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Lawnmower Man
Mortal Kombat (specifically Reptile)
Mortal Kombat (specifically Reptile)
Yeah. I can't only imagine the bricks that were shat when they first realized that their film was potentially unsalvagable.
I disagree. Animatronics really didn't get any better, they were replaced (unfortunately, imo) by cgi. The Thing and Lifeforce are still spectacular. There are things to consider beyond photorealism, like craftmanship.
well, our eyes get better and better at detecting what's CGI because we're not blinded by amazement anymore.
People thought the original King Kong movies looked 'lifelike' / 'real' ...
I think it's less about it looking "real" but about it "standing out" as artificial.
Jurassic Park's Brachiosaurus doesn't look particularly "real" anymore, but it doesn't really visually stand out in a disturbing way. It matches the rest of the film rather well.
It's why the bluescreened models of the Original Trilogy still look perfectly fine today, while anything they added in the Special Edition stands out like a sore thumb.
If you like this sort of thing, the American Cinematographer has some really interesting contemporary articles about the production of the OT star wars movies. Very interesting reading about the change from "seat-of-the-pants, inventing weird contraptions and new techniques to get the job done" attitude they had for ANH, through to the "super-powerful all guns-blazing, no expense spared" attitude for ROTJ.
https://www.theasc.com/magazine/starwars/
The answer from Lucasfilm has always been that it was actually cheaper to make CG Stormtroopers than it was to actually manufacture the outfits and have actors wear them. I don't know if that's really even true, given that thousands of cosplayers every year seem to produce stormtrooper armor at relatively low cost. Not to mention that any given shot only requires you to have 5-10 stormtroopers in the frame -- why not just make 5-10 costumes and share them amongst all the extras? Even if you need more troopers in a particular shot, you could just composite in more of them.
Even if you buy the line that it was cheaper to make CG troopers, it still kind of rings hollow as an excuse. The prequels weren't some low-budget indie production that was starved for money......why not just go all out and build actual costumes for some marginal extra cost?
already looked bad at the time though. Same with terrible Lost in Space CG monkey (and later on Gary Oldman). I would say the one thing where you can actually say it aged poorest is actually the first dinosaur in Jurassic Park, mostly you now notice the perspective is fucked and it clips through the trees at time.
Another obvious victim of aging are '80s animatronics or effects like in The Thing. Someone brought up Alien 3, where the front-projected alien replaced with CG even at the time looked absolutely terrible, particularly on the VHS I first saw it on. It was like "wtf was that supposed to be".
Slightly less obvious example of animatronics and learning about front- and back projection (video course on that can be found on the Stan Winston creature shop company page) is The Terminator, where if you know how they shot it, it, sadly, kind of ruins the magic of the movie, particularly near the end.
Attack of the Clones
Scorpion King?
How on earth do these movies look like dogshit?!
Attack of the Clones
That is not noticeable when in motion.
Those saying Tron has me laughing out of my chair.............
AIR FORCE ONE crash had the worst CGI I have ever seen.
Spawn needs a real R rated adaption. That disaster of a movie doesn't even come close to represent spawn.It did deserve better. I wouldn't say this has aged horribly though. It was total shite when it came out.
Star Wars. Both the OT and the PT.
I watched Escape from LA the other day, it has some really cringeworthy shots.
The Snake and Peter Fonda greenscreen surfboard chase of Steve Buscemi on a Tom & Jerry looping CGI composite background is the most obvious example, but the most egregious shot to me was Snake exiting his infiltration vehicle on the beach. Like, all they had to do was build was a little capsule prop for Kurt Russell to get out of, and instead they film him mime-exiting from nothing and throw this this terrible Lawnmover Man CG prop over it.
I'm going to have to call shenanigans on this one, don't recall it being in the movie at all.
Ok I LEGIT thought this was the Clone Wars TV show. No joke.
What are you talking about?
Looks absolutely fine.
They never replaced the Alien with any CG. I never got how people saw the puppet as such, it doesn't even look remotely computer generated at all. It's more a result of awkward compositing.Another obvious victim of aging are '80s animatronics or effects like in The Thing. Someone brought up Alien 3, where the front-projected alien replaced with CG even at the time looked absolutely terrible, particularly on the VHS I first saw it on. It was like "wtf was that supposed to be".
I feel as though there are some bits that stick out a fair bit. Mainly involving matte paintings where there's people in the shot. Really sticks out due to the lack of depth. Same can be said in 2001 in the opening Africa shots with the front projected backgrounds. Everything else is fantastic, though and still hold up (helped that was because they used the multiple exposure method of compositing, so there were no visible matte lines around the craft).Yeah no way on the OT. Just watched them and they aged great, aside from a few scenes here and there (mainly ROTJ).
I'd actually say I'm goddamn surprised how good it looks, 40 years later.
Batman vs superman in I am legend? Wtf.
Or is that a common logo?
Alien 3
Attack of the Clones
Attack of the Clones
The CGI Mask in Halloween H20.
Yeah no way on the OT. Just watched them and they aged great, aside from a few scenes here and there (mainly ROTJ).
I'd actually say I'm goddamn surprised how good it looks, 40 years later.
But that 'digital editing' is just odd. Editing shouldn't be about changing entire shots after the fact. You should have shot it correctly in the first place
Entire scenes in Fury Road were made this way. Right down to re-posing actors limbs to make their pose more dramatic (in the "suicide leaping spear dude" sequence for example). Very little CGI, but tons and tons of compositing.
Nothing wrong with the technique (or any film making technique for that matter) so long as the director knows its limitations, and the FX crew are skilled at their jobs.
I thought that aged in real-time.
My pick:
Jaws 3.
I did the same. I remember being pretty impressed when I saw it as a kid, but now those soldiers and their machinery look like plastic.This looks so bad that I thought you were straight-out lying to us, to the point where I looked up the scene on YouTube in order to expose you. But there it is.
Jaws 3.
Gets a pass from me because they weren't in the "real" world...