Introduction: From even its earliest days, films have used visual magic ("smoke and mirrors") to produce illusions and trick effects that have startled audiences. In fact, the phenomenon of persistence of vision is the reason why the human eye sees individual frames of a movie as smooth, flowing action when projected.

Cel animation, scale modeling, claymation, digital compositing, animatronics, use of prosthetic makeup, morphing, and modern computer-generated or computer graphics imagery (CGI) are just some of the more modern techniques that are widely used for creating incredible special or visual effects.

(See this site's film terms glossary for definitions and examples, the History of Film by Decade, and an extensive timeline of other Milestones and Turning Points in Film History.)

Note: The films that are marked with a yellow star are the films that "The Greatest Films" site has selected as the 100 Greatest Films.

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

This Steven Spielberg film was famous for the flying bicycle scene in which the alien and Eliott were illuminated in silhouette against a giant-size full moon; also visual effects were employed for E.T.'s spaceship, and the believable alien itself, although altered or enhanced in the 2002 remake for the 20th anniversary edition.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

The film included the scene of Spock's (Leonard Nimoy) self-sacrifice to save the Enterprise from the Genesis Device explosion, with his burial in space at the lifeless planet Regula, when struck by a Genesis 'torpedo' to cause the birth of a planet. This "Genesis sequence" effect, a brief computer-generated sequence, marked the first use of a fractal-generated landscape in a film (created by the Lucasfilm division).

Another special effect was the scene of the brain-munching earwigs, in which Khan (Ricardo Montalban) put parasitic, insanity-causing Ceti eels into the ears of Chekov (Walter Koenig) and Terrell (Paul Winfield).

Its release barely beat Tron (1982) to take the unofficial honor of being the first film to use computer-generated images (CGI) to any extent. (Note: this scene would be re-used for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).)

Tron (1982)

Steven Lisberger's fantasy inside-a-computer-video-game adventure/science-fiction film was one of the first films to be derived from the video-game craze. It was the first film to use computer-generated imagery (CGI) to any large degree - in this case, to create a 3-D world. This film was heralded as the first live action film with over 20 minutes of full 3D graphics and computer animation.

Its most innovative sequence extensively employed 3-D CGI in the famed 'light cycle' sequence, using the artwork and vision of legendary artists Syd Mead and Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, and visual effects done with a combined effort by Triple I, MAGI/Synthavision, Robert Abel & Associates, and Digital Effects.

Another FX technique used was backlight animation, in which light was shown through a specialized filter through each frame to create extraordinarily vibrant colored light effects, in this case, through the inventive Oscar-nominated costumes worn by the actors. (Lisberger's animated film Animalympics (1980) had extensively used the effect in semi-preparation for what would become TRON.) The greatest testament to this film's unique visual effects, soundtrack, costuming, art direction and set decoration is that none of it has ever been duplicated, and remains unique to this day.

It was refused an Academy Awards nomination because the voters felt the film "cheated" by using computer animation; in reality, the process was an extremely arduous one for animators. The film also featured a soundtrack by Wendy (nee Walter) Carlos that melded synthesized music with the London Philharmonic's orchestral music.

Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983), and re-releases

The original Return of the Jedi featured over 700 visual effects shots, the most in movie history at that time. George Lucas continued to alter his original trilogy with lots of 'enhancements' and changes, and most outraged fans with the 2004 DVD re-release by using CGI to erase Sebastian Shaw's ghost spirit image from Return of the Jedi in the final celebration scene (on the left) and replace him with Hayden Christensen (who played Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the 2002 and 2005 prequels) -- Shaw passed away in 1994.

Zelig (1983)

Woody Allen's film demonstrated the technical accomplishment of laboriously matching and interweaving authentic and older period film (newsreels and documentary footage) from the 1920s and 30s with newer, flickering B/W film shot by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Gordon Willis, to make the film appear authentically 'historic'. Chameleon-like Leonard Zelig (Woody Allen) appeared alongside President Coolidge and presidential candidate Herbert Hoover, boxer Jack Dempsey, baseball player Babe Ruth, tycoon publisher William Randolph Hearst, movie star Charles Chaplin, the Pope, the Fuhrer himself, or the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald.

[These same effects would be replicated 10 years later in Forrest Gump (1994).]

The Adventures of André and Wally B. (1984)

This was the first CGI animation with motion blur effects, in an all CGI-animated short, from Lucasfilm Computer Graphics Project (later Pixar).

The Last Starfighter (1984)

This was a groundbreaking film - it was the first film to feature the extensive use of CGI -- most importantly, the use of computer-generated (CGI) models for all spaceship shots, rather than traditional miniature models (as in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) or Star Wars (1977)). This was called digital scene simulation or 'integrated CGI' - the special effects were actually representing real-world objects. A multi-million dollar CRAY super-computer over a period of more than two years was used to create and animate the photorealistic computer graphic images - 27 minutes worth of CG effects.

Digital-graphic pioneers John Whitney, Jr., and Gary Demos, who contributed to the CG work in the film (and for Tron (1982)), received the Scientific and Technical Academy Award in 1984 “for the practical simulation of motion-picture photography by means of computer-generated images."

Lensman (1984, Jp.) (aka SF Shinseiki Lensman)

This was the first anime film to use CGI - along with its traditional animation.

2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984)

The impressive end sequence used CGI to create thousands of monoliths.

Cocoon (1985)

This Ron Howard-directed film won the Best Achievement in Visual Effects Academy Award, defeating Return to Oz (1985) and Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), for Industrial Light and Magic's (ILM) depiction of the friendly, energy-light emitting alien lifeforms and their alien spaceship - its climactic arrival came during a fog-shrouded electrical storm to pick up an ascending boatload of retirement home residents who were promised eternal life on the faraway planet.

Dire Straits - Money for Nothing (1985)

The first computer-generated music video!

Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

A Steven Spielberg-produced film (with effects by Pixar when it was still part of Lucasfilm and Industrial Light and Magic) with the first fully 3-D digital (or CGI), or computer generated, photorealistic animated character, known as "the stained-glass man" - a knight composed of shards of glass that came to life and engaged in swordplay (in a 30 second on-screen sequence that took 6 months to accomplish). Some argue that the first CGI 'character' was the polyhedron character "Bit" in Tron (1982).

This film was also the first to composite computer-generated animation with a live-action background. Somehow, along with Return to Oz (1985), it lost the Best Visual Effects Oscar to Cocoon (1985).