MovieChat Forums > Raise the Titanic (1980) Discussion > Best Special Effects I've Seen

Best Special Effects I've Seen

posted 19 years ago by James_Bond_007_218
6 replies | jump to latest

I hate the CGI of today. I'm never satisfied because you can see that whats on the screen isn't real. I am much more happy at model work as at least you know what your seeing is something real, that someone built. An example of excellent model work was in the lucklustre Raise the Titanic. I thought it was quite an extraordonary experience to see the titanic rasied, after it had been sunk so many times on film. The model work was excellent and I don't think it looked tacky at all (at least not until the Titanic sailed back into New York city!). Raise the Titanic is a surperb example of when model work is better than CGI!

[–] mike_cable 17 years ago

I would have to agree with you. Although I only just saw it for the first time last night on a laptop, it certainly looked geat when coming out of the ocean with the motion all slowed down to increase scale.

Some of the other scenes were dodgey, such as the little towboats and some of the helicopters were remote control ones. You could easily tell they were models, but the raising scene was very well done.

The rest of the film was complete crap!

[–] mortimerj190 17 years ago

One of my favourite scenes of all time, gives me shudders watching it still, beautifuly done too.

The world largest Villain Index!
http://villainabode.com/index.html

[–] jnatch 16 years ago

agreed

[–] JH_Kalashnikov 16 years ago

"Some of the other scenes were dodgey, such as the little towboats and some of the helicopters were remote control ones. You could easily tell they were models, but the raising scene was very well done."

Actually there were no remote-controlled helicopters used for the New York Harbor scenes. The shots of the Titanic and the tugboat models were inserted (via optical special effects) into stock footage of the 1976 America Bicentennial Celebrations in New York. The helicopters were actually there during the celebrations so no elaborate special effects or models were necessary for the scene. In all honesty though, the harbor scene looked amazing and compared to the overdone CGI eye candy we see today, RTT's SFX still looks incredible and unique. Top that one Michael Bay!

Science flew people to the Moon, religion flew people into buildings.

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] strntz 12 years ago

Completely and totally agree. CGI does allow for things that can't be done with models, but I thought the modelling of the Titanic coming out of the water was astounding (coming from a memory almost 30 years old).

Perhaps CGI some day will replicate real life, but I don't think we're there yet.

Just once, I'd like someone to call me sir without adding 'you're making a scene' ~H Simpson