# Your favorite pre-CGI special effects scenes?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [April 6, 2019, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137 "2019-04-06T18:07:39Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2019, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/21 "2019-04-06T23:11:47Z")
It’s not the most ingenious effect, but the [transformation scene in Ladyhawke](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl-8npL-vUA) is IMO very well-executed, conveying the emotion and beauty of the transformation without drawing much attention to the effect itself.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2019, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/22 "2019-04-06T23:27:15Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> Just for reference, the two films which were seen as really pioneering CGI for use in special effects were _Tron_ (1982) and _The Last Starfighter_ (1984). Both were revolutionary for their times, but both of them, even back then, clearly looked computer-generated.
>
> _Tron_ example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcyCWEsbsPU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcyCWEsbsPU)
> _The Last Starfighter_ example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmPGuMGs8cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmPGuMGs8cg)
At MAGI we did the best we could on Tron to get the animation done in a reasonable amount of time. Rendering time was often over a minute per frame. We had the fastest machines out of any of the 4 companies producing CGI for Tron and ended up doing close to 90% of all the CGI in the end because the other guys couldn’t keep up.
However, there are tons of effects that were hand painted on to film like all those glowing uniforms.
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### Author:  [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/23 "2019-04-06T23:34:35Z")
As noted by **kenobi 65** , they’re called _practical effects_.
[The Fly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1986_film)) and [The Thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)) have some awesome practical effects.
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### Author:  [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2019, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/24 "2019-04-06T23:48:04Z")
I’d have to go with Willis O’Brien. You can cite everything in _King Kong_, but my favorite was the fight between [Kong and the T. Rex/Snake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEt_aYBZoTk) (and I say this as someone who hates fight scenes). Especially impressive is the way the T. Rex jaw flops down after he’s dead.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2019, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/25 "2019-04-06T23:53:05Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> Just for reference, the two films which were seen as really pioneering CGI for use in special effects were _Tron_ (1982) and _The Last Starfighter_ (1984). Both were revolutionary for their times, but both of them, even back then, clearly looked computer-generated.
Wasn’t that deliberate? I mean \*Tron \*is largely set in a world inside a computer, and \*Last Starfighter \*is about a video game that is really a battle training simulation. Looking computer generated is perfectly in keeping with the plot.
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### Author:  [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/26 "2019-04-07T00:02:22Z")
OP,
Do you really mean “pre-CGI” or “non-CGI”? If “pre-CGI”, could you give us a year? There’s quite a big of Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park special effects which were practical. CGI in T2 represents only 5 minutes and it’s not like T2 only has 5 minutes of good special effects.
> [@Crafter\_Man](#):
>
> As noted by **kenobi 65** , they’re called _practical effects_.
>
> [The Fly](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fly_(1986_film)) and [The Thing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)) have some awesome practical effects.
The '80s and early '90s are probably the best time for special effects. That’s when the industry and technology had had the most time to evolve and there would have been the highest number of people who’d been doing it for a long time.
Plenty of special effects that are supposed to represent alien or futuristic tech have aged, very, very badly but the Predator cloak from 1987 still holds up: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luZklMqLgDs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luZklMqLgDs)
Jacob’s Ladder goes a simple, creative thing that works very well at establishing its atmosphere: [https://youtu.be/FOD0DZRdQ9w?t=95](https://youtu.be/FOD0DZRdQ9w?t=95)[https://youtu.be/gQbQi77ibA4?t=76](https://youtu.be/gQbQi77ibA4?t=76)
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### Author:  [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 12:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/27 "2019-04-07T00:09:50Z")
On **Space: 1999** , Maya was an alien shapeshifter. This was back in the 1970’s, and they would do a closeup of one of her eyes, show what she was going to turn into, and then pull the camera back to show whatever she’d turned into. Surprisingly effective–and cheap, too.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/28 "2019-04-07T00:19:52Z")
> [@TriPolar](#):
>
> At MAGI we did the best we could on Tron to get the animation done in a reasonable amount of time. Rendering time was often over a minute per frame.
Funny how much the idea of “a reasonable amount of time” has changed. The new \*Jungle Book \*was up to [_40 hours_ per frame](https://www.inverse.com/article/14351-how-the-jungle-book-made-its-animals-look-so-real-with-groundbreaking-vfx).
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/29 "2019-04-07T00:25:24Z")
_An American Werewolf in London_ does [the transformation scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxEkpoi583I) really well.
