Dude that giant samurai attack was awesome!
The dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are almost entirely practical effects, except for things like the Brontosaurus and Gallimimus herds and the lower half of the T-Rex in the paddock scene.
Don’t forget the iconic T-Rex in the lobby at the end, and the one first climbing over the wall by the jeeps.
The head shake effect from Jacob’s Ladder was pretty creepy.
Also the Scanners head explosion!
All the puppetry in Frank Oz’s version of Little Shop of Horrors was insanely good, but one of the effects I remember in particular was a small sequence at the end of “Grow for me”. Right after Audrey II has caught a few drops of blood from Seymour’s finger, it grows to about twice its original size, huffing and puffing with each stretch, in what looks like a single continuous take.
IIRC the effect was achieved mainly through a visual trick and looked brilliant.
Good example. Audrey 2 looks like an amazingly complicated puppet, great lip synch on that thing.
The Kaiju brains from either Pacific Rim.
I think this is a bit misleading: All of the full-body shots of the T-Rex are CGI, and anything where the T-Rex is walking or running is CGI. I think they said that the dinosaurs appear in the movie for 14 minutes, with 4 of those being CGI.
I showed that movie to my son, and after the big “Feed Me” number in the middle, he turned to me and said, “There was NO CGI in that?!?”
They really had some amazing effects for that movie. Since the animatronic puppet was so large, there was no way to make it move fast enough to look believable and match the dialogue. So some scenes were undercranked at 12fps (instead of 24fps), and I think some for the larger puppet were done at like 6fps. So Rick Moranis had to act in slow-motion for those scenes. You can spot the slow-motion acting if you know what to look for, but it really is pretty seamless!
Also, the large animatronic required 60 operators at some points!
Untrue! They built a full T-rex – only the moving legs are CGI (and the entire creature when it grabs in the Gallimumus in the Gwangi throwback scene). You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEXpKda61dg
Although the movie transformed Hollywood by showing the potential of CGI, it is really a physical effects movie with CGI being used to enhance physical effects. The only CGI scenes in the original Jurassic Park are the initial Brachiosaur unveiling scene (with all the creatures in the scene being CGI) and most of the Gallimumus flocking scene - the rest is all animatronics, not CGI, with (very effective) partial-CGI inserts for things like the Raptors jumping on the kitchen counter.
Edit: more cool video on the animatronic Tyrannosaur etcl: Jurassic Park T-Rex Behind the Scenes Video | The Mary Sue
While that T-Rex full-size model is incredible, a lot of the full body high motion T-Rex shots are CG, just really good CG.
I believe the closeups of the T-Rex is where the animatronic model came in.
This is the best video I can find showing the various processes that went into making Jurassic Park.
It’s a beautiful marriage that still holds up today.
If I remember correctly pretty much nearly everything in Bram Stoker’s Dracula were practical effects of one kind or another. Took a film class that featured it way back.
— Alan
Cool stuff. I swear I new this stuff cold at one point, but I love it so much that I don’t mind my recollections being corrected as it gave me other opportunity to dive into those videos documentaries.
I’m not a huge fan of Spielberg’s storytelling, and dislike most of his movies to varying degrees, but it’s hard to deny the huge impact his vision has had on the medium. You just knew, walking out of Jurassic Park, that it was going to break all box office records and change filmmaking forever, because now we’d be able to show anything on film and only be limited by our imagination.
I’d still have loved to have seen Jurassic Park in stop motion animation as originally planned by Tippet & crew!
Looks like everyone provided references, but yes, the T-Rex was CGI for a good portion of its appearances. I don’t believe there were any parts where it had (for example) a practical head and body with CGI legs. I think it would have been that much more difficult to blend the two. But the major epic parts—breaking out of the paddock, or chasing the jeep, or eating the lawyer—were fully CGI.
Holy crap, I was always 100% sure the end of that intro was early CGI.
I was a kid when I saw it and the buzz around the film and the magic of seeing convincing dinosaurs on the big screen was incredible.
Jurassic Park remains the most impressive effects movie of all time for me. As blatant and terrible as CGI can be, even to this day, the fact that a film from 1993 can continue to look that good is a testament to how skillfully and tastefully it was done. They knew exactly how far they could take the tech, and when they recognized its limitations they knew how to seamlessly augment it with practical effects.
I’m aware that David Bowies death has caused a bit of a hipster resurgence in the love of Jim Hensons Labyrinth but I’ve always really loved the way the puppetry in the film translated Brian Frouds goblin characters to life.
I still find characters like Ludo and Hoggle impressive today even though its much easier to see the seams with modern eyes.
I also think the optical illusions like the wall hiding entry to the labyrinth and jareths head made up from different rocks are very effective, even though they’re just tricks of perspective.
Has anyone mentioned the abyss yet?
Everyone remembers it for the CGI tentacle, but the practical effects in that movie were some of the most complex in any movie, ever.
They built the set inside an abandoned nuclear reactor core filled with a billion gallons of water for God’s sake. They designed their own scuba technology. Totally nuts stuff.