The Transformers: The Movie (1986)

Based on the popular weekday afternoon cartoon series during the 80s, this film was another early melding of traditional and computer animation, using TRON-style backlighting.

The film was notable for both being Orson Welles' last film (voice) role as Unicron, a planet-sized computer, and for its downbeat, apocalyptic plot in which all of the series regulars were killed off.

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future (1987)

This was the first TV series (of 22 episodes) with CG characters. It told about "Bio-Dreads - monstrous creations that hunt down human survivors and digitize them!"

Robocop (1987)

Stop-motion special effects were used for the incompetent, robotic ED (Enforcement Droid) -209 prototype which performed poorly during a product demonstration ("I'm sure it's only a glitch, a temporary setback"). This old-fashioned technique was soon to be overtaken by computer-generated imagery.

Akira (1988, Jp.)

An excellent example of a feature-length, science-fiction Japanese anime - "Japanimation" - from director Katsuhiro Otomo, and based on his science-fiction comic book (manga) of the same name. Akira has often been considered the greatest animated film of all time, with advanced technical features, such as highly-detailed scenes (with textures, shadows, unusual colors), and seamless animation with over 160,000 animation cels. At its time, it was the most expensive film ever produced in Japan ($8 million).

Tin Toy (1988)

Pixar's and director John Lasseter's 5-minute short film was the first full computer animation to win an Academy Award Oscar - for Animated Short Film.

Billy, the drooling baby character in the short film, marked the first time that a CG character had realistic human qualities. Tinny, the one-man-band tin toy hero of Tin Toy, was to be the central character in Toy Story (1995) - until Buzz Lightyear was created.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988)

This milestone film won the Academy Award for Best Achievement in Visual Effects, defeating the other nominees Willow (1988) and Die Hard (1988). It was a coordinated effort (produced by Disney, live-action directed by Robert Zemeckis, and animated by Richard Williams) - a remarkable blend of animated imagery (hand drawn and painted), and hand matched to the live action human characters, and filmed as a tribute to the entire pantheon of cartoon characters from Disney, Warner Bros., and MGM, and other studios in the 1940s.

The remarkable computer animation included sophisticated shading, lighting and shadows to dramatically make the hand-drawn animated characters appear very 3-D and lifelike as they interacted with real-world objects and people.

Willow (1988)

Very crude and primitive morphing could be found in earlier films, such as The Golden Child (1986) and in the Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) time-travel sequence, but the live-action fantasy film Willow was the first to extensively use the groundbreaking effect of digital morphing (the seamless change from one character or image to another, often called shape-shifting).

The film's most detailed and fluid morph was in the scene of a halfling farmer and inept magician named Willow (Warwick Davis) finally turning Fin Raziel (Patricia Hayes) back into her original human form as an old sorceress woman - she went through various animal changes in the film, from a rodent to a crow, then to a goat, ostrich, and lastly into a roaring tiger before becoming a human shape. This morphing was revolutionary because the shape-shifting occurred between real objects, not just between CG creations.

The same 'morphing' effect was used much more extensively in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and in the conclusion of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) - see below. Digital morphing was also later used in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

The Abyss (1989)

Special FX brought this epic James Cameron film recognition by the Academy - Best Achievement in Visual Effects for Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), defeating The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988) and Back to the Future Part II (1989).

Underwater visual effects, especially of the watery, snake-like alien creature, a 'pseudopod,' were the first example of digitally-animated, CGI water. This was the first computer generated three-dimensional (3-D) character. The film exhibited seamless and convincing compositing of 3-D animation together with 70 mm live-action footage.

In the alien water-probe sequence lasting about 75 seconds (requiring 8 months of work), the water-based life form called a pseudopod, with a realistic watery tentacle, replicated (or emulated) Lindsey Brigman's (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio) facial expressions and appeared to communicate by movements that resembled her facial expressions. She also touched the virtual creature with her hand.

Back to the Future, Part II (1989)

Computer-controlled camera work, called VistaGlide, allowed three characters (all performed by one actor, Michael J. Fox) to match up and interact seamlessly in the same scene (the "instant pizza" dinner scene), through impressive split-screen photography. Fox played three characters in the same scene, with a moving boundary between the three sections of the split-screen. It was the first film to accomplish interaction between the same actor on the screen as more than one character.

Another special F/X sequence was the airborne hoverboard chase scene -- the hoverboards were fictional futuristic skateboards without wheels -- merely special F/X creations. Actors (standing on glued-on or attached hoverboards) were held up in the air by a rig on the back of a truck and driven around - pulled on wires (later digitally removed), making them appear to be floating and sailing in mid-air. In some scenes requiring closeups, the action was filmed in front of a bluescreen, to later be filled in with matching background footage.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The first all-digital composite shot, to demonstrate rapid aging (and death), was during Nazi sympathizer Walter Donovan's (Julian Glover) death sequence in the film's conclusion.

ILM scanned several filmed makeup transformations of his facial demise and "morphed" the elements together digitally - it sent the output back to film rather than arranging film elements with an optical printer.

Dick Tracy (1990)

The first major feature film release with a digital soundtrack.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

This was the first instance of a digitally-manipulated matte painting.