CT What's the best and worst special effects in the Original Trilogy?

And even though the choreography stinks on both versions, I will have to admit that "Lepti Nek" is the EXACT kind of 80s techno garbage that Lucas wan't to avoid with ANH and ESB. I mean, face it, the original Huttese lyrics sound more like mangled Japanese than anything.

 

Quite a simple effect that never really worked was the closing of the doors on the Death Star. It's almost like the character standing by the door isn't in the same position from when the door is open to closed and the frame seems to jump a touch. I'm not sure how they achieved the speed of the door shutting though, did they speed up the footage as the door came down?

 

They just cut out frames to make it appear undercranked. I always liked the effect. Yes it is exposed a bit by the actor not being able to remain completely still. But totally worth it.

(The effect also hid the fact that the doors didn't always close smoothly enough on the set.)

 

Best: Endor space battle, Death Star trench run, Death Star II core destruction, entire ESB Darth Vader vs Luke scene.

Worst: wobbly AT-ST, AT-ST log explosion, Dish explosion- good effect but it was too large and in too close proximity to Han.

 

Worst: the sock puppet in the asteroid field.

 

Best Special Effects:

ANH: The Holo-Chess table scene, because the stop-motion effects suit the nature of the device.
ESB: The first shot of the AT-ATs as seen through the Rebel soldier's binoculars. The effect of making them look huge is superb.
ESB: The carbon freezing chamber scene. Although much of that has to do with the gorgeously lit set.
ROTJ: The original Sarlacc, before they added that stupid beak thing to it.

 

STAR WARS (1977)
Best: The opening shots.
Worst: The full frontal shot of Vader’s fighter zooming in towards the screen, looks like a paper cut-out.

THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)
Best: The battle of Hoth.
Worst: The two Imperial fighters in pursuit of the Falcon, colliding and exploding in the asteroid field. The explosion looks off - like it’s superimposed over the models and not part of the shot.

RETURN OF THE JEDI (1983)
Best: Jabba.
Worst: The speeder bike chase. Some shots look nice but a lot look bad.

 

Best: Leia's hologram in ANH. It's brilliant because it looks so believable. Grainy, fluttering and beautiful.

Worst: Tow cable felled AT-AT hitting the ground in TESB. Looks like a hasbro model hitting some talcum powder (but I don't care because Hoth is as perfect a battle as any put to screen).

 

I think the Asteroid Chase in TESB is very impressively done and a lot of it, arguably all of it, holds up very well to this day, and in 1980 would surely have looked absolutely fantastic. I think this is among the most impressive visuals we saw in the Original Trilogy.

 

Yeah it's the first time you see the Falcon in all it's pirouetting glory. As much as I love ANH (it's my favourite SW movie) the falcon looks terribly static in it compared to the later movies.

 

Best: Rancor, maybe

Worst: Orange fuzz under Luke's landspeeder to cover up the wheels

 

Surprised you've gone for the rancor, I wouldn't have minded that being CGd for the special editions to be honest. Not that I thought it was bad by any stretch mind.

 

In terms of motion, it's probably the most realistic stop motion effect in an otherwise live action movie I've seen, thanks to the film speed they used (compare it to the blurrgs in The Battle for Endor).

 

I always thought it was an animatronic puppet, not stop motion?

 

I was remembering incorrectly. It was a rod puppet. That explains why the motion looked real: it was.

(Though the compositing when it’s holding Luke in front of it isn’t great.)

 

Luke's landspeeder in A New Hope is both the best and worst special effect in the Original Trilogy! Even in the Special Edition, there are composite shots that don't look true. But when it does look real, or is real, the landspeeder is the coolest!

 

I think the Rancor looks pretty damn good. The worst of the effects in that whole scene are where Luke is in front of it and you can see the black matte lines.

The irony of the OT is that the latest film in the trilogy possibly has some of the worst effects too. Like the aforementioned Luke in front of the Rancor, the skiff scene as they are going to the Sarlacc (why it wasn't shot on location I don't know), the background of the hangar scene with Han and Lando and some of the blue screen work in the speeder bike chase too.

 

I thought it was OK in the main, there were parts where you could really tell it was a model but there were also some really good shots where it looked convincing too.

I can forgive ROTJ for a multitude of FX sins as the end space battle is just so good, and is the highpoint of the visual effects in the OT in my view (SSD crash aside).

 

The vast majority of the OT effects still hold up now, but that end battle in Jedi is groundbreaking.

 

I think the FX for that sequence, especially when the rebel ships fly into the Death Star were at least a decade ahead of their time. The fact that this space battle still goes toe to toe with the one in Rogue One speaks volumes to me.

 

I don't know if I have written this before. But I think one of the problems with blue screen is lighting. For example take a shot with artificially lit characters in a sunlit desert, like the Sarlacc sequence. Even if you don't see dark or blue outlines such shots rarely work, they just don't look realistic. Lynch's Dune has the same problems, where practically all the desert shots, especially those that have worms, look pretty fake. But even some scenes in LOTR have that issue. The best CGI don't help when not enough attention is paid to lighting. That's why I always found the DS surface and trench shots in the battle of Yavin pretty realistic, because the models (not the ships though) were filmed in the studio parking lot in actual sunlight. I'm not sure if Kubrick did the same in 2001, but the Discovery, space station, Clavius moon base and everything else look extremely realistic, and I fail to see any faults even by today's standards. Even if not shot in sunlight, the models all appear to be, since there is always only a single light source, with deep shade in the unlit areas. A star destroyer to me always looks better when it's not completely lit from all sides but has dark areas, as would be the case in deep space with no planets nearby. This is just a very minor "complaint", but I think one that could be easily avoided.
I know it's probably pretty hard to achieve in a finished movie, with lots of composite moving elements, but at least the still shots even for ANH look absolutely amazing and perfect, such as this one, minus the airbrushed additions.

 

Great post; for me:

Best:

• Dagobah - for me still the best and most atmospheric location to-date in the SW universe.
• Lando and Nien Nunb exiting DS2.
  
• DS1 trench sequence.
• Bespin and Cloud City.

Worst:

• The CGI that was added. The trip into Mos Eisley, Sy Snootles and Jabba in ANH all look awful imo.
• Having said that Max Rebo just looks plastic.
• Some very ropey AT-ST animations in ROTJ.
• With regard to a sound special effect Chewie's Tarzan cry just makes me cringe!

 

Dagobah is so underrated as a location IMO.

 

Worst special effects have to be the Special Edition singing aliens in ROTJ. The original song was better. Also, maybe Jabba in the 2004 release of ANH. He would never permit a human to walk on him like that nor call him a human. I prefer Jabba as he is portrayed in the Darth Plagueis novel.