There’s something about holding my dad’s old paperback copy of “Dune” that feels different from reading it on a screen – and honestly, that same principle applies to how I experience science fiction movies. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially after rewatching John Carpenter’s “The Thing” for what must be the hundredth time. Every grotesque transformation still makes my skin crawl in the best possible way, and I can’t help but wonder if Rob Bottin’s incredible practical creatures would have the same impact if they’d been rendered digitally.
Look, I’m not some curmudgeon who thinks all modern effects are garbage. I’ve enjoyed plenty of CGI-heavy films over the years – “Avatar” was visually stunning, and I’ll admit the digital worlds in recent Marvel movies can be pretty spectacular. But there’s something about practical effects that just hits different, you know? Maybe it’s because I grew up watching movies where everything had to be built, sculpted, and mechanically operated by teams of artists who were basically magicians working with latex and servos.
The first time I saw “The Empire Strikes Back” in 1980 (yes, I’m that old), Frank Oz’s Yoda puppet was so convincing that I completely forgot I was watching a movie. Every subtle eye movement, every wrinkle that shifted when he spoke – it felt real because, in a way, it was real. There was an actual object on set that Mark Hamill could interact with, react to, build a performance around. When I watch the prequel trilogy’s digital Yoda, he’s technically more “perfect,” but somehow less alive. It’s that uncanny valley thing – the closer CGI gets to realism, the more our brains reject it as fake.
I remember visiting a special effects exhibit at the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle a few years back. They had props from “Aliens,” including one of H.R. Giger’s xenomorph heads, and I stood there for probably twenty minutes just marveling at the craftsmanship. The level of detail that went into creating something meant to be glimpsed for seconds on screen was extraordinary. You could see individual teeth, the texture of the biomechanical surfaces, even the internal mechanisms that made the jaw extend. It struck me that someone had spent weeks, maybe months, perfecting something that most viewers would never examine this closely.
That’s what I think we’ve lost in the rush toward digital everything – the physical weight of imagination made manifest. When the original “Star Wars” trilogy used detailed miniatures for space battles, those models obeyed the laws of physics in ways that CGI often doesn’t. Light bounced off surfaces naturally, creating shadows and reflections that our eyes instinctively read as “real.” The Millennium Falcon wasn’t just a collection of polygons and textures; it was an actual object that existed in space, even if that space was a soundstage.
I’ve read enough Philip K. Dick to appreciate the philosophical implications here too. There’s something deeply unsettling about living in an age where we can no longer trust our eyes, where any image might be artificially generated. Practical effects ground us in physicality – they’re proof that someone, somewhere, actually built the thing we’re looking at. It’s the difference between a magician’s sleight of hand (which requires genuine skill and timing) and a computer simulation of magic (which can be perfect but feels hollow).
The thing is, I don’t think this is just nostalgia talking. When “The Force Awakens” came out, one of my favorite moments was realizing that BB-8 was actually rolling around those desert sets. You could see sand sticking to the droid, could tell that Daisy Ridley was reacting to something that was genuinely there with her. It grounded the entire sequence in a way that would have been impossible with a tennis ball on a stick that gets replaced in post-production.
I’ve noticed this trend in my own reviews too – I consistently rate films higher when they find that sweet spot between practical and digital effects. “Mad Max: Fury Road” is probably the best recent example. George Miller could have created those chase sequences entirely in a computer, but instead he actually drove those insane vehicles through the Namibian desert. The result isn’t just visually spectacular; it’s viscerally exciting in a way that digital crashes rarely are. You can feel the weight of metal hitting metal, the heat of the desert, the physical strain on the actors.
Denis Villeneuve gets this balance right too. His “Dune” adaptation uses plenty of CGI, but it’s built on a foundation of real locations and practical sets. When Paul and Jessica are walking through the desert, they’re actually walking through a desert. The sandworms might be digital, but the sand getting in their clothes is real, and somehow that makes everything else more believable. It’s like how the best science fiction literature grounds its wild ideas in recognizable human emotions and relationships.
I think there’s also something to be said for the collaborative nature of practical effects work. When Stan Winston’s team was creating the T-800 endoskeleton for “Terminator 2,” they weren’t just following a director’s vision – they were actively problem-solving, improvising, finding creative solutions to make the impossible seem possible. That kind of hands-on creativity produces happy accidents, unexpected moments of brilliance that you don’t get when everything is planned out in previs and executed by algorithm.
The counter-argument, of course, is that CGI has democratized filmmaking in important ways. Smaller productions can now create vast alien worlds without the massive budgets that practical effects often require. And I’ll grant that point – some of the most interesting science fiction films of recent years have come from directors who used digital tools creatively rather than just throwing money at big effects houses.
But I still think we’re losing something essential when we abandon the physical entirely. There’s a reason why horror movies still rely heavily on practical effects – our brains are hardwired to respond to things that exist in our physical space. A CGI monster might be scarier in theory, but a latex creature that an actor can actually touch and react to will always be more convincing on an emotional level.
I’ve been rewatching a lot of ’80s science fiction lately for research, and what strikes me is how much personality these films have. The creature designs in “The Dark Crystal” or “Labyrinth” feel genuinely alien because they were created by artists working with their hands, not programmers working with code. Each puppet had limitations that forced creative solutions, quirks that made them feel alive rather than perfect.
Maybe that’s what I’m really arguing for – the beauty of imperfection. CGI can create flawless digital beings, but real life is full of small imperfections that our subconscious recognizes as authentic. When I watch Gollum in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, I’m amazed by the technical achievement, but I’m not moved in quite the same way as when I watch the Skeksis in “The Dark Crystal” – creatures that couldn’t move quite right because they were operated by puppeteers cramped inside latex costumes.
The best modern filmmakers understand this. Christopher Nolan’s insistence on practical effects in “Interstellar” resulted in some of the most convincing space sequences ever filmed. When Matthew McConaughey’s character is tumbling through that tesseract, you believe it because Nolan actually built a massive rotating set and put his actor inside it. The physics are right because they’re real physics, not approximated ones.
I’m not advocating for a complete return to the past – that would be impossible and probably not desirable anyway. But I do think we need to remember that the goal of special effects shouldn’t just be to show us things we’ve never seen before, but to make us believe in them. And belief, I’ve learned after decades of reading and watching science fiction, comes from the marriage of imagination and craft, dreams made tangible through human hands and ingenuity. That’s magic that no amount of processing power can replicate.
0 Comments