I Dont Want To Hijack That Other Swell Thread For This But Isnt It Kind Of Weird That The Official Stock

I don’t want to hijack that other swell thread for this but isn’t it kind of weird that the official stock image of the whole gang has velma seemingly leaning her entire weight on their dog’s head?

One thing that’s always confused me is that its almost always the specific quadrupedal bat stanced wyvern bodyplan that Vermithrax originated.  Which is odd considering bats are A. tiny by comparison and don’t need to support a lot of weight, and B. aren’t particularly good at walking around anyway.  You’d think if they were really concerned with realism they’d go with a design that was better suited to handle weight and locomotion, like the more upright quadrupedal stances seen in Pterosaurs or the bipedal stance seen in birds as well as some wyverns in Japanese media.  I kind of wonder if part of its constant use may be down to it being less time consuming in CGI to use the same basic animation rigs that have been present since the controls for Vermithrax’s Go Motion model.

A Thought About Pop Culture Dragons

When I was a kid, in the ‘90s, I remember dragons were always depicted one of two ways:  either as a standard European Dragon (you know, four legs and two wings, breathes fire, etc.) or as a standard serpent-like Asian Dragon.  While Asian Dragons still pop up from time to time, at what point did the traditional European Dragon drop off and get replaced with Wyverns (two legs, two wings)?

Like, it definitely predates Game of Thrones becoming a popular TV show though I think it definitely has helped solidify it (I remember they changed the design for Smaug in the Hobbit films to a Wyvern to try and cash in), but it was already a trend in the years leading up to it.

I don’t remember Wyverns being a thing at all in media prior to, say, Reign of Fire.  Like, I know there were Wyverns in movies before that, but it’s like that movie serves as some sort of border - prior to that Wyverns were rare, after they seem to be the most common.  Why?  It couldn’t have been THAT movie, of all things, to do it, could it?

I suspect @tyrantisterror might know, being the resident dragon expert.  :p

To be fair most of the design changes in the Heisei series were extremely minor, mostly slight deviations in proportion.  The only exceptions are the transition from Godzilla ‘84 to Biollante, likely due to the relatively long time between releases, and from Space Godzilla to Destroyah, for narrative reasons.

If Legendary Godzilla were going to have design alterations along the lines of the Heisei series, I don’t see the majority of the public noticing at all.  I could see them changing some of the proportions to be closer to interpretations of the design seen in other media, which often tend to give him a longer neck and larger head than seen in the movie.

So it looks like Dougherty is considering redesigning Godzilla a bit for Godzilla: KotM. I have some concerns about this. Mainly that I feel like it'll be kinda weird continuity-wise if they redesign Godzilla and try to explain it as "Evolving" like Dougherty's tweet says. A: That's not what evolution is, B: Please don't try to imitate Shin-Godzilla Legendary. After the weirdness of Shin-Godzilla I need a "Normal" Godzilla to feel comfortable.

Meh. Some mild design tweaks are to be expected. Helps sell toys

The way I see it there are two possible options, either Dougherty is joking around with all these comments or Godzilla: King of the Monsters will be done entirely using Suitmation, with a modified Godzilla design to accommodate the change in effects.

Something I wondered about Dougherty’s approach was whether he’d take direct influence from Shin Godzilla since he likes it so much. His “evolution in the flesh” comment seems to confirm that the answer is yes.

Finally...

After years of nigh-unwatchable “public domain” releases by the likes of Alpha Video and Retromedia, Gappa the Triphibian Monster is coming to Blu-ray and DVD via Tokyo Shock on February 25. The company previously issued it on DVD in 2000, but it was non-anamorphic and is long since out of print. Knowing how Tokyo Shock’s recent kaiju releases have gone, however, best to snap this one up fast before it suffers the same fate.

Tweety Bird has a pretty well defined personality: a sadistic sociopath who puts on an innocent facade in order to get away with cold blooded torture.

I feel like Tweety Bird is the Mickey Mouse of Warner Brothers. An icon they’ve made unavoidable, yet nobody can really describe the character’s personality or anything particularly funny about them. How would you even explain Tweety if your goal was to sell Tweety cartoons? A bird who’s just kind of nonchalant about everything?