Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery, when the leader of the outlaws, played by Justus D. Barnes, empties his pistol at the audience.

It cause quite a fright in theaters because no one had seen anything like it before. A large percentage of the moviegoers panicked as if they had to run for their lives.

Think War of the Worlds of the motion picture era.

I think the Jason Bourne movies changed the way fight scenes are shot and edited.

Hopefully, the John Wick movies will help bring more realism to gun scenes.

^^Good points! Reminds me of Billy Jack, which introduced martial arts to most American audiences. Before Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, way before Seagal.

The Matrix did some previously unseen things that we’ve seen other films and many video games copy to the point where it’s “a thing” now. The ultra-slow motion “bullet time” effect.

Have you people forgotten Terminator 2? It was way ahead of it's time for special effects. It was cutting edge technology, much of it being developed as the shooting progressed. Some of the CG/special effects were started with the movie Abyss, and underwater movie. However Terminator 2 went way past Abyss.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
Have you people forgotten Terminator 2?

I don't think anyone's forgotten it, but we're only on page 3, after all. Excellent suggestion. At that, The Terminator probably belongs on the list as well. There were practical effects and animatronic puppet developments in that one that greatly upped the bar for later films. Seeing half a T-800 crawl through a compactor and nearly choke Sarah Connor to death after all the course of the film still induces a pucker factor to the viewer some, what, 40 years later?

At the Sci-Fi Museum in Seattle, I got to see the T-800 endoskeleton that was used in that one iconic scene where it stomps on and crushes a human skull before the camera pans up and we see the T-800 scanning left and right. The red eye lights were lit up, and it was in a bit of a menacing pose. Through glass, a few inches away, it still hit that deep emotional fear reaction of "if this thing moves, fucking run" even though I knew it was a prop. Same with the original Xenomorph suit from Alien. Those films absolutely did change the way films are made.

I wish animatronics were improving the way CGI is. That, and practical effects have always, and probably always will look more real on screen, at least to me.

quote:

Originally posted by flesheatingvirus:
How the heck did Avatar change jack? It was the same overdone storyline in multiple other movies, but with more colorful, higher def CGI.

Yes, the Pocahontas-meets-Aliens plot was predictable from four lightyears away, but it depicted a whole alien world down to a level of detail not seen before. Both of which shouldn't surprise anyone knowing James Cameron's movies - this is the guy who will stick warning labels on machinery even if you can't read them later on the screen for the sake of authenticity, and all his films have been about greedy corporations and politics destroying lives and possibly the world, with some standup characters on the ground trying to do the right thing. Essentially this was "Aliens" with Sam Worthington playing Michael Biehn, Giovanni Ribisi playing Paul Reiser, Michelle Rodriguez playing Jenette Goldstein, and Signourney Weaver playing ... well, Sigourney Weaver I guess.*

If I had to point to a specific technical milestone I would name the facial capturing that allowed the actors to be transformed into ten-foot alien smurfs with their original expressions, and paved the way for the current technology to age or de-age faces by CGI, or transplant the faces of dead actors onto surrogates, like in "Rogue One" - dubious as that may seem to purists. Though if I had to say what blew me away most about the movie's detailed visuals, I'd point to the shot of Pandora's central planet in the sky with the shadows of its moons moving over its surface.


* It just struck me that by this reasoning, Stephen Lang played the alien queen.

Cross of Iron introduced a cynical, grittier edge to war movies which eventually begat Saving Private Ryan.

Are you like me, reading many of these things and thinking... "yeah, but what about changing them for the better?"

sometimes this question can be answered by the number of homages, nods to the film or director, that you see.

"Saving Private Ryan" and "Braveheart."

They became the standard to which all following battlefield scenes would be measured.

"There's Something About Mary." It seems every comedy movie after this wanted to outdo it's crudeness, lewdness and sexualization and call it humor. How many times after that has the masturbation scene made it into a comedy?

"Toy Story." Full-length CGI movies.

Tony.

To me, the "Godfather" trilogy and it's reliance on an ensemble of talented actors, each with very distinct personalities, weaknesses, and strengths. The depth of the relationships and betrayals among the players, was accentuated by the violence shown. I read the book and was impressed by how closely the first movie followed its flow. No one was a "hero" in this story, and I liked how easy it was to dislike aspects of every character when you looked at them closely. The pain suffered by Michael in Part 3 was duly deserved.

"Gun Crazy" - 1950. Outstanding backseat camera work.....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZW8vf47Owg

Watched Song of the South yesterday. Thinking it was Disney's post war lifeline, yet also one of the first movie to have protesters and controversy before it was shown. Rose colored Reconstruction Era depictions aside, a lot of stories have traced their beginnings from this one.

Guess I'm an old movie buff. Watching movies like Wuthering Heights that took place before electricity was widespread is fascinating. The technology of the time is just as good as the movie itself.

Now the unmade movie that changed the way movies were made would have to be the live action Neon Genesis Evangelion attempt. When Weta Workshop started off, they realized they didn't have the capability to make such a film. They had to update their entire system to begin, but the lawyers made NGE a lost cause.

Top gun for the surround sound. There hasn't been surround as good as that since.. At least not that I have found

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
Top gun for the surround sound. There hasn't been surround as good as that since.. At least not that I have found

I see your Top Gun and raise you one Master & Commander - The Far Side of the World

quote:

Originally posted by Pyker:

quote:

Originally posted by Ronin101:
Top gun for the surround sound. There hasn't been surround as good as that since.. At least not that I have found

I see your Top Gun and raise you one Master & Commander - The Far Side of the World

I see your "Master & Commander-The Far Side of the World", and raise you the P-51 strafing scene from Spielberg's "Empire of the Sun"! You might not be able to smell the cordite or taste the exhaust from those "Cadillac of the Skies", but the sounds reverberate through your body if you watched it on the big screen!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ouJ_WyS9v8

are Laurel and Hardy not the first "buddy" movies , because they were "short's"
and not full length movies ?

Rambo 2 3,4,5...
Rocky 2, 3,4, 5, Rocky Balboa, Creed, Creed 2...

Proof that a bad sequel will still make enough money for the studio to make another one.

All Quiet on the Western Front (1930 version) ---- war movies and possibly movies that provoke thought about war