11 Impressive Practical Effects From Older Movies That Are Honestly Better Than CGI

“I went back and watched space adventure films where they didn’t do this, and it instantly took you out of the movie, watching showers of sparks fall to the floor when it’s supposed to be in space.”

—sweetogre915

To film the Death Star explosion in Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope, visual effects artist Bruce Logan and his team set up shop in a huge studio. They hung a large “blue-screen” rag from the ceiling and poked a hole in the center. The crew brought in a bunch of arc lights to light the scene. Then, they positioned the camera straight up under a protective piece of plywood with a hole cut for the lense. They covered that with a sheet of glass. Then, Joe Viskocil, a visual effects artist who specialized in explosions, set off explosions above the camera.

In 2015, Bruce told Zacuto, “After finishing up these zero-g explosions, we began a spree of blowing up X-Wings and TIE Fighters. The trick here was to blow the models with streams of smooth, fast-moving air to keep the flames looking miniaturized and give them a sense of movement when they were matted into the final scenes. 

It’s about as much fun as you can have without getting arrested blowing up these beautifully detailed models. Our beautiful explosions however were later desecrated with ‘digital shockwaves’ when Star Wars became The New Hope. I hope Disney will release the original version at some point.”