History SugarWiki / VisualEffectsOfAwesome

* The scene in ''StarWarsCloneWars'' where Saesee Tiin flies up to the space battle. You wonder what the fuss is about at first; it's just an ordinary sky filled with stars. Then you notice they aren't all white, and tiny points of light move between them. A few of the stars flare and fade. And then it hits you; they're no stars, they're battle ships, and the sky is absolutely full of them blasting the hell out of each other.

* The scene in ''StarWarsCloneWars'' where Saesee Tiin flies up to the space battle. When the stars transition into ships, you truly get the scale and epicness of the battle.

** At the start of his short "The Playhouse," masking and multiple exposures are used so [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7AnUU3qkJw Buster can play everyone in a theater]]: the performers, the orchestra, and the entire audience. At one point, nine Busters are onstage simultaneously performing a minstrel routine. This required the camera operator to crank the film through the camera at exactly the same speed for every take.

*** But then look at the 2nd one. First the skeletons at the beginning, that is 100% Stan Winston. See the scene where they made an animatronic Arnold? As in a torso of him? You do, but you don't see it. Where he walks down the hallway with a grenade launcher firing tear-gas, it's nor Arnold. That's one of Winston's effects.

* Not sure if it quite fits, but you know all the alien growths on Wikus? All makeup and animatronics. No CGI. Tell me that's not impressive.

* The sequence in ''Bride of Frankenstein'' with miniature humans (created by Dr. Praetorius) is glass bottles is pretty astonishing for 1935! Watch it [[http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2656761/pretorius_little_people/ here.]]

* Captain Falcon's [[MegatonPunch Falcon Punch]] was just straight awesome in SuperSmashBros: after [[CallingYourAttacks shouting the name, he unleashed a fiery punch complete with a 2D image of his emblem. Then along comes Melee and he keeps the punch, ''only now the flames morph into a falcon spreading its wings.''

This is the work of Visual Effects artists. Some should be called Visual Effects Geniuses. For some reason, most of them are called employees of IndustrialLightAndMagic, but that's another story.....(some are also called employees of Digital Domain, and they're some new kids on the block like WETA)

** In ''SherlockJr.", Buster [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rh4E0Zzcck appears to walk right into a movie screen (actually a carefully lit stage), and then contends with a series of jump cuts that takes him from a garden, to a busy city street, to a cliff's edge, to a glade filled with lions, to a desert, to an ocean, to a snowfield, and back to the garden.]] To make the transitions seamless, when setting up a new shot Buster had to replicate his pose in the previous shot at precisely the same distance from the camera.
** And then there's the trope-defining ByWallThatIsHoley in Steamboat Bill, Jr.

This is the work of Visual Effects artists. Some should be called Visual Effects Geniuses. For some reason, most of them are called employees of IndustrialLightAndMagic, but that's another story.....

**Um, hello?? "''Planet of Evil''"?? to quote wikipedia: "Despite the jungle setting of this serial, the shoot was entirely studio bound, and designer Roger Murray-Leach built an intricately detailed jungle set. The BBC was so impressed with it that they kept photographs of it for several years as an example of excellent set design and producer Philip Hinchcliffe recommended that he be nominated for an award for this work."

* No love for {{Sunshine}}? The ending scene where Capa is looking at the sun is particularly beautiful, but there's a whole bunch of stunning visuals in this movie.

* No love for ''TheMummy''?! From the opening shot of Thebes, to Imhotep's walking, talking corpse, the plagues, the sand wall, and the soldier mummies were just pure epic in this troper's opinion.

* No love for ''{{Serenity}}''? Seriously... [[spoiler: The entire movie is full of brilliant effects, but that one scene near the end, when the Reavers come out of that nebula and just engage the alliance fleet waiting there head-on! Even this troper was like OhCrap.]] That scene was also quite definatly a CrowningMomentOfAwesome.

