James Cameron’s Avatar is supposed to be like nothing we’ve ever seen before. So why does it look so familiar? One of the most disappointing things about the film’s promotion so far is how derivative the film looks in the trailer that (eventually) debuted online today. And much of what we’re reminded of wasn’t even that great to begin with. To help illustrate our feeling of déjà vu, we’ve captured a few screenshots from the trailer and, where available, put them next to their older visual counterparts.
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Should special effects only be used to service a film’s story, or is it perfectly fine for movies to feature extraneous spectacle? That’s a debate that comes up often among cineastes, but ultimately there’s room for both functions. Sometimes, in cases like Jurassic Park and The Matrix, both categories of effects may even faultlessly coexist in the same film. Yet there is one kind of effects employment that’s intolerable to all film-loving parties: the gratuitous exploitation for the sole purpose of brazen gimmickry. It’s this kind of effects work that goes beyond spectacle. It’s not so much a show as a show off.

For one example of this cinematic sin check out Karina’s review of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which she references a scene featuring an inessential and irrelevant rocket launch in the background of an otherwise intimate moment between two lovers on a sailboat. Actually, that’s apparently only a minor citation in a “a film about the feat of its own whiz-bang, Frankensteinian digital imagery, drunk on its own accomplishment to an extent that feels quasi-ethical.” Hardly the first movie to commit such a crime, sure, but Benjamin Button seems to be the most thoroughly guilty exploiter since Forrest Gump (both films, incidentally, were scripted by Eric Roth).

So, in (dis)honor of Roth’s repeat offense, let’s take a short look at the worst exploitations of special effects in the last 15 years:
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Last week, Roger Ebert finally got around to destroying reviewing Ben Stein’s anti-evolution film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Ebert’s rant is as cerebral as it is merciless, and it’s worth a read even if you haven’t seen the film. He makes some good points about how the film completely misunderstands the concepts of probability and selection, forming flashy but ultimately useless argument.

Ebert’s rage is thinly veiled. He’s obviously upset that clear logical fallacies can go unnoticed by so many people. Sure, misreading Darwin while attempting to refute him is a lame move when engaging in scientific debate, but the practice is quite common when it comes to filmmaking. When movies deal with evolution, there’s an unspoken understanding that they can completely distort the theory beyond recognition. It’s kind of like calling someone a pedophile during a Friar’s Club Roast, everyone knows it isn’t true, and it’s all in good fun.

When you look at it in this way, Expelled is just the latest in a long line of films that distort the theory of evolution to make a buck. Here are 5 more that are guilty of crimes against the origin of humanity:

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The song “Star Wars” by a capella group Moosebutter is nearly a decade old, but it’s suddenly becoming a hit thanks to the popular YouTube video “Star Wars - an a capella tribute to John Williams,” which has been showcased everywhere from StarWars.com to an NBC affiliate in Atlanta. The problem with the new video is that it makes its star, paid YouTuber Corey Vidal, seem like he’s the one responsible for both the song and its performance. He does give credit to Moosebutter, whose permission he received prior to making his clip, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. How many viewers actually read the info about the videos they watch on YouTube?

Okay, so Vidal’s lip-syncing is entertaining, but I also thought it was him singing — all four parts — and so initially was impressed by that. Otherwise his talent is merely good memorization skills and simple composite editing. And for that he’s gotten 1.4 million views. In response, the guys from Moosebutter have put up a video of themselves, minus one member, performing the song live in 2005. That’s the clip I’m featuring instead of Vidal’s, and here’s hoping that it gets at least half the views as the clip that’s getting all the fame.

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Michael Crichton died unexpectedly of cancer yesterday at the age of 66. In his honor, I thought about posting a montage of clips from movies he wrote and/or directed and/or which were adapted from his novels. But the one I found, despite making some of the lesser adaptations (Congo; Timeline) seem better than they actually are, wasn’t quite as long or in depth as I’d hoped. And I couldn’t merely include a scene or trailer for a single film, because it’s impossible to choose one work that best exemplifies his career. No, not even Jurassic Park is worthy.

So, I’m going a little indirect and showcasing this recut trailer for Twister, a movie Crichton scripted with his then wife, Anne-Marie Martin. Not only do I think Twister is underrated, but I think this is one of the better recut trailers around, mainly because the voiceover sounds more legit than most amateur efforts. The fact that Crichton had penned the screenplay to Twister was immediately a surprise to anyone watching the movie, which hardly even seemed to have a foundation of story or dialogue prior to being shot. It had seemed that director Jan De Bont went into a wide expanse of Midwest farmland with a loose synopsis to His Girl Friday and a lot of ideas for spectacular CG tornado effects to be added in during post.

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When I saw the title of Olly Richardson’s rant on The Empire Blog asking if CG has killed our imaginations, I presumed he meant filmmakers’ imaginations and how special effects are less creative when done with the ease of computer graphics. But no, he’s really talking about our imaginations, meaning me and you and everyone we know. I’d never given it too much thought, but maybe modern audiences are really losing their ability to believe at the movies:

We never used to be so picky. If somebody watches the original King Kong or any of the works of Ray Harryhausen, you will never hear them complain about how the skeletons were a bit jerky or that the big ape’s fur didn’t blow realistically when he was climbing the Empire State Building (if they do complain, however, you should feel free to shoot them on the grounds of wrongness and philistinism). You just watch the film, acknowledge that what you are seeing couldn’t possibly exist, admire the artistry it took to create it and choose to believe it anyway. That’s what suspension of disbelief is: ignoring the protests of your eyes and more logical parts of your brain in order to enjoy a good story.

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