"Why Does OLD MOVIE's Visual Effects Still Hold Up?"

This question comes up a lot, usually in regards to films like "Jurassic Park" (1993) and "Transformers" (2007), especially when referring to franchise films and how some folks feel that the visual effects of a successful movie's sequels are "worse" than the original film's, even though the "technology" is better. The problem with the premise of this question is that it disregards the human and creative aspects of filmmaking, instead defaulting to "technology is better, why aren't the images better?" Which is a deeply reductive and silly way of looking at the artistic process.

I wrote this tweet in 2023 as a quick attempt to answer the rhetorical question. I think my answer still holds up pretty well. Heh.

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"Why does OLD MOVIE's visual effects still hold up?"

• shot design
• planning and organization
• taste
• sticking to a plan
• appropriate timeline
• small volume of work
• appropriate budget

These principles are timeless. If you think a visual effects shot looks like crap, the people involved with the movie can point to one or more of these bullet points to indicate the reason.

Please note how none of these bullet points are about technique because making good art is technique-agnostic.

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I really hope readers don't gloss over that last sentence, because it's fairly important.