Why do the special effects in Starship Troopers look flawless when most subsequent sci films...

A lot of it has to do with visual context, I think.  Bugs on rocky terrain can be modelled to sort of work pretty easily with the background.  The rest of the elements have to work together to give the creatures a sense of space and weight and energy, but still....

I still love the flick.  

They mixed real stuff with CGI very effectively (rather than just put up a fuck-ton of blue screens and direct from a couch), had excellent art/object design, and they stuck to things that seem to model pretty well (chitin-shelled insects rather than fleshy critters, spaceships rather than hovercraft). 

Also, maybe the people working on it were just really fucking good, and they didn't try to outsource shit to 10 different out-house facilities located in various Pacific Rim shitholes.  Thankfully, the business model has evolved to ensure that FX studios go out of business constantly, there's no creative continuity anywhere, and studios don't bother maintaining their own dedicated staff and instead farm out crucial creative tasks to the lowest bidder. 

1) Dedication and artistry, as other posters have said

2) Shiny/reflective surfaces have always been one of the things that we've been most able to render realistically. Often times a CGI creatures looks most real to me when it's wet. In this case, the hard shells of the aranchnids reflected light in a realistic way

3) The space ship stuff was done with models. Nine times out of ten, motion controlled models for big ships look better than CGI. To this very day. Even TREK OH NINE had faker looking ships than STARSHIP TROOPERS

(this goes for exploding buildings too, the model thing I mean)

It seems to me that effects seem to be inordinately influenced by a film's director (and his team). For example, the ILM A-team produced some really flashy but ultimately unremarkable work for the Prequel trilogies. That same team then turned around and did some truly amazing work for Michael Bay on Transformers (amazing FX, silly movies). I read an anecdote (on CHUD somewhere) about the ILM guys showing Bay their work on General Grievous and talking it up, and Bay saying it's crap.

Verhoeven has always had really solid FX work in his movies. He just seems to maximize his teams potential, in large by focusing on strengths and not trying to do things that are exceedingly ambitious. Rendering bugs and stuff is relatively easy, from what I understand, because you don't have the uncanny valley or any of that to deal with. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zhukov 

Verhoeven has always had really solid FX work in his movies. He just seems to maximize his teams potential, in large by focusing on strengths and not trying to do things that are exceedingly ambitious. Rendering bugs and stuff is relatively easy, from what I understand, because you don't have the uncanny valley or any of that to deal with. 

 

It always seemed to me that in the late 80s / early 80s  Verhoven was the only guy that had the balls to TRY to one-up Lucas in terms of having special effects in the entire movie.  If you look at Tim Burton, Zemekis, and even James Cameron films from the same time, the ACTION special effects will mostly be in three set-pieces at the beginning, middle, and end of the films - besides that it will mostly be environment effects like a flying car or a cool looking building for people to talk in.  If you try and count the ACTION effects in Robocop, Total Recall, or Star Ship Troopers, your head will explode (or at least a squib safely taped to your head will explode).  That type of effects saturation really has an effect on the audience - since it glosses over that the plots in the classic Verhoven movies, while categorically awesome, are actually pretty silly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zhukov 

Verhoeven has always had really solid FX work in his movies. He just seems to maximize his teams potential, in large by focusing on strengths and not trying to do things that are exceedingly ambitious. Rendering bugs and stuff is relatively easy, from what I understand, because you don't have the uncanny valley or any of that to deal with. 

 

It always seemed to me that in the late 80s / early 80s  Verhoven was the only guy that had the balls to TRY to one-up Lucas in terms of having special effects in the entire movie.  If you look at Tim Burton, Zemekis, and even James Cameron films from the same time, the ACTION special effects will mostly be in three set-pieces at the beginning, middle, and end of the films - besides that it will mostly be environment effects like a flying car or a cool looking building for people to talk in.  If you try and count the ACTION effects in Robocop, Total Recall, or Star Ship Troopers, your head will explode (or at least a squib safely taped to your head will explode).  That type of effects saturation really has an effect on the audience - since it glosses over that the plots in the classic Verhoven movies, while categorically awesome, are actually pretty silly.

