JM McNab
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Without kickass special effects, Star Wars would be a chamber piece, Jurassic Park wouldn't have any dinosaurs, and we'd only ever get to see the top of Tom Cruise's head on screen. As we've covered before, though, sometimes when computer effects get taken away, the magic and drama of Hollywood are immediately reduced to slapstick insanity. Such as how ...
Presumably because Robert Downey Jr.'s love of money isn't going away any time soon, Marvel launched a new series about a goateed jackass who becomes a better person after suffering a grievous injury and dabbling in some superpowers: Doctor Strange. Thanks to some magic doodads and the Ancient One (who turns out to be a middle-aged white lady), Strange is able to fight with balls of energy and bolts of otherworldly lightning.
Marvel StudiosGoku has aged quite gracefully.
Without The CGI, Though ...
Dude was swinging around a glow stick. Doctor Strange's fight with Kaecilius looks like a drunken brawl at a rave for middle-aged men. It's less "magical battle to save the Universe" and more "using Christmas lights to disarm a Juggalo of his Devil Sticks."
Marvel Studios
Marvel StudiosMarvel made sure to cast actors with only one facial expression for this movie solely so they wouldn't crack up.
And those portals Strange conjures like he's using some kind of black magic Uber? A glowing hula hoop they probably stole from the Flaming Lips.
Marvel StudiosWe got a contact high just looking at this picture.
And Strange's trippy jaunt through the psychedelic astral plane? That looked pretty dumb in reality, too ... not to mention uncomfortable.
Marvel Studios
Marvel StudiosThis explains the puke all over his face in the following scene.
They hung Benedict Cumberbatch from the ceiling and spun him around like he was careening through space and time -- either because they couldn't CG his likeness for these scenes, or the crew was annoyed at how shitty Sherlock's gotten.
Even fans of The Walking Dead are probably as bored of watching the living dead feast on the flesh of the living living as they are of watching Pat and Vanna sell vowels to strangers. That's why the zombie show shook things up in the seventh season by adding a goddamn tiger. In one particularly memorable scene, the tiger takes out some of Negan's goons right as he's about to go full Joe Pesci on poor Carl.
AMC Studios
AMC StudiosHis friends then have to shoot him before he turns into a tiger.
Without The CGI, Though ...
As you might have guessed, working with tigers is expensive and dangerous, which is why a gritty reboot of Calvin And Hobbes has yet to come to fruition. So instead of wrangling a majestic animal, they threw a blue bodysuit on some guy and had him hop on a children's trampoline.
AMC StudiosFinally, after seven years, the guy who hung around on set making cat noises in a blue suit came in handy.
In a familiar sight for anyone who's ever heckled the Blue Man Group, the guy tackles the henchman, and then lays on top of him for an awkwardly long time:
AMC Studios
AMC Studios"Don't worry, I'm a licensed analra-"
"Don't say it."
Yeah, there's a reason William Blake never wrote "Guy in blue tights, guy in blue tights burning bright."
You're probably familiar with Stranger Things, the hit Netflix show created by the Duffer brothers and co-written by a copy of '80s Trivial Pursuit. The first season of the show finds a bunch of lovably scrappy kids taking on an outer-dimensional monster known as the Demogorgon. If kids today would get off their damn phones for two seconds, maybe they could take out a rogue vagina-dentata-faced beast from time to time.
NetflixThe classic scene where the Demogorgon has to awkwardly introduce himself to the rest of the class.
Without The CGI, Though ...
Since the creators clearly wanted the monster to have an '80s movie feel, but likely thought that having the kids fight a keytar-playing Emilio Estevez would look silly, the Demogorgon was created using not only CGI, but also practical effects. Meaning that in some scenes of the show, the creature from the Upside Down was some guy in a rubber suit. It's a tad less scary when you realize that this interdimensional killer actually looked like your high school English teacher.
NetflixLike other beloved celebs, the Demogorgon got out of being drafted in Vietnam due to those bone spurs.
Instead of a hellish Georgia O'Keefe painting, on set, the monster's mouth was nothing but some poor fellow's sheepish expression.
Netflix
NetflixHe looks like he's choking on Deadpool's head.
At least the guy in the Xenomorph suit didn't have a peephole to constantly display his embarrassment.
The Passion Of The Christ was obviously a controversial movie at the time. For some, it was a transcendent, holy experience. For others, it was a Hostel if Hostel hated Jewish people. The bulk of the movie found Jim Caviezel's Jesus being whipped, tortured, and generally beaten to a bloody pulp, as envisioned by the star of What Women Want.
Newmarket FilmsGlad to see we're not the only ones who fell asleep during this thing.
Without The CGI, Though ...
Jim Caviezel wasn't really whipped on set, except for those two times he accidentally was. But for the most part, they merely had actors whip handles, and everyone just pretended.
Newmarket FilmsThey played Beyonce to get Caviezel to shake like that.
Instead of simply introducing a subplot about how the Romans had perfected invisible whip technology, the visual effects artists had to go back and painstakingly add the whip in (though you have to imagine no one working on this movie actually used the term "painstaking"). To do this, they had to film a separate actor with a real whip -- meaning that the true tormentor of the Messiah was this random fellow in jorts.
