nizo's Journal: Could improved special effects be a bad thing?

As a kid I remember watching shows such as Land of the Lost. Recently I saw part of the Dinotopia mini-series, and needless to say special effects have come a long way since I was a kid. The effects in Dinotopia were passable, but pale in comparison to movies like Jurassic Park. The effects of Land of the Lost certainly wouldn't have convinced me as a child that dinosaurs are real, but what about now? Even with an adult telling a kid that dinosaurs don't exist, is it possible that children may grow up believing they do exist, even if only at a subconscious level? And how will improved effects alter a child's imagination? Will it increase the sense of wonder, or cause our brains to get lazy, since nothing is left to the imagination?

Seen to be believed

[sielwolf]

There was once a sense that if you saw something it had a measure of reality to it. But I'm starting to think with the current glut of special effects that is no longer the case. Call it the Star Wars Prequels Blue Screen Effect: all the actors seem to be disjoint from their surroundings and for good reason (as they where just standing in an empty room when it was being filmed). There's something blank about their expressions. But even for the audience I think there is a sense that it is unrealistic.

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[arb]

And yet the "total greenscreen" thing worked extremely well for Sin City and Sky Captain. Perhaps that had more to do with how the green screen and CGI effects were used? With Sin City and Sky Captain, the green screen and CGI were used to enhance and tell the story - with Star Wars, they were used more to show how "cool" this shit is.There is no real reason why the SW prequels couldn't have used traditional sets, with green screen augmentation to extend things as opposed to doing it entirely in green scree

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[sielwolf]

Sin City also worked because Rodriguez and crew worked almost frame for frame from Miller's original. So the director and actors could take a look at the text, get a sense of the scene, and how they where supposed to emote. I think I remember the Sky Captain guy having similar guides (there was a big writeup of them in the NYT). It is easier to say "this is what I want as the finished product in this shot" than "pretend there's a giant futuristic city around you... oh and this annoying muppet called Jar

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[arb]

So you're saying it is better to actually have a plan and work to that than wave your hands and say "imagine stuff happening out here - I don't know what stuff yet, but we'll add it in later"?

I much prefer the original original trilogy, but don't mind some of the enhanced effects in the Special Editions - filling out Cloud City for instance. Where he changed the scenes entirely or added scenes like Jabba in ANH (which had material that had been replaced by the Greedo encounter, leading to a confusing duplic

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[sielwolf]

What is interesting about the recent crop of Rag-tag Gang of Critteres Get Together and have Adventure movies is this was the first time a big G children's movie did poorly. Usually the argument was that "Hollywood shouldn't be focused on teens by making movies with sex and violence. G rated family features always do boatloads of business, much better than your usual hormonal pitch film". This of course ignored the obvious fact that usually the G rated films where either Disney or Pixar (which isn't diff

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[arb]

Hollywood tends to have a problem trying something new. When they see something that works, they latch on with all their might. I think the recent batch of critter animated movies was a laughable example of this being taken to extremes. I thought Antz vs A Bug's Life was bad enough - two movies coming out almost simultaneously, both cutting edge CGI, both featuring ants and other bugs... But I honestly don't know how many critter movies came out with this batch - however many it was, it was too many.

Another

Minor nitpick about dinosaurs

[smooth wombat]

Dinosaurs do exist. The two that come readily to mind are crocodiles and coelacanths. Crocs, other than having gotten smaller over the eons, are essentially the same as they were millions of years ago.

Coelacanths were thought to be extinct until the 1930s when specimens started showing up in fishermans nets. They were eventually tracked down and living ones were recorded going about their business. For more information, read on [dinofish.com]. For more picturs of coelacanths, please see this link [google.com].

So while T-

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[nizo]

I saw a special on the coelacanths; way too cool :-) But are they dinosaurs? I thought even the swimmin' (pleisasaurs(sp)) and flyin' (pteradons) critters at the time aren't even technically dinosaurs. Though of course there is the argument that birds are dinosaurs... But what I was shooting for is, will kids realize that trex is dead and gone? The one in Jurassic Park looked pretty damn convincing.

Speaking of coelacanths, I wonder what the hell else is hiding in the deep dark ocean that we don't know abou

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[smooth wombat]

If you look at the first link I provided, they have been around for at least 400 million years. Which predates the dinosaurs. So yes, they are living dinosaurs.

Crocs you could dispute since technically they have changed over the years but coelacanths have not changed and so are truly dinosaurs.

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[subgeek]

i thought nizo was referring to the fact that they aren't reptiles [m-w.com].

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[nizo]

What is the accepted definition of dinosaur though? It can't just be age, or else bugs and such could be dinosaurs. From wikipedia, the font of all knowledge:

The term dinosaur is sometimes used informally to describe other prehistoric reptiles, such as the pelycosaur Dimetrodon, the winged pterosaurs and the aquatic ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs and mosasaurs, although technically none of these were dinosaurs.

