Reading the Episode 3 posts below (that grew into a discussion of CGI potentially taking the "soul" out of film)...

Just seems a short time ago that I was a kid with my jaw agape at giant sandcrawlers & whatnot in the original Star Wars. Now effects are so advanced -- and commonplace -- that an amazing otherworldy vista, beautifully rendered, just seems a little ho-hum. I don't think Hollywood has gotten this fully. Their belief that (computer-created) visual spectacle can be relied on to sell tickets isn't paying off (how many people saw "chronicles of riddick", say? Which had some very nice effect work.)

That train of thought led me to what has to be one of my all-time favorite CG shots: in "Contact", the first view we get of the "machine" created from alien blueprints. And dang it, the camera pans across a control room to... a grainy TV monitor. It really seemed to me that the director was poking fun at the whole "blow 'em away with CG" attitude. Effects, in this realm anyway, should fill an audience with awe and wonder, not a sense of "oh... nice raytracing". And (for me anyway) that shot really worked. Yeah, we eventually got a nice tasty look at the thing (and when it exploded, with chunks splashing into the water--yeah!) but that first shot on the monitor had me going "wooooooo.... coooool!"

Anyone have some favorites? (Not just CG... the Psycho shower scene's a contender, right?) When have the effects REALLY worked to take you someplace else?

(And, regarding "Contact", I'll have to agree with South Park's Mr. Garrison regarding the ending...)

I always found all those flying cars in The Fifth Element to be very nice.
Really blew me away the first time...

Forrest Gump had subtle, good CGI too.
War of the Worlds too.
Jurassic park too, in CGI and animatronics.
Jaws was a bit less ;-) still a great film.
Titanic blew me away too, in the cinema. Not only the CGI but also just the massive sets.
And I can imagine seeing 2001 A Space Odyssee in 1969 was wooow too.


The arm in Requiem for a Dream had good makeup too, really disgusting.

King Kong (as in the character in PJ's film)

my all time favorite CG shot is the first time you see the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. I think because of this day and age that feeling will never be recaptured every again.

I can't believe no one has mentioned Terminator 2 and the liquid metal effect of the T-1000.
[for CG effects]

[Of course, Cameron had used it in The Abyss]...

This was groundbreaking stuff and opened the floodgates..

Lord of the rings the return of the king, they built the entire landscape for the battle outside minas tirith in the computer and mixed with the minas tirith minature and the program that they wrote called "massive" which let them create 350,000 orcs with indavidual brains so they didn't all act the same, that impressed the hell out of me.

John, i feel you on the T-1000, it was beautiful for its time. He's argubly one of my favorite movie villans too. so dang cold and calculating. I also really love the running dinosaurs scene in jurassic park. for non cg-stuff, i really liked the bullet time from The Matrix (esp when the bullet grazes Neo's knee on the rooftop) that was the last time i was stunned by and effects-type shot.

I have 3 or 4 that are burnt into the grey matter.

1). Eraserhead. Lynch still isn't talking about how or what the hell that thing was. (The "baby")

2). The Tom Cruise version of War of the Worlds. When those clothes were flying through the air, that sent chills through me. OK, the rest of the movie had several continuity issues but, that was psychologically damaging to me.

3). Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow. First, the Bleach Bypass was a nice touch. All that green screen and I can still get lost in the movie itself. Especially the scene with the electric head near the end. That CG was supposed to be modled after Sir Laurence Olivier.

There are more but they escape me at the moment...

