Have you ever watched an old movie with amateur special effects and laughed how ridiculous they look? Well, we guess the movie industry is the one that is laughing now, because nowadays special effects are so incredible, you watch a movie believing it’s all real – only to have your expectations shattered.
One Instagram account that goes by the name movies.effects dedicated their platform to teach people about the power of CGI and how unbelievably these effects can change the entire movie. With over 398k followers this account finds unique never-seen before movie scenes and shows what happens before they are turned into magical shots.
But before you go any further, prepare yourself, because some of these before shots might change your entire understanding of the movie industry.
Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)
Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014), tells the story of a group of intergalactic superheroes and their cosmic adventures. The superhero crew is far from usual, with a raccoon, together with a talking three, who belongs to it. Watching this film it’s evident that in order to make a movie like this, CGI is just as important as the cameras. Therefore it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the budget of this movie reached $232.3 million.
Interesting trivia: the big, muscular guy Drax, in the picture above, is eye-catching for more reasons than the size of his biceps. His appearance is not generated with computers, which tells us a lot about the power of Hollywood makeup. Oh, and in the comics, Drax is green. The reason why they changed his color for the movie? Because that would have been too similar to the Hulk.
Atomic Blonde (2017)
Atomic Blonde (2017), is an American spy thriller film with a story that takes place in Berlin. And here’s where the CGI comes in. The programmers had to recreate entire areas of Berlin. Traveling to Berlin and getting some aerial shots were not that easy, or in some cases, legal. The creators explain their decision logically: “Even if they were allowed to fly around in the skies over Berlin, it would have been 2017 Berlin of course so, we built the entire district from scratch.”
Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince (2009)
If Hogwarts was real, there would be mandatory CGI classes. Because if not for the visual effects’ wizards, the magic of the silver screen wouldn’t exist. Yet, on the other hand, a wooden magic stick is cheaper than a team of experts with all the necessary equipment. That being said, Harry Potter films cost from $100 to $250 million each. The higher the price, the more revolutionary the effects, which paved the road for a new generation of CGI standards in the industry.
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006)
Back in 2006 the world saw Davy Jones, the infamous squid-captain for the first time, and everyone agreed – this is one hell of a villain. Considering the fact that the movie was made more than 10 years ago, the CGI that was necessary to create the ghastly-looking character, was revolutionary. It must have cost a fortune to create it, but that didn’t bother producers, as the movie wrote itself into the top of all-time highest-grossing films with an astronomical $1,066,179,725 in the box office.
War For The Planet Of The Apes (2017)
You know you’re gonna have to use a lot of CGI if you’re about to make a movie about monkey warlords and monkey soldiers. Yet, this animal-based cast was extremely appreciated by P.E.T.A. which expressed its support by saying that the movie “proves that computer-generated imagery, or CGI, has no limits, offering powerful anti-captivity, pro-animal rights messages along the way.”
Alice In Wonderland (2010)
Alice in Wonderland (2010) is a computer-generated film finished done mainly with green screens. Directed by Tim Burton, famous for dark, eccentric horror and fantasy films, the movie portrays the bizarre and fantastical world of Wonderland in a believable way. Ironically enough it was criticized precisely for its overuse of computer-generated imagery.
Fun trivia: did you know that there’s a syndrome named after the main character of the story? Alice in Wonderland Syndrome refers to a neuropsychological condition that affects perception. It manifests itself as distortions in visual perception wherein objects can appear smaller, larger, closer or further away than they actually are.
Game Of Thrones (2011)
The night might be dark and full of terrors, but the budget for Game Of Thrones is big and full of 10 digit numbers. The series easily stands out as one of the most expensive TV series ever made, and it’s easy to see why, as the budget for a single episode, at least in season six, was estimated to be around $10 million. So, if you’ve got 10 episodes, then – well you do the math. Watching the show it’s not difficult to see why it costs so much moolah. The cast, the locations, the costumes and… A stress ball that becomes the most badass-looking dragon on the TV screen’s history.