Top 100 Special Effects Quotes
#1. The main prank that we play with props is for people's birthdays. The special effects people will put a little explosive in the cake so it blows up in their face - that's always fun to play on a guest star, or one of the trainees or someone who's new.
Catherine Bell
#2. Truthfully, I don't know how those special effects people do it.
Lily Rabe
#3. I've never been bothered by proximity to special effects and I've never felt disadvantaged by them. They're all part of a movie, and when the movie's under control I don't feel upstaged by them.
Harrison Ford
#4. Really successful designs can be created without software produced "special effects." Identities do not NEED bevels, gradations, 3-D imagery, Web 2.Oh-Oh and other oh so "special" treatments to be great design solutions for clients.
Jeff Fisher
#5. I had no special effects, no monsters running around, nothing blew up; those things are all things I've done so many times that they lose their allure after a while.
Stephen Hopkins
#6. And if Hollywood has taught us anything, it's that cool props and special effects are not enough. Story comes first. Everything depends on story.
Patrick Rothfuss
#7. I love the power of words - no music or special effects - and I want to demonstrate that power.
Chuck Palahniuk
#8. Acting is primarily is where I want to go. But seeing how the visual effects guys work, and the special effects guys and the art department guys, how they work and seeing their visions is really interesting. I don't think those guys get the recognition they deserve.
James Phelps
#9. This sucks on so many levels." Dialogue from "Jason X" Rare for a movie to so frankly describe itself. "Jason X" sucks on the levels of storytelling, character development, suspense, special effects, originality, punctuation, neatness and aptness of thought.
Roger Ebert
#10. 'Macbeth' is one of the best operas ever, and doing it was a great experience. I added some things to the opera based from my experience on the movie - such as some of the special effects and bits of film - to make it new and interesting. It was a very good work and a very good experience.
Dario Argento
#11. I'm frustrated with Hollywood and television and the movies because they see science fiction as an excuse for eye candy, for lots of great special effects.
David Gerrold
#12. Digital also had this evolution that came out of post-production. And George Lucas did it because he wanted to make a big movie with special effects. Sort of the opposite of what you'd think is an indie film. So it's coming from both these angles.
Christopher Kenneally
#13. The Apple has the fewest bells and whistles. It has simple sound and few graphics special effects. In a way, that is a weakness because markets for the other machines are getting bigger.
Bill Budge
#14. I don't get it when you get so much openness about the way movies are made, and the special effects and the behind-the-scenes stuff and all of that. I can't help but feel like this reduces it a little bit.
Christian Bale
#15. Starship Troopers was great. It was great fun to work on something with blue screens and big budget special effects. Denise Richards was nice to look at too, of course.
Neil Patrick Harris
#16. Photoshop makes things look beautiful just as you have special effects in movies. It's just a part of life.
Erin Heatherton
#17. I was one of the few people who thought Star Wars was going to work, and I hadn't even seen any special effects.
Harrison Ford
#18. In the 40 years since 'The Amityville Horror', dramatizations of those supposedly-real events have gotten loose enough - special-effects laden enough, star-power re-packaged enough - that the audience no longer trusts the dramatization's loyalty to the core story.
Stephen Graham Jones
#19. I like fantasy. I like worlds where sometimes you need the special effects to make it come alive, but it's not so fun acting it.
Evangeline Lilly
#20. Whether it's the experiments on 'MythBusters' or my earlier work in special effects for movies, I've regularly had to do things that were never done before, from designing complex motion-control rigs to figuring out how to animate chocolate.
Adam Savage
#21. There is something really so iconic about the original Predator, and it is exciting. It's not just special effects. It's not like you bring a puppet in, these are characters and so we were involved in developing the look and the attitude of all the characters.
Gregory Nicotero
#22. I even had breasts that had mechanisms that could make them droop. It was a shock in the beginning. Talk about special effects!
Michelle Pfeiffer
#23. The action movies changed radically when it became possible to Velcro your muscles on. It was the beginning of a new era. The visual took over. The special effects became more important than the single person. That was the beginning of the end.
Sylvester Stallone
#24. I think "MythBusters" is a step up from special effects because we not only have to make things look like they work, they actually do have to work. It's more challenging and even transcendental.
Jamie Hyneman
#27. When you get big special effects pictures, sci-fi and things, there's little or no comedy. Or it's a domestic comedy and there's not one special effect. But very rarely do these things fuse and come out right.
Mel Brooks
#28. I'm one of the guys who wants to watch the film completely done, with special effects, sound and music, because I tend to get disappointed if I watch it not fully done.
Luke Ford
#29. except one bit about a movie with werewolves and a woman bursting like a balloon is just special effects, that's drawing on computers.
Emma Donoghue
#30. Don't wake me for the end of the world unless it has very good special effects.
Roger Zelazny
#31. Theater for me is about enduring human truth. Special effects can be part of that, but when they obscure what is the reason we come to theater - to see reflections of our confounded humanity - the theater has lost its way.
Neil Patrick Harris
#32. Actors have given up their clout. Now decision making is in the hands of lighting men, designers, bankers, special-effects people. We need to cut that out and just go with the most able trained actors in the business.