Sean

- Jason fighting the skeletons in "Jason and the Argonauts"
- Sinbad fighting the wizard who can make himself invisible in "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad"
- riding the mechanical horse in "The Thief of Baghdad" (Zoltan Korda's 1940 film)
- parting the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments"
- the oil in water effects in "2001: A Space Odyssey"
- the unmatched space scenes in "2001: A Space Odyssey"
- The transporter effect in "Star Trek" the TV series.
- the young people being incinerated in the carousel machine in "Logan's Run"
- Lightspeed in "Star Wars".
- the light sabres in "Star Wars".
- the death star blowing up in "Star Wars" (the original)
- the transporter accident in "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"
- the guy's head blowing up in "Scanners"
- The Enterprise escaping the Genesis effect in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
- the whole of "Tron"
- the incredible backgrounds in "Blade Runner"
- Medusa in "Clash of the Titans"
- Conan chopping apart the giant snake in "Conan the Barbarian"
- the spaceships in the end scene of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
- Zod and his cohorts being trapped in the Phantom Zone in "Superman"
- Beloc's face being melted off in "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
- all of the mutated and mutating beasts in "The Thing"
- The Discovery and Leonov escaping the nova of Jupiter in "2010: Space Odyssey Two"
- The nuclear apocalypse in "Terminator II: Judgment Day"
- The T2 being being shotgunned and then reforming in "Terminator II: Judgement Day"
- The tornado in "Twister"
- the personal shield effect in "Dune"
- the demon in "Legend"
- heroes riding on flying swords in "A Chinese Ghost Story II"
- Siddhartha confronting demons on an ocean of fire in "Little Buddha"
- The first time they did the face morphing thing. The one I remember (and I know it wasn't first) was in "City of Lost Children" when they morphed a child's face into the old man's.
- the appearance of the raptors in "Jurassic Park"
- The really effective combination of live action with CG in "Jurassic Park 2". I'm speaking of the scenes where the raptors are trashing a shed with the gymnastic black girl in it. I found the movie otherwise pretty laughable but that scene where the raptors are interacting with the environment was quite good.
- the city morphing in "Dark City"
- the giant ships crashing together and coming apart in "Starship Troopers"
- Tom Hanks interacting in historical footage in "Forrest Gump"
- cities being hit by meteors in "Armageddon"
- the sound effects in the pod race scene in "The Phantom Menace"
- the transitions in the Michel Gondry video of the Chemical Bros' "Let Forever Be"
- ancient Rome in "Gladiator"
- the seamless wire removal in "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"
- the scale and complexity of the giant waves in "The Perfect Storm"
- following the path of the bullets into people's guts in "The Quick and the Dead"
- bullet-time in "The Matrix"
- the seamless digital effects integration in "Saving Private Ryan"
- the sound effects in "Saving Private Ryan"
- the scale and vision of the initial battle scene in "The Fellowship of the Ring"
- the cave troll battle in "The Fellowship of the Ring"
- the beauty of Rivendell in "The Fellowship of the Ring"
- the expressiveness of the Gollum creature in "The Two Towers"
- the long shot in the opening act of "Dawn of the Dead" remake
- the perfect adaptation look in "Sin City"

Wow Keith ! What a great list ! I might have to double up on your list. ( Although sound effect's may be a different conversation ? )

The following are effect's that have blew me away.

- Close Encounters - the U.F.O.'s
- Jaws - Not just the shark, but that damn shark fin. (I was like 5 years old)
- Temple of Doom - The mine car chase
- Jurassic Park - the first time the Rex comes out to play
- Star Wars - the opening shot of the Star Destroyer also flying through the trench
- Empire Strikes Back - the AT - AT's, the Asteroid sequence
- Return of the Jedi - the bumrush of tie fighters in the final battle
- Titanic -
- The Matrix - Bullettime
- Black Hawk Down - the first black hawk that is shot down (CGI)
- Gladiator - The coliseum shot as they enter for the first time
- The Two Towers - Gollum
- Dawn of the Dead - The opening shot as Anna drives past the exploding
gas station from the car that hit's it
- Sin City - The entire process. Entire films can be officially be made in my
garage.

Recently, King Kong (The Ape itself) impressed me but it's been awhile since any other film blew me away with visual effect's that sold me.

...And I can imagine seeing 2001 A Space Odyssee in 1969 was wooow too.


Ha, I was there... and 8 years old to boot. A couple years later I got the excellent "making of" book. Amazing what they could do in the pre-CGI world.

Someone above posted about "the thing" remake... saw that in my teen pothead days. NOT A GOOD IDEA...

