I can't believe the special effects on this season... First Kensei's fight with the 30 Angry Ronins, then West and Claire's flight and now Bennet's and the Haitian trip to Odessa in Russia... I remember the 1° Season had decent effects... Did they spend all the Budget on season 1??

I was wondering the same thing, and I was fearing that they wouldn't be able to create a nice scenario like the first season...

I agree the 90 Ronin, and HRG and The Hatian in Russia looked really fake. The scene with West and Claire was gorgeous!!! Watch another show that has someone flying around in it and contrast their sfx with Heroes and you'll see the diff. Smallville has alot of flying in it and Greg Beeman who is a director on Heroes was also on Smallville. He says that Heroes has their same budget if not smaller. In MHO I think Heroes has the best sfx on t.v.! Other than my above mentioned scenes where I wasnt totally "convinced" of what I was seeing everything else has been fine. Especially tonight with Nathan seeing the apocalyptic future in his dream that was awsome! The city wrekage was way better than from 5 years gone. Anytime we see a background thats not inside the room its prolly fake especially when its supposed to be a city shot in the background or mountains passing by.

I think the graphics are rather the same, but there are more Heroes added so they have to spread it out..
Which makes the money for each person ability graphics lesser then before (relatively).

I didn't find the effects too fake though. Except for the Russia scene. That was . But one fake scene doesn't make the whole show fake so I'm not too worried.

Compare last seasons devastated city to this seasons,.... this seasons looks way better!

ive thought the same thing, that some of the sfx have been a bit of a let down, claire and west flying was one of them, havent seen the russian scene yet still d/l episode 5.

Come on~~~this is just a TV series, not a big budget mega blockbuster movie. From episode 1 when I saw Hiro background.....well, what can i say....

It might not be that, but I personally think Heroes would have a much larger potential audience if they put a bit more action into it. They deliver a decent adrenaline pumping scene once every couple episodes. There hasn't been many this season. Matt and Nathan fighting was great, Peter attacking the Irish traitor was great, but aside from those two, we've been gifted very little.

The first major issue is that Tim Kring is not a big Fan of action.
He wants more Drama than action.
The second its obviously the budget that has to be kept in track and they said that they already overextended it through the hollywood sign thing.

As about being the "best fx show on tv", I must dissapoint you.
You should check some of the Mutant X, partially Charmed and other shows and you will see that there was some better ones around when it comes to FX.

In particular Mutant X had cool effects and action in almost every episode.
To bad they had to dissolve the whole series due to contract issues.

That may well be, but really, they could've found a hell of a lot of other ways to do that scene with Claire and West. And they would gain a LOT more out of giving powers more screen time, putting more action on screen. Tim Kring writes the show, but he's not the one deciding what he would rather do on a monday night.

Drama is good, but action and drama, if done right, can go hand in hand. Admittedly, I don't want this turning into a brawl-fest, but if a scene is going to have action in it, I'd like to see it. This isn't 4pm after school television, you are allowed to show fights on TV...

This is just a TV series alright but.. well, Smallville has some pretty good effects.

I agree with you completely.
I just meant what the writers and tim already had stated himself in some interviews while in season one.
Showing lots of action and powers would "destroy" their vision of having "normal" people dealing with their "drama powers".

I mean it's ok but they could really add some more confidence and a bit more action in the show in my opinion.

Mystery is very good and the additional stuff they added but a bit more action wouldn't destroy anything in my opinion, it would just add more to the show.

I mean by that stop using the repeatative "actions" like "I brush my teeth and die in the process" stuff they already do(mugs and bricks anyone???).

Glad to hear I'm not a lone voice, heh. I'm a big action advocate if it's the right time and place for it, if it has purpose and if it's well choreographed. But, if they want to keep it to a minimum, I can live with that. I would just prefer more than they're giving us...

But

You completely lost me there.

I like what they've done with the drama for Heroes, it's what makes it really stand out...it's like one big tease. The thing with that though is that after a while the really hot tease becomes downright frustrating...and people get disappointed. Here are a couple of examples (both good n' bad):

Good - Episode 20, Season 1, when future Peter and Sylar face off...you just *barely* see their powers and just when they're about to go at it...BOOM, door closes. Good 'OMG' tease.

