That's definitely not the optical-flow slowdown trick I'm talking about. That spiderman slow-motion was some combination of 3d effects and maybe real-life cameras ("Matrix" style: https://beforesandafters.com/2021/07/15/vfx-artifacts-the-bu...)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCfdyroV7kc

This scene from 300 is very clearly just a wide-angle shot (initially), with someone playing with the Optical Flow timewarp effect (sliding it up and down). Its incredibly cheap.

See this demo in Premier Pro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErOc_LkZaIk

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That's the thing. 300's main innovation was using _cheap_ effects. Optical flow time-warp didn't appear on Premier for another few years, but the algorithm was popular and was just a custom filter / program that was getting passed around at that time.

Upon rewatch, im not even convinced its bullet time and not just a bunch of people standing very still. Which worked for the most part in Anna Karenina and that one video of kids playing basketball.

Your point makes sense though, the commonization of frame interpolation is a landmark moment.