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Your Favorite Movies With Special Effects?

K

knightlaird

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Aug 30, 2005
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Location
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Greetings! What are your favorite movies with special effects? Some of these movies have even won an Oscar for Visual Effects. My favorites are "The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad", and "Clash of the Titans". There are also a few others that I like. Please tell us about your favorites. Regards, knightlaird
 
Yep...no doubt about it, in my book. Although I wasn't the greatest fan of those particular movies, I think Ray Harryhausen was a genius and ahead of his time.

One that stands out in my mind was a sleeper entitled Silent Running that was directed by special effects great Douglas Trumble and included work by John Dykstra of Star Wars fame. It stands out to me for the most unique and engaging robots I'd ever seen on screen...Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
 
Star Wars (even at 5 the original blew me away - saw it 19 times in the theaters)

Lord of the Rings (effects as revolutionary as the original Star Wars, just barely surpasses the original films as the best "trilogy" of all time)

War of the Worlds (both of them were impressive visually - although I think the original was better overall)

Independence Day (amazing mass destruction scenes, great overall effects)

Day after Tomorrow (movie stunk, but it had the same great effects crew as ID4)

Star Trek - Nemesis (love the climactic head-on ramming of the ships, although not as good as First Contact over-all)

Men in Black (great story, great aliens)

Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars (yeah, it's a TV movie - but it blows away most of the other sci-fi stuff made in the past 10 years, and it was an extremely worthy ending to my all-time favorite Sci-Fi series)

Serenity (the movie that wrapped up the story of one of the other all-time great sci-fi shows that was cancelled far too early - Firefly)

Spiderman (one of the very few movies that greatly surpassed the hype around it, and considering he was always was my favorite super-hero that says a lot ;) )

The Matrix (one of the most original and visually stunning movies - too bad they didn't make any decent sequels...)

X-Men - both films (one of the few times where the second movie is as good if not better than the first [BAMF!] - my other favorite comic heros growing up, too bad the other films, like Hulk and Fantastic 4, weren't up to this level)

I-Robot (Will Smith seems to know how to pick some great movies, and the robots were just perfectly believable along with most of the other effects)
 
2001 was the biggest special effects jump since King Kong. I don't know if CGI has caught up yet.
 
PetersCreek said:
I think Ray Harryhausen was a genius and ahead of his time.
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Agreed. I'm still blown away by the effects in the movies he worked on.
 
AVB said:
2001 was the biggest special effects jump since King Kong. I don't know if CGI has caught up yet.
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QFT...I remember going to see that in a real "Cinerama" theater (dating myself again)...just amazing.

Also, for effects fans, "The Matrix" has to be somewhere near the top of the list. Many groundbreaking effects and new techniques in that one, too.

Regards - B.B.S.
 
AVB said:
2001 was the biggest special effects jump since King Kong. I don't know if CGI has caught up yet.
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Have you seen Lord of the Rings yet? Nothing will come close to what they did with Gollum in the 2nd and 3rd movies for a long time (not to mention the rest of the creatures, and the Helm's Deep computer A.I. was just far beyond most people's imaginations until that point). Jackson's crew took the groundbreaking and insane technological leaps that the Brother's W did with The Matrix and made it look almost amateurish!

By far, those two titles (LotR and The Matrix) are the most technologically advanced in the field of special effects in the past 30 years - and both have the Oscars (and worldwide record-breaking sales) to back it up ;)

Even Lucas couldn't comppare to them with his last 3 Star Wars movies (and special effects are his forté - although he's better at the audio experience than anyone else out there without a doubt).
 
i still think the original star wars trilogy had more influence on special effects than any other movies as far as groundbreaking goes.

some others that havent been mentioned yet that i think we'll look back on and say were groundbreaking....

jurassic park
toy story and
finding nemo
 
I have seen and own LOTR and I admit that the effects are great but that's what they were...effects. 2001 (which is over 30 years old) made things look real which is much harder IMO.

Don't confuse popularity with greatness, Citizen Kane didn't do well when it came out and is considered the best film ever so far.


IgwanaRob said:
AVB said:
2001 was the biggest special effects jump since King Kong. I don't know if CGI has caught up yet.
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Have you seen Lord of the Rings yet? Nothing will come close to what they did with Gollum in the 2nd and 3rd movies for a long time (not to mention the rest of the creatures, and the Helm's Deep computer A.I. was just far beyond most people's imaginations until that point). Jackson's crew took the groundbreaking and insane technological leaps that the Brother's W did with The Matrix and made it look almost amateurish!

By far, those two titles (LotR and The Matrix) are the most technologically advanced in the field of special effects in the past 30 years - and both have the Oscars (and worldwide record-breaking sales) to back it up ;)

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Finding Nemo
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Not really ground breaking on the SE dept - Toy Story was, though, Finding Nemo was just the best movie of the all-CG-animated genre. The next groundbreaker, though, had to have been Skycaptain ATWOT. I wonder how odd it would have been for the actors to voice act CG versions of themselves like that.

Speaking of creatures - look how far the Japanese were able to take Godzilla, long before computer effects were the standard.

How about Superman 1 and 2. There's a great, classic superhero movie with good effects, even if the writing needed help.

-K-
 
In no particular order:

1) Star Wars (first set of movies)
2) ID4
3) Fantastic Four
4) Day After Tomorrow
5) Spiderman
6) War of the Worlds remake
7) anything Harryhausen (especially Jason and the Argonauts)
8) Terminator 2
9) Artificial Intelligence

I'm sure there's more as I've seen tons of movies with special effects!

Darren
 
AVB said:
I have seen and own LOTR and I admit that the effects are great but that's what they were...effects. 2001 (which is over 30 years old) made things look real which is much harder IMO.

Don't confuse popularity with greatness, Citizen Kane didn't do well when it
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Well people always fight over which is better Citizen Kane or Casablanca. As far as special effects go I would have to say it’s a time period kind of thing. I remember when I was younger and the original Jurassic Park came out and people sat there with their jaws dropped. Then the matrix came out and took the way we look at effects to a whole new level. LOTR was impressive and so forth. My only problem is a growing number of movies coming out rely on special effect to make of for a weak plot.
 
Treamayne said:
Skycaptain ATWOT. I wonder how odd it would have been for the actors to voice act CG versions of themselves like that.
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Skycaptain had really nice effects... but the movie was god-awful lame.

One I forgot about till my 15 year-old daughter walked by and read the thread while I was posting and promptly reminded me... the final fantasy movie "The Spirits Within".
 
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