Bad - Final episode, Season 1. I mean c'mon...the whole season was hyping the finale up so much...that was barely an action scene. The audience really wanted to see Peter and Sylar face off, properly. Bad bad tease.

The Fight or Flight was a good balance of drama and action for me, it teased in all the right places.

d*** my post sounds like porno >.<

Couldn't agree more. The season finale was downright DISAPPOINTING! I mean there were maybe 3 decent effects in it but that was it.
I think the second season is doing better than the first. I'm particularly pleased with Elle's lightning burst; that was very nicely done

Ive never seen Mutant X Ill have to check my local Blockbuster to see if they have it since its obviously not on the air now. Now the Charmed thing... STOP! My girlfriend watches Charmed and at times Ive found myself watching it as well. I hate the premise of that show becuase its so ridiculous theres witches and warlocks and angels and deamons and all these fantastical things happenening to them yet they still fight over bathroom time...

Im not bashing the show I just dont like it is all. Now to not be biased is hard but Ive never seen ANY ep of charmed thats even close to being on the level of Heroes hands down. When they used their powers it was horrible to watch it would be like a flash of white light or sparkles would swirl around something or some one would get hit with a ball of blue light and turn into smoke and ashes thats not sfx. I know Charmed couldnt have a budget CLOSE to Heores' let alone have the resources and what not to do a fraction of what they do on Heroes. In MHO...

A little more action this Season would do Heroes some good. They do need to redeem themselves from the Season 1 finale. We got jilted on a all out brawl, the drama is the heart of the show I know. Without any action in it though and it takes away the believeability. Some guy threatens to kill you you knock his a** out! In real life thats how it normally goes! LOL

Hah just watched the recent episode, the russia bit looked well fake, they stuck out of the background
would like to see more special effects and action, like nikki, Elle's , Nathan's part
show seems to be getting better though, i think even better than the first season

Wonder how much it costs for these effects, probably could be cheaper to just fly them to Russia for that one scene

I didn't meant that Charmed is TOP and it was obviously even there was almost always a bit of action, funny in some cases and the effects was O.K. in most of the cases.
They tried to not to show as much violence as heroes partially since it was aired (at least in europe) mostly in the afternoon on saturdays or in the later seasons with a bit more violence 8:15pm under the week.

However, this show (good or bad) stood up for like 5 seasons? I think it's still going? or are there more than 5? Not sure anymore. ^^
Another point is that you can't compare the charmed theme to Heroes theme since they are worlds appart from each other.

Mutant X had 5 main mutants there with the following abilities:

- Superhuman Senses/Strenght/Speed (Feral)
- Body Alteration (Density)
- Electrical Manipulation (Elemental)
- Telempath (Psychic)
- Light Manipulation (Chromatic)

In the series appeared many guests and recurring with different abilities.
The effects were decent and the action was mostly(not always) good too as far as I was able to see(don't know the whole series).


Well sorry about that but I just didn't liked the fact that almost every action scene ends up on a "two seconds show" where they either doesn't show what really happens (like in the last episode where you just guess what elle is doing to rikki through the beam) and let you guessing or just blend out the scene at all and you can watch the result later (like in Dales and Zanes case as example).

Anyway... all in all I still like the show and the dynamic of it in some cases. I just hate the fact that it gets VERY repeatative when it comes to the action and the empty promises like the announcement of the last episode of season one and the final battle(Hype! Hype!) that turned out to be a "yawn" at the end.

I have to agree ... the angry Ronins and HRG in Russia was a pain...
And Nathan flew better than West...Hence, Season1 had better...
But Claire and West on top the Hollywood sign was realistic...really nice n well done...well until she jumped and that guy flew again!

That russian scene was so bad done, i could puke.
I mean i get it that they are not filming all around the world, but they could have build up a small scenery with no bluescreen bullshit, some russian papers and stuff like that, would have been one thousand times better than that

There wasn't really any budget for Season 1, they hardly use Sfx and there were hardly exotic locations used, all in all we watch it for the story not the effects.