Fawning Over the Visuals
‘Pan’s Labyrinth’, by acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro, is full of incredible sights, a magical story that mixes wonder and darkness in equal amounts, and a few unforgettable characters – no matter how hard viewers might try.
Not only is there the faun, the satyr character that provides our main heroine with the direction she needs, but we also have the pale man, a nightmarish figure with a blank face and eyeballs set in the palms of his hands.
Lord of the Body Doubles
While filming the 'Lord of the Rings' movies, as well as 'The Hobbit' series, director Peter Jackson wanted practical effects as much as possible – though he did lessen this approach for 'The Hobbit' movies. With a Middle-Earth full of hobbits, dwarves, men, elves, wizards, and giants, plenty of different actors took up the mantles of your favorite character, not just the names you're aware of.
Sir Ian McKellen, in particular, needed a lot of help. Since his character Gandalf interacts with hobbits so much, there needed to be a way for him to tower over the other actors.
Art of Perspective
Plenty of work went into making sure it was possible to get the right shorts, even with the grand scale of Middle Earth. Practical effects and CGI were used to bring the setting in which hobbits and Orcs collide to life.
A complete miniature scale model was built of Rivendell. This allowed filmmakers to film every nook and cranny of the castle in order to portray its full grandeur on screen.
Satyrs Show Love
The magical world portrayed in the film, which is created in Ofelia’s head, is thanks to a large amount of green screen!
Costuming and makeup were of course used well to help along the real-feel of the film, but a lot of the magical creatures were CGI. What clearly wasn't CGI was the bond between the actors off-screen.
"Ihm Going Bahck to My Trailah"
Arnold Schwarzenegger is famous for his very first movie role, that of the unstoppable Terminator in the movie of the same name, and his acting of the character is so good we can all very easily recognize him as a robotic character. But when the skin on his body sloughs away and the robotic skeleton appears to hunt down Sarah Connor, it's still quite shocking.
Nowadays plenty of CGI would have been used to make things easier and try to make them look more real, but back in the late eighties, they didn't really have those options.