Ten times movies turned a serious corner in special effects

There are so many moments we have all had while watching movies; being blown away by what we saw. Any field has moments in history when great strides are made, and in movies it’s amazing to see how quickly those strides have occurred in such a short amount of time. This is not an authoritative listing. In fact, I drew only from my own movie watching experiences throughout the years. Here are the moments of great innovation that I believe were revolutionary in the film-making business:

(1933) — Even though stop animation had been used prior to this, the big ape put this effect on the cinematic map. Watch this movie and you’ll be surprised how good it is even considering today’s standards.

(1939) — Colour! A horse of a different colour, that is. And for the record, no munchkin suicides happened during the making of this movie.

(1941) — Pioneered (amoung many things) “deep focus.” This is a technique that, according to IMDb’s trivia page, “keeps every object in the foreground, center and background in simultaneous focus. This brought a sense of depth to the two-dimensional world of movies.”

(1968) — I would argue that this was the biggest turn made. Every space movie made after 1968 owes a huge debt of gratitude to this movie. Kubrick was far ahead of his time in a lot of things, and special effects is one.

(1975) — Sure, it was the fact that the mechanical shark was malfunctioning that led to this movie being so great, but the effects really were awesome, not to mention scaring the fish paste out of us all.

(1977) — Obvious here. My favourite is but there’s no denying that this one changed everything in the world of both filmmaking movie-going. The mix of special effects and good storytelling created the monster dynasty that it is now.

(1979) — Using shellfish and sheep parts to make an alien in its newly hatched phase is the kind of creativity that makes—and inspires new—great movies.

(1993) — Yes CGI was used, but in a very good way took a backseat to practical effects. The T-Rex scene is one of the greatest scenes ever in cinema (so says me anyway).

(1995) — Seeing a movie that is completely CGI is typically boring. But computer animation? It’s awesome! started it all, and amazingly still holds up today despite being the first of its kind.

(1993)— This is one of the best examples of effects being vital to the story, even telling the story. It brought us face-to-face with human death and human depravity, blurring the lines between reality and special effect, and somehow doing so in a humble way. Perhaps the most important movie ever made and the effects keep up with it.

(2013) — Seems like making space movies brings out the best in us. This is the first movie I ever watched where I felt like I really was in space. I’m not well schooled on the technology they used, but I do know that it was ingenuity and an attitude that was fine with learning by trial-and-error that made this movie an instant classic. Producer David Heyman says of its making, “All of the technology, you know, when we began the process, we had no idea what we were doing. It was a process of discovery.”

Congratulations This is your week.

Best Actress: Sigourney Weaver in Come on, was there any other consideration here?

Best Actor: Bob Hoskins in

Best Quote: TIE: 1) “Open the pod bay doors, HAL.” — Dr. Dave Bowman in  2) “I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way.” — Jessica Rabbit in

I know I left out some key ones, but I based this primarily on my own experiences watching movies. I also wanted to keep the number at 10. Otherwise T2 would have been the first one thrown in. And my apologies to the decades of the 50’s, 80’s and the 00’s for no representation. Please stop calling my house.