I have a theory that the special effects wizardry of today is changing the way audiences view movies. Put simply, it's creating at least the subtle assumption that anything impressive you see on the screen is trickery. The big, impressive set or scenery is a CGI construction. The impressive bizarre creature is a CGI creation. The impressive physical stunt was not actually done by any human being. It's an illusion created by CGI.
Remember that great opening scene in The Spy Who Loved Me when James Bond does a ski jump off a cliff and you think — just for a split-second — that he's doomed? Intellectually, of course, you know that he's not going to die because, well, he's 007. You also know that if he did die, he wouldn't die from that because it's the start of the movie. And of course, you know that you're looking at a stuntman, not at Roger Moore. Still, there's a moment there when you're fooled for a half an instant; when you think that maybe you're watching the guy with a license to kill get killed. Then, of course, the parachute you didn't know he was wearing opens and the entire audience goes, "Ahhh…" because it collectively and happily realizes how foolish it was to underestimate James Bond.
It works because you don't feel like you're watching a cartoon. Okay, so it's not Roger Moore. But an actual human being actually did that stunt. (The stuntman's name was Rick Sylvester and apparently, he almost had an awful accident when one of his skis nearly became entangled in the chute.) The feat feels real because on some level, it is real.
And I think that if you put that scene in a movie today, exactly the same way, it would have a third the impact. Because after all the CGI we've seen, something in us says that if it's impressive, it was created in a computer. There's nothing real on the screen.
What's amazing is that a lot of stuff that doesn't scream "Special Effects!" isn't real, either. Green (sometimes, Blue) Screen is used in an awful lot of movies and TV shows for street scenes, panoramas…sometimes so seamlessly that it never dawns on you that those buildings in the background weren't really in the background. Here's the demo reel for a studio that does a lot of this kind of thing…