Newmarket Films"Behold, the one the prophets spoke of: Gary the tormentor."
Then they used computer magic to superimpose this guy over the image of Jesus being beaten half to death:
Newmarket Films"What would I do with a time machine? Uhh, kill Hitler. Yeah, totally."
Thankfully, computers also erased him, so Jesus wasn't beaten by what looks like a guy who was dragged to a Pilates class by his wife.
Before he somehow angered the gods and was cursed to spend eternity making movies set in Middle-earth, you may remember that Peter Jackson made some non-Hobbit movies. One of those was a remake of the classic King Kong, in which a giant ape falls in love with a human woman, then climbs the Empire State Building -- a scene Freud no doubt loved.
Universal PicturesIt's unclear what Kong wants to do with her, since he lacks genitals.
Without The CGI, Though ...
While the movie's visual effects seamlessly brought Kong to life, the behind-the-scenes footage is decidedly less magical. For one encounter with the fabled beast, they strapped Naomi Watts on a moving platform and jabbed at her with what we can only hope is supposed to be a giant finger ...
Universal PicturesWe said Kong had no genitals. Didn't say anything about Jack Black.
Kong was played by motion-capture guru Andy Serkis. So naturally, he showed up on set dressed like the California Raisins' haggard roadie.
Universal PicturesNo one asked him to. He just did.
Then Serkis goes up a crane and starts awkwardly headbanging like a preteen who's discovered that Iron Maiden isn't a Meryl Streep movie.
Universal Pictures"OK, this is definitely the last time I do something like this." -- Andy Serkis 13 years ago
Helming all of this chaos is Jackson himself, who directs using the tried and true method of acting out the scene himself with a Barbie doll.
Universal PicturesFrodo's journey to Mount Doom was presumably first acted out with two troll dolls and an Easy-Bake Oven.
The perviest of Invisible Man movies, Hollow Man starred Kevin Bacon as a scientist who learns the secret of invisibility, which he mainly uses to grope women and murder people. But hey, those effects were cool, huh?
Columbia PicturesSales for Silly Putty dropped 70 percent that year.
Without The CGI, Though ...
Even in scenes where you'd think Bacon wouldn't have to show up, he still painted himself like a die-hard Celtics fan and acted all invisible-like.
Columbia Pictures
Columbia PicturesThey later CGed this into the Good Kermit vs. Bad Kermit meme.
Even for the end scenes, wherein Bacon's character is a grotesque Body-Worlds-like monster, instead of slathering some poor P.A. in toxic green paint, Bacon played the part himself -- and to be fair, the scene is still extremely creepy.
Columbia PicturesMartians don't take rejection very well.
Especially disturbing are the scenes in which Bacon forcibly makes out with Elizabeth Shue's character. Which would be disturbing in any context, sure, but check this out:
Columbia PicturesIt's probably the closest we'll get to seeing Kevin Bacon star in a Ninja Turtles porn parody, so enjoy.
Thor: Ragnarok finds the titular God of Thunder kidnapped and relocated to Jeff Goldblum's hedonism planet, the most charmingly aloof of all hedonism planets. In one exciting scene, Thor is forced into a gladiatorial arena to fight the Hulk. The results are way more exciting than the time they gently tussled on '80s television.
Marvel StudiosAt last! A scene of superheroes punching each other!
Without The CGI, Though ...
Thor's badass moves were apparently accomplished by sticking Chris Hemsworth on a Slip 'N Slide with a pair of imaginary swords.
Marvel StudiosThat or he's checking whether his deodorant is working.
Instead of busting out the body paint and force-feeding Mark Ruffalo a shit-ton of Creatine, they of course opted to use a totally CG Hulk. To help on set, though, they threw a Hulk head on a tripod, as if someone exposed a camera to gamma radiation, then pissed it off.
Marvel StudiosHulk has been skipping everything but shoulders day.
And ... who even knows what the hell is happening here.
Marvel StudiosWait, is that Kevin Bacon up there?
After the first scene of the very first episode gave us a terrifying attack, Game Of Thrones withheld the White Walkers for over five years, which was insane. That would be like if the Fresh Prince took three years to get to Bel-Air. Eventually, though, we got tons of sword-wielding skeletons from Westeros' Canada.
HBOAnd more male nudity.
Without The CGI, Though ...
A lot of the White Walkers' undead wights are guys in skull masks with pajamas underneath, like some kind of Death Eater slumber party.
HBO
HBOPlot twist: They're all Kevin Bacon.
Sure, a lot of these special effects we've looked at involve actors in colored tights, but the fact that the tights are underneath tattered clothes and skull faces is just plain silly.
HBOAbove: when your mom insists you put on a sweater under your goth clothes.
Watch how differently this wight attack plays out when Jon Snow and his buddies are battling a thrifty cosplayer:
HBO
HBO
HBO
HBOLess "epic fantasy battle," more "St. Patrick's Day party at Castle Grayskull."
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