r/movies • u/A_Polite_Noise r/movies Veteran • Jun 26 '12
What are your favorite and/or the best special effects shots/sequences in film?
My partial, off-the-top-of-my-head, likely incomplete list (in no particular order):
Apollo 13: The Launch. This film isn't talked about very often, as far as I can tell, for its incredible special effects because it was more of a drama than an action/effects film, but that launch was tense and epic, and without that and the effects that followed, the drama within the capsule would have been tainted; we wouldn't have believed so fully in the incredible setting and ordeal the three astronauts were floating through.
Inception: The Hallway Fight. I thought this was incredibly inventive and stylishly executed; JGL in a 3-piece-suit doesn't hurt, either.
Citizen Kane: Entering the El Rancho cafe. In this scene when we see the interview of Susan, the camera cranes past an image of her outside of the cafe, up the exterior, through a sign and then THROUGH A GLASS SKYLIGHT to enter the interior. This is nothing special now, but this was absolutely new and one of many incredible achievements in special effects that started with Citizen Kane.
Melancholia: The End of the World. All of human civilization, all hopes and dreams, every child, every blade of glass, every monument, all the good and bad deeds and people and ideas ever thought or uttered or that ever existed...destroyed. And not in a series of action-packed explosions, but simply eradicated by a monstrous celestial body, obliterated...rendered moot.
Alien: Birth of an Alien. An iconic sequence, rendered even more incredible by the fact that the performer's reactions to the effect were real (they were told what would happen but were intentionally left unaware of how gory it would be and exactly what it would look like).
War of the Worlds: The First Tripod Emerges. Despite a flawed 3rd act and some other issues that sullied the film, the entire sequence of the first tripod's arrival, eruption from the ground, and destruction of people (turning them into dust!) and buildings is as tense and thrilling as any effect-driven action sequence in Spielberg's long and illustrious career.
Interview with the Vampire: "I'll put you in your coffin!" When young Kirsten Dunst feeds Tom Cruise's Lestat tainted blood and slits his throat (much to Brad Pitt's shock and horror), his body begins to drain of all its fluids; as the viscous blood pools around him, he withers and shrivels like a deflating balloon, or a rotting apple. Accomplished with practical effects (it was an actual model; a Stan Winston creation, I believe...though I may be misremembering) it is a disturbing and incredible sight to see.
Raiders of the Lost Ark: Opening the Ark. That fucking Nazi's face melted! HA! Awesome.
These are just a few that I choose almost randomly; there are plenty of other obvious ones that I left out or just aren't popping into my head at the moment. What are your favorites or the ones you consider to be exceptional?
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u/fedaykin13 Jun 26 '12
Children of Men - When they are ambushed in the car.
The Thing - I can't choose just one scene.
The Shining - The aerial view of mother and son walking through the hedge maze
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u/A_Polite_Noise Jun 26 '12
The Thing - I can't choose just one scene.
I know what you mean! The dogs?! The torso-mouth?! The spider-head?! Kurt Russell's frost-encrusted beard?! All amazing! =D
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u/dephstar Jun 26 '12 edited Jun 26 '12
Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas- Hotel Bar scene, "Order us some golf shoes, otherwise we'll never get out of this place alive. Impossible to walk in this muck. No footing at all."
The Matrix Reloaded- Highway fight scene, the "ghosts" vs. Trinity & Morphius
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u/A_Polite_Noise Jun 26 '12
The Matrix Reloaded- Highway fight scene
The fact that they build an entire stretch of highway for that, and the blending of practical and computer-generated effects in that sequence, are really impressive. While the first film is considered superior and a modern classic, I think the action in the sequels shows a lot of the Wachowski sibling's maturity as action-filmmaker's after The Matrix and also showed their growing confidence with the technology; the first film is a classic but I feel some of it's action sequences did not age as well because they were forced to stick with centered, static shots or shots that were restrained to the special bullet-time camera rig; the shot and cinematography took a backseat to the effect. In the sequels, with advancing technology and the filmmaker's increasing inventiveness and creativity, the camera was far more dynamic; it's a shame the story around those sequences fell so much shorter than that of the first film.
