Hello all,
It’s 2008 and we have had to suffer through bad CGi effects for quite some time now. But the industry’s getting pretty good at it and it’s nowhere as jarring as it used to be.
However, I just saw John Carpenters The Thing from 1982 and… Well. Those special effects were really impressive. They just drew me into the experience.
So, what are some other impressive handmade special effects?
2001: A Space Odyssey.
Independence Day (even though the movie was mediocre, the effects were nice.
The Star Wars original trilogy, despite what Lucas would have us believe.
Rick Baker’s werewolf transformation scene in An American Werewolf in London.
Almost as good, and quite a bit creepier, is the transformation scene in The Howling.
Total Recall still holds up.
Cuckoorex American Werewolf is a good one.
How far back can we go? **The Wizard of Oz was **a pretty film to watch.
Aliens. Over two decades later and it still looks realistic. High quality miniatures and matt painting hold up better than CGI.
The hurricane special effects for *The Hurricane *starring Dorothy Lamour and John Hall (1937) have never been bettered.
Not knowing exactly where you start the clock on CGI, I’ll confine my picks to pre-1982 since that’s the date of your example.
This won’t be a surprise to anyone, but the original Star Wars was a great leap forward in special effects, way beyond anything that came before. Followed closely by Raiders of the Lost Ark. These movies still hold up in the special effects department, unlike, say, the original Terminator movie, which was great plot-wise and impressive at the time, but if you see it next to T2 it comes across like a high school project.
Haven’t seen it in a while but “Jason and the Argonauts” seemed pretty up there as far as effects goes.
That was my first thought as well. The dropship crashing wasn’t all that great, but everything else in it was damn good.
I think the apes made for Planet of the Apes way back when still look pretty good.
And do not forget the awesomeness that is Spaced Invaders.
Yup.
Ray Harryhausen = Great FX
The Invisible Man – 1933
My daughter is doing a paper on its effects even as we speak. Very impressive for the time.
Forbidden Planet – there are a few klunky cartoony scenes, but things like the C57D in orbit over Altair IV, or the ship “making its own eclipse”, or the Krel Monster burning through the door, or the final explosion (viewed silently from 100 million miles away – that was cool. Much better than having it a debris-throwing noisy affair, like they’d do it today) are gorgeous. The guys who did the effects later went on to do the much stupider but still gorgeous Kronos, in which they prove that even a featureless box can look impressive as hell if you do it right.
The Day the Earth Stood Still The original, of course. Gort’s laser-beam eye effect is STILL extremely classy, as is the seamless flying saucer. The low-key but high-quality approach to the effects really worked well.
And, of course, the already-mentioned 2001 (for which effects were invented) and the films of Ray Harryhausen.
Well, except for the final one…I never could be scared of a were-pomeranian.
But she was so CUTE!
Oh yeah, and the effects from Young Frankenstein – scared the hell outa me.
I think TRON mostly qualifies, since all but a few sequences were simply clever hand-drawn cel animation. Watching the extras on that DVD, it’s amazing what they pulled off without computers.
Since it’s just about that time of year again, how about “The Ten Commandments”?
Metropolis
Simply amazes me for the time period.