10 Special Effects Movie Milestones That Came After Star Wars

8. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991)

Directed by: James Cameron While it's nearly a mainstay of science fiction and fantasy movies today, the use of natural human motion to capture and create extended visual effects was first utilized by science fiction wizard James Cameron. Arnold's T-800 Terminator received some treatment, but the T-1000, the antagonist of the film, stole both the show and the majority of the computer-generated effects. The liquid-metal nature of the T-1000 is only shown onscreen for a little over five minutes of the film, and yet the 35-man effects team spent ten months crafting the sequences. A mixture of prosthetics and puppets was used for some of the shots, but the most impressive ones capture the movements of the actors and turn them into entirely computerized visuals. For their efforts, the T2 team won the 1992 Academy Award for Best Visual Effects. Influenced: Gollum from Lord of the Rings, Two-Face from The Dark Knight, Pirates of the Caribbean, Avatar.