Friday, June 22, 2018

$UCCESSFU! FILMS SERIES: The Revolution and Reality of Visual Effects

Movies have certainly come a long way, especially over the last quarter century, in terms of the way visual effects and technology have been used in telling feature-length stories and in bringing unreal characters and worlds to life. And there are many significant achievements to consider when looking back on cinema's history: X-Wing fighters and the Millennium Falcon blasting through space in Star Wars. Light cycles zooming and crashing in TRON. The liquid-metal T-1000 in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Pixar's first computer-animated film, Toy Story. Slow-motion bullet-dodging in The Matrix. Armies of crowds and a motion-captured creature named Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. And, of course, blue-skinned aliens and a 3-D world called Pandora in Avatar.

But perhaps the most incredible (and ageless) examples of visual effects in movies are those that seem both visually and viscerally real, and without drawing attention to themselves.


One of the most important examples in this latter canon is the 1993 film, Jurassic Park, based on Michael Crichton's bestselling novel about a theme park that genetically recreates extinct dinosaurs, who eventually run amok. The combined talents of director Steven Spielberg, co-writer David Koepp (along with Crichton), the visual effects teams headed by veteran Dennis Muren and consulted by Phil Tippett, and the special animatronic effects teams by the late Stan Winston, created one of the most jaw-dropping, amazing, and terrifying experiences at the movies. While there were key computer-animated shots of dinosaurs in the film (including the T-Rex's first appearance at a rainy paddock, and the velociraptors in a scary kitchen scene), there was a brilliant balance of animatronic replicas (not to mention tons of paleontologic research that went into bringing these characters to life) that made audiences and critics believe they were brought back to a world that existed "65 million years" ago.

In fact, this is one of the reasons the film was as successful as it was, and as any such film (even those that recreate moments in history) will be with audiences in theaters, in turn giving said film(s) respect and meaning. Otherwise, you're just overwhelming audiences and critics. In other words, Jurassic Park wasn't just about showcasing fantastical elements, but about making them look and seem real. (Check out this video for more analysis on the film's VFX.)

So now, in honor of the film's 25th anniversary, and this weekend's release of the anticipated sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, here are some other examples of believable and timeless visual effects in feature films from the last forty-plus years. And while I can't recommend some of these movies for certain content purposes, they are to be commended, nonetheless, for their technical and visual landmarks.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)
The combination of animated characters in a live-action environment had been done many times before (look at Mary Poppins and Pete's Dragon), but nowhere near to the extent of this creative and bizarre detective thriller-comedy. The cartoon characters (including the titular rabbit and stars from the Disney and Warner Brothers studios) not only cast real shadows, but also seem to carry real-world objects, smash through windows, and even drive real cars. Kudos to the special effects department, and to director Robert Zemeckis and animation director Richard Williams, for pushing the boundaries of filmmaking, both live-action and hand-drawn. (Read my retrospective review here.)

Forrest Gump (1994)
Speaking of Zemeckis, he has managed to push various filmmaking boundaries since his 1985 screenplay for Back to the Future (co-written with Bob Gale). He hit a career turn with this inspiring story, based on the novel  of a mentally-challenged man who lives an extraordinary life, even encountering some famous figures along the way. Probably the most amazing feat (besides telling the irreplaceable-though-fictitious story of a man who goes from a leg-braced boy to a football star, a Vietnam war hero, a shrimp boat captain, and a nationally-renowned runner) is how the filmmakers inserted Tom Hanks into real archival footage of JFK, LBJ, Nixon, and John Lennon, with a few technical tweeks.

Titanic (1997)
Following the critical and commercial success of 1995's Apollo 13 (considering the unforgettable shot of the famous rocketship launching into space), James Cameron's big-screen adaptation of the "unsinkable" Titanic's maiden voyage and tragic sinking made even bigger waves (if you'll pardon the expression). Love the film or hate it, I think we can all agree that seeing visual images of the Titanic, before and after its collision with the iceberg (including actual underwater footage of the ship itself, shot and observed by Cameron) is absolutely breathtaking and captivating. (Watch this TEDTalk from visual effects supervisor Rob Legato if you don't believe me.)

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008)
This adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated story from director David Fincher and Forrest Gump screenwriter Eric Roth is carried not only by Brad Pitt's incredible performance, but also by a team of effects artists who thoroughly make us believe that Pitt's character is seamlessly aging backwards. (Digital effects artist Ed Ulbrich explains the years-long process of this film in this intriguing TEDTalk.)

