# What's the lamest special effects you've seen in films? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 17, 2009, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350 "2009-07-17T16:09:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/41 "2009-07-17T21:51:53Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Someone better tell Alan Rickman he wasn’t really dropped then. From [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_Hard#Production)… > > “According to commentary from the movie’s DVD release, Alan Rickman’s surprise when Gruber is dropped from the building is genuine: the director chose to release Rickman a full second before he expected it in order to get genuine surprise, a move which angered Rickman.” I don’t think they actually dropped him off a building, though. ---
**Author:** ![phreesh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@phreesh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phreesh)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/42 "2009-07-17T21:55:07Z")
For me, the skeleton fight scenes in \*\*Army of Darkness \*\*are unwatchable. There are some great lines in that movie, but that scene is atrocious. Also, the bomber footage from outside the plane in\*\* Dr. Strangelove\*\* are terrible. It’s weird, because Kubrick is such a stickler for effects. I imagine it was purposeful, given its satiric nature, but it still grates in such an otherwise terrific movie (and the interior shots of the plane look great). ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/43 "2009-07-17T22:20:36Z")
In the otherwise excellent _The Dambusters_, there are several scenes of planes dropping the famous bouncing bomb onto bodies of water. OK, apparently at the time the film was made the bomb’s real configuration was still secret, but it looks as though the images of the bombs were animated by hand-drawing muddy splodges onto each frame with a Sharpie pen. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/44 "2009-07-17T22:44:57Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I don’t think they actually dropped him off a building, though. I remember seeing the true scene at Oscar time. He was dropped from about 10 feet up from the top of a studio to a huge green screen air bag. With optical composing/editing (No digital composing yet AFAIK) they added the streets below for the fist few seconds of the fall. Then a cut to the stuntman that made the actual jump. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/45 "2009-07-17T23:32:40Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Dunno if that one counts, the crappiness of the “special effect” was intentional (or at least they made the best of it) - as I recall, they shoot the thing with a trank dart and it _deflates_. Thats the best part. A guy (guys?) freak out to some extent when they realize this stupid irrittating creature that seems bent on killing them is actually nothing more than a balloon. One guy goes on a rant about how can this thing be alive when its basically a balloon ?! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [July 17, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/46 "2009-07-17T23:56:37Z")
I can’t remember if it was a Tarzan film or something similar, but I once saw a colour film from several decades ago that had an “underwater” scene. The thing was, the underwater shots were clearly black and white stock footage that had been shone through a blue filter to give the (very weak) impression that it was color film. Now that was lame. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_stafford_cripps/32/7167_2.png) [@The\_Stafford\_Cripps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Stafford_Cripps)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/47 "2009-07-18T00:05:48Z")
I also once saw a documentary about the totalitarian Ceausescu regime in Romania in the 1980s. It had footage from films that were broadcast to the Romanian people to show how great the dictator was at hunting. There would be a shot of a wild boar in the forest. The next shot would be of Ceausescu firing his rifle, with flames coming out of the end of the gun. Not only was it obvious that the “flames” had been directly _scratched_ (not superimposed) onto the film, they didn’t even follow the right line - the bullets must have been veering off at about 30 degrees. Seriously, it was much, much worse that anything Ed Wood did. ---
**Author:** ![Lobot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ce7236/32.png) [@Lobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobot)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/48 "2009-07-18T00:55:52Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > For me, the skeleton fight scenes in \*\*Army of Darkness \*\*are unwatchable. There are some great lines in that movie, but that scene is atrocious. What? Come on! As an homage to Ray Harryhausen films, the skeletons are perfect! ---
**Author:** ![Knorf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/58956e/32.png) [@Knorf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knorf)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/49 "2009-07-18T01:00:35Z")
I was going to nominate the effects in Star Wars episodes I-III. They’re obviously CGI and the movie is so supersaturated with them they actually detract from the drama and excitement (such as there was) of the plot. Not all the CGI is absurdly obvious and overdone, but FAR too much of it is. I’ve seen plenty of movies with far less sophisticated effects where the effects did not take me out of the movie the way Lucas’s overblown eye candy did. ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/50 "2009-07-18T01:26:34Z")
> [@The\_Falling\_Reverend](#): > > How about the part in Return Of The Jedi when the rancor is snacking on the gamorrean guard and Luke is backing up, Even in the special editions they never cleaned up the horrible black outline around the damn thing. That was one of my two offerings to the thread. The other being the Nazi fighter plane crashing into the tunnel in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. You would think Lucas would try a little harder on those, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Bacon\_Salt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@Bacon\_Salt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bacon_Salt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/51 "2009-07-18T01:37:54Z")
