Nope. Again I say, any film is open to dirisive laughter, I don't care how old or revered it is. Just because it's a work of art doesn't give it immunity. My wife totally knows the GB effects are a product of their time. That doesn't mean she's suddenly not allowed to laugh at how hokey they look now.

I see now that I should have worded my initial statement differently. Rather than wishing for updated effects in Ghostbusters, I should have simply said that I love the film, but for me, personally, the effects haven't held up and always throw me out of the movie. Then I should've asked if anyone else has an example of a film they love but wish the effects were better/more seamless in order to enhance their enjoyment of the film.

So, yeah... I started the discussion on the wrong foot. I never meant to step on the toes of film purists. I still think artistic license always rests in the hands of the filmmakers and respect their right to revise over time, as long as the original version remains available to the public. And that any aspect of a film, no matter how classic, is still up for criticism. I never meant to imply that my problem with any one particular film should absolutely be fixed at the expense of the original work.

Put in young Barbara Stanwyck and I am sooooo there!

Wow. I just watched Ghostbusters a couple of weeks ago and was blown away by how much I loved the effects. I will agree that the optical compositing on the dogs is the weakest effect in the movie, but that doesn't mean it's bad. In fact, I think the animation on the dogs is pretty great. It's only the color/brightness of the dogs that throw it off. That said, I can't imagine any aspect of those effects invoking laughter.

Good call. That sequence is shockingly bad, and not just because of how primitive the technology was at the time.

I thought about this back when blue screen special effects were taking off in the early 90's, a big deal was made of them around the release of The Fugitive and Army of Darkness. These movies would have great looking film shot in front of a easily replaceable background. They don't have to worry about digitally erasing a puppet and filling in the background, or making a human step over the tail of a large slug like creature.

I guess i'm okay with it as long as the original creative forces behind the movie are doing it, they only touch shots that had computer graphics to begin with and they don't make any changes that would alter the original intention of the scene. I don't want them replacing stop motion or puppetry work with CGI.

To me it's plastic surgery for film. I don't think it helps a film much, except for a few select films that one wouldn't know about unless it was pointed out.

Okay--I've finally figured out who the retouched Jesus reminds me of: George Savalas, brother of Telly who was also in Kojak.

yeah damn right - I paid for all those speakers AND hooked them up ... now pony up their partner...

Nice Ghostbusters tie in

I brought all of the elements together. This thread can now be closed.

So you were okay with the original Yoda in Episode I?

I will agree that some of the devil dogs FX haven't aged well. However the ghost librarian FX are still wonderful. I think that effect actually looks more "ghostly" and looks better than some overblown CGI free floating full torso vaporous apparition.

That's one of my favorite anime flicks of all time. I wish we had a Blu-ray of it. I didn't care that they used it - it just went to show you where their heads were at at the time. 30 fucking years ago! It's pretty cool.

I think many people's passion come from the fact that Lucas screwed up so badly. Adding in effects that didn't make sense AND withholding the original version from us. I think if he had simply fixed some of the issues with the matte effects, maybe sprucing up the Attack on Death Star and been done with it, AND kept the originals around/available people wouldn't be so against it.

But when you look at the even more dated Jabba scene in ANH, non-fixed light sabers, musical number in ROTJ, etc...you get a fire in people to never fucking touch anything.

Still looks better than the CGI Jabba in A New Hope.

I'd have to think really hard to come up with something which wasn't.

I still think the worst effect in the Special Edition is Han's impossible neck jerk when Greedo fires.