Birdemic. Holy shit. Thatās home-made Windows 95 screen saver level animation.
Yes Birdemic. Where have you been all my life.
And I would like to point out that some of those effects are supposed to be terribleā¦
whatās the point of adding straight to SiFi movies to that? If you want effects that are suppose to be terrible just watch some Asylum trailers.
Sure, bad cgi is bad cgi, but in defense of many of these you need to consider the medium they were made for. A lot of these effects look perfectly fine (or enough to not turn off your suspension of disbelief) on film and in theaters. Once they get down graded to home video the effects start to show off their cheapness.
Hold on there, WorldWideInterweb. To include Phil Tippettās character animation work on the Dark Overlord from āHoward the Duckā is downright insulting and just plain ignorant.
Sorry, I saw Jaws 3 (In 3D) in the theaterā¦ It looked horrible there.
Only watched to make sure Die Another Day was on there.
Not applicable for die another day either.
No doubt, but that is why I said āa lot ofā and not all.
@tachin1
I canāt remember if my disgust at DAD was due to how terrible of a film
it was or the bad effects. I tend to side with the former.
It was an utter turd of a film. The only good thing about it was Rosamund Pikeās performance.
If that was the worst special effect in Mortal Kombat, Iāll eat my kusarigama.
Do you mean āperformanceā or āpresenceā?
I have never understood peopleās criteria for ābad effectsā. And worse, the people who complain about them the most often seem to not know anything about effects work. So when I ask I only get endless streams of one-word answers such as meh, cheap, bad, etc.
I only prefer effects to be interesting. If I wanted realism, Iād look out a window instead. People hate it when I explain āWhy shouldnāt it look fake? It IS fake!ā I am looking for artistry, not a substitute for a poor imagination.
Effects need to prevent suspension of disbelief. Any that are obviously fake take you out of the experience. Yes, we all know the whole thing is āfakeā, itās fiction.
Well done practical effects are often much better than purely computer generated ones even if they are less ambitious.
If itās all CGI, Iād rather watch something that is clearly animated, because everything is consistent.
Effects like, say, the Burly Brawl in Matrix Reloaded are obviously computer generated, and because they are unconvincing, they are boring. Iād much rather watch something like the car chase in Ronin.
This is apparently what they are used for, but I disagree that they need to. I see movies as being much like any other art form, and do not expect to be āconvincedā of their verisimilitude. I donāt see any point to it. Just like belief/disbelief doesnāt factor into my enjoyment of music or sculpture. Also I think this relates to popular movies being too narrative-based, rather than pure language of moving image. So effects work seems like a great way to expand the toolbox of creators, but it always seems to be painfully shackled to the unrewarding concept of āillusionā.
Since you mention CGI, I can appreciate that it is a different sort of tool, but I have always thought that the notion of computers āgeneratingā the work are absurd. For example, I was talking with a viewer who was criticising an anime where the complained that the (rather competent) animation was realized using 3D models - and they thought I was crazy for asking them if their ātraditionalā anime styles were done with PGI - pen-generated imagery. Practical effects could be rubber-generated imagery!
Well, Iām fine with animation or something like Speed Racer that doesnāt aim at a convincing illusion of realism. It is just a style, after all. CGI fails when it tries too hard to ape reality and you fall into that uncanny valley. Iād rather watch the original Captain Scarlet with puppets than the computer generated version from the 2000s. Weirdly, itās much more primitive but less jarring and more aesthetically pleasing.
Itās trying and failing to be realistic thatās the issue. Jaws 3D was meant to be more immersive, but ended up much less, because it wasnāt able to do what it tried to. The effects in Jaws were primitive, so Spielberg avoided using them too much. Itās all about how you use the techniques that are available.
@jlw and @Donald_Petersen ā are you going to stand for the inclusion of Escape from L.A.?
Although, really, the surfing scene was terrible.
I got no quarrel. That sequence had it coming. Thereās nothing remotely that bad in Escape From New York, and that was made 15 years earlier.
Kinda funny how very many bad shark-attack sequences there are.
The King Kong one didnāt have to be that bad. Jackson just needed to stage his actors farther apart to make actual room for stampeding dinosaurs. And it went on too long (big surprise there).
And I may be the only one, but Iāve always had a soft spot for seeing Jabba in A New Hope. That scene was in the comic book (though Jabba looked very, very different), so I was tickled that Lucas kinda-sorta managed to make it work in the Special Edition. Honestly, though, the movieās better without it. Even though it better explains Hanās debt to Jabba, that Hutt is never so easygoing or svelte again.
I think that by and large, deleted scenes were deleted for a reason, and that scene would have been better if it hadnāt reused half the dialogue from the Greedo scene.