* No love for the CG animals in ''Film/TheGoldenCompass''? Especially the whole polar bear fight and the subtler ones like the daemons and... Screw you guys, I missed out on ''[[PiratesOfTheCaribbean At World's End]]'', but this definitely deserves the Oscar from ''Film/{{Transformers}}'', which is also damned pretty.

* No love for ''SuperMarioGalaxy''? Really? This troper may be alone, but when I play it, I can't help but feel mesmerised by the visuals (and music).
** ''SuperMarioGalaxy'' and its [[SuperMarioGalaxy2 sequel]] have some of the most utterly gorgeous levels in any game, a fantastic art style and color palette, and brilliantly creative areas. I still don't know how they managed to accomplish one of the best-looking games this gen on the much weaker hardware. Regardless, both games are completely beautiful.
** How about ''Super Mario 64''? It might look a little flat and low-res now, but back in 1996 when it came out my gob was smacked and my flabber well and truly ghasted. ''I was playing a 3D cartoon'' and it moved ''beautifully''! Although the visuals have aged over the years the gameplay is still right up there with any current 3D platformer too.

** In one of his films with FattyArbuckle, "Moonshine," [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQG4f3e3-_k 50 policemen emerge from a single car.]] This was accomplished by masking out part of the frame to hide the fact that the cops were entering the car on one side and exiting from the other. Once they had footage of the police leaving the car, they rewound the reel, masked the exposed section and filmed the empty vehicle with the unexposed film. Result: clowns exiting a car taken [[UpToEleven up to eleven]]. Here's the really clever part: Buster used jacks to raise the entire car off the ground so it wouldn't bounce on its shocks as the actors climbed through it.
** At the start of one short, "The Playhouse," masking and multiple exposures are used so [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7AnUU3qkJw Buster can play everyone in a theater]]: the performers, the orchestra, and the entire audience. At one point, seven Busters are onstage simultaneously performing a minstrel routine.
** In ''SherlockJr.", Buster [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rh4E0Zzcck appears to walk right into a movie screen (actually a carefully lit stage), and then contends with a series of jump cuts that takes him from a garden, to a busy city street, to a cliff's edge, to a glade filled with lions, to a desert, to an ocean, to a snowfield, and back to the garden.]] To make the transitions seamless, Buster had to replicate his pose in the previous shot at precisely the same distance from the camera.

* Lon. Chaney. Senior. Even after eighty years of advances in makeup and visual effects, his portrayals of [[TheHunchbackOfNotreDame Quasimodo]] and ThePhantomOfTheOpera still rank among the most effective physical transformations ever created for film.

* {{Rent}}'s special effects were done by Industrial Lights And Magic, so it goes without saying that it's got a lot of these, but the "Without You" sequence takes the cake. It's a montage of the character's lives, from roughly late January to right around Halloween. There's a little support group for people with AIDS called Life Support. The camera pans around the room at a few points, and people fade away... how they made that look so smooth is just amazing. The camera doesn't jump at all, and everyone who didn't fade is still right where they were and it's just amazing. Even with the TearJerker of that scene... wow.

*** I see you ''DeepSpaceNine'' and raise you ''[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]''. DS9's credits were beautiful, but ''StarTrekVoyager Voyager'''s were ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXCP6lJkDZU breathtaking.]]''

*** I see you ''DeepSpaceNine'' and raise you ''Voyager''. DS9's credits were beautiful, but ''[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'''s were ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXCP6lJkDZU breathtaking.]]''

*** I see you ''DeepSpaceNine'' and raise you ''[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]''. DS9's credits were beautiful, but ''[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]'''s were ''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXCP6lJkDZU breathtaking.]]''

*** I see you ''DeepSpaceNine'' and raise you ''[[StarTrekVoyager Voyager]]''. DS9's credits were beautiful, but ''Voyager'''s were '''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXCP6lJkDZU breathtaking.]]'''

** The animation may not have been technically groundbreaking, but this troper always found the first 30 seconds opening credits for ''DeepSpaceNine'' to be quite beautiful.