Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 January 8

= January 8 =

The Hunt for Red October
When I recently watched this great movie once again, I was quite staggered by the final scene: Am I the only one who noticed how cheaply the montage of the two protagonists in the final scene was realized? This reminds me of some old corny flick like from the fifties or so, where the actors are placed in front of a screen with some pre-recorded landscape footage being played as backdrop ... How come they did such a poor job there – as opposed to with the rest of this great piece of motion art? Hildeoc (talk) 21:20, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * To answer the first question literally: No, I noticed it too. --142.112.220.65 (talk) 04:06, 10 January 2023 (UTC)


 * I found a review in this blog which says:
 * If there’s a technical weakness in the film, it’s the visual effects, some of which frankly look pretty fake, especially the blue screen at the end or any scene involving a torpedo... But the film came out right at the time when CGI was just coming into common usage and whether or not the film was stuck using effects which didn’t look great then and look dodgy now, they’re of a decidedly lower standard than the rest of the film.
 * Other than that I didn't find any comment. Perhaps, as the blogger says, the SFX seemed okay at the time. I'm reminded of watching Lost in Space as a boy in the 1960s and thinking that the space ships and aliens were wonderful, but rewatching now are obviously cardboard, polystyrene and recycled gorilla suits. Alansplodge (talk) 22:56, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
 * PS: The torpedo sequences did actually use an early form of CGI, see Particles, ILM and ‘The Hunt For Red October’. Alansplodge (talk) 23:14, 8 January 2023 (UTC)


 * In the "Moonraker" film the laser battle between space-suited soldiers was apparently done with complicated and expensive special effects, but it looks cheap and low-budget now (see "Let's Remember Roger Moore With This Absurd `Moonraker' Space Laser Battle" etc)... AnonMoos (talk) 02:37, 9 January 2023 (UTC)


 * Regarding CGI; it should be noted that the Jurassic Park was really seen as the turning point in photorealistic CGI; it came out 3 years after The Hunt for Red October Expensive and innovative CGI in Jurassic Park was justified in the attempt to bring realistic looking dinosaurs to life (which did not exist at the time).  1990, when The Hunt for Red October was made, probably either didn't have the tools or the producers didn't feel the need to spend the expense to produce such CGI.  Audiences wouldn't have expected better visual effects at the time.  The retrospective review noted above is written from a perspective 30 years after the film was made.  In 1990, no one was looking for such realism in films.  -- Jayron 32 11:52, 9 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks to Lucas and/or Spielberg, visual effects have gotten so good that it seems too often that they take on more importance than the story. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 11:38, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Outside of Jurassic Park, Spielberg is not particularly known for CGI. He's far better known for films like The Color Purple, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me If You Can, etc.  Not much CGI there.  Lucas, also, is better known for practical effects than CGI, after all he founded Industrial Light and Magic, which was long one of the biggest practical effects houses in the world.  If one director were to be credited with the proliferation of CGI in film, it would rather be James Cameron, where films like The Abyss, Titanic, and Avatar all made heavy use of CGI.  -- Jayron 32 13:08, 10 January 2023 (UTC)
 * I heard Apollo 13 didn't win the Visual Effects Oscar cause the paint falling off the rocket so amazed them they thought it was real video. I don't know if that's an urban legend or not but it's obviously CGI, how could that lose an Oscar from being "too photorealistic"? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 03:36, 11 January 2023 (UTC)