- Sin City - The entire process. Entire films can be officially be made in my
garage.

Have you been following the "300" production? Zach Snyder does the "Sin City" adaptation but in color for Frank Miller's "300".

Recently, King Kong (The Ape itself) impressed me but it's been awhile since any other film blew me away with visual effect's that sold me.

Seconded on King Kong. Very impressive 'actor'.

Yes yes yes on 300 ! Zach sold me on DAWN 04 and I am totally looking forward to 300; again... movies are a changin' !

The dog with the man's head on the 70's version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers

Add cheesy but fun effects throughout "Mars Attacks".

Sean

Linda Blair make-up FX work in The Exorcist
Blood elevator in Kubrick's Shining
Terminator endoskeleton.
Tina getting twisted around in mid-air in Nightmare on Elm Street
Lawnmower scene and the rest of the gore-effects in Braindead
Arnold removing the fake head from his own in Total Recall
The warped body effects on the people in Total Recall who are exposed to the Mars athmosphere at the beginning in Arnold's dream and at the end of the movie.
Vincent Lombardi's work in ALIEN
The Alien never-see-a-rod-or-wire Queen in Aliens
ED 209 Stop Motion Animation in Robocop

Yeah, Cameron did such an amazing job of cutting the full size queen with the rod puppet it hurts. I also agree with the comment on Lombardi's work on Alien, more specifically the infamous Chestburster.
And although I'm not a big CGI fan, the battle sequence involving the "Resurrection Ship" battle in a recent episode of BSG was utterly blow away.

Keith Loh has posted just about every one I was going to say.

Thanks :)

Fight Club had an interesting way of using CG type effects which made the overall movie one of my favs :)

Damn, Keith... leave something for somebody else woodya? Nice list.

Just a note to add here. I was watching "The Italian Job" on cable yesterday. They ran a lot of the behind the scenes footage. And here's where I think the "Magic" has gone out of the movies.

When I saw the helicopter fly under the overpass, and hover... cutting off the car's escape... I thought "Okay, that part is CG... and that part is a Mock Up close up, now we're back to CG..."

Trouble was, the behind the scenes showed it was a reall chopper, being flown by a HELLUVA pilot.

Because we expect so much CG nowdays, to be virtually seamless... we fail to be amazed by the truly dangerous and skillfull stunts being performed.

The hardest thing to do, is fool another magician.

Best Visual FX I have ever seen are PJ's King Kong. The scene where he is passing out knee deep in water and he reaches for Anne Darrow, I turned to my friend (we both do CGI professionally) and he was staring back at me. Our jaws were just on the floor for that entire film.

Well,
Keith pretty much covered it...a great list that brought back many great memories.

One I would add would probably be the cape from Spawn. Of course it was obviously CG, no getting around that...but it was truly poetic to behold.

Also, who can forget the Oscar winning tranformation scene from "American Werewolf in London"?

Keith noted "Star Trek II, the Wrath of Kahn"...I remember that this movie had a profound effect on me, in that the scenes of the Genesis test site introduced me to the potentials of matte painting.

As far as non-CG effects work, I have to give major nods to the make-up artistry in the werewolves (on stilts) from "Underworld" (the 'making of' features on the DVD educated me to the fact that most of what I thought was CG was actually not - although there was still plenty of obvious CG used)

All of the Rocky movies in using 'forced perspective' to present Sly as taller than he is (remember the initial face-to-face with Dolph Lundgren in "Rocky IV"...and you thought - gee can that Russian guy really be 8 feet tall?)

John Carpenter's 'The Thing'....wow, I can't say enough about the creative use of effect in that one (although I'm going from memory as I was a teen and it has been awhile since I've seen it)

I loved the use of 'scripted colorization' in "Pleasantville" as a means to provide underlying stories throughout the movie - you see the color, you know what's goin' on.

I also have to give a nod to any scene containing Wallace & Gromit for extreme greatness in the realm of clay animation and miniatures.
-Jon

Oh, I almost forgot.

