Originally Posted by
BurnetRhoades
That dilophosaurus looked like something from a theme park. It had the benefit of being seen in the dark, covered in rain, so it looked better than the tummy-ache triceratops. Bu it wasn't real looking in 1992 and it would look less real now shot on a digital camera. It was never alive. It swayed rocked mechanically from being articulated by rods and wires with no sense of balance. Watch a real bird or real lizard. They have precise control and dexterity even though they move very quickly. That simply can't be achieved practically because of the complete disconnect and sensory depravation in the way rod/wire puppets are operated (plus limitations in materials, excess weight, etc.) or, worse, the mess you get when you have a wire/rod puppet with multiple operators (ie. the Crypt Keeper). The practical dinos were used when and how they could be used precisely because of the incredible limitations and restrictions imposed on the filmmaker by their very presence.
The most convincing shot of the full size t-rex had it doing *nothing*. Just standing there, carefully framed so you couldn't see it wasn't a complete creature. Its movement, when they moved it, was totally mechanical. It was better than anything that could have been done on that scale before, because they had special hydraulics that could simulate ease at the end of moves, but you still had a device that was made bitch by the laws of physics and without the intelligence and evolution in an autonomous nervous system that would have allowed an actual t-rex to move without needing to wear an epileptics helmet to keep from braining itself on everything from lack of good motor skills.
It was useful and groundbreaking at the time that it could even be done. The guy who invented it is a friend of mine and he also designed the mechanicals for the puppet raptors and did one of them (the one holding Sam Jackson's limb I believe). Outside the obvious daylight shots and the stuff that's featured in popular behind-the-scenes stuff most audiences can't tell all of the time what they're looking at. On top of commentary from people who don't understand how either practical or digital effects are really made it's extra comical/frustrating reading commentary from people who don't understand the difference between pragmatic filmmaking and a treatise on what can and can't be done, should or shouldn't be done.
The raptor head popping up through the ceiling tile was done how it was done because it was easier and convincing enough for the scene. It could have been done, even back then, with a rod popping up and this being replaced by a digital raptor head. This would have even worked back then. It wasn't done that way because why spend the money doing such a short, non-centerpiece shot in the more convoluted, more expensive way? Say whatever the fuck you want about whatever practical use, the raptors were ultimately scary because of the digital shots where you got to see them actually behave like living, hungry creatures with the convincing ability to actually catch someone. Hopping on kitchen counters, communicating with each other (Phil Tippett Studios FTW). Likewise, none of the moving motion-base t-rex shots ultimately have the believability and impending doom of the jeep chase where it emerges from the dark and chases down our heroes. I'm sorry but you're daft if you think a fucking mechanical head pushed into shit made these dinosaurs scary and film experience live so long afterwards. That's laughable. Fuck off.
If any, ANY practical effects maker had the ability to make creatures and characters that could be photographed in any lighting condition (and look real, this means no foam latex), could freely move and interact with actors, could perform for more than one or two take in an entire day, could be photographed from any angle with a handheld or steadicam operator, could move like a living, breathing, organic thing operating by an intelligence comfortable in its own skin, then things would be different. But even checking off one of these boxes is nigh impossible because that craft has failed to evolve and get better. Practical techniques have not only failed to even try to compete with digital techniques that allow filmmakers more freedom they've failed to keep up with baseline camera technology and the need for absolute, unblemished, unadulterated realism when being photographed by even the shittiest of digital camera.