THE GOOD. . . Jason and the Argonauts , (1963, director: Don Chaffey. Visual effects by Ray Harryhausen)From seven Hydra's teeth strewn on dusty ground spring seven skeleton warriors. And so begins Ray Harryhausen's most famous and celebrated "Dynamation" sequence.
Lasting a mere four-and-a-half minutes, it took a record four-and-a-half months of painstaking laborious work to complete.
It remains probably the most thrilling, seamlessly executed and magical effects sequence in cinema history.
Moon, (2009, director: Duncan Jones)
Duncan Jones's recent Moon not only captured the off-key, slow-burning mood of old-school cinematic sc-fi (like Outlandand Silent Running), it also struck a blow for traditional effects.
With Tonka Truck-style models and miniatures rumbling over a beautiful lunar landscape set CGI effects were later layered on top of this base to create a distinctive hybrid look.
. . . AND THE BAD
ET the Extra-Terrestrial: 20th Anniversary Edition,(1982, director: Steven Spielberg)
One of the best-loved films of all time, and one whose success owed much to skilful blend of a Carlo Rambaldi-designed puppet and . . . er . . . a small person in a suit. The creature’s movements and range of expressions may have been limited, but that was entirely fitting for a being completely out of its natural environment. Spielberg, obviously didn’t agree.
Returning to the film for a “special edition” DVD he inserted a wackier, more cartoonish, CGI monstrosity into key scenes. Unsurprisingly, it utterly failed to match the timeless charm of the original creation.
The Matrix Reloaded, (2003, directors: The Wachowski brothers)
A CGI-heavy fight scene in which Neo is pitted against approximately 17 million Agent Smiths? It may, on paper, have seemed an idea guaranteed to set fan boy/girl pulses racing, but the result was a gratuitous, garish and interminable digital mess. Full of blurry and “muddy” action, it lacked any sense of physicality but had a gossamer light feel, and look, of a Playstation cut-scene.
