Unremarkable Special Effects

The illusions on the screen aren’t always seamless. Matte paintings, miniatures, stop-motion, digital. Is there an effect or image that fails to measure up? Where you’re pulled completely out of the movie? Name it. What eye candy sucks on first contact and never improved?

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The beginning of the end. Grasshoppers on postcards.

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Oh, I can’t show a picture of it, I don’t think. Wait, let me check… Well, anyway, NCIS in season 9 (back when I was still watching) had an arc where there was a guy starting fires on Navy ships and such. The fires were all CGI and very very obviously CGI. They’d have done better just to have a real fire because the CGI was so terrible. The explosions were fast moving, but the smoldering “fires” afterward were just absolutely terrible and I had to stop for a moment and just laugh at how bad the special effects were. There are times when CGI might save money but it is NOT good.

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The horrific final fight between T’Challa and Killmonger in the movie Black Panther. With Marvel/Disney money behind a movie there was no excuse for effects that bad.

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@PitFriend Is this bad or just the standard they follow today? Stuff like this I run into a ton nowadays.

The short-lived “Sarah Michelle Gellar as identical twins” show Ringer had this notorious scene in its first episode. And yes, it looked just as bad back in 2011.

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No it was just bad. Apparently they had a different VFX company do just that fight and it showed.

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The Sopranos was forced into an awkward situation when major cast member Nancy Marchand died between seasons two and three. Their solution was to awkwardly stitch together some outtakes of her, plus her face being CGI’d onto another actress (with a quite noticeable hairstyle change), with new footage of a clearly uncomfortable James Gandolfini who never once feels like he’s actually talking with her.

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I actually liked that show? Shrug.

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The recent addition of cg Jeff Garlin into The Goldbergs.

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Wait, this looks like “Life of Pi But With SMG as both the survivor and the tiger.”

Oh, she was a fine actress. I did not know that she was on “The Sopranos” and also dead.

My vote is for Curse of the Demon, a terrific horror/thriller from Jacques Tourneur of Cat People fame with (a too old to be doing the same disaffected cad schtick) Dana Andrews, and this unfortunate creature required by the producers:

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@moviegique Where’s Val Lewton when you need him?

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I think he looks a lot like the werewolf (bat, bug…whatever).

image

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Auteur Theory notwithstanding, producers matter, man.

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Whar wilf?

I will say about Curse of the Demon, it was probably state of the art for 1957. I’m trying to think of any monster FX that didn’t suck.

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Lewton is one producer who effected his productions like a director. His feel is on every one of his films.

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It’s actually one of those times that the design looks great in still shots, but falls apart when you see it moving.

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Yeah, they could’ve…done something…faster cuts? Just glimpses.

I mean, I kinda respect the whole “It’s called Curse of the Demon, we gotta show 'em a demon!” aspect, and it’s actually pretty adorable. But that adorability is the problem for what is otherwise a very wonderfully atmospherically spooky flick.

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The Thing’s (1982)?

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Oh, God, yes.

I meant in 1957!

They weren’t doing a lot of monster A-movies in 1957, so the technology was—well, I think you have to go to the '80s to get good monsters, frankly.

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