1902 VFX vs 2020 VFX - How Space Movies Have EVOLVED!

After hearing rumors that Tom Cruise is planning to take a film crew into space to film some scenes for Mission Impossible 8, we decided we'd take a look into how VFX in space films has changed since the first Sci-fi film ever, "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" in 1902 up to present day.
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1902.
In "Le Voyage Dans La Lune" or "A Trip To The Moon" director George Melies used multiple VFX techniques throughout the film.
For the scene where the astronomer's telescopes transform into stools and the Selenites explode into a puff of smoke he used the Substitution Splice or Stop Trick technique.
This technique requires the camera operator to stop filming and maintain the framing long enough for something on set to be changed, added, or removed.
1950.
During the years between 1902 and 1950, innovation within the movie industry continued.
Sound, color, the blue screen method, and traveling mattes were just a few of the advances that were achieved during this time period and despite two world wars, the great depression, and the atomic bomb, the VFX industry continued to evolve and grow, as did our interest in space.
One of the great things about Sci-Fi films is that the filmmakers have the chance to imagine interesting ways of achieving things that mankind has yet to achieve, and then they have to somehow imagine some way of portraying them on screen.
1968.
Throughout the 1950s and indeed most of the 60s, space films pretty much carried on the same, there were different plots, some comedy, some romantic and some just straight Sci-FI but all following the same track of unconvincing model spacecraft hanging on cables and actors either acting weightless or conveniently having a gravity producing device onboard, this was so, until 1968 and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In this film, Kubrick pushed the VFX team to improve and perfect methods they already used but to also imagine and invent new ones.
1977.
During the rest of the late 60s and early 70s space movies pretty much emulated what had happened after Destination Moon in the 50s, even though models were getting more and more realistic and electronics and computers began to become more widely used, filmmakers were concentrating less on making outer space realistic and more on creating fantasy worlds.
Some of these fantasy worlds were intelligent, like Planet Of The Apes, others were humorless comedies like Dark Star, and others, well, others had Sean Connery in a red diaper with knee-high leather boots and a ponytail.
1995.
With Space Science Fiction films, people just accept that they are fiction and immerse themselves in the story, for example, no one really wonders why, or how, every ship and planet in the Stars Wars films has Gravity, they just accept this as a constant, however, this doesn't work when the space film you are making isn't really Sci-fi but is actually Sci-Fact.
Apollo 13 told the true story of Jim Lovell and his crew and their fight to return to earth, but, because this was a true story that had already happened, people had already seen real NASA photography and footage, and so Apollo 13 had to be as realistic as possible.
2013.
Contact, Starship Troopers, and the Star Wars Prequels all dove deeper into the world of digital effects and techniques like Motion-capture, LIDAR scanning, crowd, particle and fluid simulations, digital lighting, and compositing were invented, developed, and improved.
By the time the film Gravity came along, the number of tools available to the VFX team was extensive.
2018.
The LightBox technique would be further improved in the 2018 movie, First Man but instead of a tiny box for just the actor, they built a 35ft tall and 65ft wide semicircle of LED screens.
These screens could project any footage they wanted, and because they were so big, spacecraft simulators could be set up in front of them, these simulators were then programmed to move in sync with the images on the screens, thus capturing the actor's performance and the complete visual effect entirely in-camera.
2020.
The Midnight Sky then took all these techniques one step further, using Anyma Capture, (a markerless facial performance capture system) and combining it with their own cutting edge proprietary shaders they were able to create hi-resolution digital faces so convincing that they were able to do full digital face replacements on the actors, the spacewalk scene alone has 70 fully CG performances.
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[@CreativeSteve69]

throughout my lifetime as well as my starting journeys of being a avid movie watcher in my teens onward. it has been great fun watching special effects grow and evolve over my decade of living. Cant wait to see how it'll evolve more in the upcoming decade. :)

[@naumanmalik6661]

Movie made with vfx in 1969 which is also famous Movie name: Apollo 11 Actors: Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin Producer: NASA IMDB: 9.9/10 Rotten Tomatoes: 5/5 (Note: These ratings are also real and was taken through people living on moon)

[@royjones8312]

Rotten Tomatoes is a percentage homey.

[@rudolfblaha7701]

the music in this video is awesome🙂

[@hatednyc]

Voyage to the Moon should be shown in schools. It’s a true masterpiece.

[@psps6623]

"Buckle in"....for a 13 minute video. Yeah, I'm packing my survival kit now.

[@syrophenikan]

Many of those ships shown in 2001 were paper cutouts. The simplest ideas are often the most effective.

[@rahultiwari-fv3gs]

Love your video from india 👍

[@benderjoecool8838]

Just had to look this up. It appears that Stanley Kubrick's rotating shift model would have cost around $5 million in today's money pretty staggering to think that a single set would cost that much money

[@Dataclysm]

I enjoy your content. I do wish however that you put interstellar in there though. I certainly feel that the effects for that movie were quite literally out of this world, but nevertheless nice work. 👏

[@decipher-me]

Really good video!

[@sunsun5375]

Underated

[@MichaelJohnstone1970]

in the very near future we (the audience) cannot tell anymore between reality and fake in the movies!

[@merlinoner]

Nobody has done better than the Apollo 11 movie in 1969.

[@billnyethesciencedenier6701]

That was the fakest looking space movie.

