Multimedia Monday Meets the Movies

The topic this week is Special Effects in the movies. Have Computer Generated Images (CGI) taken over the screen and negatively affected the story?

We have come a long way since the original 1933 King Kong movie. In 1968, Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: a Space Odyssey, took us on a journey through time from our humble origins as primates to our yet-to-be-realized future on another planet. A few years later the mechanical shark in Jaws was enough to cause a generation to flee the bathtub in favor of the shower. 1977’s Star Wars showed us that the future looked a lot like the present, but with robots, Land Speeders and Warp Drive.

Each one of these films was a milepost in the development of special effects and how they helped to drive the story. By making the unreal look so real we were able to suspend our disbelief and “buy in” to the story.

Today we have 3-D movies that are the next best thing to being there. Last year The Lioness and I had some complimentary movie tickets and watched The Life of Pi in 3-D. It was an amazing experience, but I grew tired of wearing the glasses to watch the film. That’s my personal preference, and not to be construed as the average audience reaction.

The following video takes a look at how CGI is changing our experience at the movies. The film maker talks about the WETA Effect (named after a digital special effects company started in the ’90s) and in his opinion the effects today are too polished—the unrealistic is too realistic.

Take a look at what he has to say and compare it to your experience at the movies.