Peter O'Toole
#34. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable.
Bono
#35. I didn't see Dr. No for a year, but I liked it when I saw it. It was a fun movie. I don't like the Bond movies now. I hate special effects.
Ursula Andress
#36. The special effects team designed everything, which basically allowed me to stand on a green box and look and stay relatively expressionless and all these machines did the acting for me. Just the way I like it (laughs)
Robert Pattinson
#37. I work a lot with a green screen, which is really time consuming. All the special effects are.
Meaghan Rath
#38. There is a lot of use of ProTools in professional studios, but this is mostly for the special effects it allows, not for sound quality. These special effects soon fall out of fashion, and I don't think this trend will define studios permanently.
Steve Albini
#39. My playing is fairly straightforward, really, and everything's pretty much standard no frills or special effects.
Mark Knopfler
#40. Whenever I see pointless use of special effects, I reach for something else.
Ken Stott
#41. With massive doses of eye-popping special effects I applaud the visual achievements in 'Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.'
Leonard Maltin
#42. CGI is done after the film is done. It's through the computer. Most of the film is not computer-generated special effects. Most of it is that creature that is in the room with you.
Sanaa Lathan
#43. It's more fun if you can control things like lighting and make special effects in the darkroom.
Lacey Chabert
#44. I think audiences have hit the wall with CGI and special effects. They have seen so many over-the-top events that they can't suspend disbelief.
Sylvester Stallone
#45. What it is is that comedy is underrepresented in every actor's life, because it's so bloody difficult to write. Anyone can write; and then you leave it to special effects to make it look good. But comedy, you've got to do some writing.
Michael Caine
#46. Magic is like special effects live, and I love to perform, so it sounded like doing magic tricks were a good way to entertain people.
Michael Carbonaro
#47. Filmmakers began to experiment with special effects almost as soon as motion pictures were invented. The history of special effects is the history of motion pictures.
Ben Burtt
#48. Special effects movies have taken over the universe. That and scary movies.
Jami Gertz
#49. I think 'The Lost World' could've been a successful movie except for the fact that it pre-dated the good special effects and computer graphics.
John Rhys-Davies
#50. With 'Tron,' we had so many crew members around and a stage full of special effects people that know exactly what has to be done in the situations. You're on a stage in sets the whole time.
Garrett Hedlund
#51. I want to play a fireman and a spy. I want to learn special effects.
Jackie Chan
#52. I've actually usually been wary of taking on science fiction as an actor because it's really tough to do. It's really difficult to execute. There's often lots of prosthetics, green screen and special effects, and it can get very technical.
Grant Bowler
#53. I think we tried to make a film [Moon] that was about human beings as opposed to going from one special effects set piece to the next one, which is what a lot of science fiction films these days do.
Duncan Jones
#54. When I was younger, I was hopefully going to do animation and special effects.
Colin O'Donoghue
#55. If there's a movie of Neuromancer, what I really want the special effects guys to do is make you see, from Case's point of view, the little acid giggies: the little lines and trails coming off of things.
William Gibson
#56. Madonna can still produce a catchy pop song, but she hasn't expanded her artistic vocabulary since the 1990s. Her concerts are glitzy extravaganzas of special effects overkill. She leaves little space in them for emotional depth or unscripted rapport with the audience.
Camille Paglia
#57. I think some of the special effects in Close Encounters hold up better than the new more expensive special effects is because they were better actually.
Bob Balaban
#58. I spent four months in Prague in these blue rooms reacting to nothing and you basically place your faith in the hands of the director and the special effects co-coordinator and you keep your fingers crossed and hope that the creatures look really scary.
Edward Burns
#59. Minus the adverts of TV, the special effects of movies, and the trash of the Internet, live theatre is a personal means to connect with viewers. Lining up eye candy, using graphic words, and teasing or enacting bedroom antics is a lowbrow way to go about it.
Tom Jalio
#60. I'm of a generation of director that came up understanding special effects.
Jon Favreau
#61. So, when the special effects are at the service of the story and draw you into it, that is really the magic.
Bill Sienkiewicz
#62. They say the world is a stage. But obviously the play is unrehearsed and everybody is ad-libbing his lines."
"Maybe that's why it's hard to tell if we're living in a tragedy or a farce."
"We need more special effects and dance numbers.
Bill Watterson
#63. For 'Star Wars' I had to develop a whole new idea about special effects to give it the kind of kinetic energy I was looking for. I did it with motion-control photography.
George Lucas
#64. The audience may forget a plot, the witty dialog or the special effects but they'll always remember how a film made them feel.
T. Rafael Cimino
#65. With a book I am the writer and I am also the director and I'm all of the actors and I'm the special effects guy and the lighting technician: I'm all of that. So if it's good or bad, it's all up to me.
George R R Martin
#66. But initially when I was working with my dad, it was in special effects puppets with radio control and motors and puppet effects.
Brian Henson
#67. Actors have seven tracks going in their minds: They've got all the research they've done for the part, then they have whatever the director asked them to do, then they've got what the departments like special effects need them to do.