[@levelhorizons397]

🤣

[@arrow1414]

What is sad is with so many crazies out there I don't know if you are joking or a serious "conspirtard".🤔

[@billnyethesciencedenier6701]

@@arrow1414 if you think man has been to the moon, you have no right to question anyone's intelligence. Why hasn't anyone gone back since the 70s? Why did they delete all the telemetry data? Why do NASA astronauts say we don't have the technology to go "back" to the moon? I have more computing power in my pocket than an entire warehouse full of computers in the 70s.

[@arrow1414]

@BillNyeTheScienceDenier Ah a crazy person! 1: We didn't go back because congress didn't want to fund it anymore because the public did not want money spent on that anymore but for more practical things. 2: Most of the telemetry data was mundane measurements and readings like speed, thrust, attitude, etc. So the tapes were reused after review. In any event even if NASA still had them you would say they were fake anyway. After all, you and others who think all the photographs and film footage are fake, so what's the difference? 3: We did not lose the technology. We lost the infrastructure to utilize it because it wasn't funded anymore for reasons stated in No.1. Now we are using the vastly improved technology of the early 21st century, not the technology of the 1960s and early 1970s, in that way we are recreating the technology using much better information. 4: Yes a digital watch nevermind a smartphone has more power than the flight computers on the Space craft. But your watch and smartphone does a whole lot more than the comparitively simple mathematical calculations. The flight computers didn't have to project graphics on a monitor, not even the simple vector graphics which was cutting edge at the time. It didn't have to power audio either, except maybe for buzzers. All they had to do was monitor the systems, navigate, and turn on and off the various rockets at certain times and an alphanumeric display. You don't need gigabytes or even megabytes of information and storage to do that. It just had the power of an 1977 Apple II.

[@molly8643]

Great explication thanks! Haven't we come a long way since then?

[@FameFocus]

Yes we have Molly. Yes We Have.

[@bern444]

V/O sound editing!!!

[@arnolttbromanskie9733]

Did you ever made a video about the last starfighter? That would be great 😊

[@EricHamm]

older movies are harder because you have to find behind the scenes footage and DVDs from these eras don't have many special features about VFX unless was a super well preserved film. Since almost everything was practical you really need to talk to the people who worked on it or find documentation on it. Again way easier with any movie past 1990.

[@ucmemory]

Ohhh i can understand

[@Lumibear.]

No Interstellar or Mandalorian? Aw…

[@blackrose_cba]

In Mandalorian a 360 ° screen was used including ceiling and floor! 🤩

[@only257]

Great 😊

[@FameFocus]

Thanks 😊

[@hallpros]

One of your last questions - Deep Fake Tech. Hmm... It's the power to create art, movies, characters and so much more. BUT, it's also the power to bring down governments, politicians (good & bad, depending on your preference). Personally... I'm undecided.

[@nicolasguillaume2264]

VFX should be to help the story so I think it should be as real as possible

[@jimroberts3009]

Was that Mr Greens brother at 12.30?

[@isthebiblefromheavenisthee4923]

NASA - Going nowhere since 1958

[@FutureyYES]

Space movies are better than Action, Horror, Drama, Violence, Drugs movies

[@ikemkrueger]

You missed Oblivion.

[@rx4rays7]

So,… Did we fake the moon landing, or what? :)

[@StevenCookFX]

You missed Babylon 5. The series was spectacular.

[@katasiapa]

What next on 2030?

[@Mayor_Of_Eureka17]

Works in video games.

[@billakers6082]

Do the digital actors eventually become activists?

[@andreas1337able]

Could you maybe make a video of film and Unreal engine. I love this technique and Unreal Engine is just insane. I do not work for Epic nor do I get coins for asking this :) I do work with Unreal though. Powerfull tools. I have been binging your videos. I see this one is a year old. Still hope you could make a video. Did a search, found nothing. Maybe this is my own fault though. Who knows :)

[@alejandroborja5031]

guys have you already do "dune"?

[@FameFocus]

We covered the original movie, but we're still working on the new Dune version!

[@Artist_apu_drawing_world]

namaste🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

[@KIAOPTIMATHOR]

They never got on the moon. لم يصعدوا على القمر أبدا

[@gtxcreation3067]

🗾

[@Ateeeezzzzz]

LIFE IS A LIE

[@KIAOPTIMATHOR]

They never went up on the moon.

[@mohammedsadiq69]

1st view

[@samstone8591]

Less cgi more practical effects, please

[@fourcgames7568]

Why on Earth would anyone use practical effects in space movies? It makes no sense at all, especially when the CG is as good as it is today. Practical effects are just outdated and unnecessary these days.

[@NunYaBiz1313]

@@fourcgames7568 disagree. Practical effects look more realistic than CGI when used properly

[@fourcgames7568]

@@NunYaBiz1313 Not in space movies they don't. Because guess what, you still can't exactly go to space to film. If you could then I'm sure it would be really beneficial for the realism, but in this case it's better to use CGI. If you give enough time to the CG artists, you won't even be able to tell what is CGI and what isn't. Normally it's best to mix practical and CGI, but in the case of space movies (until we're comfortably able to go to space to film) it is better to use CGI. It's not even a question.

[@yokartik]

@@fourcgames7568 i agree. practical effects are only good in earthly things like fantasy movies.

[@EricHamm]

@@fourcgames7568 Every good VFX artist knows you need both to make great VFX scenes. Find one reputable VFX artist that says otherwise, you won't find them. CGI is no where near ready to simulate practical 1for1. Any human can take a high res picture or clip and see that it is cgi. When a regular person can't tell then you can replace practical. That is easily another 20 years away.