
Movies have always been wonderful, from the golden age of cinema to even today, they keep pushing the envelope of what’s possible within the medium. Of course, when it comes to big budgeted films, nowadays it’s all mostly CGI, but that wasn’t the case back in the 80s.
This is why images from behind the scenes of that era are so interesting, since their practical effects and costumes took a long time to create. This allows us to have a glimpse of movie magic being developed before our eyes. Here are just a few pictures that show just how much work went into the films we know and love.
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The Thing
While the film aimed to be grotesque, there is a beauty in the hand crafted work that went into showing the shape-shifting alien. This makes it timeless, maintaining the same gruesome effect it had back in the day.
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E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Humor exists even behind the scenes, since the people making movies need levity too. Here, we have director Steven Spielberg ‘washing’ his alien creation, E.T., in the set with the tub.
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Ghostbusters
Movies don’t have unlimited money, so when it came time to showcase a marshmallow man the size of a building, they couldn’t just make one. Instead, the filmmakers made a miniature of the creature and shot the scenes with a scaled down skyscraper.
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Back to the Future III
There isn’t much for an actor to do between one take and the next, so they might as well catch up on the daily news. This photo is of particular note since Michael Fox is dressed on his cowboy get-up, making the paper particularly anachronistic.
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The Goonies
Prosthetics take a good while to implement, so seeing the make-up process in action for this Goonies character is quite a sight. Of particular note is the animatronic eye, something today would definitely be solved with CGI.
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Labyrinth
The movie’s main story has Jennifer Connelly going through all kinds of exhaustive trials, so it is nice to see the actress had some levity between shots.
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Aliens
The Alien creature is part suit, part animatronic, something that needed constant adjustments between takes. Here, we have the people behind the scenes getting the creature ready for the next time they need it.
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Predator
Just like with the Alien, the Predator is also portrayed by a person in a suit. A particularly tall person, but a real human nonetheless, and fortunately for him the face can come off so he can breathe with ease.
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Who Framed Roger Rabbit
In the film, real life actors interact constantly with cartoons, but they need something tangible to interact with for the performances to work. Here we see how the cartoon vehicles were handled by the production.
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Beetlejuice
Makeup work requires not only expertise from the makeup artist, but utmost patience from the actor, since they need to spend hours upon hours just sitting down. Michael Keaton at least had a comparatively easy time when thinking about the other movies covered here.
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Neverending Story
The two main characters of the Neverending Story go through a lot of challenges, and don’t really meet much during the movie. It’s nice then to see them as the kids they are in a heartfelt photo.
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Robocop
Actors aren’t really wounded during films, that much we know. But they also have a say in how they look with their scars on, participating openly in the process of making their character look as weak, dangerous or whatever the film needs them to be.
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Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
The movie’s title requires the children of the movie to be smaller than bugs, but of course, that’s difficult to showcase. Therefore, the film made animatronics that were bigger than most people, creating an impressive effect on camera.
The post 13 Images Taking You Behind the Scenes of Iconic ’80s Flicks appeared first on Den of Geek.