Old School Special FX vs. CGI

I also picked old school. Those effects have stood the test of time. The effects in The Wizard of Oz are still great to this day. Star Wars, Raiders of The Lost Ark, Close Encounters of The Third Kind, Earthquake and the list goes on and on. I think those films had real heart in them. The use of miniatures and stop motion photography, etc. I've watched documentaries on the special effects used the "old school" special FX way and was literally blown away by what was used to create the effects. With CGI in my honest opinion it's not the same. Those films created the old school way have a special place in my heart and always will.

My entire basis for the argument on why traditional will always be better:
2001: A Space Odyssey. The effects are beyond mind blowing, the story gets incredibly boring, but honestly.. who isn't amazed at the pen floating in air and realising it was all wirework and SFX, who doesn't get amazed at the ships?

JP Jones said:

Does anyone know of a recent movie that uses lots of animatronics or miniatures or etc. I've been looking for some recent examples after seeing the incredible Obama animatronics at Disney World's hall of presidents. I'm thinking "Why don't movies use this more often" so if you know of any, I'd like to hear them.

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I know the Dark Knight used a lot of practical effects, and for the tumbler chase they used miniatures, yes.. The Dark Knight managed to film a significant scene in IMAX using miniatures and I bet you didn't even notice it was miniatures. (it's mostly when the Tumbler smashes into the Garbage truck and pushes it back.)

AtomicAnt said:

I know the Dark Knight used a lot of practical effects, and for the tumbler chase they used miniatures, yes.. The Dark Knight managed to film a significant scene in IMAX using miniatures and I bet you didn't even notice it was miniatures. (it's mostly when the Tumbler smashes into the Garbage truck and pushes it back.)

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That's cool. I had known the Dark Knight used miniatures, but I never would have guessed it was there. And just like I said, if miniatures can look this real why don't movies use them more often? I think the technology of miniatures and animatronics has improved a lot in the last few years and people just don't seem to want to use it.

JP Jones said:

That's cool. I had known the Dark Knight used miniatures, but I never would have guessed it was there. And just like I said, if miniatures can look this real why don't movies use them more often? I think the technology of miniatures and animatronics has improved a lot in the last few years and people just don't seem to want to use it.

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It's probably easier to manipulate a CG model, and deform or destroy it with scale explosions and fire, and such, but I agree that models in movies can be incredible.

I saw Terminator 3 again recently, and while the CG crane truck crash was well done, it didn't have the wow factor of the real truck being flipped over in The Dark Knight.

A recent set of films that really did the CG/old-school FX right? LOTR trilogy all the way. The use of "bigatures" as they called them, combined with matte paintings, CG, trick forced-persective camera shots for scale, etc. etc. etc. If you watch the extras on the Extended Edition DVDs, it tells all about how they did everything, and CG was only one out of a multitude of tools and techniques they used. I don't think any other recent movie has blended CG and old school FX techniques as well at LOTR did--yet anyway.

Lambonius said:

A recent set of films that really did the CG/old-school FX right? LOTR trilogy all the way. The use of "bigatures" as they called them, combined with matte paintings, CG, trick forced-persective camera shots for scale, etc. etc. etc. If you watch the extras on the Extended Edition DVDs, it tells all about how they did everything, and CG was only one out of a multitude of tools and techniques they used. I don't think any other recent movie has blended CG and old school FX techniques as well at LOTR did--yet anyway.

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The LOTR Trilogy was a fantasic series of movies. Without CG it would have been impossible to make, and it was great that Peter Jackson went for the blend that worked best, accomplishing as much as feasible the old fashioned way.

I just watched Rodriguez' Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which employed CG to great effect. In the shoot-out in the church they weren't permitted to cause any damage or plant squibs in the walls, so all the effects were created digitally. The film is a great showcase for a mix of CG and old school, and all packaged as a modern spaghetti western (hence a little larger than life).

JP Jones said:

Does anyone know of a recent movie that uses lots of animatronics or miniatures or etc. I've been looking for some recent examples after seeing the incredible Obama animatronics at Disney World's hall of presidents. I'm thinking "Why don't movies use this more often" so if you know of any, I'd like to hear them.

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See Moon. the story was by Duncan Jones and directed by him too (David Bowie's son, yup Ziggy Stardust). Duncan used as much practical effects as he could. All the rovers and moon base were models. Great movie and a great performance by Sam Rockwell.