Iron Man (2008)
While it's easy to say that most of the animation and effects seen in Marvel movies (and superhero movies, in general) is easy to call fake, that wasn't so much the case with this game-changing action feature that kickstarted the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it today. Jon Favreau's direction and Robert Downey Jr.'s charisma carry the emotional and thematic journey of Tony Stark, but its the effects teams (including the last Stan Winston as a consultant) that blend real-life replicas of Stark's Iron Man armor seamlessly with digital counterparts. Here's a case where audiences and critics can't tell at times where one leaves off and the other picks up. Most of all, this is the Iron Man/Tony Stark we should know and love.

WALL*E (2008)
Just about everything that Pixar Animation Studios does is genuine and universal. But their work on the title character and feature-length original story of WALL*E (particularly the first 45 minutes) is some of the most photo-realistic computer animation ever created for film. The hazy sun rays. The dust. The whole wasteland environment of earth. Yes, it's a bleak setting. But it's the sole robot who dwells there (along with a cockroach friend) that gives the place another life. The endearing bot's cube-like complexion, his rolling wheels, and his expressive eyes carry a new meaning of being a "window to the soul".

Interstellar (2014)
While director Alfonso Cauron received deserved recognition and accolades for his landmark work on 2013's Gravity (a great example of why we go to the movies), I ultimately went with this more challenging and haunting space-travel adventure from director Christopher Nolan. While Cauron's film focused on Sandra Bullock attempting to return to earth, Nolan's film (based on the works of theoretical physicist Kip Thorne) used old-fashioned techniques a la 1970s science-fiction blockbusters (real sets, real locations) to tell the story of a dying earth, and a team of remaining NASA astronauts who journey through the galaxy (and a wormhole, brought to visual life from Thorne's writings) to find another world for the remaining citizens of earth.

Planet of the Apes (2011, 2014, 2017)
Two words: Andy Serkis. First known around the world as the voice and performance of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003), Serkis has become synonymous with the ever-growing technology known as motion-capture. (Basically, it's computer animation that captures a live-action performance in real-time and transfers it to a digital character, which I'll let Serkis himself tell you more about here.) Serkis did this again in Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King Kong. Even filmmakers like Robert Zemeckis, Steven Spielberg, and Gore Verbinski got acquainted with the technology, before James Cameron ultimately took it on for his ambitious and record-breaking Avatar. But Serkis has my vote for continually moving audiences and critics with his feature-film performances, post-spandex-and-dots. His greatest achievement, by far, would have to be the rebooted Planet of the Apes films (2011's Rise, 2014's Dawn, 2017's War), as the titular ape Caesar, who goes from a caged zoo animal to the leader of a primate revolt against a virus-stricken humanity. To quote (with a bit of irony) DreamWorks co-founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, "It's not evolutionary, it's revolutionary."

Sunday, June 17, 2018

$UCCESSFU! FILMS SERIES: The Marvel Cinematic Universe, To "Infinity" and Beyond . . .

You think you're the only superhero in the world? 
You've become part of a bigger universe. 
You just don't know it yet. 
~Nick Fury (Iron Man)


The first official trailer for Avengers: Infinity War was released last December, and it easily became one of the most mind-blowing and anticipated releases on the horizon (a la The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King). I mean, they've practically brought together just about every character they've been bringing to the screen for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)--even by crossing over different storylines--for the last ten years. Infinity War has been out for almost two months now, and it's already (not surprisingly) become one of the most popular films in history (despite the fact that it's only Part 1 of a two-film story).

At the time of its release, the first Avengers (being the 2012 feature helmed by Joss Whedon) culminated in characters and plot lines established and expanded in previously-released feature films from an ever-growing Marvel Studios, and all (to quote film critic Peter Travers) "for the price of one ticket." Beginning with the better-than-expected release of Iron Man (which also relaunched the career of Robert Downey, Jr.) and continuing with The Incredible Hulk (2008), Thor and Captain America (both 2011), the superhero genre has exponentially improved with quality and risk-taking in terms of storytelling, visual effects, and of course, certainly, casting. Other rising stars have included the Chris's Hemsworth (as Thor), Evans (as Cap) and Pratt (as Peter Quill/Star-Lord); Scarlet Johannson (as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow), and Jeremy Renner (Clint Barton/Hawkeye).

