10 Hollywood Movies You Won’t Recognize Without Their VFX
What would be your life without movies?
Yes, bland and that is exactly how some Hollywood movies would have been without VFX!
The larger than life sets, incredible backdrops, unbelievable stunts, thrilling action and
peculiar creatures, all boil down to one thing- VFX.
While we aren’t denying the role of actors and directors in a movie, a great chunk of
its success can be attributed to VFX, especially if it is a sci-fi movie.
From aliens to zombies, from ice caps to flooding rivers, from marvelous forts to destroyed
airports, everything is a work of special effects.
Film making isn’t easy people, rolling out one marvel after another takes a lot of tricks
and if these tricks interest you, we present 10 Hollywood movies that couldn’t be made
without VFX!
Number 10.
Alice in Wonderland How many of you agree that Alice played a
significant role in our childhood?
This story book character had an interesting story to tell, all thanks to the chain of
events that happen!
If you have read the story, you know the characters described are anything but normal humans so
how do you recreate them onscreen?
Uhmm, VFX can help and that’s exactly how Mad Hatter and Red Queen were modified to
fit the bill.
But it were Tweedledee and Tweedledum who were impossible without special effects.
And then can we overlook the amazing scenery in the movie?
That wasn’t a real location, a lot of effort went into creating them digitally.
Are you awestruck now?
Number 9.
Life of Pi This 2012 American Drama revolves around an
Indian man who survived a shipwreck where his family dies and is adrift on a lifeboat
with a Bengal tiger.
Now you didn’t think that a 16 year old boy was actually afloat in Pacific Ocean with
a tiger in his boat, or did you?
There was no tiger at all, it was created later using VFX.
Oh and what about those close up shots with the boy?
Uhmm, it was just a soft toy!
But this isn’t the biggest shock, the real surprise is that the movie was shot is a studio
and the lifeboat was actually floating in a swimming pool!
Number 8.
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug From the expansive backgrounds of Lake-town
and Erebor to extensively detailed creatures like spiders of Mirkwood and the Dragon Smaug,
everything was achieved by VFX.
They were so well done that you almost believed the fantasy elements to be very much a part
of the real shoot!
Here again, the scenes were shot inside a studio with huge green screens that changed
into mesmerizing waterfalls and forests, thanks to technology!
Number 7.
The Avengers When it comes to creating fire and destruction
in superhero movies, Marvel does a marvelous job!
In the scene where Scarlett Johanson is pictured battling a blast, the visual is so intense
that you want to scream out of fear!
You can watch the movie again without stress on your mind because Scarlett wasn’t subjected
to that kinda danger, here’s where VFX comes into play.
There were huge green screens behind the actors that were made to look like a city under threat,
so our heroes could easily save us from the blast because there wasn’t any blast at
all!
Cool, we mean hot!
Number 6.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Who all fell in love with Captain Jack Sparrow?
No?
At least the movie left you amazed for sure, after all, there were so many special effects
to keep you interested!
The poor boat that dealt with sharks, uhmm there was no water while shooting and obviously
no sharks.
The boat was in the studio in front of huge screens, in fact most scenes focused on water
waves were a gift of special effects!
The ship tossing and battling waves was a gripping one but uhmm, again VFX was the magician!
And what’s with the strange faced pirate?
Makeup- no, that was again technology, making him scary!
Number 5.
Avatar There is no way this epic science fiction
film was possible without the magic touch of VFX.
Avatar is set in the mid-22nd century, when humans are colonizing Pandora, a lush habitable
moon of a gas giant which threatens the local tribe of Na'vi – a humanoid species indigenous
to Pandora.
That’s where the genetically engineered Avatar is created to interact with the tribe.
Enough of story line, let’s focus on special effects.
The humanoids were different looking, such that makeup itself couldn’t create that,
so some technology came into play.
Lights and green screens were used optimally to create a movie that gave the audience an
amazing experience!
Number 4.
Jurassic World After three films of the Jurassic Park series,
the fourth installment came bearing the name, Jurassic World.
This movie again is set on the fictional island of Nublar where a theme park populated with
cloned dinosaurs has operated for ten years.
The park plunges into chaos when a genetically created dinosaur breaks loose and goes on
a rampage across the island.
The plot itself screams of the need for VFX, how else can you create dinosaurs that went
extinct way before humans came into existence?
There were life sized animatronics and computer generated imagery to bring about the story
perfectly.
To get a reference for movements, some of the crew members pretended to be dinosaurs
and acted like them.
Had we been doing that, the title of our resume would read, “Played baby Triceratops”!
Number 3.
Black Panther The most recent addition to the list of movies
driven by VFX on a large scale is Black Panther.
Another Marvel character that we saw in Captain America: Civil War got its own film and we
must say, no stone was left unturned to make it a killer movie!
Talking about special effects, in one shot Klaue’s left arm was digitally removed and
instead a cloth was added in its place.
We kinda believed that the man had a missing arm, it really was done so efficiently!
We saw the technicians do a great job in creating places that don’t exist, come on, they created
a whole fictional country with some blue screens!
Number 2.
Gravity The 2013 science fiction film revolved around
2 astronauts who are stranded in space after the mid-orbit destruction of their space shuttle,
and their subsequent attempt to return to Earth.
Now when we are talking about a film set in outer space, it is obvious that there were
not many real locations involved!
After all nobody wants to get a rocket and jet off to space to shoot a film, too much
risk!
So it was shot in a studio with minimal sets, makeup and costumes because the real action
was going on with a light box and a team of technicians with laptops!
You’d be surprised to know that not only was the location created by special effects
but also the controls and gadgets the actors are seen using!
Wow!
Number 1.
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice The 2016 superhero film had a lot of action
and if you thought it was real, you are absolutely wrong.
From exploding cars to flooded city, the extreme looking visuals were created with a lot of
hard work, brainstorming and computers!
Jets flying over cities to people falling off buildings, you didn’t expect it to actually
be shot, did you?
Going further on technology, the movie depicted certain places that weren’t there!
Yea people, some backdrops you saw existed in just the computer, thanks to VFX!
We were fooled but as long as they come up with amazing films, we don’t mind!
Which of these movies showed the most striking difference after VFX?
Tell us in the comment section below.
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