The Best of 2005 - Visual Effects
War of the Worlds was a terrible movie. It was absolutely horrible, poorly conceived and terribly executed.
With regards to story.
Visually, it was a real treat. If there’s one thing the film succeeded in doing, it was in conveying the enormity and reality of these alien tripods in relation to their human prey. While I would have liked to have given this award to Star Wars, the fact of the matter is that War of the Worlds succeeded in conveying computer imagery that appeared realistic, threatening and plausible. One brilliant stroke has to be their keeping the alien craft enshrouded in fog, darkness and trees for most of the film. As a result, the inadequacy of the computer imagery was negligible…instead, one couldn’t help but be overwhelmed and frightened by the very big, very real machines stalking our heroes through the night.
What’s also interesting is Spielberg’s use of these effects and computer visuals in relation to his ornate and fluid camera movements. Instead of being burdened by them, he allows them to free up his camerawork even further. One fancy shot had Spielberg looking at a horrific scene of violence through the viewfinder of a consumer digital camera. Other shots had him spinning and panning around a moving van in a fashion that would be either extremely expensive or near impossible to achieve with a camera car.
Letting his digital creations slip into the night, he presented imagery that seemed solid, concrete, real. And because of that, it was much more frightening. You may not feel the emotion between Tom Cruise and Dakota Fanning. But when that tripod set its foot down right in front of her, my heart skipped a beat. I wasn’t thinking of how great the digital effects looked. I wasn’t awestruck by the visuals. I was terrified. And that’s when I knew the effects worked.
1 comment:
Certainly, very well done on the effects front. The image you picked for the post was a perfect example. A little smoke, fog, and glare from the sun, and you achieve the dual purpose of enhancing the drama and mystery and minimizing the blatant use of CGI.
I actually really liked the first third of this film, when it was all gritty, handheld, washed out, etc. Very engaging and very different for Big Stevie.
Towards the end I felt like the attention to detail in the visual effects sort of fell off, as though the animators tired as they plowed through the long film.
Loved the camcorder shot!
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