What Forrest Gump Looks Like Without Special Effects

These days, we assume that most of the movies we see are filled with computer-created special effects. And that goes beyond the obvious culprits like "Star Wars" or MCU films — there are countless ways that even movies without epic battles between super-powered beings benefit from the many enhancements that digital effects can offer. From making an actor look half a lifetime younger to giving a scene a different tint, it's hard to know for sure if anything that we see on screen anymore is "real" or not.

Of course, this wasn't always the case. When "Forrest Gump" was released in 1994, we had seen computers used for showy, groundbreaking stuff like the Tyrannosaurus rex in "Jurassic Park" to the liquid metal morphing of "Terminator 2: Judgment Day." But few movies outside of the action-adventure and sci-fi genres were doing much with digital effects at that point. So it might come as a surprise to learn just how many computer-assisted shots exist in "Forrest Gump," not just in making it look like the titular character is talking to dead presidents but in more subtle and surprising ways as well. 

In some cases, special effects are used for the safety of the people on set. And when a shot requires a pretty clear view of an actor's face, simply swapping them out with a stunt person isn't an easy answer — especially since, in such cases, computers are then needed to put the actor's face on top of the stunt person's body anyway. So if you're going to get computers involved, you might as well just go all the way.

When the truck full of bullies is chasing Forrest down the road toward his house, director Robert Zemeckis wanted it to look dangerous so that Forrest had good reason to be literally running for his life. But actually filming Tom Hanks running from the speeding truck and having it be close enough to cause tension would've meant that a single stumble from Hanks could spell disaster. So the scene where Forrest is running toward the camera with the truck in pursuit behind him was filmed twice — once with just Hanks running toward the camera, and once with just the truck driving toward the camera. The two shots were then layered on top of each other to create the desired effect. 

One of the most impressive tricks that "Forrest Gump" pulls off is putting Forrest into real archival footage of various events and having it look natural — at least for the time. Truthfully, some of those shots haven't aged the best, particularly with the advent of high definition and the greater level of scrutiny it allows. But it was convincing for 1994 and certainly played a big role in the movie winning an Oscar for best visual effects.

There is a lot more to consider with these shots than simply filming Tom Hanks in front of a blue screen and inserting him into the clips. A lot of digital tweaking had to be done to make him match the look of the footage, from color to clarity to making sure imperfections in the film that appeared in the blank space of the original footage now appear over top of him. Old news footage was also typically shot by a cameraman holding the camera on his shoulder, which means a lot of jumpy, shaky footage that requires the shots of Hanks to also jump and shake in exactly the same way to match. Computers could probably do all this work much more quickly and easily now, but back when they were working on "Forrest Gump," it was a much more painstaking process — and props to all involved for putting in the (many) hours to pull it off. 

No, the napalm-based explosions that set the jungle ablaze as Forrest is carrying Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) to safety weren't computer animated. However, there was still plenty of digital — as well as some practical — trickery going on to help achieve what is easily one of the most visually exciting shots in the entire film. Multiple real explosions were in fact filmed, but some were filmed at different times and at different speeds, which were then put all together for the shot that is seen in the final version.

As for Tom Hanks and Bubba actor Williamson, they of course were never in any real danger. When the two men are seen furthest back in the shot, they are actually two stunt people, running in front of a barrier to protect them from the explosions that were occurring. There is a moment where they stumble a bit, and that was used to mask the digital transition between them and Hanks and Williamson, who were filmed at a different time and far away from any real fire. Hanks also couldn't actually carry Williamson so easily and while running, so a crane arm was used to do most of the actual lifting — which was then digitally removed from the shot.

Perhaps emboldened by making it seem as though Forrest was shaking hands with John F. Kennedy, the "Forrest Gump" effects team took things even further when it came to his meeting with President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson awards Forrest the Medal of Honor for the bravery and heroism he displayed during the Vietnam War, and Johnson actually reaches his hands around Forrest's neck to pin the medal's ribbon himself. 

Tom Hanks didn't have to do as much work in this case, needing only to be filmed standing and then looking over his shoulder as if someone is hanging something around him. The tricky part was taking the footage of Johnson pinning a medal on someone else — who then had to be removed from the shot — and layering it with the shot of Hanks, having Johnson's arms actually pass in front of him. While the footage was at least in color this time, there still had to be significant work done to color and light Hanks to make him look natural to the shot. 

As for the moment when Johnson walks away laughing after Forrest bends over and shows the president the war wound, an entirely new set was constructed and shot with an actor doing the bodywork for Johnson, with footage of Johnson's head then being overlaid onto the stand-in. 

Besides Jenny (Robin Wright), the only other person in "Forrest Gump" who has significant screen time and spends several large chunks of the movie with Forrest is Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise). At first, Lt. Dan is Forrest's commanding officer in Vietnam, then the two are side by side in the hospital recovering from their injuries, and finally, Lt. Dan becomes Forrest's shipmate on his shrimping boat. And in all scenes except the ones during the war itself, Lt. Dan is missing both of his legs from the knee down.

With Sinise himself having two full legs, a lot had to be done to make it seem as though the lower half of his legs were gone across his many scenes after the war. Any time he was mostly stationary, this was a fairly easy fix. For instance, if he was sitting on a bed, there was a hole cut in it where the rest of his legs could be hidden. In other shots, like when he's in his wheelchair, his legs are simply covered with a blanket. But there are also moments where that isn't possible, and that's where the good ol' blue screen comes in. For example, when he is lifted out of his hospital bed, Sinise is wearing blue leg coverings below his knee bandages, which were then removed from the final shot. 

Spoiler alert: Tom Hanks isn't actually a world-champion ping-pong player who is able to play the game at the speed of Olympic athletes. But Forrest needed to be, and he got a lot of digital assistance to make it appear as such. Almost every ping-pong ball you see in "Forrest Gump" was added by computers after the fact, with Hanks and his opponents just pretending to hit an invisible ball.

In order to mimic the actual flow of a ping-pong game and to tell the actors exactly when to swing their paddles, a metronome played during filming that told them when to swing and to keep them on a steady rhythm. Simply pretending to play proved surprisingly difficult for Valentine (credited as Valentino), the Chinese ping-pong champion who played Forrest's opponent — but he eventually got the hang of it. 

It wasn't just the ping-pong ball that was aided by VFX, either — the stadium where Forrest played the championship game in China was just a small set with a small crowd, once again made artificially larger and fuller with computers.