In 1971, according to the wikipedia article, Timeline of CGI in Film and Television, a computer was used to render 2-D animation for a short, called "Metadata", by Peter Folds. In 1973 Folds made another short, "The Hunger", wherein a picture of a woman turns into a picture of an ice cream cone. It is the first time a computer was used to estimate the alteration needed to transform one image into another. The next listed instance of CGI was in Westworld, a sci-fi thriller written and directed by Michael Crichton. In Westworld, Yul Brynner stars as an android-cowboy in an amusement park that goes crazy. (Yes, I have this on DVD somewhere. I'll be watching it tonight.) Brynner's POV shots are created with CGI, 2-D wire-frame images depicting his robotic "eyesight". Metamorphosis CGI was also used to great effect in Willow in 1988.
CGI comes up again in Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope, (1977). During the scene that the x-wing fighter pilots receive their briefing about how to destroy the Death Star, a 3-D wire-frame schematic is shown, illustrating the Death Star's weak point. The Star Wars series is responsible for many movie magic advancements, and George Lucas started his own effects house, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), to help him achieve all of his wildest drams on camera. (ILM has consequently been at the forefront of many CGI feats in movies, including developing the dinosaurs for Jurassic Park and the T-1000 for Terminator 2: Judgment Day.) My dad, when he was an engineering student at the Univ. of Michigan, worked with a CAD program that had some pre-loaded images on it to illustrate its capabilities. He says that it took the program about an hour to draw a 3-D wire-frame image of a space shuttle. Here's the space shuttle I made in five minutes starting...now!
...and mine's not wire-frame. So, if you didn't know, we've come a long way in regard to CGI and all things computer-generated. It's hard to even notice things like the Death Star schematic, or the navigation monitors from Alien (1979), which were also computer-generated. But in the 1980's, things became a lot more noticeable, and kinda cool looking too.
Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan took a giant leap forward in 1982 when ILM created a fractal landscape from a computer for Khan's adopted home planet. This program was called "Genesis Effect" and I think the effect is pretty good, even for today. I don't remember seeing anything fake-looking in that movie, other than creature effects, so I think they pulled off something great. The first time a CGI object was integrated into a movie to replace a real-world object or model was in The Last Starfighter, (1984). The spaceships in the final battle sequence were all rendered in CGI, and while it's painfully obvious that it is CGI, considering where effects were two years prior, this is a monster step in the right direction. No matter how bad you think The Last Starfighter is a a movie, without it we wouldn't have Jurassic Park.
The United States wasn't the only country experimenting with CGI in the early 80's. An anime movie from Japan, The Professional: Golgo 13, which I referenced in my previous post, has s sequence at the end of the film using CGI helicopters shooting out the windows of a huge sky scraper. The CGI is all polygons and gradients, but it's still interesting to see how they worked it in, and it's fully ahead of it's time, since CGI didn't become mainstream within anime for another ten years. (Too bad the sequence itself looks horrible and doesn't even come close to blending in.)
In 1984 Temple of Doom and The Last Starfighter were released into theaters. What a contrast of viewing experiences! That would have been a great double feature: movie effects then and now, followed by movie effects of the future. Seeing the early steps is fun, and reminds of what we take for granted every time we go to the movies.
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