Ask Lemmy

Would Aliens be acceptable here?.The practical effects were incredibly well done as were the matte paintings.

Wizard of Oz sepia "filter" fits in here?

I'm also going to in honesty pick Brazil (1985). It still holds up really well.

The Thing. Effects hold up astonishingly well today.

Jurassic Park comes to mind. The scene with the raptors in the kitchen uses a mix of puppets and CGI.

Lord of the Rings.

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.

Matrix 1. Other than some CGI, it doesn't have so much special effects as much as it has special camera tricks.

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.

Tron. Vector graphics and filters gave a better effect than any of the weak sequels.

The original Jurassic Park. Crazy to think that movie came out in 1993, over 32 years ago.

The fifth element.

The Thing, Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Alien(s), ET - just from top of my head. The Thing would be my favorite out of the bunch. No CGI, just pure and hardcore man-made effects.

Lord of the Rings effects still hold up, in my opinion at least. The Balrog uses a lot of "hidden" information with the use of blackness to cover up bad cgi. Horse charges are zoomed out far enough to disguise how few horses are actually there. Most of the movies use practical effects though.

Tremors.

Great practical effects for the time the movie came out. Further, they were very clever about only showing you the worm a few times. Screamers style graboid rooster tails during chases was campy, but just the right kind of campy.

Do not talk to me about anything after tremors 3 because none of that shit is Canon imo. Honestly tremors 3 was the beginning of the end but ill still always love them assblasters

2001 looks awesome still, despite being a space film from the 60s

2001 a space odyssey's effects are completely practical, which make sense since it came out before the first moon landing. it's all physical models and cut-out photographs being moved in stop-motion, or huge rotating sets to simulate centrifugal gravity, or colored film being spun over a set of rollers.

personally i think it's worth it to watch it for the effects alone, which is just as well because its influence is such that it has been eclipsed story-wise by things that came after it and so feels a bit shallow.

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!

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.

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:

• Pan's Labyrinth (CGI augments excellent practical effects)

• Ghostbusters (1984)

• The Cell (CGI augments excellent set and costume design).

• The Abyss (1989)

• 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:

• That one scene in Chinatown, "they lose their noses!"

• That one scene in Boogie Nights, "I'm a big bright shining star."

• That last arrow in Throne of Blood

12 angry men.

Only the best Xmas movie if all time - Gremlins.

Mary Poppins. The (as it possibly happens) one of a kind lense that perfectly matched the frequency of light produced by sodium vapor lamps. It produced a green screen like effect that was better than anything else for decades to come.

Look at the above image above and notice how perfectly you can see the background through the diaphanous fabric of the hat.

Jaws.

The shark prop didn’t work well and looked terrible, which resulted in much of it being left out of the movie. The movie is more terrifying because of this.

Young Frankenstein

Blade Runner (1982) still looks incredible. The miniatures and attention to detail in design effectively set the tone for subsequent cyberpunk.

Star wars, with models and miniatures.

Most great old movies, where cheesy effects were irrelevant next to the story.

Gravity Falls Little Gift Shop of Horrors, where the characters watch an 'incredibly expensive' stop motion scene that we (the audience) only see as reflected shadows.

Jurassic Park

The Thing. Also, I recently went back and rewatched some of my favorite old Jackie Chan movies from his early years and MAN are they still so much fun.

Gremlins. My brother and I were just discussing this because we heard that the new Gremlins movie will be using analog effects.

Bud Spencer & Terrence Hill movies

Just compare Gladiator vs Gladiator 2 to see how awful CGI is today vs what could be achieved using it modestly before.