ET

The fact that a PUPPET could engender so much sympathy from the viewer...wow.

(but then there is the Neil Diamond song "Turn on your Heartlight" to make the whole thing come crashing down.)
-Jon

Terminator 2...the creative use of twins as an alternative to efx....Linda Hamilton's twin in the playground scene, and of course the guard twins in the mental asylum. No, in contrast to the thread title, these don't 'blow you away' but they are a clever way to avoid hefty efx production costs.
-Jon

I'm glad someone mentioned The Shining. The things that blew me away the most though, the way the snow looked when it was lit up along side the greenery, particularly in the maze, and the sheer size of the fabulous hotel (and seen at tricycle level for some shots!). Never before has a film given me the feeling of such a tremendous amount of space and well lit snow just has this other worldly quality for me.

Chronicals of Riddick was very visually impressive, its just a shame the writing was so bad, but in the same vein, Elektra had some very impressive shots. From the circle of petals that die at they fall, to someone falling down a well and exploding into air. Dire writing, but pure eye candy and quite breathtaking in parts.

Yeah, Cameron did such an amazing job of cutting the full size queen with the rod puppet it hurts. I also agree with the comment on Lombardi's work on Alien, more specifically the infamous Chestburster.
And although I'm not a big CGI fan, the battle sequence involving the "Resurrection Ship" battle in a recent episode of BSG was utterly blow away.

I remember watching that ep and was quite in awe at that those ships rocketing the hell out of one another. The new BSG has been sporting some great visuals.

At the time, I was pretty impressed with "The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. Terwilliker".
For 1953, it was unprecedented and brought Dr. Seuss to life on the screen.
The cast couldn't have been better chosen and everything in the production was top-notch. Probably the only reason it hasn't been re-made, is that they could never do it again, any better than that.

I was blown away by the opening sequence in The Two Towers. A combination of a lot of things, but very cool. The final long shot of Gandalf and the Balrog's fall was stunning.

David Lynch participated in a lumiere film challenge with a camera and conditions of 1895 cinematography. The film was one take and had some very interesting special effects.

I prefer effects that don't blow me away, not on first viewing. Contact was full of them. The opening shot in the eye. The girl running/mirror shot. Effects that don't even appear to be effects at first. Only when watching making-of features did I realize they were effects, at which point I got the "wow" factor. That level of seamlessness is what impresses me.

In terms of truly being blown away, Jurassic Park's dinosaurs would probably be the big draw dropping moment where the hype actually equaled the visual experience(I just wish the movie they appeared in had the showmanship of a Harryhausen flick--far from it. That movie was a narrative mess with the only things propping it up are the 6 minutes of CG and Williams music).

Gollum and the Balrog in Lord of the Rings was the last really stunning unique fx creatures I can think of in terms of showing something new.

But before that, JP, and before Terminator 2 even, the water creature in the Abyss--especially when it took Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio's face. That was the fx that made me see the future was going CG.
Although the stain glass knight in Young Sherlock Holmes also was a stand out.

Then I would say more subtler effects--like the half eaten guy who was thrown up by the worm in Deep Rising, or Master and Commander's artifically created ocean backdrops.

When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth would be another choice, even though I only got to see it after JP. I was still impressed by the animation and blur effects.

One effect that I wonder how they did it was the scourging during "The Passion of the Christ". It looked completely realistic and the makeup work was astonishing. I would have to second the mirror scene in "Contact" Such a simple and seamless shot that when you look back on it do you realize how amazing that was to pull off. As for others I would have to say "Gollum". Not since Yoda from "Empire" has a synthespian seemed so real. Those folks at WETA have cracked the "eye" problem that plagues so much CGI.

Chris Watson
Watson Videography

PS: To see a good example of the "eye problem" check out Polar Express. Creepy.

I don't know about you guys, but I thought King Kong's special effects were good, but not outstanding. There were too many shots that drew me out of the whole experience and said 'this is CG'.