Tobin Bell
#68. Special effects are characters. Special effects are essential elements. Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they aren't there.
Laurence Fishburne
#70. Movies, particularly the big hit movies, are all just special effects. But on television, the writers are in control of the shows, and they control the scripts.
Larry Cohen
#71. I really love the independent movies and I just think that sometimes when they throw a lot of money into it and a lot of special effects and a lot of stunts that you lose the connection, the human connection and I personally love movies that are about the human connection.
Jane Seymour
#72. Details are extremely important. A story without details is like an action movie without special effects.
Mark A. Roeder
#73. Particularly in the final season [of Fringe], when we were shooting seven-day episodes with a reduced budget and big special effects, the team was so polished, by then, that we were able to do it and, I think, with incredible results.
John Noble
#74. I think when you take away all, like, the premieres and press stuff and all the special effects, then you just come down to the fact that it's all about acting, and I think that has been the best bit for me.
Emma Watson
#75. That was fun to play. There were some nice special effects coupled with some really nice moments with child and wife. I also was able to age to about 100 years in 'Brief Candle.'
Richard Dean Anderson
#76. I don't do special effects. I do characters. I do creatures.
Stan Winston
#77. 'Heroes' was a huge show with 12 cast members and giant special effects.
Sendhil Ramamurthy
#78. Something like 'The Matrix' would be ideal, something where it's super agents and wire work and special effects - not necessarily running from bombs and shooting people. Something more sleek, like an assassin.
Nadine Velazquez
#79. A good storyteller can hold everybody captive without the special effects of Hollywood.
Phil Keoghan
#80. I only storyboard scenes that require special effects, where it is necessary to communicate through pictures.
John Boorman
#81. I'm not afraid of special effects, but I see them very much as a means to an end.
Daniel Barber
#82. It's very simple why kids are crazy about dinosaurs - dinosaurs are nature's Special Effects. They are the only real dragons. Kids love dragons. It's not just being weirdly shaped and being able to eat Buicks. It's that they are real.
Robert T. Bakker
#83. If you make action movies, the critics will savage you, and then your movies are outdated the following week with the new wave of special effects.
Adam McKay
#84. Asylum was good exposure for me and it is still shown quite often on television. I remember the special effects people had fun making a little doll that looked like me - which is not so easy - and it had to move along the floor.
Herbert Lom
#85. People often tell me how much they love the digital skies that we obviously painted for 'War Horse.' Well, there's not a single sky that we put in through special effects. The skies you see in the movie are the skies that we experienced - but it was definitely challenging at times.
Steven Spielberg
#86. I went back to Holland and I thought 'Ok, now I made so many movies in Hollywood, I know how special effects work, how to do action for not a lot of money, and I have all of these skills now.' It was something in Holland that nobody dared to touch.
Roel Reine
#87. All the green-screen stuff - all the special effects stuff - I shot right there in my house, in the basement in my theater room ...
Vickie Winans
#88. I had a great time working on 'The Gates,' and that was my first real experience doing supernatural television, working with the special effects and everything that goes into making a supernatural show.
Skyler Samuels
#89. I helped develop Disney's) special effects department at that time, which helped very much when we worked on "20000 Leagues under the Sea"
John Hench
#90. I think that in big-budget movies there's a lot of other stuff going on besides acting, like special effects.
Rachel Weisz
#91. The first film I made was when I was 13 and it was called 'The Dogs That Ate Detroit.' It starred my Saint Bernard Barney, and it was a killer thriller with oodles of special effects that were cutting edge for the time.
Les Claypool
#92. I'm a character and relationship guy, and even with the 'Saw' films, it's special-effects people's jobs to create these scary things. It's not my job. My job is to bring some sense of humanity to the character, no matter how evil he may be. The script is going to take me there.
Tobin Bell
#93. You know, the reward for 'Captain America' is amazing. It's always fun to see a giant spectacle film and see the fun stuff - the special effects.
Chris Evans
#94. Once you consider the premise that Episodes I through III are not live-action movies with extensive special effects, but rather animated features with a few living actors rotoscoped in, many of the more common critical objections to the movies simply wither away.
David Brin
#95. What was frustrating about Armageddon was the time I spent not doing anything. It was a big special effects film, and I wasn't crazy about pretending I was in outer space. It feels ridiculous.
Steve Buscemi
#96. Every other movie is one of those action things. I mean, 'Lost in Space'? A bunch of good actors running around shooting at special effects on a soundstage? I took my kids to see that and felt like I was on an acid trip.
Tom Berenger
#97. You are always hoping that movie audiences are interested in characters and interested in story values rather than just mindless special effects. But you never know.
Clint Eastwood
#98. Nature can put on a thrilling show. The stage is vast, the lighting is dramatic, the extras are innumerable, and the budget for special effects is absolutely unlimited.
Yann Martel
#99. Wrong Turn 1 and 2 are pretty interesting films, but they need little more work on special effects!
Deyth Banger
#100. That's the thing with sci-fi and action roles. You have to play the danger as real. If you don't, you end up with egg on your face. You have to commit. You can't think about how stupid it might look without the special effects.
Victoria Pratt
