10 More Movie Special Effects Nobody Believed
9. Jake's Hand - Avatar: The Way of Water
Even before Avatar: The Way of Water was released, viewers were nitpicking every frame - nay, every pixel - of the trailers, as led to some intense skepticism about one shot in particular.
In one of the trailers, there's a close-up shot of Jake Sully's (Sam Worthington) hands tightening the reins of a skimwing creature, and some viewers felt that this shot was so photorealistic that they refused to believe it actually had any CGI elements at all.
Many became convinced that this was too advanced for a computer to render, believing that the shot consisted of a person painted blue sitting in a water tank and interacting with a practical skimwing prop.
But the VFX team eventually revealed the truth, that the shot is actually a staggering mix of practical and digital elements.
The hand itself indeed belonged to a live-action actor, and some of the surrounding water is real, but Jake's arm, the skimwing, and the rest of the water was all CGI, and had to be painstakingly "connected" to the practical elements.
When people call the artists working at Weta Digital wizards, they're really not exaggerating.