Monster of the Day #535

Updated on August 9, 2012 By Ken Begg 16 Comments

Well, obviously this guy redefined the invisible monster for the modern age. Once they were used as a cheapie substitute for special effects. Not so after this (or at least less so), as the computer camouflage effect seen here launched a zillion similar monsters. It’s the sort of thing that became so ubiquitous so quickly–like the ‘morphing’ effect created for tens for millions of dollars for Terminator 2 that six months later was being used in TV shaving blade commercials–that it’s somehow surprising to remember that it was once a new thing.

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  • Flangepart

    The Few, The pointy eared- The Romulan Marines.
    Their motto: The clokes on you!

  • KeithB

    Isn’t this Predator?

  • Gamera977

    Funny, the ‘deception shrouds’ used by Deep Space Nine’s Jem ‘Hadar looked exactly the same to me as the Predator effect.  

  • KeithB

    Probably was. By that time you could buy it at the discount bin in KMART.

  • SteveWD

    Talk about coincidences.  I hadn’t watched Predator in forever and for some reason pulled out the dvd and watched it last night, extras and all.  I love how the original creature design was a huge flop and they brought in Stan Winston to save the day.

  • Beckoning Chasm

    One of Ahnold’s most fun movies, one of those times when all the elements just came together and worked.

  • Gamera977

    Yeah, just seems like to me they could have changed it a little bit though so it looked more ‘inspired by the Predator’ and less like ‘total rip-off of the Predator.’
    Still amazing to me what took months on a CRAY mainframe in less than a decade you could churn out on a commercially available Amiga and Video Toaster in a few days. As Ken pointed out it’s crazy how fast it takes something to go from ‘gee whiz!’ to being used in TV commercials!  

  • SteveWD

    Would love to see a breakdown on the effects shots in Predator and how much CGI was really used.  I think most of it was actually done optically.  Later movies and tv shows used CGI that could reproduce the same effect.

  • Ken_Begg

    You’re probably correct on that. If you’re really interested, I’d suggest Cinefex #33. That’s the Predator issue. Cinefex was a *great* magazine back in the day on the nuts and bolts of special effects.

  • Gamera977

    Yeah, probably was, I guess I have gotten accustomed to thinking CGI with FX these days. I remember Tron was mostly hard-drawn animation despite being the ‘first CGI movie.’ 

  • SteveWD

    Tron has maybe 15 – 20 minutes of actual CGI.  Most of it’s effects were done the old fashioned way.  Matte paintings, hand-drawn animation, etc.  It still amazes me that it wasn’t even nominated for an effects Oscar because they ‘cheated’ by using computers.

  • Marsden

    First of all, this is one of my all time favorites, I’ve must have seen this 40 times.  I’m pretty sure I read that the Predator was done optically, no computer graphics for the cameleon screen.  It was Jean Claude Van Damme for a few scenes. 

    This is probably stupid but you know how Burton threw in a Fiend without a Face refrence in Beetlejuice, I thought there might have been one in this movie, when the Predator removes somebody’s head, might have been Billy’s, and the spine is trailing down from it. 

  • As a franchise, the subject has had a lot of ups and downs. First film, really good. Second film, not bad. First VS film, fun, not bad. Second, awful as could be. That Batman short, fantastic! PREDATORS, back to pretty good. It’s a total crapshoot as to what the next one will be like. I might be interested in seeing a version where the Predator is hunting in the back woods of middle America, had I still faith that Hollywood writers could write middle American characters.

  • Ken_Begg

    It’s the subconscious effect of Invisible Monsters Week. You are all ruled by Jabootu, fools, and don’t even know it! Bwahaha!

  • Flangepart

      I might be interested in seeing a version where the Predator is hunting
    in the back woods of middle America, had I still faith that Hollywood
    writers could write middle American characters.

    yeah, like in the IDW Godzilla series, if you’re not science or politically correct, or military, you’re just a one size fits all redneck.

  • Petoht

    I remember a similar “gee whiz” moment with the Great Mouse Detective in that astonishing clock tower sequence.  They used computers to do all the slick gears and cogs, then converted the CG to animation cells so they could draw the characters right onto the cells, which is why the integration was perfect.

    Now, nobody cares about integration.  Hell, even Disney got lazy with the wildly mismatched CG like in Aladdin.