Do bad visual effects ruin sic fi for you?

[Gotham Central]

I've never been overly obsessed with VFX, but I've recently been trying to watch old episodes of Doctor Who and Blake's 7 since people rave about how good they are. I'm having a hard time enjoying the stories because the VFX, sets and general production design are really awful. Both B 7 and the Doctor Who eps I've been watching are from the 70s....yet the quality of everything would not have been out of place on shows from the 50s. Ships noticeably wobble like they are on strings with smoke that rises into the air and ash that falls to the ground. Why are these shows so bad at effects in the 70s. Star Trek was made in 1966 and looked better. It can't be just a British thing since both UFO and Space: 1999 had more convincing sets and model work.

The poor production values are ,a,ing it hard to enjoy what are supposed to be pretty good stories.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

It really was a British thing, or at least a BBC thing

Never bothered me, though I always found it amusing.

I think even Dark Star, a college project film made in 1974, had better FX than Who.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

If it's made nowadays, the visual effects better be up to par. I'll make allowances for a TV budget - Falling Skies type quality is okay. I'll only tolerate BS visuals if it's an old Twilight Zone episode, where the writing makes up for it anyway. Old stuff should be on par with other stuff made at the same time.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Not in the least.

 

[Jetfire]

No...bad stories do.

 

[Orac]

^ This.

 

[Kelthaz]

Not at all.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

Bad special effects in bad stories either compound the problem or make it cheesy fun. Bad special effects in good stories generally don't bother me, unless it's absurdly out of tone. A fake looking alien in a movie taking place in space isn't a big deal, since we weren't grounded in reality to begin with. On the other hand, Samuel L. Jackson's arm in Jurassic Park takes me out of the scene because the scene is supposed to be serious, it's a practical effect of something seen in real life, and it just looks that bad.

 

[FalTorPan]

"Bad" visual effects don't ruin sci-fi for me. What looks "good" today will look "bad" tomorrow.

I think even Dark Star, a college project film made in 1974, had better FX than Who.

Dark Star? What's that?

 

[sojourner]

^think it's an album by Steely Dan.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

See, I think what looks good tomorrow will look better than what looks good today, but that doesn't necessarily mean something today looks good or bad simply by its place in time. There have been matte paintings, for example, which look spectacular and stand the test of time. Then there is CGI that looked bad at the time. Then there is stuff in the middle.

I'll go back to Jurassic Park. The arm looked bad then and looks bad now. The animatronics looked good then and looks good now on lower definition televisions, but can have some problems with hi-def. I think the CGI in that movie was pretty impressive both for its time and now.

 

[theenglish]

I agree that bad stories ruin the experience for me. I can watch and re-watch old Trek, Doctor Who, and a number of movies.

Where effects do bother me is when they are inserted into a movie or program without regard for how they look when a talented director can do a much better job with a lot less money. For example, if you don't have the money to invest in a cool looking alien or monster, keep it in the shadows and don't show me. I hated the eighties monster movies when there was always a big reveal at the end and the monster was silly and lame looking.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

"Bad" visual effects don't ruin sci-fi for me. What looks "good" today will look "bad" tomorrow.

I think even Dark Star, a college project film made in 1974, had better FX than Who.

Dark Star? What's that?

^think it's an album by Steely Dan.

No no, it was a song by CS&N (and sometimes Y)

 

[Christopher]

Bad special effects don't ruin a story for me, any more than it ruins the story of a play if I can see the stagehands rearranging the set pieces between scenes. The enjoyment of a work of fiction involves the willing suspension of disbelief: we know that what we see is merely simulated, but we choose to play along with the illusion.

I'm a child of the '70s, so I grew up with special effects that were more impressionistic than photorealistic. I learned to accept that VFX were just a suggestion or approximation; my role as a participant in the process was to use my imagination to envision what the FX were suggesting, just as I would use my imagination in the theater to pretend that a wooden stage was actually a grassy field or the deck of a ship.

Besides, the fun thing about old-style effects was that you could often see aspects of how they were created. To me, that's always been the most interesting thing about special effects -- the techniques behind them, the tricks used to create them. As long as I believe the FX artists made the best of what resources they had, as long as I see creativity being applied, I'm satisfied -- and the less money and technology you have, the more creativity you need.

Why are these shows so bad at effects in the 70s. Star Trek was made in 1966 and looked better. It can't be just a British thing since both UFO and Space: 1999 had more convincing sets and model work.