For mine, the trick is to use camera angles and movement that could be achieved by a 'real' camera. I know for all you CG buffs out there, this is very limiting and actually defeats the whole purpose CG in VFX was invented, but when the CG snaps you out of the film, it's useless.

But I have to agree with Kelly that Jurassic Park has the best special and visual effects. As far as they have come, I still think the scene where Grant is running in front of the T-Rex holding the flare has to be one scene imprinted on my mind since I was a kid when I first saw it.

Maybe someone could start a thread on 'worse SFX' ever.

Richard

nice list ya'll =). contact is one of my fav movies =).

anyway, i think my fav effect of *ALL* time absolutely is animating still pictures. yes, film itself is one big visual fx ;). most people forget that =^).

coming in a close second is most of George Melies's "magic" fx before that other George came along close to a century later ;).

other than that, there's been few surprises.

The opening scene of Xmen 2 with Nightcrawler blew me away......

I just watched this Disney movie from 1991. I think the special effects were the best, because they all looked very real and not CG at all. It was a big spoof, of course, but the acting and fast-moving scenes made it a lot of fun. If I could have seen this when I was about age 12, I would have wanted to watch it a dozen times over.

It has a rocket backpack, a GeeBee Special Super Sportster, The Hindenburg,
a Spruce Goose glider, mobsters fighting alongside G-men against Nazis, a North by Northwest/Mount Rushmore-type scene on top of the dirigible, a human King Kong and my old favorite, Beeman's Pepsin Gum, played a crucial role. Even the leading lady's special features looked real. The HOLLYWOODLAND sign and the Griffith Observatory were featured. There were a lot of inside 30s-era jokes, that not everyone would catch. Such as when the Spruce Goose glider sailed out of the hangar, the Howard Hughes character said, "The damned thing DOES fly!".

Unlike so many fantasy-based movies that use unbelievable technology and contraptions, everything in this one has actually existed in a functional form, which gave it credibility (as long as you let your imagination fly a bit loose).

I've been seeing some superb CGI lately. The best CGI has advanced to the point that you can't tell the difference between the real-world and the effects. Some good examples I've seen:

War of the Worlds (2005)
The effects were superb, but a particular example that stands out to me were the aliens in the basement.

I, Robot
Some scenes had obvious CGI, but the robots themselves were amazingly real.

Master and Commander
What can I say? The effects were seamlessly invisible, which is the highest honor one can give. (Okay, okay, I know, the effects weren't all CGI. It was superb work all around.)

Spider-Man 1 and 2
Good effects generally, though I'm still not sure they've got the CGI swinging Spidey man exactly right. The standout for me would have to be Doctor Octopus.

Reign of Fire
If there's one movie that could make you believe dragons were real, this is it.

Sahara
Okay, probably not one you would have picked, at least for the reason I did. I didn’t pick it for some big splashy effect, but rather the desert solar power plant. I was amazed when I learned from the behind the scenes that it was nearly all CGI. It was totally realistic and perfectly blended with the live action footage.

Reign of Fire
If there's one movie that could make you believe dragons were real, this is it.

Most compelling poster. Suggesting Apache helicopters versus dragons!

Instead, dragons ambush the military column. NOoooooooo...

Everything Douglas Trumbell (2001, Silent Running, Blade Runner, CE3K), John Dykstra (Silent Running, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica), and Brian Johnson (2001, Alien, Space:1999, Dragonheart) have done. All of the CGI that the team created in the episodes of Babylon 5 were stunning and groundbreaking too (all on workstations).

I for one will never forget the battle between neo and the hundreds of agents smiths' in matrix reloaded. I had to catch my breath.
The island is another recent films that really delivered on the visual effects front. When I actually saw the making of featurette I was surprised to find out most effects I had thought to be CGI were in fact real live action.
X-men III is also visually compelling and exciting.

How come nobody has brought up TRON yet?

i didn't think TRON was that great =(. even if i saw it in the 80's. the conept is interesting, but the execution (even given limitations of technology). i'd rather it not be done then. yesh, i realize that it needed to start SOMEWHERE and progress to a point that we're in today... but still, didn't like that film much.

meanwhile, re: matrix, i loved matrix revolution. the rain fx are amazing

the thing about tron is that it's the porcess that blows me away. I like the movie and luckly saw it in the thearters.

