Congratulations GODZILLA MINUS ONE For Best VFX Oscar Win! Here Are Some Cool Details About That!
Godzilla Minus One won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects and while I think it deserved a few other nominations, I’m happy and excited to see it win the Oscar that it did! Congratulations to the VFX team led by director Takashi Yamazaki!
This is the first Godzilla movie to win an Oscar, but another cool detail is the fact that this is also the first VFX Oscar win for Japan! On top of that, Takashi Yamazaki is the first director to win an award for Best Visual Effects since Stanley Kubrick and his work on 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1969.
The rest of the nominees that were up for this award include Napoleon, Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Part 1, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and The Creator. That’s a good lineup of competition, but Godzilla Minus One deserved the win.
Director Takashi Yamazaki previously talked about the VFX work detailing the approach to this new design for Godzilla, saying: "We wanted to make Godzilla very, very cool for this film. The head is on the smaller side, the legs are very thick. When the feet are stomping on the ground, you can almost see the toes being raised, like a wild animal's. And we wanted impact for the audience, so there's an intense level of getting up close, personal and detailed, that you can't really do with a man in a suit."
Yamazaki went on to confirm that the film’s budget was $10 to $15 million USD, which is pretty incredible considering how great the movie looks. The filmmaker added: "In terms of polygon counts, we're talking millions that went into creating Godzilla this time. In terms of the skin texture, there was a dinosaur origin, but when it's wounded, a regeneration happens and there's a different texture, like you would see on any wound. We wanted a mix, brought in new layers that would make the look very unique."
He also said: “To have my name next to Stanley Kubrick, no matter how niche or specific the list is, it means so much. I came into the film industry because of movies like ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind.’ But I started on the visual effects side and transitioned into writing and directing. So if there is any category to be nominated in, this is the one it was meant to be. I’m very flattered and honored by it.”
Set in the days after the end of World War II, Japan is reeling from the devastation left behind after the war. The emotional toll has brought the country to its lowest point.
The story follows the failed kamikaze pilot Kiochi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and Noriko (Minami Hamabe), a woman pushed into homelessness, taking care of an abandoned child. During this low point Godzilla marches ashore, pulling Japan even deeper into chaos and devastation.
Godzilla Minus One taps into the grief, hope, trauma, and guilt felt in the world after the tragedies of World War II and the 2019 Covid pandemic, during which the majority of the script was written.
Yamazaki said: “Postwar Japan has lost everything. The film depicts an existence that gives unprecedented despair. The title Godzilla Minus One was created with this in mind. In order to depict this, the staff and I have worked together to create a setting where Godzilla looks as if 'fear' itself is walking toward us, and where despair is piled on top of despair.”