A Time Before CGI - A thread where we sperg about the good old days of special effects

[Kaiser Wilhelm's Ghost]

The Dark Crystal, yes some of it's a bit naff, but the practical effects and puppetry is astounding.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

I always thought the Titanic sinking scene from A Night To Remember was good considering they had no CGI and it was 1958.

Even scenes that look like this in the silent film "Intolerance" amaze me considering they had to put all this in without the help of CGI effects.

This is 1916, how could it look this good?

Metropolis by Fritz Lang amazes me as well for the same reasons. I can't believe a movie showing the future in 1927 looked this good.

 

[Megaroad]

CG blood should be punishable by death.

Either use squibs or don't and just have the actor fall. I can spot a single pixel of CG blood a mile away and it takes me out of movies so much.

In fact, any digitally created gore should be outlawed in Trump's America.

Here's the Italians using gross practical effects:

 

[Capsaicin Addict]

I was just watching this. God damn, Toht's melting head gave me nightmares as a kid; even now it's still horrific to watch.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

Looking back on old school Disney, the Honey I Shrunk The Kids live action movie had some killer special effects involving puppets and miniatures.

Moments like the bee that picks up Nick because he was in pollen.

Other special effects for Honey I Shrunk The Kids listed here:

For the most part, the production team tried to use practical effects that would work in camera. For the scene where Wayne lands in the Thompsons' pool, Moranis jumped off a flying board in the form of a teeter-totter on a swing set. A stuntman pushed the board, sending him flying through the air and landing on a mat. Numerous storyboards were used for the film, particularly in the sprinklers scene and the scene involving the bee. Scale models were also used for the bee scene, with miniature Russ Jr. and Nick plastic figures attached. Forced perspective was used in the giant cookie scene, to make it seem bigger. The child actors were strapped in for the scene with the broom. The bristles were actually pieces of foam that were carved and tied to a rig system.

There aren't any good clips of the bee scene because every video of it is some shitty version that's recorded off of the television so I'm just going to post the cool looking scene where they all almost get killed by the lawn mower.

 

[MysticMisty]

Looking back on old school Disney, the Honey I Shrunk The Kids live action movie had some killer special effects involving puppets and miniatures.

Moments like the bee that picks up Nick because he was in pollen.
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Other special effects for Honey I Shrunk The Kids listed here:


There aren't any good clips of the bee scene because every video of it is some shitty version that's recorded off of the television so I'm just going to post the cool looking scene where they all almost get killed by the lawn mower.

There's a lot of really good effects in that movie. The only one that was kinda lame was the scorpion. And all things considered that was probably for the best, haha.

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

There's a lot of really good effects in that movie. The only one that was kinda lame was the scorpion. And all things considered that was probably for the best, haha.

When you look at the behind the scenes images you can find some cool pictures of what they had to do to make everything look realistic.

It's pretty impressive.

 

[Shitassdeaddude]

The Dark Crystal, yes some of it's a bit naff, but the practical effects and puppetry is astounding.

A couple years back SyFy had this show called "Jim Henson's Creature Shop Challenge," which was some stupid contest where the winners would get in to the creature shop itself if they won, and Henson's kid was one of the judges. It was Pawn Stars levels of scripted but if there was a saving grace to the show it was the fact that some of the teams participating were really good at making puppets, and you got to see them built from scratch. They had an episode where three teams were tasked with making Skeksis costumes.

Spoiler: The Costumes

The third one was the winner, and IMO it does look straight out of the film.

 

[vhstape]

Another issue with CGI is the quality of it is generally getting worse, look at Davy Jones, he looks better than any cgi character in any marvel movie

Few effects that really hold up


Independence Day (shit move but this effect still holds up amd look better than what is done with cgi)

This whole scene

This short clip from this video sums up a big issue with cgi,when it's used for something that would be faster, cheap and would look better when done practically, such as the use of cgi blood.

 

[Raging Capybara]

Another issue with CGI is the quality of it is generally getting worse, look at Davy Jones, he looks better than any cgi character in any marvel movie

That happened because this movie cost half billion dollars to produce. Something that will never happen again because nobody buys DVDs anymore and china box office is worthless.