Why don't they just use those animawhatsits?!?

Almost in some sort of synchronization, the changing of a decade often seems to coincide with the demise of one of cinema's dominant forms of special effects. If you think about it, the 80's saw the slow whittling down to an eventual (and almost un-noticable) halt of stop-motion animation within live action films. The special effects of Ray Harryhausen had more or less pioneered the idea of placing fictional and sometimes indescribable characters in the same scene with actual actors in the early sixties (a fact which probably blew the minds of cinema going audiences at the time)...but come the end of the 1980's, this form of special effects was more or less obsolete, with the exception of select scenarios where stop-motion made economic sense for the film-maker. Come the early ninties, a new wave of special effects (or trick photography for the real old timer's out there) rose to Hollywood prominence in the form of animatronic puppets and robots.

Of course there were earlier examples of animatronics in films, even going back as far as the mid seventies with Spielberg's "Jaws"...but hindsight shows the rubber, robotic shark from this classic blockbuster for what it really is...a rubber, robotic shark. Perhaps a better example of animatronics being put to work in movies came with the 1986 sci-fi comedy "Short Circuit". A prime example of style over substance, it is the animatronic self aware robot Johnny 5 that carries this otherwise lacklustre movie on his back... which is saying a lot, considering the success of the movie, and the fact that he is not even an actor, but pieces of twisted metal being controlled remotely by some bloke behind the camera. In yo' face Steve Guttenberg! Owned in the acting department by a piece of machinery!

The years following the end of his movie career were not kind to Johnny 5

But the early nineties finally saw the perfect mesh of live action, puppetry and animatronics which left audiences with dropped jaws, bated breath and a hankering for more. 1990 saw the release of one of the biggest financially successful movies of the decade in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles"... a movie which probably would not have seemed conceivable in the early eighties as there was no legitimate way to create these characters without them looking utterly ridiculous.

In 1979, Jim Henson created a company called "Jim Henson's Creature Shop". Although the company has since grown into something much larger, it was initially conceived to provide film makers with a means of creating a mix of animatronics and puppetry, tailor made to suit specific film and television projects. Their first major project Labyrinth was a huge success, and it became clear that the staff at the creature shop would be the ideal people to create four realistic walking, talking turtles, and a wise, decrepit rodent.

There really is no comparison here! The CGI turtles just look like absolute dog shit!

Surprisingly enough, the next film to successfuly combine these aspects of film making was also to be the beginning of the end for the mainstream use of the technology. The movie was the behemoth of Jurassic Park. Another Spielberg classic, where you genuinely feel like he probably sat back one afternoon, watched Jaws and thought "fuck...just imagine what I could do with this new animawhatsit technology!"

As well as combining puppetry (close up shots of the giant t-rex head), and robotics (the tar spewing peacock esque, giraffeneckasaurus), the film is also remembered by most as being one of the very first to incorporate mind blowing CGI into the mix, in order to make the pre-historic animals seem truly authentic.

Now THAT'S animatronics!

Slowly but surely after the release of Jurassic Park, puppetry was often abandoned entirely in favour of CGI, probably because some joker in Beverly Hills sat by his pool one day and shouted down the phone to the likes of Spielberg, Zemeckis and Jackson:- "IT'S WHAT THE PEOPLE WANT DAMMIT! Now CGI the shit out of everything from now on"

Is it fuck? I'd say Michael Bay shot his load when he heard this. I remember watching a documentary about Pixar a couple of years ago, and seeing John Lasseter aggressively defend his new form of animation by striking back at those critics who claimed that 3d animation was responsible for the demise of classical 2d theatrical movies. Lasseter simply responded by saying that if the 2d animations had featured good stories, people would go to see them, no matter what medium was used. Of course he was absolutely right, and my complaint about CGI does not extend to the entirely animated movies created by the likes of Pixar and Dreamworks. It is really more limited to the live action movies which attempt to incorporate over the top or often times just plain shoddy computer imagery in the form of big fuck off wanky explosions, or characters who just look super imposed into a scene. If I ever turn on the Sci-Fi channel again, only to be greeted with the likes of "Basilisk" or "Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus" remind me to rip my own eyes out, but not before cancelling my digital subscription.

If movie making techniques continue to go down the path that they're on, I can see myself being one of those bitter old-timers who just sits there yawning through every post 1997 movie, muttering "they sure don't make them like they used to" just to piss off whoever else is in the room at the time. But seriously...

...they don't.

But just to point out that every film making technique has its flaws if it is not treated with care and respect, here's a little scene from Jaws The Revenge that will leave you in hysterics.

Enjoy!