Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Johnson: Technology Makes All the Difference


It is evident in watching both the 1941 and 2010 versions of The Wolfman, that technology, and therefor the making of movies has become a lot more advanced and complicated over the past 70 years. What makes this fact so evident is the attempts by each director to push the special effects boundaries of their time. As you can see from this clip, the 1941 version of The Wolfman was not very asthetically apleasing, but got the message across, as well as left room for the audience's imagination. George Waggner did not try to attempt anything that would take away from the movie. Rather than try to show the entirety of Lon Chaney transformation, Waggner decided to only briefly show human feet transforming into the feet of a werewolf. This was probably the best decision George Waggner could have made, because a full transformation would have made the movie way over the top and would have most likely looked ridiculous. This is the problem Joe Johnston had in his version of the film.



In the 2010 version of The Wolfman, there is no room left for the audiences imagination. Director, Joe Johnston shows the viewer exactly what happens to Lawrence Talbot by using CGI (computer-generated imagery). This is not a good thing in my mind. Johnston used the computers too much to create the Wolfman's metomorphosis. Talbot's transformation is more comical than scary in the 2010 version because it is so unbelievable. The audience sees the claws pop out of his fingers, his eyes dilate and bulge, and the hair grow all over his body. Even 70 years after the original, it seems technology still wasn't good enough to truly terrify the audience. In my opinion, the transformation scene from the original 1941 Wolfman is much more thrilling and suspenseful than it's 2010 remake.

1 comment:

  1. Ben, don't forget to label your blog at the end ben johnson, wolfman, transformations, directors. You have some excellent points, and you clearly know how to enter clips, pictures, links on your blog. Nice job.

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