The "Possible Perils" of Special Effects

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Child

Potentially more serious, will the heavy use of special effects tend to "date" the movies so that we pass over them more quickly at some point down the road? What seems marvelous and innovative today can quickly become blase when the next round of technology comes in and produces something far more sophisticated.

This is an interesting point. As I said in the sister thread, I remember being thrilled with Ray Harryhausen's effects in the films such as the Sinbad series and The Valley of Gwangi. And I was absolutely blown away when I first saw Star Wars. And, while Harryhausen's stop-motion animation does now look very dated in comparison with modern SFX, I do think that some of Industrial Light and Magic's work on Star Wars has stood the test of time well (although it is probably difficult to get hold of the pre-digitally enhanced version these days).

But with many of the special effects today, and particularly those deployed in the LotR films, it is difficult to see how they could get much better. Gollum's features and expressions, for example, are so realistic that I find myself completely forgetting that he is a CGI character. And I find creatures such as the Oliphaunts, the Stone Troll, the Balrog and, yes, even Treebeard (for the most part) to be utterly credible. Admittedly, there are some areas where the SFX could be improved upon. Latex face-masks can sometimes result in that rather standardised "Buffy Vampire", big cheek-boned look, and this afflicts some of the Orcs, although most are the result of exceptionally good make-up jobs (particularly the 'principal' Orcish characters). And there is a moment in Gollum's transformation where he looks like the actor (presumably Andy Serkis) in "monster" make-up that he is. Also, there is a loss of 'reality' where CGI is used for characters otherwise played by actors (such as where Legolas jumps from the Stone Troll).

But, for the most part, it is difficult to see how the effects could get much better, and so difficult to tell whether the films will become dated in this respect. I suppose that I thought much the same when I first saw Star Wars, so perhaps they will. But I tend to think that the next stage of technical development in films will be enhanced 3-D, or even holographic, visuals.

Originally Posted by Child

Were special effects "overused" in the film to the point that they distracted our attention from the characters and/or caused PJ to invest his energies in something which, I believe, Tolkien would have considered tangential? Did the stress on special effects, where everything is made so obvious to the naked eye, detract from the sense of mystery and magic that is so much more evident in the book itself?

Well, I've said it before and I'll probably keep saying it, but, rightly or wrongly, these were 'action' films. And such films tend to require spectacular special effects these days. People like spectacular special effects (or so film-makers believe, at least). As I have also said on a number of occasions, the films were made for film-goers in general, not just us Tolkien-book-fans, so it was inevitable really that much of the subtlety and narrative/themic development of the books would be squeezed out by the visual extravaganza.

But that answer does not, I think, fully do justice to the question that Child has posed. I would divide the special effects into three categories. There are those which are both technically brilliant and appropriate to the story. There are those which are techically brilliant but inappropriate. And there are those which (for whatever reason) are not so technically brilliant and therefore lack somewhat in realism. It is the latter two categories which will disturb the 'suspension of belief' and therefore, perhaps, impair one's enjoyment of the films.

I think that we could all reach broad agreement on those effects which lacked in realism. I have given examples above of some of those that I would see as falling in this category. But, where the technical quality is good, it will depend on individual taste and standpoint as to whether a particular effect is appropriate or not. For example, I found Legolas' more athletic manoevres rather silly, but there are many who would count these amongst their favourite moments. Similarly, I am somewhat dubious about the RotK EE preview which shows Saruman shooting a fireball from the top of Orthanc, but there are many who will love this sort of thing.

To comment, with this in mind, on some of the effects discussed so far on this thread:

I liked Bilbo's 'horror' face in Rivendell. There is textual justification for it and some form of make-up would have been required to portray Frodo's vision of Bilbo at this point in the book, Ian Holm's formidable acting skills notwithstanding. I can see why some think that Jackson went over the top, but it worked for me in light of the brevity of the moment.

Galadriel's 'nuclear' moment is an interesting one. Like Essex, I believe that there is justification for using special effects here, both on the basis of the text and for film-making reasons. I just happen to think that the effect was done rather badly. Switching the camera to negative image and distorting the voice simply looked faintly ridiculous to me (I almost laughed at this point when I first saw it in the cinema). Indeed, I would have favoured a more sophisticated (and perhaps more subtle) use of effects here.

The Dead Army is also interesting. The close-up shots of them in the Paths of the Dead are, I think, marvellous. The way that the Dead King's face shifts from rotting flesh to skull, for example, is very well done. Yet I agree that the 'long shots' of the Army at the Pelennor look silly. 'Amorphous Green Blob' and 'Green Virus' are alas pretty accurate descriptions of what we ended up with. It would have been far better, visually, to have had the odd close-up shot of Dead Warriors fighting on the field of battle. And this would have had the added advantage of making it seem less like the battle is only won because of them (although, since Pelargir is excluded from the cinematic release, they do have to play some major role at the Pelennor).

Radagastly mentioned the Warg attack. I actually don't think that this was gratuitous, in the context of the film, at all (although Aragorn's cliff dive undoubtedly was). We know from the book that Saruman used Warg Riders, so it is entirely credible that he would use them to attack those bound for Helm's Deep. I was thrilled when I heard that there would be Warg Riders in the film, as the Battle of Five Armies is one of my favourite Tolkien passages. So they are not, in my view, inappropriate. And technically they are pretty good too. Only problem is they are not Wargs! They belong in a category of their own.