10 Real Reasons Movie Characters Seemed So Sinister
8. The Godzilla Suit's Inflexibility Caused Haruo Nakajima To Make Unnatural Movements - Godzilla
Though it may seem unavoidably dated today, the 1954 Godzilla film is still a terrific movie.
It may be obvious we're watching a man in a monster suit wreaking havoc on a bunch of miniatures, but there's still an offputting charm to the inhuman way in which the creature moves around.
Curiously, though, this was basically an accident. The Godzilla suit made for actors Haruo Nakajima and Katsumi Tezuka was so stiff and inflexible that little of Tezuka's footage was considered usable.
It fell to Nakajima to pick up the slack, then, and because the suit was so rigid that it could stand upright without anyone inside it, he was forced to move around in over-exaggerated ways.
This had the knock-on effect of mitigating the obvious truth that a man was in the suit, making Godzilla's movements seem unnatural and not-human, ensuring that audiences of the time easily bought the illusion.
Even Nakajima could only spend three minutes at a time in the ultra-hot suit before passing out, however, and he ended up losing 20 pounds over the course of shooting.
And yet, had the suit been comfortable and flexible, the effect of the city-wrecking monster wouldn't be nearly as believably otherworldly.