Ten Important Breakthroughs in Digital Effects History

The irony is that the shot they show from Star Wars is a CGI replacement of an original motion control shot for Star Wars The Special Edition.

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Lord of the Rings....the worst????
Are you mad?

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Could you at least justify your claim that the CGI for LotR should be considered amongst the worst? That's a pretty daffy thing to say without any examples.

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Cliffhanger's inclusion stumps me; I could swear Cameron & Co. pioneered wire-erasure. It was key to at least one major gag in T2 a few years prior, (the chopper jumping off the overpass).

If you need CGI validation, see Young Sherlock Holmes again. The first fully CG character in the stained-glass knight was used very effectively.

I'll third the LOTR query, you didn't buy into Gollum? Rampaging hordes a bit too canned?

I would say time of models and 'bigatures' hasn't passed, and that Lucas isn't always right (ha!) when it comes to prognosticating the future of feelm.

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RE LoTR, he may be referring to some of the scenes where Legolas is CG'd... climbing up the elephants tusk, jumping onto the back of the running horse. They were pretty bad.

I thought the Gollum stuff was all very good. There are a lot of effects in the movie revolving around making the hobbits look smaller and making Gandalf look taller, which probably won't hold up in a few years. Still, I think it's pretty amazing how well it turned out considering how big of a task it was.

RE worst CG in a movie: Spawn, the movie. What a let down that was. The devil at the end is horrible, and I can't even believe someone would greenlight that to be part of a movie.

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Personally, Jurassic Park was the first to blow my mind. I liked LOTR's stuff, though some of it was a bit off, it truly was epic and captured me in its world for all three films.

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I think "The Day after Tomorrow" is a bit of an odd choice. I would have included "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" - What these Guys did with on-set Motion Capturing is unbelievable and it's so well-done you don't even realize it's there and think it's all normal makeup.

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quote:
"Other movies that are important for their advancement of digital effects include Forrest Gump, Cliffhanger and The Perfect Storm -- none of which needs to be thought of for any other reason."

What's wrong with Forrest Gump?

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Actually, the liquid metal effects in Terminator 2 all came from Jim Cameron's prior pic The Abyss where he used it to simulate the water probe from the aliens. It was then refined even further to be used in T2. The Abyss also contains the first effective CGI attempt at simulating moving water with the giant tidal wave at the end. Pretty much everyone comments on just how difficult water is to create with just effects shots and even though it was cut from the theatrical version to shorten the film, it still stands as the earliest effect that didn't look completely bogus.

I too was annoyed that Young Sherlock Holmes was left off of this list. The first fully CG character in a film is truly a groundbreaking piece to have left out.

Of course, this did give us such horrible CG characters as in The Scorpion King and Spawn...

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I always remembered Dragonheart back in 1996. It had one of the first realistic CG characters who speaks, with complex facial gestures and acting. Not that there was much else to that movie though lol.

At least Sean Connery made it sound cool.

I can see flaws in all films I've seen showcasing CGI, but certain scenes in all the top, groundbreaking films blow my mind. When you need to tell a story you have limited resources, time and money. It must be hard filling in all the holes, so whichever films get most effects done flawlessly stands on top. I know all directors wish they could have gone back and fixed things (I can't blame Lucas for doing what he did with Star Wars, he had such limited resources for his storytelling back in the 70's)

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1st and foremost, Forrest Gump, not to be thought of? dude, you just lost every scrap of credibility with me.

That said, Jurassic Park was the first movie that I watched and forgot I was seeing CGI. LoTR, while bold, does look worse and worse the more times you see it. But the thing that makes it a break through is that was the first movie to perfect the use of software to guide the movement of the hoards all at once instead of having to animate each individual character, like a flock. Jurassic Park was the first, but it was on a much smaller scale.
TRON, was the first movie to use CGI, and regardless of how cheesy the movie itself was, it was really ahead of its time, and I wish they would make another run at TRON.

Forrest Gump, not be remembered?

wow, just wow.

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I can't believe we're all debating the validity of yet another top-10 article. I wonder if it ever occurred to them to consult someone WHO WORKS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY?!? Harry Knowles is their historian? Come the f**k on.

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The Last Starfighter comes to mind as a good use of digital effects.

Pre-digital, what immediately comes to mind is Forbidden Planet, the creature from the id rocked. That, and anything Ray Harryhausen did.

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While Cliffhanger could have been somewhat important, Twister broke grounds with numerous effects of flying stuff. Oh, and tornados.

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The inlcusion of "Cliffhanger" for digital wire removal is completely erroneous - the first movie that *really* went hogwild for digital wire removal was "Back to the Future II" for the hoverboard chase - that predates "Cliffhanger" by four years...

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I have to agree that Forrest Gump was rather cheesy at times, and that it did push the "heartwarming" button to its limit, I have to admit that I find it to still be a wonderful film. It is hokey, but its done so well that you stop rolling your eyes and instead begin to root for the characters (you care for Forrest, and you hope that Jenny can turn her life around).
Secondly, I do have an issue with the comments made about LotR fx. I think its important to keep in mind that the trilogy is over 9 hours long, with thousands of fx shots. Certainly, some of them could have been done better (the legolas getting onto the horse shot was AWFUL), but there are so many times that you don't realize that the scene has been digitally altered. If one truly wants to appreciate the sheer volume of work that it took to create those movies then check out the Appendices on the extended versions. Its incredible.

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Oh yeah, I don't know if it deserves to be on the "10 most important fx creation" lists, but bullet time from the Matrix was pretty amazing, and has spawned a whole new style of special fx. How many movies have copied and expanded on that technology since 1999?

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