22 Special Effects, Revealed

“Movie magic” has never been actual magic. But it's not always computer generated either. Contrary to popular belief, not everything in films is done with CGI. Sure, there's no argument that CGI has been a crutch for several film productions, due to its ability to darn near accomplish any visual at fraction of the price and without the danger of the real thing, but there is no denying the authenticity of an actual detailed costume or impressive stunt. 

It's true that Jurassic Park championed CGI in film, but most of the dinosaurs were people in costumes or robotic puppets operated by humans. Several films have accomplished great scenes thanks to stop-motion animation, giant constructed sets, or just plain talent.

Sometimes the best special effects are the ones that fool the audience into thinking that only a computer can accomplish them. Cracked and AuntieMeme have teamed up to provide you some context about some special effects you've seen in your favorite (and not-so-favorite) movies

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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Remember the wormhole scene in Interstellar? That wasn't CGI. The Tesseract, artificial that an construct depicts time as a physical dimension, was an

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Escape From New York showed a wireframe view of the city. AOSE VTEW And it was done with tape and a black light. The filmmakers wanted to create a hig

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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In 28 Days Later, Murphy wanders through a totally empty London. That wasn't a set. lt was actually London. The filmmakers got the scene by shooting i

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. has nut-sorting squirrels. Those are real, live, trained squirrels. It took months to train the squirrels to sort n

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The Lord of the Rings trilogy mixed hobbits, dwarves, and humans. With forced perspective. Making normal-sized actors look vastly different in SiZE wa

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In Iron Man 3, several people get sucked out of Air Force One. The scene was shot in midair with skydivers. The travelers freefalling in midair are ac

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In Evan Aimighty, God asks Evan to build an ark. So the crew built a full-sized ark. The wooden monstrosity was constructed to be 250 feet long, 80 fe

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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Remember how digital the original Tron looked? That was achieved with practical effects. It was 1982, and the CGI it would take to render the high-tec

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The raptors in Jurassic Park weren't CGI. Those were men in costumes. John Rosengrant was the main raptor Suit performer. To make his movements convin

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Cabin In The Woods featured some truly frightening monsters. And they weren't CGI. Joss Whedon and director Drew Goddard decided they wanted sequence

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The characters got thrown around in 2012. And SO did the actors. Not only did filmmakers create a sinking ship scene by rotating the whole set, they f

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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22 Special Effects, Revealed

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You'd think Dejarik would be CG by The Force Awakens. lt's not. It's still stop-action animation. The original props had deteriorated, though, sO spec