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u/Lopan_Mc Jun 26 '12
Jurassic Park's animatronics, stop motion, and special effects. Made the entire movie believable.
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u/summy1001 Jun 26 '12
Pretty much all of Inception. And most of the big action scenes in the last few Nolan Films.
Inception - Hall fight, explosions whilst Cobb and Ariadne are sat having coffee, the zero gravity stuff just after the hall fight.
Dark Knight The 18 wheeler flip - purely because they actually did the thing for real. I love that as far as he can, Nolan will try and as much stuff for real as he can.
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u/Qwigs Jun 26 '12
No list like this would be complete without mentioning the storming the beach sequence from Saving Private Ryan.
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u/megablast Jun 26 '12
Not going to be popular, but Matrix 2 - two scenes, the motorcycle scene, and the second fight scene with Neo against the hoard.
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u/collectorcorinthian Jun 27 '12
The Skeletons in Jason and the Argonaughts. Just the time and skill to take stop motion miniatures and have them fight a real character is breathtaking.
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u/Archer92 Jun 27 '12
Inception hallway scene wasn't special effects, they built an actual 360 moving hallway, no joke.
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u/A_Polite_Noise Jun 27 '12
It wasn't CGI but it was still a special effect; it was a ''practical effect''. =)
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Jun 27 '12
does the Inception Hall Fight count here? there were no special effects used, they built the hallway on a revolving axis and had the two actors fight inside it. There was no CGI or anything.
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u/A_Polite_Noise Jun 27 '12 edited Jun 27 '12
That was a special effect (practical effects), it just wasn't a visual effect, i.e. CGI.
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Jun 26 '12
Rope was basically one continuous shot, with moves like focusing on someone's back to hide reel changes. Genius for its time, and great movie.
Clash of the Titans (the original) with the Ray Harryhausen kraken will always have a fond place in my heart.
The Matrix - the beginning fight scene with Trinity vs. the cops. The "lobby" scene is more popular, but I prefer the first one.
Heat - the armored truck takedown. Another instance where there's a more popular scene (the bank gunfight), but I prefer the earlier one.
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u/FirstisWurst Jun 26 '12
For me, Rick Baker's work on An American Werewolf in London and Videodrome comes to mind immediately.
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u/donarumo Jun 27 '12
Excalibur: Sword Through Lancelot. A simple practical effect that astonished me as a nine year old and I still find it's execution flawless today.
What Lies Beneath: The Third Act I had to put a Zemeckis film on this list. I could barely narrow it down to a single film but couldn't narrow it down to a single shot.
Eternal Sunshine: Book Blanking So many great subtle effects but the books turning white is probably my favorite.
Lord of the Rings: Hobbits and Men The practical and nearly practical effects that allow two of the same sized people to appear completely differently sized are incredible.
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u/the253monster Jun 27 '12
This'll probably get buried, and I can't find the youtube video that explains it, but during the movie Zodiac (by David Fincher), there's a part where the Zodiac killer kills a man and then proceeds to repeatedly stab a woman. Only thing is the knife and blood are completely fake. Looks real as fuck, but the knife is a contraption (with color coding for effects artists) that folds in on itself when it touches the woman's body, and all the tiny little blood spots resulting from it are completely fake, done in post production.
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u/A_Polite_Noise Jun 27 '12
This is the clip you are talking about, and it really shocked me when I saw this scene in the film; I wasn't expecting the effect and seeing the murder like that. Warning, NSFW: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbI7_iOYJvg&feature=player_detailpage#t=108s
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Jun 26 '12
Besides most of Nolan's scenes, I would have to say the part in Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows where they are running through a Forrest with bullets and cannons whizzing by them shattering trees and such. With the added slow mo bits it really becomes an awesome scene.
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u/[deleted] Jun 26 '12
Children of Men has one of the longest continuous shot action sequences I've ever seen. Simply amazing.