One of the things Jurassic World was criticized for heavily is the over reliance on CGI as opposed to practical effects. This was visible right from the movie’s first trailer whose CGI effects were criticized as being inferior to even 1993’s Jurassic Park. As if taking a cue from the backlash received, Universal made it a point to ensure that the sequel employed practical effects extensively. A new featurette released courtesy IGN sheds some light on exactly what extent did the studio go to for using animatronics in the movie.
Director J. A. Bayona and writer / producer Colin Trevorrow tied up with Neal Scanlan’s company for the animatronics used in the film. As the behind the scenes look explains, certain sequences in the movie were written with practical effects in mind and three dinosaurs were mainly constructed through animatronics, or at least parts of them were. These include the T-Rex, the baby raptor Blue seen in 2015’s Jurassic World almost entirely through CGI and the Indoraptor that makes an appearance in the third act of Fallen Kingdom.
The animatronic creatures look astonishingly lifelike and exhibit some fairly advanced puppetry capable of mimicking even the subtlest of gestures. If this is the level of expertise that practical effects are capable of, I’m surprised they haven’t gone this route before although if I were to factor in a guess, it’s probably due to their time-intensive nature. This could also explain the 3-year gap between Jurassic World movies when traditionally, the gap between sequels these days is 2 years long. Have a look at the video yourself:
It’s baffling then to see Universal Studios replace some of these animatronic dinosaurs with CG equivalents in the final movie. Hollywood tends to have acquired an affinity for CG, possibly due to the fact that it allows the studio to more microscopically control and decide the finest of movements in scenes. An over-reliance on CG can take you out of the movie at times, as was evident with the predecessor to Fallen Kingdom. To date, the first Jurassic Park had the best mix of practical and digital effects and even now you tend to forget where one begins and the other ends. Assuming that this behind the scenes video itself isn’t altered through CG, and assuming that shots in this will actually make it to the movie in their practical form, fans should certainly be looking forward to seeing those sequences on the big screen. For all the comfort digital offers, practical effects offer a level of reality, tangibility and seamless quality to them that digital has yet to be able to achieve.
What do you think of the practical effects in the video? Let us know in the comments below.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom comes out in the US and other territories in June 22, 2018.