Budget, technology, talent. Star Trek had a modest budget for an American SF show, but it had tons more money than Doctor Who or Blake's 7, and it was using film instead of video so the techniques available were more advanced. Also, ST had up to five of the top VFX companies in Hollywood at the time doing its episodes on a rotating basis. Who and Blake pretty much had their FX done in-house at the BBC. Whereas UFO and Space: 1999 were produced by Gerry Anderson and his team, who'd become quite expert at miniature FX in their "Supermarionation" puppet series, and included artists such as Derek Meddings, who did the miniature work for many James Bond films (though Meddings didn't work on 1999).

 

[ManOnTheWave]

I've watched plays where the only thing on stage besides the actors was the lighting. Somehow I think I can sit through a few episodes of early seventies Who. In fact, I might even enjoy it more if the effects come off as dated.

 

[Greg Cox]

Not really. I mean, I grew up on monsters in rubber suits and paper-mache dinosaurs, so I just kind of snicker when kids these days complain that the latest high-tech CGI creation isn't photorealistic enough. I mean, I was watching WAR OF THE COLOSSAL BEAST again a few nights ago, and the 50's era SFX didn't bother me a bit.

It's only really a problem if the primitive SFX inhibits the storytelling. The old 1970's version of THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT suffers from the fact that the human characters can barely interact with the crude puppet dinosaurs. The problem isn't that the monsters look "fakey," but that it's hard to shoot a dynamic action sequence when your dinosaurs lack mobility and are seldom in the same frame as their human co-stars . . . .

The original version of THE ATTACK OF THE FIFTY-FOOT WOMAN also wrote checks its SFX budget couldn't cash, with the result that the titular 50-FOOT WOMAN isn't actually shown until the last ten minutes of the movie. That, I admit, is disappointing.

 

[Kelthaz]

I'm a child of the '70s, so I grew up with special effects that were more impressionistic than photorealistic. I learned to accept that VFX were just a suggestion or approximation; my role as a participant in the process was to use my imagination to envision what the FX were suggesting, just as I would use my imagination in the theater to pretend that a wooden stage was actually a grassy field or the deck of a ship.

Exactly! Special effects aren't meant to be enjoyed on their own merits, but are intended to convey something to further the story. As long as the SFX are good enough that I can understand what I'm looking at it's all good to me.

 

[Harvey]

I've seen all of Babylon 5, so clearly the quality of visual effects doesn't bother me too much, but I admit that a bad visual effect in a movie/tv show with otherwise good work can be a bit jarring.

 

[Starkers]

Bad special effects don't ruin a story for me, any more than it ruins the story of a play if I can see the stagehands rearranging the set pieces between scenes. The enjoyment of a work of fiction involves the willing suspension of disbelief: we know that what we see is merely simulated, but we choose to play along with the illusion.

I'm a child of the '70s, so I grew up with special effects that were more impressionistic than photorealistic. I learned to accept that VFX were just a suggestion or approximation; my role as a participant in the process was to use my imagination to envision what the FX were suggesting, just as I would use my imagination in the theater to pretend that a wooden stage was actually a grassy field or the deck of a ship.

Besides, the fun thing about old-style effects was that you could often see aspects of how they were created. To me, that's always been the most interesting thing about special effects -- the techniques behind them, the tricks used to create them. As long as I believe the FX artists made the best of what resources they had, as long as I see creativity being applied, I'm satisfied -- and the less money and technology you have, the more creativity you need.

Why are these shows so bad at effects in the 70s. Star Trek was made in 1966 and looked better. It can't be just a British thing since both UFO and Space: 1999 had more convincing sets and model work.

Budget, technology, talent. Star Trek had a modest budget for an American SF show, but it had tons more money than Doctor Who or Blake's 7, and it was using film instead of video so the techniques available were more advanced. Also, ST had up to five of the top VFX companies in Hollywood at the time doing its episodes on a rotating basis. Who and Blake pretty much had their FX done in-house at the BBC. Whereas UFO and Space: 1999 were produced by Gerry Anderson and his team, who'd become quite expert at miniature FX in their "Supermarionation" puppet series, and included artists such as Derek Meddings, who did the miniature work for many James Bond films (though Meddings didn't work on 1999).

That pretty much sums it up. Worth noting that when Blakes 7 was comissioned it was given the budget of the show it was replacing, which was Z-Cars, a cop show which probably had a fairly limited sfx budget

I guess because I grew up watching B7, Dr Who and TOS etc that I'm quite forgiving. I've recently been rewatching B5 and frankly I don't think the effects look that bad either.

Given the choice I'd rather watch Blakes 7 with ropey effects but fun, engaging characters, than something like Enterprise with slick effects but...well with slick effects.

 

[RJDiogenes]

Depends on how you define "bad." I prefer aesthetics and artistry over technical perfection. The current obsession with photorealism is a real drag, in my opinion. I'd rather see art than computer-calculated textures.