GareGoji

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Godzilla designs
FinalGoji
GareGoji
ShinGoji
GareGoji
The GareGoji in Godzilla (2014)
Type CGI
Nicknames LegendaryGoji, RejeGoji,
Hollywood Godzilla, AmeriGoji, 14Goji, Godzilla 2014
Portrayed by CGI, TJ Storm (motion capture)[1]
Used in Godzilla (2014),
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters
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Candidate for deletion
This article has been marked for deletion.
Reason: Plans to merge Godzilla design pages with Godzilla incarnation pages are underway. For more information, see the forum topic.
This article covers the 2014 Godzilla design. For the design introduced in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, see DougheGoji. For the Godzilla incarnation, see Godzilla (Monsterverse).

The GareGoji (ギャレゴジ,   GyareGoji)[2][3] is the Godzilla design used in the 2014 film Godzilla, as well as flashbacks in the 2023 television series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters.

Name

"GareGoji" combines the names of Godzilla (2014) director Gareth Edwards with Godzilla's Japanese name, Gojira (ゴジラ).[2][3]

Development

The GareGoji was primarily designed by Weta Workshop, who provided most of the creature effects for Peter Jackson's King Kong in 2005. Director Gareth Edwards has stated that there were over one hundred designs created for Godzilla.[4] In one of the first conversions between Edwards and Weta, it was agreed that the concept of Godzilla was fundamentally impossible and unable to rationalize, meaning that the audience needed to rely on suspension of disbelief to take Godzilla seriously in the film.[5] Gareth Edwards worked closely with Toho to make sure they approved of the design.[6] According to Edwards, Toho was heavily involved in the design process.[7] Edwards has also cited Weta Workshop concept artist Andrew Baker as the greatest creative influence on the GareGoji design.[8] Overall, the designers took great care to make Godzilla recognizable.[9] Edwards personally felt that it was important to him to have the GareGoji design feel like it was made by Toho.[7]

Early designs were based on dinosaurs, depicting Godzilla with his torso positioned vertically rather than horizontally like a theropod dinosaur or the TriStar Godzilla from the previous American Godzilla movie. Gareth Edwards explained "You have to steal from nature. Nature had billions of years to design Godzilla; we had one year."[10][11][12][13] However, the goal when designing the famous kaiju was to not create a monster or a Tyrannosaurus rex.[5] Gareth Edwards even rejected one design he liked that was created by Greg Broadmore on the basis that he felt it "was too much like a T. rex."[14][15] Several concepts also hearkened back to earlier Godzilla designs.[16][17] The designers looked to the natural world for inspiration, including marine creatures such as marine iguanas and large oceanic mammals. Weta Workshop designers also worked on concepts for the tail, several of which were longer than the final version.[5] One design by Christian Pearce notably featured what resembled older reconstructions of the thagomizer, the tail spikes that Stegosaurus had.[18]

One aspect of Godzilla design that received many variations in the design process was his dorsal plates.[19] The dinosaur-esque design created by Broadmore featured triangular-shaped plates like previous designs and his atomic breath was more electrical-based, similar to Frank Hong's early keyframe art.[14][11][20] Gareth Edwards did not like this design, saying that the plates were "incredibly big" and added that "you didn't see that form anywhere else on his body." Edwards also felt that the lightning effect made it difficult to understand what the audience was looking at.[11] Another potential design by Christian Pearce had the dorsal plates resemble the plates of Stegosaurus.[21] At one point Godzilla had porcupine spines in place of his signature plates. Though Edwards admitted that he liked this design, saying that it made Godzilla aggressive, he rejected it explaining "The problem is it just isn't Godzilla."[22] Two designs also featured a fish-like dorsal fin in place of Godzilla's signature plates.[23][24] One design that Edwards thought would be the final option for the fins was a fish-like design.[25][26] Christian Pearce and Andrew Baker, concept artists responsible for designing Godzilla who were also fans of the kaiju, were known to have arguments with Edwards to keep Godzilla's atomic breath and the shape of his dorsal plates. Eventually, Edwards agreed to keep the atomic breath,[5] but he disagreed with the design of the plates and chose an angular, broken slate look with his reasoning being that this trait "made more sense, as if the fins growing out of [Godzilla] are brittle and break."[27] However, the maple leaf-shaped dorsal plates seen in the majority of Godzilla's designs would later be incorporated into the GareGoji design by the time the 2012 Comic-Con teaser trailer was made.

