No doubt they loved shooting in the dark to cover up their poor creature FX. This movie was made almost 20 years after the first 'Alien'. It's funny how 'Mimic' is already dated with bad CGI and mediocre make-up/latex FX.
Yet, 'Alien' STILL holds up over 30 years later.
While some movies age better than others, I would say that the FX in this, holds up better than more recent movies like "Avatar".
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It's funny how you criticize "Mimic" for shooting in the dark to avoid seeing the creatures, yet "Alien" is famous for that particular film-making technique.
Both are great movies, and BOTH creature FX are dated (unless you are willing to say something stupid like "the alien at the end of 'Alien' doesn't look like a person in a rubber suit dangling on some wires outside of the spaceship").
The point was that 'Alien' overall still looks scarier than 'Mimic' in every way.
Besides, that wasn't the creature outside the spaceship. It was a lost trick-or-treater. It's in the DVD commentary.
=]
How could your point be about which one is scarier? Your original post was all about the quality of the FX of the films. It said nothing about which was scarier.
shareI said that 'Alien' still holds up, while 'Mimic' doesn't. They're both supposed to be scary sci-fi movies, and only one succeeds in hindsight. Most of that is because the FX on 'Mimic' just aren't scary anymore (if they ever were). But the non-CGI FX on 'Alien' do.
Clear enough for ya?
I find that for some reason CGI never stands the test of time. I remember being amazed by Jurrasic Park when it came out, while I wasn't that impressed when I saw it last time. I don't know what it is, but you seem to get used to it I guess. funny thing is that I still enjoy watching (good) stop/go-motion. I mean ED209 in Robocop still looks badass. and maybe stopmotion becomes fake to, but it becomes a work of art instead of cheezy (like with cgi).
shareTerminator 2
Ghostbusters
The Abyss
All 3 have better CGI than mimic, and they came out YEARS BEFORE mimic.
I remember watching this crappy movie in theaters in 97, the CGI in the movie wasn't impressive at all.
Watched the directors cut today, it's embarassing, theres barely anything new.
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There are no computer generated effects in GHOST BUSTERS.
I don't mean to impose, but I am the Ocean.
Terminator 2
Ghostbusters
The Abyss
All 3 have better CGI than mimic, and they came out YEARS BEFORE mimic.
Sorry but most of the effects in Ghostbusters were pretty bad in 1984 and still are now. T2's effects hold up pretty well. The Abyss is still great effects wise mostly because a lot of it's major stuff was miniature and live. The digital water snake thing looks ok, not great.
The effects in Mimic were pretty good. Yes you can tell most of the cgi, but it was a very low budget independent movie.
Are you guys 100% sure there's no CGI in ghostbusters?
Are you suggestion there's an actual plot and interesting character arc in the movie mimic?
To me it's a really bad movie, just like it was in 1997.
The ONLY good thing, no wait, the two things I do enjoy from the movie are: Photography and the actual score, everything else is just bad...
You might belive it was "unlucky" in the cinema, but for most of us it was a very poorly writen story.
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Terminator 2 CGI wasn't any better. It was just better used.
shareIt's not the fairest thing to compare the CGI of Abyss and T2 to Mimic, here is why.
The creatures in T2 and Abyss are liquid blobs and besides imitating the human form, the shapes are pretty simple blobby things. The textures are also easier, clear for the water creature with some sort of displacement effect for when you see through it... the terminator is just simple metal textures which is pretty much the click of a button in a 3D modeling program (although maybe it was harder back then).
Now compare that to the mimic where you have completely made up but anatomically accurate creatures from someones imagination (the movie had wonderful creature designs, even if they didn't look that great on screen). They are creatures with joints, limbs, lots of moving parts and instead of just making it look like water or metal, they had to give it very intricate organic textures that resembled an insect. Not only that but the creatures had to maintain it's shape the entire time but still make sense in the action scenes involving real actors.
It's easy to just look at the CGI and say "that looks bad... it sucks" but if you really think about what it is they are creating and all the work that went into making it a believable and functioning creature, you will gain a lot more respect for the film and will probably have a better time watching it. BTW, the CGI was top-notch for the day.
I watched the director's cut on Blu-ray last night and thought the effects held up very well. It seems mandatory to bash CGI in films on forums to make oneself look like some sort of FX purist, but CGI is used sparingly and intelligently here and it is augmented by excellent animatronic effects.
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I recently re-watched Mimic and I really don't know why you find those creature FX outdated. I think it still looks very good, there is only one scene where CGI was a bit distracting and that's a scene where bug creature chased Mira Sorvino for the first time in metro. Mimic might not be Del Toro's best (which is pretty hard when you also have Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy movies and Devil's Backbone) but it's fun, well done homage to 70's monster flicks. Alien, while being great movie, doesn't look better than Mimic if you ask me considering you can see very little (there is a lot of darkness in Mimic too but not nearly as much as Alien has).
http://www.imdb.com/list/ja3Wu4ujgdY/
They didnt have an artist like H.R. Giger doing there creature. And its quite obvious it is a dark setting, its an insect nest, those dont usually go around breeding in full open view with loads of light.
Doubt it had anything to do with "shooting in the dark to cover up poor creature FX".
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Watched the blu ray, thought the FX were great for it's time. One of the better examples of CGI in the 90's and excellent use of Rick Bottin's practical monster effects too.
Mwuhahahahhaaa!
Mimic has very few CGI effects shots.
"Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."
Hmm, the original statement of this thread seems rather ridiculous to me. Like someone else pointed out, despite the great creature design in "Alien", what's most memorable about it is how little you actually see of it and when you do, it's usually in darkness and only parts of it (partly because you'd see it's a guy in a suit). So the creature effects by themselves are not why Alien, as a movie, held up so well. It's the way they were utilized.
Similarly, the FX in Mimic looks pretty good, the insects are detailed, slimy and fairly realistic looking with CGI only used sparingly, as pointed out. Which means that the OP uses a movie that had no CGI and showed even less of its creature as an example of a movie that held up better, for seemingly no other reason than wanting to say that this one is bad.
As for Terminator 2, it's significantly easier to get away with depicting shiny liquid metal rather than something organic or anything that the audience has a frame of reference for. So while it looked good, it wouldn't matter if it looked fake because...well it's a shiny metal man.
Nothing wrong with a man in a suit as long as the suit looks convincing. There are times when CGI is not called for. It should be noted that T2's FX was best known for its introduction of morphing, not metallic textures. Similarly, The Abyss was noted for its ground-breaking transparency effects.
Mimic's FX wasn't bad but it introduced nothing new.
OP doesn't know what they're talking about. The FX, while not flawless, how old up very well these days.
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