Showa Gamera Suits

[klen7]

[jellydonut25]

[tbeasley]

I think they care. They know he can make them money. They've just become so bureaucratic with the character, holding certain filmmakers back (Kaneko), and at the same time making some poor decisions when it comes to loosening the reins (Emmerich, Kitamura).

[jellydonut25]

[tbeasley]

If they truly didn't care they'd forget about him entirely. It's up to the people they hand him to now to do a good job.

[ILL GREEN]

Toho cares, they never would have made G2000 if they didn't feel GINO could've killed the franchise. They need Godzilla like Disney needs Mickey. Also, Toho loved the Gamera trilogy, so much they put Kaneko aboard for GMK. I think Gamera just has a huge price tag that Toho refuses to pay.

[H-Man]

Sorry for the necro-bump. I was happy that August included some information about the Showa Gamera suits in his Shout! Factory TV introductions (which I just got around to watching). I also went back to the Gamera vs. Barugon commentary by August and Jason Varney. Here's what I pieced together:

The first Gamera suit was only used in the original film. Equis Productions, which built most of the Gamera costumes, delivered a new one for Gamera vs. Barugon. At this point, obviously, there were two Gamera suits. August's intros for Gyaos and Viras don't have any info on the Gamera suits in those films. It looks to me like the one in Gyaos was new and later reused for the next film. The costume in Guiron, Jiger, and Zigra is the same, the major difference being a new head affixed to the costume for Jiger. (In the Zigra video, August says, "While Equis Productions had to overhaul the Gamera suit used in the last three films..." I'm not sure if he's including Zigra in that count or excluding it and going back to Viras.)

Lastly, he says that Equis built a new suit for Super Monster that went unused on screen. Supposedly is a picture of it. However, there is almost certainly a Gamera suit (or part of one) used in the scene where Gamera knocks over the "Dojira" poster.

So that gives us:

*Gamera (1965) - New
*Gamera vs. Barugon - New
*Gamera vs. Gyaos - ?
*Gamera vs. Viras - ? (I think this is the same as the previous suit.)
*Gamera vs. Guiron - New/Possible reuse from 1968.
*Gamera vs. Jiger - Reuse from 1969.
*Gamera vs. Zigra - Reuse from 1969.
*Gamera, Super Monster - New

[Benjamin Haines]

[H-Man]