects are all working in tandem to create the illusion that Godzilla is a living, breathing creature. It’s a stunning effect that more than earns the awards it’s been given.
What’s especially frustrating about seeing how many people who make and watch films lambasting CGI is how ahistorical it is. Digital effects have been a part of movies since Michael Crichton’s 1973 film Westworld (yes, really), and were also used in the original Star Wars trilogy. There was a time when landmark films like 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day and 1993’s Jurassic Park stunned critics and audiences with groundbreaking achievements in CGI that used the very techniques we’ve discussed to make digitally animated robots and dinosaurs that felt as real as the human actors they interacted with. Remarkable motion capture work on Davy Jones in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy or Caesar in the new Planet of the Apes films, and even James Cameron developing all-new technology to bring his Avatar sequels to life are all part of a storied history of talented filmmakers who approached VFX with curiosity and excitement rather than trepidation and loathing.
Now, this obviously isn’t the full extent of the problem, and none of this means that Hollywood should try to replicate Godzilla Minus One’s exact circumstances since the Japanese film industry is different from America’s. Hollywood taking that approach would likely just result in smaller VFX teams working more hours for less money. Minus One was a special case, but it also stands as an exemplar of what can be achieved with a distinctive, consistent vision and an appreciation for what digital effects can add to your film. Perhaps if more directors emulated Yamazaki’s attitude towards VFX, we could finally get back to being wowed by what they can do.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.
About Author
