Practical Vs. Digital Effects

            I want to look at practical effects vs. digital effects.  Practical effects are effects done with puppets or props and filmed with cameras.  Practical effects are ironically less practical than digital effects from a money and time standpoint.  Digital effects are done with computer technology.  Using this method saves time, money, and makes the effects look better, allegedly.

            Digital effects should have gotten better through the years but it hasn’t.  I honestly can’t figure it out but computer generated images, or CGI, have gotten worse over the years.  Digital effects were used in Jurassic Park to great effect.  Although the raptors, which were costumes, were still the best looking dinosaurs in the movie the difference is very hard to spot. 

At times CGI has greatly improved effects.  For example, King Kong:

In 1933-

In 2005-

CGI took a fairly cartoonish looking puppet, and made it look like a pretty believable ape.  But lately CGI has been failing.  Whereas in the case of Jurassic Park, the CGI was almost impossible to tell between the practical effects, CGI is now instantly recognizable as computer generated, almost as if the films director was attempting to make a partially animated world.

Some of the best practical effects I’ve ever seen are in the movie The Thing from 1982. For example:

In 2011 they remade The Thing.  As the 1982 version of The Thing was famous for its effects I expected similar results from the remake, after all we have better technology now.  Instead we got this:

Now to be fair the filmmakers admitted that they ran out of time and money for effects, and this is by far the worst effect in the movie.  But even the best effects in the movie aren’t better than Peter Jackson’s practical effects in 1982.