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/30 "2019-04-07T00:33:32Z")
> [@Quercus](#):
>
> If ‘not really before CGI, but not using CGI’ counts, I’ll add the Lord of The Rings hobbit with Wizard and Dwarf with Human shots, which use forced perspective and other tricks to make the hobbits and Dwarves look small, but no CGI that I’m aware of.
There is digital work for sure, but a lot of it was done in much more creative ways.
[Check this scene, which is forced perspective. Elijah Wood is actually holding onto a really big post and is further away from the camera.](https://youtu.be/meK0G3o9mPw?t=80)
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/31 "2019-04-07T00:50:28Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> Funny how much the idea of “a reasonable amount of time” has changed. The new \*Jungle Book \*was up to [_40 hours_ per frame](https://www.inverse.com/article/14351-how-the-jungle-book-made-its-animals-look-so-real-with-groundbreaking-vfx).
Sure, it’s a different world, they have thousands of processors working in parallel, and each one of them could outperform the one machine we used then.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/32 "2019-04-07T01:03:35Z")
Having only read the title, what first came in mind was the chestburster scene from “Alien”. Even the actors shat their pants when shooting this. A close second is the exploding head from Cronenberg’s “Scanners”. They are both iconic.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/33 "2019-04-07T01:05:34Z")
There is a scene in _Kind Hearts and Coronets_ where Alec Guniness is filmed acting with 5 other instances of himself:
> [@](#):
>
> The scene where six members of the D’Ascoyne’s family, all played by Sir Alec Guinness, are seen together, took two days to film. The camera was set on a specially built platform to minimize movement. In addition, the camera operator spent the night with the camera to ensure that nothing moved it by accident. A frame with six black matte painted optical flat glass windows was set in front of the camera, and the windows opened one at a time so each of the characters could be filmed in turn. The film was then wound back for the next character. Most of the time was spent waiting for Guinness to be made up as the next character.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/34 "2019-04-07T01:16:35Z")
Oh, one more, the [flight scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpkObnyzPhE&t=1m30s) from Murnau’s “Faust”. It’s amazing.
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### Author:  [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/35 "2019-04-07T01:21:58Z")
The city of the future in _Metropolis_.
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### Author:  [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/36 "2019-04-07T01:23:38Z")
> [@EinsteinsHund](#):
>
> Oh, one more, the [flight scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpkObnyzPhE&t=1m30s) from Murnau’s “Faust”. It’s amazing.
Sorry, too late to edit, but I noticed that the above link has an atrocious quality and doesn’t do the scene any justice. [Here’s a much better link](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAe-8Z24ktI&t=35m12s).
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/37 "2019-04-07T01:28:22Z")
The [crashed dropship](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Pwx_KFGBPU) scene in _Aliens_.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/38 "2019-04-07T02:00:21Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Quoth **zamboniracer** :
>
> While it was indeed a spectacular opening - and I speak as one fortunate and old enough to have seen it in the theater in 1977 - is it really pre-CGI? I say that because I remember hearing after the movie came about about all the great special effects in it from Industrial Light & Magic (ILM).
You seem to be under the impression that “CGI” and “special effects” are synonymous. CGI is “computer generated imagery”, but there are many other ways to achieve special effects. And CGI was in its infancy at the time, as can be seen in the few instances of it that we do see in the movies: The Death Star rendered as a green wireframe on a black background, and the trench rendered as expanding rectangles in Luke’s targeting computer. Absolutely everything in the movie that looked better than that, didn’t involve computers.
As for the forced perspective in the _Lord of the Rings_ movies, it (mostly) wasn’t CGI, but it was still computerized. That is to say, what we’re seeing is a real record of real photons that really passed through real lenses onto a real sensor, after being reflected off of real objects… but the movements of those real objects, as well as the movements of the cameras, were all computer-controlled to keep the perspectives correct.
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### Author:  [@pmwgreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pmwgreen)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/39 "2019-04-07T02:12:14Z")
Another good one is Labyrinth. The film has lots of visual tricks, especially (for me) the scene where Jennifer Connelly wakes up in her bed in her room and it turns out to be in a trash heap still in the Labyrinth. You are convinced it’s her room, but they simply took the set of her room and punched a hole in it. I like the Escher room too, but it’s just too weird to be real.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2019, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-pre-cgi-special-effects-scenes/832137/40 "2019-04-07T02:34:46Z")
Heck, Bowie doing the sphere twiddling is pretty good, too–done by [wrapping a juggler around Bowie](https://io9.gizmodo.com/watch-how-jim-henson-made-david-bowie-spin-crystal-ball-5946797).
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