SFX

I think the reason that I love old scifi and b-horror movies is the special effects. It's amazing what they were able to do without the aid of computers in the decades before computer generated effects and characters became the norm. Tonight I watched the Invisible Man which was based on H.G. Well's novel. It was made in 1933 and the effects are simply amazing. How do they turn a man invisible? Not with the aid of a computer which I think often results in an effect too perfect, not gritty enough to be real, but by erasing the head and hands of an actor wearing pajamas. I suppose that it involved a green screen etc. The effects certainly weren't state of the art, but I find them more realistic in the end.

One of my favorite movies of this old scifi/fantasy/mythic genre is Clash of the Titans. The stop-motion claymation monsters that special effects wiz Ray Harryhausen was able to conjure up for this and many other movies of the period are simly amazing. Sure they aren't smooth and perfect, but the fact that its clay and someone spent that much time painstakingly making it work is amazing. One of the things that I strongly believe made LOTR work as well as it did is that so many of the effects are either not done with CGI or are based on the work of real actors who are then translated into CGI characters. Gollum works because he was based on a real actor who acted out the scenes while his motions were captured for the computer. Pans over scenery like the tower of orthanc work because its actually a big model with intricate detail not computer generated scenery.

I do appreciate a lot of what modern technology can give to the realm of movies, but am certainly attracted to the way that things used to be done. It's so much more fun to be amazed by the sophistication of effects that were created without the aid of computers and try to figure out exactly how they were accomplished. And yes, sometimes the effects are quite terrible and that makes the experience of watching these kinds of movies even more fun. You can shake your head at the sheer campiness of the monsters and the acting. So whether the stories are great and the acting good, or the stories mediocre with laugh-out-loud "scary" monsters, I declare my love for pre-computer scifi movies!