Initially, the film carries along like most others of its sort, introducing you to its cast of behind-the-scenes stars and showing new and vintage footage of how they work their magic whether illustrating, sculpting maquettes and puppets, fashioning costumes, stop-motion animating, or building animatronics. When the story reaches the mid-eighties and James Cameron's The Abyss, we meet the antagonist that really Frankensteins this film to life: CGI. Former SFX superstars such as Stan Winston and Phil Tippett soon find their practical work blending with computer generated effects that tend to steal their thunder even though Tippett's ethereal fiber-optics in The Abyss and Winston's ingenious devices in Terminator 2 and astounding full-size animatronic T. Rex in Jurassic Park are easily as impressive as those films' computer-generated innovations. Winston responded by immediately adapting to the changing scene. Tippett fell into depression. As is always the case with the monsters these men made, the cool designs are what draw in viewers, but it is the human, emotional element that makes The Frankenstein Complex more profoundly engaging.
Penso and Poncet clearly recognized this and zoomed further in on Tippet's struggle when they made Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters in 2019. The film goes deeper into the filmmaker's work on the Star Wars trilogy, Dragonslayer, Robocop, and Starship Troopers than The Frankenstein Complex does while also spotlighting more of Tippett's personal depth than that earlier film did. He also had dark times as a young loner and as a filmmaker out to sea after the end of the original Star Wars trilogy. He experienced brighter times when he met his future-wife Jules Roman, who would run Tippett's own special effects studio. Mad Dreams and Monsters shows that Tippett did bounce back and adapt in a CG world and continued to work throughout the twenty-first century on major films such as the Twilight movies while also pursuing a more inscrutably personal vision with his Mad God shorts series.
Dopplegänger Releasing is now bundling The Frankenstein Complex and Phil Tippett: Mad Dreams and Monsters into a deluxe package titled The Monster Collection. The bonus material alone will keep you busy for the better part of a day. There's an hour long documentary about the making of The Frankenstein Complex and a supplemental piece for Mad Dreams and Monsters that is actually longer than the feature. It shows Tippett and friends working on the holographic chess game for The Force Awakens, tours his collection of tauntauns, dinosaurs, and robocops, and plenty more. There are also even closer looks at his creature collection, additional interviews and conversations, audio commentaries, bonus interviews, galleries, and best of all, a selection of Tippett's short films. The Monster Collection is nothing less than a crash course in the art of practical special effects and a subtle yet righteous plea for the preservation of that art.
