It haunts me still

[thebitterguy]

The first time I saw Jurassic Park, I left the theatre and my date and I could only say "wow" for a few minutes. Now, I know a lot of folks out there will disapprove of my enjoyment of the film (at this point, I wish I smoked, so I could gesticulate with my hands in a mildly disappointing manner). I honestly appreciate their opinions, but fuck that, that's not what I'm here to talk about.

I'm here to talk about the first time. The first time we got CGI dinosaurs.

I'm pretty sure everyone remembers the first scene, right? The Drs coming to a halt in the jeep, and Laura Dern standing up in her seat and then, BAM, out to the wide shot. And there they stood, as big as life. And they were real.

Okay, not REAL. They were CGI. Computer simulations. But we (and by 'we' I mean me and 80% of the people reading this) have always loved dinosaurs. We've read books about dinosaurs, and watched movies, and been fascinated. Even if it was a five year old thing, where we saw the weight of the creatures, their size, their teeth, the bright world they lived in and the fiery ball of destiny that wiped them out in a heartbeat, it resonated with us.

So when we saw them, they were real.

Now, I'm no movie expert. I'm pretty much the most horrid person in the world for nit-picking F/X. My SoD could hold the sky above Atlas' shoulders (but it won't, because I know he'd just wander off for a 'smoke break' and never come back. Slacker). But those dinosaurs were real.

And everything since feels... not real. I know there's been over a decade of technology under the bridge since then. King Kong had a load of dinosaur action, right? And it was neat and stuff. But it didn't feel REAL. It wasn't as GOOD as JP.

Am I crazy? Is this just some deluded nostalgia, refusing to let go of my real dinosaurs in favour of the state of the art? It's not possible that the state of the art FX still can't capture the same sensawunda that Spielberg did ten years ago, is it?

I don't know what it is. Maybe Laura Dern's bum. But JP felt real. Everything else feels like FX.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm not crazy with respect to this particular subject. Jurassic Park is still one of the few CGI-heavy movies out there that doesn't look like a cartoon, and where I can actually forget I'm looking at CGI instead of having to suspend my sense of disbelief.

It's very interesting to hear that someone else has made the same observation that I did independently. This is not nostalgia of the sort that makes Thundercats a much better show in your memory than it turns out to be when you get around to watching it again as an adult. Jurassic Park holds up over time, and almost everything else that's followed it looks like crap.

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

That's funny, b/c I know that Thundercats was a crappy show, even if I kinda liked it then.

Because, well, no amount of nostalgia could make "Snarf!" cool.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I just had this memory in my head of Thundercats being a really gorgeous show, visually. When I went back to watch it again, it was badly animated with slow voices talking down to the audience. I turned it off in the hopes of keeping my good memories.

[madmanofprague.livejournal.com]

Same with me and the old Transformers cartoons. I guess you never really notice the crappy animation as a kid.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Er, I forgot to add: my own position is based on having gone back and watched JP after seeing newer CGI movies. This isn't just from memory.

The CGI in JP was incredible...

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

... only some of the battles in Return of the King could challenge it for that sense of reality.

Storywise though... I'll always have my gripes about the "Ninja Rex" in the climax. A creature of such mass and size isn't noticable until it strikes? Uh... no. Still don't buy into that.

Re: The CGI in JP was incredible...

[sassy-fae.livejournal.com]

The thing that made the CG in JP so incredible was that it was able to suspend the disbelief of the audience so well. The ninja rex? Never even noticed, I was too enthralled with the action :)

Re: The CGI in JP was incredible...

[thothmeister.livejournal.com]

It happens when the velociraptors have the heroes trapped in a museum near the end... cramped quarters. Suddenly when they are cornered a T-rex magically appears to gobble down the 'raptors.

Re: The CGI in JP was incredible...

[thebitterguy]

Well, I'm sure she noticed the actual T-Rex, just never saw the logical incongruency of it teleporting into the middle of the room.

Re: The CGI in JP was incredible...

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

Dude, dinosaurs could so teleport!

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

JP was real because it was the first time any of us had seen anything like it. Prior to that the high water mark was the pretty cool liquid metal Terminator but that was hardly on the same emotional-resonance level as seeing dinosaurs walk again.

I wonder how well it holds up now.

[kinra.livejournal.com]

When Jurassic Park was made, nobody had a "CG tolerance" -- what was being attempted was to create images that looked like real things, fooling the eye and visual processing cortex.

Since then, it's been "assumed" that there are, well, "tools in the toolbox". The wheel may well need to be reinvented each time in order to fool us like they did then.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

I think part of it was you had Spielberg riding herd, and the other part was that JP remains, to my knowledge, the only CGI built on practical FX technology and it was heavily mixed with practicals. They did the movements with a stop-motion model hooked up to a computer if I remember correctly. Since then, that procedure has been dumped for wholesale generation in the computer, which is a very flawed model to me.

