...leaves me completely impressed that this is no man walking in a suit for the first time.
This seems like a red herring. First, I'm seeing no evidence that it was
"the first time." Second, even if it was, so what?
One of the first viewers of the film, a Russian bio-mechanics expert, concluded that the walk is more efficient than a human walk.
Now I'm rarely one to question the conclusions of alleged anonymous "Russian bio-mechanics experts"...but I might, here. How can one determine that something is "more efficient than a human walk" from a few seconds of a figure walking
(instead of running [?] when it is supposedly in a big hurry to flee).
What does that even mean? After all this evolution, humans are lousy bipeds?
Like Mendel, I would've never thought that serious scientists would some day be analyzing the gait of my Bigfoot costume'd buddy for gender clues. I'm just hoping to make a quick buck. And since we have a history of precisely zero Bigfoots, the idea of attaching any weight to a declaration that it's definitely a "male" gait seems silly.
Yes, I initially saw a big male in a furry costume...but probably less because
of the gait, than that I'd just presumed that a large person was in it, and men
are usually the larger persons. When I first saw Chewbacca in 1977, I assumed
it was a big male in
that Bigfoot costume, and yep, it was 7'3" Peter Mayhew.
I also agree with the poster who pointed out that it's a hell of lot easier
to create something, than to later duplicate it. While I am slightly intrigued
that some costume people have declared it to be pretty sophisticated,
I've always just seen a (probably deliberately) terrible image of a man
walking for a few seconds in an unimpressive ape (?) suit.