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I think the worst visual effects in the entire trilogy was the explosion of the Hoth power generator. Even in the Special Edition, they failed to fix the horrible effects.

Thoughts?

Other bad effects scenes?

the vader/obi-wan duel in episode 4

I noticed something with that duel too. I mean, I love ALL the Star Wars special effects and, truthfully, don't really know enough about visual effects to judge them, but at points in that duel the lightsabers look tacky. But the duel itself ROCKS!!

definitly the rancor scene
and imho, the effects in the SEs were still horrible (look at Luke and OB1 entering Mos Eisley, that was a big pile of poodoo)

Rancor most definately.

That explosion was still far better than the explosion of amidala's ship when everyone goes down the ramp at the beginning of ep II. That realy sucked the way they all were thrown and how the fire looked.

Rancor??

The rancor aint that bad.

the big ugly thing in ROTJ that wants to eat Luke

and yes, it's horrible, one of the worse blue-screens around

in TESB when luke is tracing vader and each time he moves forward the doors close...the doors come to life so quickly so it makes it unbelieveable

Thats because vader uses the force. They have to close quickly otherwise it would not be right. It wouldnt be much of a trap would it. It was intended to be a surprising/unexpected to make us jump a bit.

you sure it was the force? i just though the ugnaughts (sp?) were waiting in a control room and hitting the switches...slowly leading luke towards vader

There is no reason I can see to think that was the Force!

I go Rancor as well.

Well Vader tells his officer, to make sure that skywalker finds his way here. Here being the freezing chamber. I think that when Luke approached and the doors closed right on artoos dome tells you that vader didnt want to be interrupted and therefore used the force to block out artoo.
In addition to that, when Luke goes up the small lift, the lights turn on suddenly to reveal vader waiting for him. The lights turn on because vader turned on himself thus using the force, who else would of done it. As he did to close the doors. I realy dont think ugnaughts would get involved there.

I think that when Luke (having had his hand cut off) jumps off the walkway it looks really terrible when he's falling.

Ohh...that thing. Yeah...

Yeah, I agree. That bit does look odd.

You've got to be joking. You must be completely blind if you think the explosion at the beginning of EII was worse than the explosion of the field generator. The generator was a FLAT explosion on a 3D landscape. The explosion of the ship, on the other hand, actually interacted with the environment.

I will admit, though, that the people leaving the ship would have been far more mangled than they were had it been real.

But I digress. I have 2 entries for "worst effect in a star wars movie".

1. The explosion of one of the x-wing fighters flying into the death star during the battle of Yavin. It's the one that Luke sees as he looks out of his ship, right before he goes into the trench. It just looked like a plastic prop with a flashpot.

2. 1.Luke's severed hand, and 2. Vader's severed hand. They both looked so painfully obvious that the arms of their costumes were stretched by their hands being tucked inside. Especially with Vader, right after he throws the emperor into the pit. As he rests on the railing, you can see his wrist bending inside his sleeve, even though his hand is supposed to severed at about the wrist.

It's really amazing what computers have done with special effects in movies.

Cornponious (kuntry kok)

I thought that for the time era, E4-6 were done amazingly well. Now Lucas uses too much CGI and it's kinda ruining the Star Wars legacy. Lets see what he can do with Episode 3...

oh well, nothing is perfect huh

The 'creature effects' in ROTJ annoyed me a bit.

That elephant thing looked like a stuffed animal. I think I saw the stitching...

The ATST's in the Endor Sequence
You could see where they had cut and pasted the film together

Also if you knotice the lightsabers never ignight they are either on or of no ignighting animation or whatever

Actually one thing i can never understand in the SW Trilogy, much as i love it. Is when luke is falling how does he mysteriously curve towards the side and land perfectly in one of those tubes, without exploding in a chunk of Hamill giblets rather miraclous no?

it's the will of the force

Errr, I think it was implicit that those things had suction, Jerico.

And tpt, you are wrong about the sabre ignition. There is sometimes animation. I don't think any true fan should forget Obi-Wan's blade lengthening when activated in response to seeing Vader on the Death Star

Frame anlysis of sabre on/off times in the Original Trilogy:

Anakin's sabre
0 frames ON - at Ben's hut
0 frames OFF - on the Falcon
0 frames OFF - on the Falcon
0 frames ON - on the Falcon
0 frames ON - in the snow cave
7 frames ON - under the AT-AT
7 frames OFF - under the AT-AT
0 frames ON - in Yoda's cave (SLOMO)
0 frames ON - at Bespin
16 frames ON - at Bespin
0 frames ON - at Bespin
special events:
sabre lost - STILL ON in flight - lands OFF
sabre called to hand - ACTIVATED in flight!
sabre ON when hand cut off - deactivates in 0 frames shortly afterwards

Luke's sabre:
6 frames ON - sail barge
5 frames ON - Endor forest
7 frames ON - test by Vader
8 frames OFF - test by Vader
0 frames ON - in Emperor's throne room
6 frames OFF - in Emperor's throne room
0 frames ON - in Emperor's throne room
0 frames ON - in Emperor's throne room
8 frames OFF - in Emperor's throne room

Kenobi's sabre
0 frames ON - in the cantina
18 frames ON - on the DeathStar
0 frames OFF - on the Death Star

Vader's sabre
20 frames ON - at Bespin
0 frames ON - at Bespin
0 frames ON - at Bespin
0 frames ON - in Emperors throne room
6 frames ON - in Emperors throne room SOUND ONLY
special events:
sabre thrown - stays ON in flight - turned back ON after retrieval


Good old Bob Brown...

Yet when he was in the tube we didnt see any suction at all, i guess it detects objects that are falling then eh?

Or it is periodic. It is spectacularly unimportant.

Oh im afraid i must disagree Ushgarak

Well I was just going off of memory.
I don't even own the original trilogy

why is this still open? it's crystal clear, in the OT (without SE) it's the rancor, hands down (or almost hands down)
and with the SE it has competition with those scenes while entering Mos Eisley (the words "terrible FX" are very mildly placed)
not sabre ignition

I don't like the space battle shots in ANH, Particularly with the TIE fighters, you can see a "cutout" shape round them where they've been superimposed. Having said that, on a plus side, theres a scene in ROTJ during the speederbike chase when Luke and a scouttrooper bank round a corner and it looks so amazingly real.

Luke's light saber when he is training on the millenium falcon. It is white not blue. Also, when you look at it closely, the effects look all glitchy around the handle. The rancor does look bad. The explosion of the field generator does look crappy, but the view looking out of the AT-AT was changed in the S.E., and the eplosion looked kind of purple and cool. Mostly stuff in A New Hope. When the Falcon is leaving the death star, that looks pretty crappy, and when the ties are attacking, the falcon looks like it is just sitting there. I could go on and on, but all of this could be fixed pretty easily though, so I wouldnt worry.