10 Movie Special Effects Nobody Believed

9. TARS - Interstellar

The Special Effect

Interstellar's sarcastic robot TARS was yet another case of director Christopher Nolan employing unexpectedly practical effects to achieve a seamless end result.

You see, TARS was in fact a fully physical, manoeuvrable on-set prop, weighting 200 pounds and manipulated by actor Bill Irwin. Irwin also voiced TARS and even recorded all of his dialogue for the film while controlling the robot.

Irwin was obviously painted out digitally in post-production, but the TARS unit itself could be puppeteered to perform roughly 80% of his actions throughout the film.

More complex movements, such as TARS rotating to move through the water, were achieved with CGI.

Why Nobody Believed It

Because TARS simply looks too complex and cumbersome to be "real", and given the film's liberal use of visual effects, what harm could there be in making the robot a fully CGI creation?

As a result, the cast and crew spent much of their time on the film's press tour explaining to baffled journalists that TARS was a physical element of almost the entire movie.

Bar a few obvious movement shots where the lighting isn't quite perfect, the results are virtually indistinguishable, making it even tougher to believe that Nolan managed to (mostly) realise TARS practically.