> [@tr0psn4j](#): > > What about Spider-Man? The shots of him crawling around buildings were HORRIBLE. The way they were spinning the camera didn’t help any. Like it would have been hard to design an inclined wall Hell, [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-plL0YcZls) kid did a better job than the SFX people did in that movie. ETA: I don’t know if it’s just because CGI technology’s had almost 10 years to improve since then, but the trailer looks cheesily like something a credit card company would put out. ---
**Author:** ![Bacon\_Salt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/65b543/32.png) [@Bacon\_Salt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bacon_Salt)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/52 "2009-07-18T01:44:03Z")
Oh, damn. I meant the very first trailer with the Twin Towers. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/53 "2009-07-18T03:56:36Z")
> [@The\_Tooth](#): > > Merlin’s disappearance in _Excalibur_ > > “A dream to some . . . a nightmare to others!” _pop!_ > > Okay, that’s what someone vanishing would really look like, I guess. And the whole Merlin role is great fun, but stopping the camera and having the actor walk off the set before starting it up again is about as lame as effects can be. Can’t fault the line delivery, though. I can’t remember the name but it was one of the Japanese _Monster destroys Tokyo_ movies from the early sixties. A passenger train running on an embankment reaches a section destroyed by said monster and tumbles off to its doom. Okay, they had to use a model, but nobody could be bothered to overcrank the camera a bit, so it’s running along then – bloomp – it’s at the bottom of a gully. I’d staged better wrecks with my HO trainset at home. ---
**Author:** ![DWMarch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dwmarch/32/1010_2.png) [@DWMarch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DWMarch)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 8:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/54 "2009-07-18T08:04:25Z")
> [@Darkhold](#): > > the rubber suit guys in **Aliens** looked better. In Aliens, watch at the end when Ripley knocks the Queen into the airlock. That big freaking blade of a tail the Queen had is all of a sudden a blunt object. I can’t watch the movie without seeing that now. The novelization handled it much better- the Queen is injured in the fall and her acid blood melts the airlock open. It’s perfectly reasonable that the top of her tail could have been pinched off in the fall but the filmmakers just hoped no one would notice. Alien Vs. Predator Requiem had really bad looking Aliens. They looked like they had big transparent plastic pieces on their jaws. Not organic looking at all. The first AvP had a strange bit too, an Alien with a tail about 30 feet long. I’m referring to the one that is hiding on the ledge and stabs the Predator through the chest and then lifts it up for the coup de grace. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/55 "2009-07-18T14:18:28Z")
> [@bup](#): > > The giant monster that is \*totally not a lobster silhouette \*held close to the camera in **Teenagers from Outer Space**. See, I have a fifty-fifty between this and all of Night of the Lepus. They’re bunnies! (hop hop, nibble nibble) ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/56 "2009-07-18T22:08:41Z")
> [@phreesh](#): > > it still grates in such an otherwise terrific movie (and the interior shots of the plane look great). Did the production team simply guess what the inside of a B-52 looked like and got it so close that the USAF asked questions, or is that some sort of myth/rumour. The Enterprise-D crash in Star Trek Generations sometimes takes me out of the film. We’re treated to some pretty decent effects as the saucer section of the ship plummets through the atmosphere and then crash lands on the surface of a planet. This is unfortunately mixed in with some crappy shots of a big plastic model being dragged through a shrubbery. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/57 "2009-07-18T22:41:46Z")
An awful Italian movie entitled **The Prehistoric Sound** > **[Sound of Horror (1966) ⭐ 4.9 | Horror](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058601/)** > > 1h 31m | Unrated It’s the story of a bunch of explorers who awaken a dinosaur in a cave. But the dinosaur is invisible! This frees the filmmmakers from havcing to come up with a believable monster for mowst of the film, but they still managed to make a hash of it all. The “footprints appearing” gag ought to be easy enough to do, but it looks fake. Then they have a scene where two axes get thrown at the monster and they stick. It looks as if they stuck two photos of axes on a transparency and slowly pulled it across a picture. It’s incredibly awful and nowhere near convincing. Then, at the climax, the monster becomes briefly visible as a REALLY unconvincing man in a suit. For my money, this is the worst. It’s worse than Ed Wood’s painted-stones-on-the-walls dungeon and unresponsive giant octopus in Bridge of the Monster, or the pie-tin flying saucers in front of the painted backdropp sky in Plan Nine – at least he put some effort into those, and they looked a bit like what he was trying to do. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/58 "2009-07-18T22:52:08Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Another vote for _Night of the Leapus_. Who ever thought that was a great idea in the first place? 😃 It had to be an anti movie, making fun like Scary Movie. I saw it 2 weeks ago . We have a werewolf who shows the worst horror movies of all time on Sat. nights. Attack of thee Killer Clowns was one of the better ones. ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2009, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350/59 "2009-07-19T07:35:29Z")
> [@FordTaurusSHO94](#): > > If tv counts, anytime Scrubs uses CGI it looks terrible. Lost has some horrible CGI scenes that look so out of place, they’re almost comical. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-lamest-special-effects-youve-seen-in-films/503350.md?page=2)