Coelacanths aren't reptiles for example. The other ones suprised me when I found out (from a kids book

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[smooth wombat]

I'll kill two birds with one stone.

While yes, the definition of a dinosaur deals with reptiles, I consider any creature from back then to be a dinosaur.

Yeah, it's not scientifically correct but it's still a neat thing to tell people, "Yes Virginia, dinosaurs do exist today."

However, since crocodiles and alligators are reptiles, we can still say that we have living dinosaurs even if a coelacanth isn't technically one of them.

As a side note, if a Jurassic Park would ever exist, I'd spend my life savings to se

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[nizo]

Hehehe

I would bet some previously long extinct critter will be cloned in my life time. Heck if they can sequence the dna from a Neanderthal, in theory they could clone him (mammoths come to mind too). I am waiting for some kind of "dna creation device" where you feed in a sequence of dna, and various viruses or whatever do the actual assembly (though this would probably drive us extinct, since it wouldn't take long for it to be weaponized) Better yet, instead of finding DNA from a dinosaur, I wonder if reco

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[Randle_Revar]

I completely respect your right to call things whatever you want :-)
Unfortunately, I never left the "dinosaur mania" phase that kids go through, so I feel compelled to post the definitive definition of "dinosaur".

From "The Dinosauria [amazon.com]":
"Dinosauria consists of Triceratops, Neornithes, their most recent common ancestor, and all descendants."

(Neornithes = modern birds - so it is scientifically correct to say that dinosaurs still exist)

We now return to your regularly scheduled program :-D

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[jawtheshark]

but it's still a neat thing to tell people, "Yes Virginia, dinosaurs do exist today."

No, it's not a neat thing. You are spreading disinformation that way. Dinosaurs means Terrible Reptiles, even etymologically: Greek deinos (terrible) with santos (lizard). A lizard, is, by all means a reptile...

So, yes, you can call a crocodile or an alligator, or even a comodo dragon, "living dinosaurs". Anything else should be called "Living Fossil" and you can find tons of examples here [wikipedia.org]. I find one of the [wikipedia.org]

Maybe a good thing

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Because dinasoars do still exist. In many forms, evolved quite a bit since the fossils we've found in some cases, evolved not at all in others. We eat some (chickens). We fear some (Komodo dragons are quite fierce, as are sharks). We have horseshoe crabs and some insects that haven't changed in millions of years- and don't seem to have any evolutionary pressure to change now.

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[smooth wombat]

Thanks for reminding me about horseshoe crabs. They also fall into the living dinosaur category even though they aren't reptiles (see my comments above).

One interesting fact about horseshoe crabs is their blood is green like Vulcans and is used to test the purity of medicines.

I remember seeing a show (Discovery?) where it showed this lab taking the crabs and placing them into a V-shaped structure. In this position the crab was bent over and a soft spot was available for a needle to be inserted behind the

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[Marxist Hacker 42]

As far as Komodo dragons go, I want to pet one. Maybe even give it a hug. Another of the living dinosaurs that one has to touch to truly experience.

From what I understand about Komodo Dragons, that'd be one dangerous experience- if you could even stand their breath enough to get close to them (they are scavenger-carnivores- they like their food best half rotten, and don't exactly have the digestion system to support it; despite this they are extremely territorial like an alligator or crocidile- and their

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[nizo]

Maybe they would be friendlier if people just gave them hugs more often?

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[smooth wombat]

I'm fully aware of what a komodo dragon is like. All that is required is for one to understand how an animals mind works and things will work out. Think of me as a kind of Dr. Doolittle (the first movie with Eddie Murphy).

For example, the best time to hug a dragon would be midday or so, after it's eaten. Then, it would be too full to be looking for more meat and too warm to do much movement.

Besides, as nizo said, maybe a few hugs would make them more friendly.

On the other hand...

[RM6f9]

Maybe the seamless CGI stuff is exactly what our brains need to remind us on some meta-level that *everything* we see is potentially illusory - before we can go mentally re-creating shared existence, at some point we have to believe/know it's possible to do so - all of our fantasies about flying, fire-breathing dragons, collective unconscious (re-)creationism? Vampire lore? Sentience in computers/the internet? Life of a meme-virus, anyone?

boo

[Bill Dog]

It's probably not that kids actually believe in scary things, even at a subconscious level, rather just that more realism generally has a greater effect on us. In kids, leading to nightmares. In adults, well, I remember my dad saying he was leery of even taking a shower after going to see Jaws back in the 70's!

Land of the Lost was one of my faves too, but I don't remember the dinosaurs at all. It was these guys [vox.com] that gave me nightmares as a kid. Looking at that picture, I still get the creeps.