What older movies made a good use of either side stepping special effects or have effects that somehow still hold up today? Why are they good movies?
Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a masterpiece of clever tricks, superb acting, and professional animation.
The Thing still has the best practical movie monster effects I have ever seen. And the most upsetting.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a breathtaking film that uses wirework choreography to transport you into a storybook fantasy.
+1 who framed Roger rabbit. The performance and eye contact is unreal. Watch Disney new vfx remakes, no one can match that.
Jurassic Park comes to mind. The scene with the raptors in the kitchen uses a mix of puppets and CGI.
The Thing. Effects hold up astonishingly well today.
Matrix 1. Other than some CGI, it doesn’t have so much special effects as much as it has special camera tricks.
How dare you, matrix does not qualify for old movie yet. Right? Right???
Anything before the year 2000 is old. Ask any Gen Z/Alpha.
Older than LOTR and has aged better, in my opinion.
I agree. Even when it was new and I went “wow look where the technology has gone!” I still felt that it was insufficient and would age. Honestly the movies are fantastic until they try to show giant orc armies and then it’s a bit MEH.
Lord of the Rings.
Tron. Vector graphics and filters gave a better effect than any of the weak sequels.
Forever underappreciated. They were hiring research professors at universities to do that stuff. It was so cutting edge that it was actually experimental.
And they got disqualified from the Oscars “because they cheated” – the following year there was a brand new nomination category for computer generated effects…
Just like the monkeys in 2001. They were so good, the Oscar jury thought they were animals instead of actors.
The original Jurassic Park. Crazy to think that movie came out in 1993, over 32 years ago.
I recently watched through the Corridor Crew “VFX Artists React” series, and they often praise this film for understanding the limitations of CGI at the time and setting up the scenes to actually use those limitations in their favor.
Episodes involving the film:
The Princess Bride
The flames are real flames! The R.O.U.S. is a tiny guy in a suit! The giant is… Andre the Giant!
Yeah, the behind the scenes stuff for that movie is wild.
They had to keep reshooting the fire swamp scene, because Cary Elwes (Westley/Dread Pirate Roberts) kept panicking every time Robin Wright (Princess Buttercup) got lit on fire.
The R.O.U.S. scene had to be delayed, because they had to go bail the dude in the rat suit out of jail. He had apparently gotten too drunk the night before, and was in the drunk tank on the morning that they were supposed to shoot the R.O.U.S. scene.
Young Frankenstein
2001 looks awesome still, despite being a space film from the 60s
I was kind of shocked how well Flight of the Navigator held up when I rewatched it for the first time as an adult a couple of years ago. The effects used for the ship were great.
Nobody sidestepped special effects like film noir did. They made a whole genre out of, “If we dim the lights enough, nobody will notice we stole this set from a different movie.”
The history of film noir is something really special that came together due to a unique set of circumstances (saddle up for an infodump). The Great Depression had given popularity to pulp fiction novels, generally focusing on working class protagonists struggling to keep a roof over their heads, and often viewing power and social structures through cynical terms. Meanwhile, in Germany, Hitler destroyed the German film industry, which had previously been the best in the world. A bunch of people who were generally some combination of gay/Jewish/communist/film makers came to America and brought their expertise, expressionist style, and antifascist perspectives to Hollywood, where it blended with existing American culture to create something entirely new.
Every iconic aspect of film noir was that way for a reason - even if the reason was often, “saving money,” like I mentioned before. The older, grizzled detective and the young femme fatale were cast out of necessity, especially during wartime when young men who would have otherwise dominated those roles were out fighting (or expected to be). While of course they are product of their time and can contain sexist themes, they provided roles for women that were more complex and had more agency than before. And they were also subject to censorship, but some movies, such as Crossfire (1947), snuck hidden meanings under the radar. The book Crossfire was based on was centered around a homophobic murder, but the Hays Code prohibited any mention of homosexuality, so the plot was changed to a racist/antisemitic murder (which also capitalized on the anti-Nazi sentiment of the time) - but with subtext alluding to the original plot. The effect is that the two forms of bigotry are linked together (tagline: “Hate Is Like A Loaded Gun!”), and the director later said that the Code, “had a very good effect because it made us think. If we wanted to get something across that was censorable… we had to do it deviously. We had to be clever. And it usually turned out to be much better than if we had done it straight.”
Film noir’s fans cut across demographics, popular with women and men alike. Back in those days, going to the movie theater was an all-day affair with multiple films shown, and film noir movies generally occupied the role of “B movies” (necessitating their cheap production values), but the point is that they were just targeted towards… moviegoers. And I don’t want to paint it as just, “foreign socialists promoting their agenda through hidden messages” or that sort of thing, it genuinely was a blending of perspectives and cultures that (much as I hate to say it as a certified America hater) really represents America at it’s best, the dream that we ought to aspire to. There really was something magical happening in the cultural dialogue that these movies are the product of.
But of course, we’re not allowed to have nice things. Due to McCarthyism, the alliances and blending of cultures and ideas that had allowed the genre to exist were ripped apart. People were pressured to name names and sell out their colleagues, which spawned distrust and animosity, betrayal and grudges that would disrupt the industry even after the direct threat had passed. And eventually replacing film noir and it’s proletarian focus and cynical view of society, came the spy movies, glorifying government agents infiltrating other countries as part of this global ideological conflict against communism. Propagandizing trash. Dead art taking no risks and presenting nothing to challenge the audience.
Anyway, film noir is cool and fun and artsy and had a progressive (for its time, at least) current insofar as it was allowed to.
Off the top of my head:
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Pan’s Labyrinth (CGI augments excellent practical effects)
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Ghostbusters (1984)
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The Cell (CGI augments excellent set and costume design).
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The Abyss (1989)
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Interstellar (had to check if this was CGI).
With research: Speed and The Edge of Tomorrow are fun. Also, I am annoyed at myself that I forgot Aronofsky’s the Fountain — a beautiful, painful film.
Practical scenes with mentioning:
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That one scene in Chinatown, “they lose their noses!”
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That one scene in Boogie Nights, “I’m a big bright shining star.”
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That last arrow in Throne of Blood
The Abyss holds up fantastically for being from the 80’s.
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Would Aliens be acceptable here?.The practical effects were incredibly well done as were the matte paintings.
Alien,
the original 1979 one.Imo it really aged well,
recently rewatched it and was amazed by how good the special effects looked, especially for that time.It’s also a really good movie,
scores 8.5/10 on IMDB,
kept me on the tip of my chair for the full 2 houra.Alien is a 10/10 for me. Showed my wife last year and she was indeed on the edge of her seat for the duration. And she hates science fiction!
So much of the movie has leaked into pop culture and memes that it’s easy to forget just how horrifying it is, how well crafted. I hadn’t sat down and really watched it for decades until I watched it with my wife.
