Marvel movies have completely eliminated the concept of practical effects from the movie-watching public’s consciousness
Not just practical effects just like. Basic set design lol
How… How do they think sci-fi was done before CGI?
Really badly? Do you remember sci-fi before CGI? It was shit. And don’t say Star Wars because they went back and fixed that with CGI later.
*big sigh* *puts head in hands* heathens who’ve never watched pre-MCU sci-fi movies OR the unedited Star Wars movies, my beloathed
So first of all, most people agree that the majority of the “CGI fixes” in the Star Wars original trilogy (excluding minor visual/sound effects like lightsaber colors and blaster sounds) are unececssary, extremely conspicuous, and/or bad. This is not news to literally anyone older than about 20 who has consumed Star Wars content on any level. There are quite literally two very famous ‘despecialized’ fan projects explicitly dedicated to un-doing all of the shitty “fixed” CGI effects while simultaneously restoring the OT in HD.
And yes, I do, in fact, remember sci-fi special effects before CGI was the foundational cornerstone of moviemaking. It was not, in fact, shit:
Also, ironically I can show you by….*gasp* using fucking Star Wars, of all things. Welcome to the Tatooine pod race set of The Phantom Menace, which was not, as popularly believed, CGI’d but was instead a fully-built miniature set:
Yes, they built the entire set as a minature, built life-sized pod racers for the actors, then spliced the two together using digital effects. Yes, they did such a fantastic job that people think the entire set and scene sequence was basically completely CGI’d to this day. You’re fucking welcome for undervaluing the time, effort, and talents of set designers by implying that set design and practical effects inherently mean things will look like shit.
CGI also ages really poorly. What you think looks incredibly realistic now is going to look terrible in a few years. Just look at the original vs remastered Star Trek. They “restored” Star Trek around 2006 and replaced a lot of the practical effects with CGI, and maybe it looked ok in 2006, but it looks so bad and fake now.
In the 60s they built a whole model of the Enterprise, complete with blinking lights and beautifully sculpted/painted details. It looks stunning! Then they replaced it with that horribly smooth and fake looking cgi ship.
Just look at this beauty
You can see the model at the Air and Space Museum in DC
Unfortunately the remastered version is the only version available to stream, but you can still find DVDs with the original effect.
made in 1968 and still stunning 2001 A Space
Odyssey
the designers worked with engineers at NASA to make realistic futuristic special effects using models and matte paintings no computer effects at all! - and incidentally inspired David Bowie to write Space Oddity, later performed in space by astronaut Chris Hadfield
The CGI of the original Jurassic Park may not be aging well (though arguably still better than some), but the practical effects will always look stunning.
MCU fan humiliation post
Puppets, suits, and anamatrics always have the advantage of actually being there. They’re prone to their own technical failings, but the lighting always matches, and the actors don’t have to pretend while staring at a green sphere.
The Thing (the original) almost reels like cheating to include, given it’s an FX masterwork.
The 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles films are, ironically, way less cartoony than their modern counterparts. The suit work from the Jim Henson studios and the actual martial artists in the suits age well.
Age has just made the original Ghostbusters’ effects stylized, as the hand-painted energy-effects for both the tech and the ghosts give the whole thing a neat flare. Plus, puppet and stop-motion work on the ghosts is just beautiful.
You can do CG that looks just as good, obviously, but that requires both budget and an art director who who is willing to do it. They have to choose to match the kind of camera motions they’re using in the live shots with the CG ones. They have to choose to make things look worn, dirty, or weathered, even when that means covering up intricately made details. They have to choose to give backgrounds shadows and depth, even when it, again, covers up the whiz-bang.
Mind, this is a choice. At Botcon one year, we got to see footage from Transformers 2 early.
Specifically, it was when Bumblebee fought Rampage and Ravage in the desert. The FX shots weren’t 100% finished, but I left really impressed. Unlike the first movie, it was easy to tell what was going on. The action was easy to follow. I raved about it.
Then I saw it in theaters with friends, and was made a liar, because they’d gone in and digitally shaken the camera to hell and back, complete with motion blur, and it was a chaotic jumble.
Monument to the composer Jean Sibelius, Helsinki, Finland, 1976.
(Säveltäjä Jean Sibeliuksen muistomerkki, Helsinki, Suomi, 1976. - Monument till kompositören Jean Sibelius, Helsingfors, Finland, 1976.) Finland is officially bilingual, Finnish and Swedish.
