the history of visual effects

[Temis the Vorta]

http://scifiwire.com/2009/08/watch-the-history-of-sci-.php#more]TheThe history of visual effects according to scifiwire.

Nice to see Mary Poppins hasn't been entirely forgotten. But the Death Star clip is cheating a little bit, where it's placed in the timeline.

So. Which scenes did they forget?

And what would a History of BAD Visual Effects clips entail (picking only on the big boys of course; no fair going after low-budget stuff)?

I'll get the obvious one out of the way...

 

[Lapis Exilis]

I always thought the final animation in Forbidden Planet was really good. And they completely dissed Planet of the Apes.

Some bad effects shots would include the Genesis cave in TWOK with the weird pteradactyl or whatever flying by - really awful blue screen/ claymation combo.

And of course, the fake shark in Jaws.

 

[Duncan MacLeod]

That fake shark scared the shit out of people at the time.

Caused a serious drop in beach tourism too.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Some bad effects shots would include the Genesis cave in TWOK

But was that really bad for the standards of that time?

Ditto for Bruce the Shark. He sure scared the sh*t outta me (when I was far too young to notice special effects in movies).

 

[Klaus]

^^I was sufficiently old that Bruce didn't freak me out lol. When I was young enough to be scared I didn't go to scary movies. Alien made me jump like everyone else, but that's not the same thing as being scared.

And as for TWoK, I remember the animation of the prsopective Genesis world being formed [in the briefing Kirk showed Bones] being more impressive at the time.

...the fx which have held up the best for me has got to be the original Kong. Over seventy-five frakking years later, it still works. The Kong-T. Rex fight is still one of my top 2 or 3 fx sequences ever.

 

[Mistral]

Like Kong, Jason fighting the skeletons is also amazing considering it's age/technology.

 

[3D Master]

The new Kong, and other juxtaposition opportunities.

The remastered death star explosion of the Special Editions should really be later; and the original earlier, and a few more old / new, perhaps even split screen images of the old and new version.

And uh... Star Trek? Where's Star Trek. I'm pretty sure the special effects for a mere tv show back in the 60s were pretty amazing; once again juxtaposition opportunities with the remastered versions later.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

That was an interesting video, but I would have liked to have seen more clips from Pre-Star Wars films. Perhaps the maker of the video was limited in what was available for inclusion? I would have liked shots from War of the Worlds (50's version), The Incredible Shrinking Man, Darby O'Gil and the Little People, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the Red Sea sequence from the 1950's version of The Ten Commandments (odd that they only included that sequence from the 1920's version). Possibly The Fantastic Voyage as well.

Although it came out just after Star Wars, a few shots from Close Encounters would have been appropriate too.

 

[Shazam!]

I thought maybe something from LOTR might've made it into the clip.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

What, no 2001: A Space Odyssey? What about Close Encounters of the Third Kind? To name just two.

That mashup seemed way too biased toward CGI and animated effects, with almost no clear recognition of model work (outside Star Wars). It's a neat five minutes, but nowhere near representative of "100 years of inspiration."

 

[Lapis Exilis]

That fake shark scared the shit out of people at the time.

Caused a serious drop in beach tourism too.

Except I don't think it was the effect of the shark dummy. I think what scared people was the music and dismembered body parts, along with the general atmosphere of the movie and the building up of the idea of the great white as a killing machine. When the shark itself shows up - I remember it kind of leeched the terror out of it all for me.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Wasn't the first clear view of the shark when Roy Scheider was throwing chum in the water and he didn't even notice it at first? Everyone laughed at that.

 

[Greylock Crescent]

^ "We're going to need a bigger boat"

 

[Trubinator]

A very poor and incomplete list...

 

[Maurice]

Some bad effects shots would include the Genesis cave in TWOK with the weird pteradactyl or whatever flying by - really awful blue screen/ claymation combo.

You're conflating some other film and TWOK. Nothing flies by in the Genesis cave.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

Some bad effects shots would include the Genesis cave in TWOK with the weird pteradactyl or whatever flying by - really awful blue screen/ claymation combo.

You're conflating some other film and TWOK. Nothing flies by in the Genesis cave.

I wonder whether Lapis is thinking of the creature that flies past the swamp in The Empire Strikes Back.

 

[Aike]

What, no 2001: A Space Odyssey? What about Close Encounters of the Third Kind? To name just two.

That mashup seemed way too biased toward CGI and animated effects, with almost no clear recognition of model work (outside Star Wars). It's a neat five minutes, but nowhere near representative of "100 years of inspiration."

The movie was not about special effects (model work, real explosions etc.), it was about visual effects (animation, cgi and so on).

 

[Arrqh]

What, no 2001: A Space Odyssey? What about Close Encounters of the Third Kind? To name just two.

That mashup seemed way too biased toward CGI and animated effects, with almost no clear recognition of model work (outside Star Wars). It's a neat five minutes, but nowhere near representative of "100 years of inspiration."

The movie was not about special effects (model work, real explosions etc.), it was about visual effects (animation, cgi and so on).

No, model work is almost always in the visual effects category by the current definitions. Special effects are things that are done entirely in one camera shot, visual effects use multiple film elements that are combined after they are shot.

Older model work obviously wasn't comped digitally, but it was comped optically after the fact (woo matte lines!). So those all fall into the category of visual effects. Similarly, model work is still used in a lot of movies typically (but not always) in conjunction with CGI... and those shots are all also considered visual effects.

 

[Aike]

No, model work is almost always in the visual effects category by the current definitions.

But was it in that category before Star Wars? 2001 has a lot of impressive model work, but is it really groundbreaking when it comes to visual effects?

 

[Arrqh]

Actually I just look it up and was surprised to find that most of the visuals in 2001 actually were accomplished in camera because the DP apparently wasn't a fan of bluescreen and optical compositing. So by the definition you're right... most of 2001 was actually special effects, not visual effects.

Most model work was still comped though, as far as I know (certainly Close Encounters was).