The issue of effects enhancing or overpowering the story is an old one. Take for example King Kong (the original). I understand it was groundbreaking in it's effects when it came out, yet when I watched it in the last year, I was struck by the fact I noticed the same thing happening in that movie as happens in movies like the Mummy, or LOTR, or Transformers (to a point). There was an interesting story going, and the suspense was building, and things were going well. The reveal of Skull Mountain was cool, and the wall pretty cool. Then the Ape was revealed, and it was fairly impressive, with his fight with the villagers at the door, ect. Then the Ape walks back to his lair with the chick,and the pursuers have a fight with a Stegosaurus, then a Brontosaurus, then a cool fight with Kong himself. Interrupting them all is another dinosaur, and now Kong has to fight a T Rex. The fight goes on and on, and eventually Kong is saved. But wait, it's not over. Now there's a fight with a snake thing, and then another one with a Pterodactyl. Finally, the woman is freed.
Now, there were things in this that were awesome - the fight between Kong, and the T-Rex, the fight between Kong and the pursuers, those were great. All the other "also ran" dinosaurs that had to have a fight put in, well, it really reminded me of Star Wars Episode 1, with the underwater trip. It is cool to encounter 1 or 2 big sea beasts, but did it really have to be 4 or 5? It's too many.
The thing with King Kong, is that the effects were remarkable for that time period, and the story bracketing the filmmaker's indulgence were great - which doesn't always happen. Still, I was struck by the fact that even back then, this is an issue filmmakers have had to deal with pretty much since film was made.
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