Now I can honestly say The last star fighter reallly takes the cake. I know that i has ega graphics (just joking). What it is about that movie is that all the space stuff is kept the same. So theres no real mix and match od real life to computer.

Also Dragonslayer which as far as I can tell is the movie which gets dragons right

The original: Dawn of the Dead.... need I say more?

Most compelling poster. Suggesting Apache helicopters versus dragons!

Instead, dragons ambush the military column. NOoooooooo...
Ha ha, you're right! I just looked up the movie poster online, and sure enough, here come the Apaches...

Only problem is, there are no Apache copters in the entire movie.

Oh well, great dragon effects nonethless.

Now I can honestly say The last star fighter reallly takes the cake. I know that i has ega graphics (just joking). What it is about that movie is that all the space stuff is kept the same. So theres no real mix and match od real life to computer.
You know, when I picked up The Last Starfighter DVD on a whim from our library I had no idea it was the first movie to ever attempt photo realistic CGI (Tron takes the honors for the first CGI, but it was used to simulate computer innards from what I understand. In other words, pretty much simple geometric shapes, which were much easier than the complex imagery required for The Last Starfighter).

I tell you, seeing the The Last Starfighter really makes one appreciate how far CGI has come. If you can believe it, the relatively simple (by today's standards) The Last Starfighter CGI effects brought a CRAY supercomputer to its knees.

actually westworld had the first cg, well soem of the shots were altered a bit by a computer. But Tron is the first big screen full blown cg sequencies I know of.

Actually now that I think of it i'm not to sure if last star fighter was the way it was because of technoligy. If we look at the movie and think about it, I think we can say it looked the way it did because it was spose to be a video game. Thats how the starfighters were recurited. SOi the space sequences were a representation of the game in look and feel. Looking back on it i think it is all stylistic, which makes it all the more cooler. (Hollywood certainly had the skills to do the movie with models)

actually westworld had the first cg, well soem of the shots were altered a bit by a computer. But Tron is the first big screen full blown cg sequencies I know of.
Interesting. I didn't know that.

Actually now that I think of it i'm not to sure if last star fighter was the way it was because of technoligy. If we look at the movie and think about it, I think we can say it looked the way it did because it was spose to be a video game.
That's not what I understood about the effects. It's been a little while since I watched the behind the scenes featurette, but I understood they were trying to be realistic (of course I could have misunderstood.) It sounded like they had the choice to use either traditional models or CGI for the effects. There was doubt it could be pulled off with CGI. Nobody had attempted to do it realistically before. But they ultimately received the go ahead for CGI. If you notice, a few CGI scenes come off almost realistic looking (the Starfighters parked underground, for instance). I believe the fact that many of the CGI shots had the look of video games was the simple reason that they lacked the computer power and time for more complex (and thus realistic) renderings.

A good many rendering technologies were invented for that movie. So it was pioneering for the field of computer grahics. I don't think there was any hope at the time that it could be called photorealistic, only before that movie they didn't even have the math available to approach the task of matching realistic lighting. It was also innovative in animation, laying the groundwork in flocking large numbers of ships.

A good many rendering technologies were invented for that movie. So it was pioneering for the field of computer grahics. I don't think there was any hope at the time that it could be called photorealistic, only before that movie they didn't even have the math available to approach the task of matching realistic lighting.
How true. When someone figured out how to, say, insert two lights in a scene (something that could never be done before then) there would quite a lot of excitement. That kept happening over and over again as they progressively figured out how to do more and more. It was indeed a movie that pioneered many of the basics of CGI that we now take for granted.

It was also innovative in animation, laying the groundwork in flocking large numbers of ships.
They told a story about how they showed a space ship animation of a maneuver that was impossible with traditional effects to some Hollywood big shots, and nobody seemed the least bit excited. They failed to grasp how pioneering it was.