20 years ago Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest had its world premiere and introduced the world to the amazing, the magnificent, feared captain and celebratedb musician, Davy Jones, portrayed by Bill Nighy
Yes I was 12, when I first watched it but his CGI remains unmatched. Shout out to Industrial Light & Magic who created the most stunning CGI character who also feels incredibly real. Although even the eyes are CGI. And that was 20 whole years ago.
The ILM team won an Oscar.
Happy birthday King.
Posted by webtheg
22 Comments
I feel like this and LOtR special effects have aged very well.
I love talking about why Davy Jones was so exceptional as CGI, because it’s a lot of reasons that aren’t really “they just decided to do it really well.”
* It helps a lot that it’s something so unfamiliar, because it’s just less likely to be uncanny upfront.
* The only especially human part of his face is his eyes (which they did an exceptional job with), but the design allows for the nose to be absent and his tentacle mustache partially obscures his mouth and totally obscures his nasolabial folds (laugh line area), all allowing them to hide micro expressions we might find uncanny.
* A lot of the aliveness of his face is in his tentacles, which are even less potentially uncanny.
* As a wet creature, he’s highly specular (reflective), which is wildly easier to animate than a diffuse surface that involves subsurface scattering (skin is semi-translucent).
* The context around him (ghost pirate ship) is also fantastical and obviously artificial, so it’s less dissonant when we have an obviously CGI creature inhabiting it.
These principles are also why a lot of the best early CGI are things like cars and jets (think Transformers), because the subjects were especially suited for CGI.
cgi & character designs were truly unmatched
i shamelessly love the first three movies. too bad #he turned out to be the way he is, but the trilogy is really one of my favorites
elizabeth swann made me realize so many things about myself
The song he plays on the organ gives me chills.
No matter what you think of the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films, especially the second and third movies (I remember the first one being widely beloved, while the sequels were more of a mixed bag back then. Time has definitely been kinder to Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, but the same can’t really be said for the fourth and fifth films), I think we can all agree that the VFX across all three movies were outstanding, along with the incredible music, production design, and performances. Davy Jones and his crew, in particular, remain impressive and still hold up to this day.
Fun fact: Davy Jones and his crew were entirely CGI, with the exception of Stellan Skarsgård, who wore prosthetic makeup.
Why does this look so much better than big budget cgi of the last few years?
I’m legit asking. Like compare this to multiverse of madness (especially that stupid third eye) and antman quantumania?
I can hear him making that popping noise with his pipe!
OP is on point here, promise is not my liking of Octopus.
I fucking looooooved this movie. I was obsessed! The first three movies were so good. I can’t even put into words how much they meant to me as a teen 😭😂
Back when vfx was still pioneering and not just a ‘fix it in post’ like it is now 😔
No CGI, that’s Bill Nighy’s true form
I literally just saw Disclosure Day yesterday, and was annoyed that they got this CG octopus man right in 2006, and the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park right in 1993, but they couldn’t get a decent looking CG fox and cardinal right in 2026. They aren’t even fantasy or extinct animals, they are just normal, ordinary animals, and all they do is stand and/or fly in and stare at people.
Davy Jones and Barbossa my beautiful wives
Just watched these movies with my kids a few months ago. The CGI still looks incredibly good, especially Davey.
Objectively iconic.
Some Context:
Adjusted for Inflation this film cost $440M. When you see bad CGI in recent films and wonder how come this looks better than a $200M film today that is why.
Avatar Fire and Ash cost $400M+ and looks amazing.
Tentpole films have cost $200M for 20 years.
They have gotten cheaper by staying the same price.
Bill Nighy took a page from the Andy Serkis book of “Acting With Loads of Weird Dots on Your Face”
You need to put some respect on Gollum’s name. It’s Sméagol.
JACK SPARRAH!!
My hear me out
I can fix him
I had no idea he played him 🤯🤯