Another feature that was heavily focused on was the face. The filmmakers preferred Godzilla to have an angular face, with Edwards believing that rounded facial features made Godzilla look too "cute."[9] Edwards began to favor an angular look for Godzilla after his displeasure with a retro-style design created by Broadmore that exhibited a rounded face.[16][14] A grizzly bear was initially considered as a basis for Godzilla's face, as its skull is angular, but Edwards felt that the eyes of the bear "didn't look right." Edwards then became inspired by the design of the vulture-like Skeksis from Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal, which Edwards has stated are his favorite images from film, as he even had a book containing a full page of their eyes. Liking this trait, Edwards then told the designers to look at birds of prey and vultures as references.[4] Bears and dogs also influenced his facial structure.[28] In the trend of using underwater life as a reference, Godzilla was given gills as well.[5] Gareth Edwards said about the gills, "You might say, oh, he should have gills. He's underwater and he's got no lungs—how else does he breathe? It might make some fans turn in their graves to know that we did this, but if just one things comes from it, it's well worth it."[29]

The design process of Godzilla continued further after the release of the 2012 Comic-Con teaser with Moving Picture Company concept artist Matt Allsopp.[6] Allsopp created the finalized design of Godzilla's head and his plates.[30] The GareGoji design received last-minute tweaks to his legs when his CG model was being animated, due to them being too thick.[17] Andy Serkis, who performed motion capture for King Kong in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake, was consulted to make the GareGoji and the MUTOs' computer-generated movement more realistic.[31] Godzilla's movements were based on lizards (such as the Komodo dragon), bears, lions, and wolves.[32]

The GareGoji model was reused almost a decade later for the television series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters (2023-2024), where detail was added to its dorsal plates for extreme close-ups.[33]

Detail

For Godzilla's return to the big screen after a 10-year hiatus, the King of the Monsters was revamped and given a new design that didn't look radically different from Toho's established Godzilla designs like the TriStar Godzilla design from the 1998 film. The GareGoji design is completely computer generated and no practical effects whatsoever were used to portray it. Many aspects of the GareGoji's design have an overall highly angular and spiky appearance to them. The face is boxy with tiny, yellow, eagle-like eyes in sunken sockets and has a broad muzzle with thin, spread-out, reptilian nostrils as opposed to more mammalian, clustered looking nostrils of Toho's designs. The mouth is lipless, like a crocodile, and has numerous small, unevenly spaced, needle-like teeth. While this design has no true ears, it does have a pair of small scutes in the same general location that ears would be, that can give the impression of them when viewed from frontward angles. These pseudo-ears are the first in a series of small spikes running down the sides of the neck. Similar bumpy spikes can be found on the sides of the edges of the lower jaw, the shoulder area, and sides of the beginning of the thighs. The neck is also short and extremely muscular and each side has several leafy-looking gills and its underside is partially covered with a series of overlapping, spiky, dewlap-like plates. This design has long, muscular arms and large, partially webbed, alligator-like hands with small, black claws. The GareGoji design has long, pillar-like legs attached to enormous thighs and hips and stumpy, elephant or sauropod-like feet with dull claws. This design also has wide shoulders and a barrel-shaped torso with a pair of large scale patterns on the chest. The dorsal plates are somewhat flat and of moderate size and have a mildly jagged, slightly chipped-away appearance to them, and bear a partial resemblance to the ones found on the MireGoji suit. The tail is long and more whip-like, with a much thinner tip compared with previous designs, and the tail segments are thinner and more angular. The skin texture is much more reptilian and lifelike than the keloid scar or tree-bark like texture found on many of the Toho designs and appears to have many visual similarities with crocodilians and sea turtles. This design is uniformly colored, including the plates, a dull greyish-brown or green.

