Special Effects

[NothingButTheBlood]

Does anyone else feel special effects can be way too over done in movies now a-days? Two off the top of my head are King Kong and Dead Man's Chest. Both were really ruined by too much special effects and not enough good story telling. LOTR did such a good job of not overdoing special effect when it could have. Though I didn't like the ending War Of The Worlds did a good job too. The horror genre really has benefited from new technology but The Fog with all it's special effects wasn't half as scary as the John Carpenter version done years ago.

That's my rant anyways. Any comments or thoughts? Movies you felt would have been better without or less modern technology?

 

[FireRock]

Yes, I feel special effects have taken the place of good storytelling in movies more and more.

Haven't seen either King Kong or Pirates 2, but I agree with you on LotR. Special effects enhanced a wonderful story, which is the way it should be. I haven't seen War of the Worlds recently but from the parts I remember I agree with you as well.

There are movies that I could mention...if only I could remember the names... I'll look around and post again.

 

[antiarte]

Screw storytelling. These over the top special effects movies are the best.

 

[FireRock]

Hahahahaha!! I have no idea if you were being serious or sarcastic or what, but that sentence struck me as really funny.

Rock on.

 

[antiarte]

I was serious.

 

[FireRock]

I finally saw Dead Man's Chest last week or the week before. I'm not sure how I felt about it. Sometimes the special effects lended itself to the story, and other times I just asked myself why. *shrug*

A quick example...Davey Jones...genuis all around. The special effects used to create that character's physical look was excellent. One of the best CGI-ish characters I've seen in some time.

The more I think about it though, perhaps the special effects were really good, but it didn't have the storyline to back it up with. Maybe that's the reason I sat through parts of the movie asking why.

A recent movie I saw and really liked was Sahara. One thing I realized attracted me to the movie so much was the fact that the actors did as many of the stunts as was safely possible, and they used special effects and CGI only when they couldn't find another way to pull it off, and I'm sure cost was in there too of course. But the point remains.

 

[dinkime]

i think sometimes the SFX are over done, but i also think that a lot of the time you can tell when it is SFX (especially with blue/green screen technology)....this makes it harder to watch when they are poorly done

 

[FireRock]

Very true, dinkime. Very true.

 

[ews]

Borrrrrrring! Very, very uninteresting is what you call a movie without a good script. Filmmakers today have all the tools at hand on their computers to make cows fly, people disintegrate, and with one swift swing of the sword cut the combatant into a million peices. But without words written on a page it would be borrrrrring.

 

[ez3729]

Sometimes i think special fx are overdone these days. i thought the cgi in king kong was amazing especially the facial expressions and of old new york.
It depends on the type of movie i suppose. alot of examples you could compare or discuss here from any year. Are you talking about computer generated effects or all special effects? although they may have overdone some stuff, there have been significant advancements in cgi special fx in the last 20 years. neat thread.