General Discussion : Visual Effects: 100 Years of Inspiration

[td888]

This is a collection of clips and making-of footage from notable visual effects films of the past century. The films include:

1900 - The Enchanted Drawing
1903 - The Great Train Robbery
1923 - The Ten Commandments (Silent)
1927 - Sunrise
1933 - King Kong
1939 - The Wizard of Oz
1940 - The Thief of Bagdad
1954 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1956 - Forbidden Planet
1963 - Jason and the Argonauts
1964 - Mary Poppins
1977 - Star Wars
1982 - Tron
1985 - Back to the Future
1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989 - The Abyss
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
1992 - The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
1993 - Jurassic Park
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2005 - King Kong
2006 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2007 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2007 - The Golden Compass
2008 - The Spiderwick Chronicles
2008 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

[frederic_g54]

The films include:

1900 - The Enchanted Drawing
1903 - The Great Train Robbery
1923 - The Ten Commandments (Silent)
1927 - Sunrise
1933 - King Kong
1939 - The Wizard of Oz
1940 - The Thief of Bagdad
1954 - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
1956 - Forbidden Planet
1963 - Jason and the Argonauts
1964 - Mary Poppins
1977 - Star Wars
1982 - Tron
1985 - Back to the Future
1988 - Who Framed Roger Rabbit
1989 - The Abyss
1991 - Terminator 2: Judgement Day
1992 - The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles
1993 - Jurassic Park
2004 - Spider-Man 2
2005 - King Kong
2006 - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
2007 - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
2007 - The Golden Compass
2008 - The Spiderwick Chronicles
2008 - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

list gets boring towards the end, might as well include "Lord of the Rings", "The Matrix" films, every "Harry Potter" film, "Transformers",...

plus, where's "2001", "Alien", "Total Recall",... ???

Visual effects were more interesting when no computers were used, don't you agree ?

maybe Cameron will change that with "Avatar" and the use of 3D, time will tell...

EDIT: I know 3D has been around for a while, but apparently, it's put to good use with "Avatar".

[edkrak]

Avatar? Trailer was not very impressing. It looked like game FMV. Hope it will look better in cinema, but I doubt it will be revolution that everyone is expecting.

Visual effects were more interesting when no computers were used, don't you agree ?

I definitely agree with that. Especially computer fire and explosions look lousy. And the other thing - films with bad FX usually are funny and have great cheese factor while bad CGI is just bad and makes me turn off the movie. Maybe in 10 or 20 years computer effects will start to look good, but anyway I miss rubber monsters in today's cinema.

[ShogunRua]

God, that list sucked. In a myriad of ways.

Half of those films, especially things like "The Spiderwick Chronicles", "The Golden Compass", etc. constituted no improvement whatsoever in the realm of visual effects, or weren't even particularly noteworthy for their use.

At the same time, they ignored a plethora of truly original and amazing visual effect work, from "The Matrix" to "The Terminator". (animatronics!) Also, their application of "visual effects" is too narrow; the type of visual effects used in action choreography, for instance, are no less complex or interesting than the examples in the video.

Finally, more than HALF of their visual effects were nothing more than the use of a green screen for the background, which were later replaced by a painting, a film reel, or computer animation (the latter of which, for its time, was typically quite average). Wow. Real fucking original and inspirational there.

Yeah, when they did it in "Sunrise" in 1926, it was truly something amazing, a sight to behold. In 2006? Not so much.

[frederic_g54]

Avatar? Trailer was not very impressing. It looked like game FMV. Hope it will look better in cinema, but I doubt it will be revolution that everyone is expecting.

ooh, I wasn't referring to the trailer (which was indeed far from amazing), but rather the 16 minute preview.

People loved it apparently (the 3D, visual effects, story not so much, those blue monsters, Na'vi (whatever) look rather silly, like watching the Smurfs when intoxicated )

[Hells_Zargon]

List starts off well at least.

I'm also surpised that The Thing wasn't mentioned, overlooking the other more obvious choices they missed that have already been mentioned.

[ewp805]

I find the lack of 2001 disturbing.

[theficionado]

List starts off well at least.

I'm also surpised that The Thing wasn't mentioned, overlooking the other more obvious choices they missed that have already been mentioned.

It looks as though it's all visual effects and not animatronics. Still, the lack of 2001 and The Matrix is baffling.

[ArctificiaL]

I find the lack of 2001 disturbing.

Yeah. Very disturbing.