Dinosaurs and Car Chases Have Their Places

Summer blockbusters are made to be BIG. With the recent releases of Jurassic World and Mad Max: Fury Road, it’s plain to see that some directors and producers have their preferences when it comes to visual effects being BIG.

In Jurassic World, we see hundreds of CGI dinosaurs everywhere. People interact with them, we see them in all different conditions (rain, direct sunlight, et cetera) and the close-ups are brilliant. Twenty years ago when Jurassic Park came out, that kind of computer animation was unheard of, so the dinosaurs were a mix of puppets, miniatures, and computer generation. But now, they’re all CGI.

Now, everyone has their preferences on whether or not Jurassic World really should have been all CGI, and everyone and their mother has critiqued this choice. Everyone, it seems, has an opinion about these iconic dinosaurs.

But what about car chases?

Mad Max: Fury Road is the polar opposite of Jurassic World in terms of effects. Director George Miller decided that all of the effects in the movie should be practical, if possible. With the exception of some minor background changes, and a huge sandstorm, he manages to keep all of the effects real.

And it really shows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ent02yItm60

The difference between the before and after is startling– because there isn’t much difference. This hearkens back to the first Mad Max, with its shoe-string budget and rag-tag crew. In keeping with the world of Mad Max, everything is as gritty and realistic as possible, and audiences and reviewers have been raving about just how great it is to see a departure from CG effects.

So which is better? Are practical effects going to make a comeback, or are we going to continue down the road of motion capture and spandex ping-pong ball suits….

The Answer is, we don’t really know. Practical effects feel more “real” to audiences, but there are a lot of things that simply aren’t grounded in reality. Beloved older movies like Alien and The Thing rely entirely on practical special effects, while movies like Avatar are beautifully rendered CGI dreamscapes.

It’s all about what vision the director has for their movie.

….But, the flamethrower guitar in Mad Max: Fury Road was real. It really played, it really shot flames, and it was really strapped to the top of a huge car, driving through the desert. That’s a win for practical effects, in my book.