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The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

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Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#71

Post by Joel_Mckay »

bensyverson wrote: post #67
jonhohle wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, there is 6 minutes of onscreen CGI in T2 and only 6 minutes of onscreen CGI in Jurassic Park. The 80s and 90s were magical with practical effects. So many things were difficult to imagine how they were pulled off. In the last 20 years, everything’s just CGI. Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Fall Guy are few and far between.

My friend, there are over 2000 VFX shots in Fury Road, and at least 600 in The Fall Guy. I get that people are tired of CGI, but it’s a tool that is used in virtually every film that reaches theaters, for reasons as prosaic as matching skies between shots.

These days it is mostly just Directors, Producers, and Investors that don't respect the medium. They just see a film as more Brand management issues.

It has little to do with "how the hotdogs are made". Most good CGI isn't noticeable.

Yet everyone is there to make a story look great, even when faced with a re-heated dog-turd of a script. =3

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#72

Post by DiabloD3 »

dmurray wrote: post #15
ortusdux wrote: post #2

Amazing writeup! I'll add that the custom squibs they made for the liquid metal bullet impacts are still one of the best practical effects ever. https://www.reddit.com/r/nextfuckinglevel/comments/v6qjaj/bu...

They also used a practical effect for the scenes where the T-1000 needed to appear on screen at the same time as a character it had shapeshifted into. They cast identical twins for the roles. https://www.reddit.com/r/MovieDetails/comments/h9rzry/in_ter...

I was expecting Linda Hamilton, but apparently more than one set of twins were in there.

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#73

Post by groundzeros2015 »

xnx wrote: post #11

Can anyone confirm that the helicopter flying over the underpass was actual flying and not VFX or a chopper on a trailer? There are claims that the stunt pilot flew under (twice!), but it seems like no amount of skill could avoid weird uncontrollable effects from rotor wash.

James Cameron claims it’s real. But I think that doesn’t exclude filming slow and speeding up later.

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#74

Post by 13hours »

whycome wrote: post #24

The 4K remaster of this is back in theatres next month for “Judgment Day” and the 35th anniversary. https://www.fathomentertainment.com/news/fathom-entertainmen...

I wonder if they'll show the director's cut?

I was in high school when the movie came out, and we were on a 6 week road trip all over the USA that summer, so I couldn't see the movie. Those days they also published books for a lot of the popular movies (sold at gas stations), so I bought and read the book. I only got to see the movie a month or 2 after release when we were back home in Baton Rouge. The book was the director's cut, and to this day I seem to remember that the version of the movie I saw also had that ending (my brain playing tricks on me). There's also the scene where they cut open his skull to put his cpu in learning mode in the gas station. I don't know why they cut that, it works so well with John asking "are we learning yet" in a next scene.

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#75

Post by croes »

bensyverson wrote: post #67
jonhohle wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, there is 6 minutes of onscreen CGI in T2 and only 6 minutes of onscreen CGI in Jurassic Park. The 80s and 90s were magical with practical effects. So many things were difficult to imagine how they were pulled off. In the last 20 years, everything’s just CGI. Movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and Fall Guy are few and far between.

My friend, there are over 2000 VFX shots in Fury Road, and at least 600 in The Fall Guy. I get that people are tired of CGI, but it’s a tool that is used in virtually every film that reaches theaters, for reasons as prosaic as matching skies between shots.

The question is for what is the tool used.

To mach colors and hide cables or the complete content of a scene

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#76

Post by tadfisher »

neckro23 wrote: post #70
ymolodtsov wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The preview they released is so smudged though, like they tried to denoize it.

The 4k remasters of the classic Cameron films look awful. It's like someone cranked the denoise filter up to 200 and left it there.

Cameron himself doesn't like film grain, and he did indeed sign off on the excessive denoising.

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#77

Post by speed_spread »

jeffbee wrote: post #50
markus_zhang wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Scully in the X-Files also inspired a lot of girls to study STEM.

Scully was always wrong, though. Is that really who people wanted to become?

We knew she'd be right in the real world though.

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#78

Post by anthk »

jmyeet wrote: post #4

I'm not sure that anyone under the age of 45-50 can truly appreciate just how big of a deal Terminator 2 was and how big movie releases can be. Like, nothing in the MCU era or the Star Wars prequels and sequels comes remotely close. Yes, they gross a lot of money but in terms of cultural significance, I've seen nothing close. At the time I lived in a city when the local movie theaters would typically run major releas…

39 there; T2 was several times in TV reruns in my childhood. Before that, well... the best SFX I could see were in BTTF and the like.

Re: The tech of 'Terminator 2' – an oral history (2017)

#79

Post by skhr0680 »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #47
windowliker wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, it was a big cultural moment, but the level to which they sold the absolute heck out of that film should not be understated. It was one of the first times I can clearly remember where a film came along at roughly the same time as all the secondary IP like games and merch, and seemingly more and more kept coming. Another film from around that time which had a similar media blitz was Alien 3, released the…

In an age where cabinet video games and arcades were passé and a dying breed, Terminator 2 introduced an absolutely epic pinball game that started a renaissance of these machines all over again.

They don’t call the designer Steve “The King” Ritchie for nothing!
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