Use in other media

Video games

Comics

Commercials

Gallery

Concept art

Godzilla

Production

Godzilla

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Screenshots

Godzilla trailers

Godzilla

Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters

"Aftermath"
"Secrets and Lies"
"Terrifying Miracles"

FIAT "Godzilla" commercial

Post-production

Merchandise

Toys

Costumes

Other

Trading cards

Magazines

Miscellaneous

References

This is a list of references for GareGoji. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

  1. TJ Storm on LinkedIn
  2. 2.0 2.1 https://twitter.com/godzilla_jp/status/1125577852563349504
  3. 3.0 3.1 別冊映画秘宝特撮秘宝vol.6. Yosensha. 16 June 2017. p. 44. ISBN 4800312493.
    Separate Volume Movie Treasure Tokusatsu Hiho Vol 6 - page 44.jpg
  4. 4.0 4.1 Turek, Ryan. (March 12, 2014) SXSW Exclusive: Gareth Edwards Talks Godzilla’s Design, Easter Eggs & How Close Encounters Influenced the Film. Comingsoon.net
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 Seymour, Mike. (June 2, 2014) Early Weta Workshop designs for Godzilla fxguide
  6. 6.0 6.1 Seymour, Mike. (July 2014) I Am Become Death. Cinefex (iPad edition), 138
  7. 7.0 7.1 Turek, Ryan. (July 19,2013) Comic-Con 2013 Interview: Gareth Edwards On Godzilla, Atomic Breath, the Design, Darabont & More! Comingsoon.net
  8. Andrew Baker Godzilla
  9. 9.0 9.1 Murphy, Mekado. (May 9, 2014) Godzilla in His Many Incarnations. New York Times
  10. [1]
  11. 11.0 11.1 11.2 "Christmas tree finned" Godzilla
  12. Josh Nizzi Godzilla
  13. Rejected Concepts
  14. 14.0 14.1 14.2 Broadmore, Greg. (February 6, 2015) Gojira, Godzilla, Tomayto, Tomahto. Greg Broadmore's Blog.
  15. The "T. rex" Godzilla"
  16. 16.0 16.1 Concept art of a classic look for GareGoji
  17. 17.0 17.1 Another Retro Look for the GareGoji
  18. Godzilla Concept Art
  19. Concept art of various designs for dorsal plates.
  20. Concept Art by Frank Hong
  21. Christian Pearce Godzilla concept art with Stegosaurus plates on his back.
  22. Concept of Godzilla with Spines
  23. First concept art of Godzilla with a dorsal fin.
  24. Second concept art of Godzilla with a dorsal fin.
  25. Andrew Baker Concept Art
  26. Godzilla with Fishlike Fins Concept Art
  27. Godzilla with "Broken Slate" Fins Concept Art
  28. Empire - Meet Empire's Godzilla Subscriber Cover (archives)
  29. Mark Cotta Vaz. Godzilla: The Art of Destruction. Insight Editions. p. 99. ISBN 978-1783292806.
  30. Head Design - Godzilla. Matt Allsopp Portfolio
  31. "Godzilla: Andy Serkis on Motion Capture." IGN. 2014.
  32. Giardiana, Carolyn. (May 27, 2014) 'Godzilla': How the Filmmakers Created the Iconic Creature and a Fully CG San Francisco (Photos). Hollywood Reporter
  33. Dunn, Billie Schwab (November 17, 2023). "Exclusive 'Monarch: Legacy of Monsters' Finally Solves Godzilla Mystery". Newsweek.
  34. 34.0 34.1 Godzilla by GENZOMAN on deviantART

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