I happened upon a link through another forum listing the greatest film effects on film, the majority were as you'd expect,
modern stuff, what amazed me was the total omission of any Willis O'Brien or Ray Harryhausen films, the latter kept fantasy film alive
when others were otherwise indulged, the former saved a studio from being bankrupt with "Kong", that aside, some of the choices astound me, no offence to Disney fans, but the clip from "Mary Poppins", Julie Andrews on a wire, "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" again the clip showed clearly trumpets etc on wires, this apparently was
nominated, as was "Marooned", if you want to see examples of blue matte lines, you hit the jackpot with this stinker, even mismatched
lighting on spaceship to Earth, Daniel Fapp should be ashamed, so called effects man! This also was nominated and won an Oscar over
the film that "Jurassic Park" based its dinosaurs movements on, seeing as no one had actually seen how these creatures move, Harryhausen was the man, never mentioned in dispatches, only when a "special" was called for, and "how they loved his work", "Gwangi"
was cruelly robbed, since then, Oscars are meaningless to me, Disney have the most appalling effects in their later vehicles, have a gander at their saucer in their "Witch Mountain" episode, very poor for a multi million $ company. Oscar ceremonies are a load of back pissing crap, not worth air time, I do not have a bit of interest since then. Fixed.

Hugh,
Though I am a fan of the film "Marooned" (written before the actual Apollo 13 incident) but no doubt the effects in the film leave much to be desired. Disney's effects in their live action films always made me scratch my head. Considering how wonderful their animation was,their live effects never impressed me.I did like "The Black Hole" but that one had a rather large budget during the heyday of the original "Star Wars". Thank you for mentioning "Gwangi" as that to me was one of Ray's best aside from the Sinbad series. As a kid I used to pick up plastic dinosaurs for a quarter at the five and dime store (the T.Rex in particular) and reenact scenes from "Gwangi" in my backyard. Speaking of Ray once again,my favorite of his was "The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms" and "Earth vs The Flying Saucers."

Yes Hugh that farce such are the so-called OSCARS are meaningless to me too.
A lot of film industry " insiders " scratching each others backs and kissing each others arses.
I stopped following them decades ago when I still worked as a Cinema Projectionist.
In so far as FX films go I will shout this from Ben Nevis ...." WILLIS AND RAY ARE GODS "
Disney films do very little for me.

Hi Doug, I'm not having a poke at the premise of "Marooned", which had a great cast, and as you rightly say, it was echoed in fact,
but the effects were to be blunt, awful, mismatched elements where there is visible wobble between astronaut and capsule, thick blue
matte lines, how it got an Oscar I do not know, likewise with Jim Danforth's superb animation in "When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth",
the man even blurred wing beats to hide the staccato movement inherent in dimensional animation, nominated for an Oscar, but lost
out to "Bedknobs & Broomsticks", not exactly a class act to lose out to as the "effects" were laughable. Poor 'ol Ray himself, much like
John Wayne, ended up with an award for "long service", hence my dislike of these ceremonies, as David rightly says, just excuses for
back patting. I'm sure other members can site similar cases where a superior film was ignored for some lesser vehicle to shine.

No arguments there regarding the poor effects in "Marooned". Though it's been years since I last saw it my memory of the terrible matte shots and blue screen work still linger. That reminds me of the poor model work (and generally poor) effects work in the film "Meteor". One scene in particular shows the space-based nuclear missiles up close and (being a scale modeler myself) the models looked rather pathetic. But of course " Meteor" wasn't nominated for any Oscars for effects so I'm getting a bit off topic here!

Hi Doug, you aren't getting off topic at all, its just it got around to Oscars, in which Ray and Obie shared one for "Mighty Joe"
back in '49, but I started this post on the back of a video someone put up on the 8mm forum highlighting the "greatest" FX films.
Granted that is a sweeping statement, as many folk will have their favourites, but it seemed top heavy towards modern film, I don't
have a problem with CGI, but before computers were harnessed into film, there were a wealth of titles that had superb effects in them,
indeed over the week end I indulged myself in watching a nice double bill of "Them" and "Tarantula", both giant insect films, both set in
America and both films totally enjoyable and still hold up today. A point I will make is the American diction, on these films from the '50s,
even though the actors are American, their speech is perfectly clear and no problem on understanding them, today, with all the stereo,
Dolby, surround sound, digital rubbish and not forgetting bad diction, you're lucky to understand half of what's said, and that problem is
inherent in the UK, some actors should be subtitled! Anyway, I too shared Doug's love of Dinosaurs, indeed my old Headmaster was convinced I was going to become a Palaeontologist, plastic dinosaurs included. The dinosaur film of the
moment was "Dinosaurus", a far cry from Gwangi. but it was better than nothing. Special effects are missing beauty in their modern
equivalents Consider the beautiful scenes in "Forbidden Planet"
where the spaceship crosses in front of the corona of an eclipse, or the many scenes in "2001", "Planet of the Apes" has some startling
imagery, still packing a punch today, but it seems all the youngsters seem to care about are Star Wars type films, granted they are very successful and enjoyable, but they are not the be all of Fantasy film, in my humble opinion anyway.