Which 'older' CGI/ Visual FX still hold up really well today?

[Vracer111]

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within

Stargate

I don't agree with Jurassic park, quite a few of the CGI scenes looks so weirdly fake (all daylight scenes) and scream CGI and some are kind of passable whereas as all the real props look great. Just watched it again this last weekend so its fresh in my memory...also has one of the biggest movie scene ruining goofs ever left in a movie, and Spielberg thought no-one would be bothered by it or notice it...LOL.

[Bluyoda]

No offense, but some of the comments in this thread are truly hilarious, as quite a few don't seem to have any idea what CGI actually means, and just throw around with some prejudices.

I bet most of you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between practical and CG. Just check out the VFX featurettes of the JP trilogy for example.

There is loads of great CGI in older films.
Some obviously hasn't dated very well.
In my opinion it boils to whether the director knows how to use CGI well or not.
Steven Spielberg seems to have a great eye for it for example.
JP, TLW, A.I., Minority Report, War of Worlds, Saving Private Ryan....
Others like taking risks and pushing the envelope, such as George Lucas.
Most of the VFX in the SW prequels are phenomenal, but some select ones look unfinished.

In some movies they just ran our of time and money: King Kong (2005), and the Mummy Returns for instance......

Just my 2 cents.

[Saccharin]

Originally Posted by Jonno2009

The moment i saw the title of this thread one movie came right up.

Starship Troopers! Those arachnid bugs still look damn good and i have no clue why after almost 20 years on a 'small' budget!

Because they where made by Phil Tippett who also greated the ED-209 from original "ROBOCOP". After that he gone too bigger movies like: Jurassic Park and Star Wars. He started with stop-monition animation when Ray Harryhausen came in his life. Now he is one of the greatest in his field.

[Ill_Be_Back]

True Lies comes to mind

[Michael1989]

Terminator 2

[Ben_UK]

I still remember all the posters and hype surrounding Jurassic Park. My local cinema had posters up in the walkway for what seemed like months before the film was actually out. I never actually thought it would be any good, because I just couldn't imagine how it could ever look convincing to produce legit looking dinosaurs, as no one had every really achieved it in the past.

When the film came out and I went to see it, I was totally blown away, jaw-dropped came to mind, a total gamechanger. Of course you can argue the actual merits of the film (or lackof), however in terms of a technical exercise, it was just gobsmacking.

[ChainsawJedi]

Originally Posted by Saccharin

Because they where made by Phil Tippett who also greated the ED-209 from original "ROBOCOP". After that he gone too bigger movies like: Jurassic Park and Star Wars. He started with stop-monition animation when Ray Harryhausen came in his life. Now he is one of the greatest in his field.

No, Phil Tippett had already worked on Star Wars before Robocop.

[theprestige85]

The Matrix has also aged very well. I was about 13 or 14 when that came out and I still think to this day it looks very good.

[Saccharin]

Originally Posted by ChainsawJedi

No, Phil Tippett had already worked on Star Wars before Robocop.

OK didn't know that. Thank for the info

[Pondosinatra]

Originally Posted by Saccharin

Because they where made by Phil Tippett who also greated the ED-209 from original "ROBOCOP". After that he gone too bigger movies like: Jurassic Park and Star Wars. He started with stop-monition animation when Ray Harryhausen came in his life. Now he is one of the greatest in his field.

Stop motion rules!

[thelwig14]

Originally Posted by Todd Tomorrow

The effects look fine. He didn't get 'lazy', CGI has just come along further. But people read that a lot more was done in CGI and they feel compelled to complain about it, because moaning about CGI is one of the Internets favourite past times. Some people watch with their preconceptions rather than with their eyes.

Lol.

[levcore]

Apollo 13 still holds up great today, fantastic visual FX, same goes for Independence Day.

[wonderer99]

Another thumbs up for Starship Troopers, incredible work still.

However in the same year we also got The Lost World: Jurassic Park which never really gets mentioned in discussions such as these. The T Rex's look fantastic in that film and Spielberg blended CG and practical just as well as he did in the original.

Also Titanic still looks great except for the CG people on board which look naff. The ship itself still looks wonderful.

1997 was a pretty great year for movies!

[CreasyBear]

Recently rewatched The Matrix and Starship Troopers and they really hold up quite splendidly. With both, you can simply see the time and energy that went into the effects from the ground up, on the screen. But more than anything with films like these, it's the concept that works so well. They are integrated into the film seamlessly. Independence Day too, still looks awesome! And the Fifth Element too!

I'd also like to give a shout out to The Phantom Menace. Without that film, so many sci-fi/fantasy films would still be looking far less convincing in scale and texture. Just the scope of the film is awe-inspiring, especially for 1999. Nothing like it had ever been seen. The level of detail and volume of different locations and types of things that needed to be invented specifically for that film was incredible.

[TheWildWhelk]

Originally Posted by levcore

Apollo 13 still holds up great today, fantastic visual FX, same goes for Independence Day.

Independence Day used a huge amount of CG-augmented model work. There's not a single shot in the entire film of the Alien spaceship's that is entirely CG externally, Emmerich just built huge models and used them for the foundation of his shots.

Then he learned the hardway that being dependent on CG will make your budget implode, thus his Godzilla film. Oh dear...

[levcore]

Originally Posted by TheWildWhelk

Independence Day used a huge amount of CG-augmented model work. There's not a single shot in the entire film of the Alien spaceship's that is entirely CG externally, Emmerich just built huge models and used them for the foundation of his shots.

Then he learned the hardway that being dependent on CG will make your budget implode, thus his Godzilla film. Oh dear...

Independence Day is full of visual FX shots.

Godzilla has a lot of model work just like Independence Day.

[CreasyBear]

Originally Posted by levcore

Independence Day is full of visual FX shots.

Godzilla has a lot of model work just like Independence Day.

Most of the digital work in Godzilla is relegated to Godzilla and the baby Godzilla's. There's a ton of model work in that film!

[s2mikey]

Originally Posted by Ben_UK

I still remember all the posters and hype surrounding Jurassic Park. My local cinema had posters up in the walkway for what seemed like months before the film was actually out. I never actually thought it would be any good, because I just couldn't imagine how it could ever look convincing to produce legit looking dinosaurs, as no one had every really achieved it in the past.

When the film came out and I went to see it, I was totally blown away, jaw-dropped came to mind, a total gamechanger. Of course you can argue the actual merits of the film (or lackof), however in terms of a technical exercise, it was just gobsmacking.

Yeah = JP does it for me. Esepcially at home in 3D on my OLED. In 3D you get a better scale and sense of size of the dinosaurs and its just great. Id say the first Transformers movie(although not really that old) has wickedly good CG characters blended perfectly with live action. Lord of the Rings too is another technical acheivement.

CreasyBear - great shout out to Phantom Menace and its use of CG. Its one of my favorite SW films and set the tone for a lot of what we have today.

[Chaotic]

The giant explosion in Independence Day looks so bad today. The one (sarah's dream) in T2 looks far better and still holds up.

[wonderer99]

Starship troopers actually used a lot of full scale animatronic work as well which, like JP, the melding of the two made it more seamless and means it stands the test of time.