Are special effects and 3D ruining movies?

OutlawPete

Seen around 20 3D movies now between Cineworld and the Savoy and not one was I in awe of a 3D effect. There were some parts of Piranha 3D that I thought were cool but that's about it.

I was at the IMAX a few times and that blew my mind.

I remember seeing one film / docu about a paleontologist in a lab (think the long haired guy from Thirtsysomething was in it) about 15 years ago and I remember some 3D parts of that were stunning.

It was as if the action was literally just inches from your face.

Would like that can of experience again for sure, but can't see it happening - not even sure if that is even possible with the system they use in cinemas compared to IMAX. Another pain is that they charge extra for them, when you don't even get a 3D experience, well nothing that is up to much anyway.

Nolanger

Bodhidharma wrote: »

That is a question I have been debating for a few weeks now. In my opinion special effects and 3D movies are having a negative effect.

Yes and no! 3D was around in the 1950s and was used in some famous titles e.g. House of Wax and Dial M for murder. Same for SFX. What's really ruining movies these days is that they're aimed at teenagers, made by film school drones, are put together by agents instead of studios, and are aimed at taking as much money possible on their opening weekend. It's all Jaws fault!

mike65

Jaws looks pretty damned sophisticated by modern Summer Blockbuster standards.

faceman

I dont have an issue with CGI as long as it doesnt look retardedly fake. But in saying that, if it does look fake but doesnt go OTT with it, and the story is strong (The Mist) then im ok with it.

3D however i despise. I dont find looking at a 3D image pretty. When I watch a 3D film, dust, flies or whatever gimmick they pull in the foreground is too distracting. Its pretty obvious that 3D is nothing more than an anti piracy effort that has failed.

Clash of the Titans was like watching a movie with your eyes closed. It was too dark.

Tron Legacy, which admittedly I enjoyed, was half 2D and half 3D. It was more forgiving to watch than Avatar because its all computer generated computery images and stuff. Not skyscrapers or cars etc. However a note came on at the start of the film to say that some scenes were in 2D but not to take your glasses off.
It was pretty obvious which scenes were 2D, and leaving you glasses on just made the image darker. I took the glasses off and it was a relief to be able to watch some of the film in 2D.

Sad Professor

As has been said, special effects are just a filmmaking tool, and like any tool at the filmmaker's disposal it depends how they are used. Even filmmaking tools as basic as sound or the stedicam can be abused and misused by poor filmmakers. And not all special effects are created equally. Like krudler said, most of the effects in Inception were practical effects created in-camera. In fact, in total that film contained only 500 digital effect shots. In contrast, The Social Network had over a thousand.

The biggest problem with CGI is that it doesn't age well. We can all point to examples of this already. Compare that to the effects in 2001: A Space Odyssey which, while certainly dated, still look pretty damn good after all these years. I was re-watching The Fountain recently and was really blown away by how good the effects were. Due to the tight budget Aronofsky couldn't afford to use much CGI, so instead most of the effects were created by photographing the chemical reactions of underwater microorganisms, or something like that. Whatever they did, it's really unique looking, and unlike all these CGI-fests, will probably still look great years from now.

Cartman78

Isn't there an argument out there that 3D is basically just a glorified anti-piracy device?

Can't see i'm a big fan of it either way.

That Zodiac clip on the first page is pretty cool...had forgotten what a good film that is