Ice Station Zebra – 1968
I think the special effects for this movie were actually very good. I was struck by how this movie had shots and effects that were perfectly comparable to anything you might see in a modern movie. Even the quality of the film, the sharpness of the images, looked more like something we might see today, and less like something that screamed 60s. The composite shots, aside from one which I will mention in a bit, were seamless and expertly executed. So if these effects were so well done, why didn’t they win the Oscar? One simple reason. It was up against 2001: A Space Odyssey. Sorry, Ice Station Zebra. Bad luck for you.
There were really a lot of effects for this movie to be proud of. This film had the distinction of taking place during the Cold War. The mission was to retrieve a canister of photographic film taken by a Russian spy satellite from a research station at the North Pole. The fastest way to get there was by submarine, giving us some great underwater scenes in which the massive military vessel had to sail below the gigantic icebergs of the Arctic Ocean. The bottom side of the icebergs looked great on the screen behind the dark and detailed miniature of the ocean vessel. Then the sub had to rise to the surface and break through the ice layer.
After several failed attempts and a double-agent’s attempt to sabotage the submarine by flooding it, they manage to get through to the surface of the ice. Then the shifting ice flows nearly crushed the ship and they had to dive again. That was all pretty cool! And then then the men have to trek over the frozen landscape in the middle of a violent blizzard. There was a short sequence in which several men fall through some thin ice and are almost killed the shifting sheets of ice. That was filmed very well and was exciting to watch! Even though it was a war film, the American sailors had to battle the elements as well as the Russian paratroopers that arrived later.
There was only one time the special effects didn’t work for me. There were several shots of the Russian jets approaching the research station. In one shot they are shown against an orange and yellow sky from behind. Then they are shown from the front and above as they are flying over icy ocean water. Those shots were awesome and looked fantastic. But then we are shown a single shot of the jets flying low and speeding toward land. That one shot looked really fake, like the planes were not part of the same image as that of the green land mass.
But honestly, that was my only real complaint, so we are still doing pretty well. The sequence in which the submarine’s torpedo bay is flooded was done well, as was the short scene in the beginning of the movie where the Russian satellite loses its orbit and plummets to the Earth. The reentry effect was good. And then, of course, there was the film’s climax, a quick gunfight followed by the canister of film, which had been attached to a weather balloon, was blown up in mid-air. It was all very well and realistically done, a worthy nominee for the category.