While it could have been a mere mash-up with colorful costumes, explosions and fight scenes, The Avengers smartly took its time with each of its main characters and gave each of them their shining or key moments. Tony Stark (Iron Man) successfully started as a spoiled-playboy-turned-reformed-hero, but seems to have subsequently been taking a somewhat backwards route since his feature film debut, although his definition of "accountability" subsequently proves flawed, as it does for other characters. Bruce Banner (Hulk) represents a modern day Shakespearean tragic hero (Mark Ruffalo portrayed the best on-screen rendition of the character and stole the show). Thor (a.k.a. "the God of Thunder") represents another figure with Shakespearean undertones, but with redemptive qualities as Stark had. And Steve Rogers (Captain America) is a World War II hero who becomes culture shocked by the world's shift in ideals and issues of trust.

Did I mention these are characters we see without masks half the time, if not most of the time?

The Avengers really began turning on each other in Captain America: Civil War

Audiences and critics have since followed the continued adventures and conflicts of these characters, including some new ones introduced over time like Scarlet Witch, Vision, Falcon, Ant-Man, Black Panther, Spider-Man, and the Guardians of the Galaxy. As one character says, "Everyone's got a gimmick now!" From alien invasions and battles in New York, to government conspiracies and shocking cover-ups revealed in Washington, D.C., to artificial intelligence running amok, to divisions amongst characters and sides due to impending governmental supervision, these films arguably represent the Saturday matinee serials of the 21st Century. The latter theme (as seen in 2016's Captain America: Civil War) represents real social and ethical commentary never before achieved in this kind of a film (not to mention one of the most unforgettable battle sequences of any Marvel movie), building on an ever-growing, complex, and tense partnership-relationship between Stark and Rogers.

The question of what kind of role these "heroes" should play, even as they question each other, their definitions of what is "right," and their trust or lack of it, is another smart and thought-provoking element in this franchise, echoing what director Christopher Nolan successfully did with his Dark Knight trilogy. "We're not a team," argues a mild-mannered Bruce Banner, " We're a time bomb." After all, this current era is no longer a black and white one, but a very gray one, something that Steve Rogers (found frozen in an ice cap for seven decades since World War II), again, finds very hard. Cap's character arcs and standalone plotlines have arguably been the strongest and best part of the MCU (with 2014's The Winter Soldier being the pinnacle of them all).

In addition, there have been underlying references throughout this franchise, not only to other "worlds" in the universe (as Loki has seen before Avengers, Rogers has seen in the 1940s, Thor and Banner glimpse in space, and as Stark fearfully illudes in Age of Ultron), but also to six separate entities called Infinity Stones, each of which deal with space, mind, reality, power, time, and soul. And now, on the heels of adversaries who either want to destroy our colorful heroes (like the Nazi-inspired HYDRA, which was "founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom," the mischievous Loki, or the menacing robot Ultron) or want them to destroy each other (like the psychological Baron Zemo in Civil War) based on what they are respectfully misguided into believing is a "path to peace," we have the ultimate Marvel villain in Thanos (who first appeared briefly at the end of each Avengers film, and more specifically in Guardians of the Galaxy), who seeks to combine the Infinity Stones into his infamous gauntlet for ultimate power and destruction of half the universe.

Guide to the Infinity Stones

Josh Brolin as the menacing titan Thanos

Avengers: Infinity War becomes another unprecedented benchmark in cinema, as well as for comic-book/superhero films (a kudos to Marvel CEO and producer Kevin Feige, screenwriters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, and directors Anthony & Joe Russo, for taking risks). IMDb states that the film includes about 60 main Marvel characters. At the same time, it would be impossible to really talk about this movie without spoiling it. That being said, while the film does have the typical bantering, mind-blowing character entrances, and visual phenomena and spectacle that have come to define the MCU, this will be a very hard (and even polarizing) experience for many viewers, especially young fans, considering the potential or possible fates of some of our central characters.

The good news, perhaps, is that there's still another half of this story to tell a year from now, after the anticipated releases of next month's Ant Man and the Wasp (which will reportedly explore the Quantum Realm that the first film briefly did) and next year's Captain Marvel (the first female-led MCU film, with Brie Larson in the title role, set in the 1990s with returning characters and connections to Guardians). Not to mention several other films on the studio's release schedule.

I recall S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Phil Coulson (a prominent character--and fan favorite--from Phase 1 of the MCU) and his faith in heroes from the first Avengers, including those who choose to fight and finish the job when no one else will, even/and in the face of impending conflict and destruction, as well as his belief that adversaries will lose simply because they "lack conviction."