As noted above: strong directorial vision, plus intelligent combinations of techniques and technologies. Old joke: the most expensive words in filmmaking are "I'm not sure what I want but I'll know it when I see it..."

Also, regarding the bugs, Tippett Studios had something to prove. After getting dropped from Jurassic Park they needed to address digital animation and compositing head-on, and they didn't cut corners. These days, very few productions allow for the FX team to survey sets and locations and acquire the data they need. They're expected to wing it in post.

Great effects are a matter of creative vision, time and money. At least I hope it is, in that order.

Argh, stupid new image-embedding protocol.

The Quality Triangle: The three points are 'Cheap', 'Fast', and 'Good'. You only get to choose two at a time.

Boom!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

As noted above: strong directorial vision, plus intelligent combinations of techniques and technologies. Old joke: the most expensive words in filmmaking are "I'm not sure what I want but I'll know it when I see it..."

 

Reminds me of another quote which I think was attributed to Michael Bay (not sure about that):  "Don't give me what I asked for!  Give me what I want!!!"
 

Thank you, sir. I was trying to post a scan of a cartoon from an old issue of Cinefex, but that'll serve.

Ohhhhh yea...  I'm looking for that image in part 1 of their big discussion on the state of the VFX industry, but I'm not seeing it.  I guess it's in part 2, which I don't have.  Fantastic roundtable interviews.  Learned so much from it.

Mmm, I dunno guys. I'm pretty sure they used real giant bugs.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gabe T 

Mmm, I dunno guys. I'm pretty sure they used real giant bugs.

Perfect.

The simplest explanation IS usually the correct one.

Because the effects were made by people with actual stakes in their quality. Because Verhoeven was smart enough to know that CGI works best as an element of a scene not as a substitute for actual cinematography. 

3 words

Phil Frakkin Tippett

On a similar note: The Martians in MARS ATTACKS! still hold up pretty well. Why? Because they are gooey/slimey and are wearing shiny glass helmets

I dunno, it's been a long time, but I remember the MARS ATTACKS! aliens looking fake back when the movie came out. They work for the movie, but comparing them favorably to Starship Troopers' effects is just wrong.

I think either Overlord(or Gabe) pretty much nailed the reasons they hold up so well. It's not just amazing CGI, but much of it is in broad daylight, which makes it even more amazing. 

Eh I think they look pretty good. Much better than the BRAIN BUG at least. This is because the martians are shiny, and the BB was fleshy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nexus-7 

I dunno, it's been a long time, but I remember the MARS ATTACKS! aliens looking fake back when the movie came out. They work for the movie, but comparing them favorably to Starship Troopers' effects is just wrong.

 

I think either Overlord(or Gabe) pretty much nailed the reasons they hold up so well. It's not just amazing CGI, but much of it is in broad daylight, which makes it even more amazing. 

They're animated with a distinct and purposeful stop-motionish style. I thought the models and composition looked fine though.
 

Maybe I need to rewatch MARS ATTACKS!, haven't seen it since it hit home video.

You're right about the brain bug Kate, it's the only CGI that falters in that movie, and he still doesn't look terrible.

Another impressive thing about the effects was just how well the shots looked in straight daylight. If I recall correctly, getting realistic CGI shots in daylight still proved difficult. Which is why you had so many dark, rainy shots in Jurrasic park and Godzilla.

And even though Phil Tippett wasn't directly involved with the CGI on JP, he did supervise the animation, helping the animators get the proper realistic movement for their dinos. It was that attention to detail that helped push the realsim of Starship Troopers, I think. Plus, Verhoeven is a director that works for good effects shots (Hollow Man wasn't bad!) as opposed to someone like  Stephen Sommers who will throw any ole shit on the screen (Though I still have a soft spot for Deep Rising).

Yeah totally, the daylight shots from JP are still kind of "soft" and odd, while the ST work is still amazing. ST had the advantage of (mostly)dealing with angular, but complicated, solid shapes, not skin. Somehow, the CGI humans in that(though there weren't many), still look great. Troopers and Titanic did some great work with CGI people before it was the norm. Always in long shots, but it was smart.