Also, Spielberg mostly cloaked the CGI in darkness, rain, and fog. I wish more filmmakers had the brains to do this.

[dawgstar.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. Like many kids, I was a dinosaur nut and the first time they gape at the dinos on the island, I wouldn't say I got teary but there was definitely a tiny burning sensation in the corner of my eye.

I wonder if a little of it is, that JP was trying to be "right" about dinosaurs (in the same was Crichton was in the novel, or at least attempted). The rest of them, eh, they don't care so much. We get them on the Sci-Fi channel original movies these days, for goodness' sake. With JP, though, one could think that very possibly almost maybe this is how they would act, so wow. YMMV, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh no, it's not just you. I've felt this way for a long time, and wondered if I was nuts. It's possible to see in some shots (the raptors in the kitchen, particularly) a little bit of the age of the film's technology, but by and large, the original Jurassic Park dinosaurs have this stately sensation of weight and density that most later CGI monster-messes don't quite capture. Part of it, I suspect, is the slightly cartoony speed and flexibility that has come into vogue with contemporary CGI... look at The Hulk, for example. Zoom in, zoom out. Stretch, flex, distort, etc. It gives things an exaggerated, Silly Putty-esque look.

Contemporary action/adventure/sci-fi films (it's weird how much things have changed in just twelve years or so, eh?) also seem to have a great deal more camera movement in general... swooping, shaking, rotating, whirling, and so forth. I have to admit that the fascination with filming fight scenes with a camera nearly up the nostrils of all the participants is really starting to piss me off.

JP, by comparison, was filmed in the more staid 80s/early 90s fashion-- there's plenty of movement and action on screen, but the camera itself isn't cavorting through pointless CGI zooms and rotations every five seconds. I think this lends a great deal of assistance to the illusion of the dinosaurs, by not reminding us every few eye-blinks that we're watching something highly artificial.

[thebitterguy]

I think that's definitely a point. Maybe that's why Lucas used so darn many static shots in the prequels, to keep his CGI under control.

WRT Fight scenes: Yeah, it's good to see them done at medium length. The River scenes in Serenity were fairly well done mostly close in.

[pxtl.livejournal.com]

Dispite the incredibly, mindbogglingly talented people who come out of that school - I blame Sheridan College.

You see, remember the background of CG animators. They're animators. The best of the best come through Sheridan College, who before studying CG, are studying classical animation for 3 years. These people cut their teeth on Spumco-style stuff. I doubt it's easy for them to abandon those instincts and focus on minimalist realism when animating for film. They're trained to make Jar-Jark Binks.

JP didn't use those people for animation - they did modelling and such like, but the animation was done by old special-effects puppeteers. Those special effects guys were focussed on realism and nothing else. Not emotiveness, expressiveness, etc. Just realism.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

Whoops. That anonymous comment was me.

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

It's not possible that the state of the art FX still can't capture the same sensawunda that Spielberg did ten years ago, is it?

Well hey, as far as I'm concerned the space battle in Return of the Jedi stood unequalled for at least twenty-two years. The space battle in Revenge of the Sith was light-years beyond it in terms of complexity, vividness, and technical panache, but it lacked the narrative clarity of the RotJ battle (in which the ships of the Empire and the Rebellion could be clearly distinguished, and in which the goals of the respective sides were immediately clear). It takes something more than raw special effects power to build a scene that grabs you by the metaphorical jiggly bits and yanks you into the screen.

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Star Trek II still has, IMHO, some of the most breathtaking big-screen space battles I've ever seen.

[thebitterguy]

The final battle in TWOK reminds me of a submarine battle. Tension inside, then the shots of the two ships gliding by each other. Very well done.

It is still a high water mark for space battles, that's for sure.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

It IS a submarine battle. In fact, the entire movie is handled like a submarine thriller. This is one of the reasons Nicholas Meyer is a genius.

"Khan" is my favorite movie of all time, just for the record. :-)

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

While not my fave of all time, it's certainly in the top ten, and is the best SF franchise movie of all time.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

It's just a great swashbuckler, how anyone can hate it is beyond me.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

"We've tried it your way, Khan, how about we try it mine?"

...

"I'll give him this much, he's consistent."

Best Quote

[creativedv8tion.livejournal.com]

"I don't like to lose."

Re: Best Quote

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

"You lied." "I exaggerated." :-)

[scott-lynch.livejournal.com]

Believe me, I have -no- hate whatsoever for that film. The Mutara Nebula sequences in particular are a stellar achievement, no pun intended, considering what a tight budget the whole production was on.

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

I happened to see part of JP on tv a few weeks ago, and I think the effects still hold up. I think one thing is that they emphasized the weight of the things so much; that scene where you can tell the dinosaur is coming because of the little waves in the water in a glass was very effective, for example.