10 More Movie Special Effects Nobody Believed
8. The Hominids - 2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: Space Odyssey's iconic Dawn of Man sequence revolves around a tribe of hominids who discover an alien monolith and learn how to use a bone as a weapon to fend off a rival tribe.
It's a masterful scene, and while today there's no doubt that even a filmmaker as exacting a Stanley Kubrick used guys-in-suits to portray the hominids, folks weren't quite so sure back in the day.
If legend can be believed, the Academy apparently refused to consider the film for an honorary makeup effects Oscar because they didn't believe that Kubrick hadn't shot most of the scene with actual apes.
Ironically, the Academy instead bestowed an honorary Oscar to the makeup team behind Planet of the Apes.
Whether the apocryphal Oscar rumour is true or not, the suited-up hominid actors give incredibly believable performances, even if the actual costumes themselves don't fully hold up to modern scrutiny on a large 4K OLED TV.