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Best Special EffectsThe Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
Among the new awards added for this year is one for Best Special Effects, for which the inaugural trophy goes to The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King in a very tight race. With seven first place votes, you'd think it would be a runaway, but in a reoccurring theme in this year's awards, it was nearly overtaken by another film with broader support. It was a narrow category in general, with only 17 different films receiving any votes at all, the fewest in The Calvins. Return of the King took the award on the strength of its CGI created world. It receives the prize not just for the revolutionary character of Gollum, but its massive computer created armies and battles (appropriately enough done with a program called Massive) and the intricately created sets that seamlessly blend with the flesh and blood actors. Congratulations to WETA, who have thrown down the Gauntlet to ILM in the effects ring. The two Matrix movies were ridiculously snubbed at the Oscars in the Effects department; we correct that here as Reloaded takes second while Revolutions finishes fifth. These films expanded on the inspiring and boundary busting effects of the 1999 original, while making them seem necessary to the story. Whatever you might have thought of the two films, the quality of the work done here is undeniable. Reloaded impresses a bit more because of the quantity of scenes like the highway chase and the Burly brawl, though Revolutions is not without amazing and eye-popping effects, as in the battle for the dock with the sentinels. A little further back in third was Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, which used effects in a marvelously elegant way to portray the skeletal pirates. That these decaying corpses still had recognizable personality of the actors they were supposed to represent is remarkable considering all the identity that is lost with just a skeleton. X2: X-Men United impressed with some flawless work in recreating the mutant powers of the comic book. In particular, Nightcrawler's famous "BAMF" effect was widely praised. The effects team of X2 perhaps had some of the hardest work of all, as they had to create actions out of whole cloth that have never existed in this world. Outside the top five, Terminator 3 placed well, continuing the good effects tradition of this series. Adding weight and force to a seemingly inconsequential object is an underrated ability in effects work, and the crew on this film did a great job letting us feel the power of the great Terminators. Special Effects work has become synonymous with CGI for some people, and that's a shame. Some more traditional style effects were honored in seventh place for Kill Bill Vol. 1. Using an amount of theatrical blood not seen since Dead Alive, the Kill Bill crew created a Grand Guignol spectacle for the ages. Finding Nemo is of course, entirely created on computers, so the idea of singling out its effects seems a bit odd. However, the Pixar team did such a marvelous job of actually making the whole thing appear to be taking place under water (a more difficult task than would appear on first glance) that it can't be undersold. Kudos, as well, for a stunningly beautiful design of the ocean floor and marvelous color work. Earlier last year, Hulk was much maligned prior to its release for some suspect looking effects. A little vindication occurred after its release when the creature effects on the Not so Jolly Green Giant turned out pretty good; turns out some things just don't look as good when shown on a TV as they do on a giant screen. Now about that plot... Digital Video may have obscured some of the impact of the zombies in 28 Days Later, but they were still able to scare the bejeezus out of our crew, who were impressed enough to give this tenth place. It tied with Master and Commander, which may have suffered from not appearing to have any effects; take a look at that Cape Horn sequence again and realize that's all on a stage. (Reagen Sulewski/BOP)
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Friday, December 27, 2024
© 2006 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.
