I dunno... the combat scenes look incredibly fake, and that's a big problem for me in a movie like this.
What about them look fake to you? This is a big argument I've heard since CG has been prevalent and no one can ever explain why they look fake, just that they do.
Part of the problem might be that they look too sharp and clean. Since the days of newsreels, people have associated grainy, poorly-focused, poorly-lighted and haphazardly-composed images with reality and realism. Battlestar Galactica used exactly these conventions to give its space-travel scenes verisimilitude. It also used a lot of handheld camera shots for the same reason, in the same way that cop shows like Homicide: Life on the Street have. Our mental image of a World War II aerial battle is strongly influenced by the old newsreel and gun-camera footage we see in war documentaries. That looks "realistic" to us, even though it looks nothing like what the pilots actually saw. For similar reasons, I personally find it jarring whenever CGI is used to show things that a movie camera could not physically film. To me, the stills and air-combat footage from this film look more like paintings or animation than "realistic" air battles. Even though personally, I've never seen a real-life aerial battle, even from a distance. Even if you could prove to me that these pictures were realistic as hell--and I'm not saying they are--they still wouldn't look "right." TV Tropes calls this problem Reality is Unrealistic.
I actually can't put my finger on it either. The planes might be photorealistic, but something about the whole thing makes it look fake.
Even if the CGI looks realistic, sometimes there's a complete lack of real-world weight to them or "gravity" and the whole thing just looks off, like the plane sequences in Green Lantern.
Yikes, there is something about those CG shots which put me off, but objectively I can't really fault them. The only thing thats coming to mind is maybe it looks a little washed out? Some contrast may help? But then the live action shots look very washed out too, so that seems to be look they're going for. I can't believe its simply that though. Maybe it's hitting uncanny valley? I really don't know. But I'm looking forward to the film.
I love me some dogfights. Thing is, we *knew* the X-wings of 30+ years ago (and the CG X-wings of 15 years ago) were spaceships and therefore not real. Here we have almost exactly the same sorts of maneuvers as you see in the old movies but with fancier shots that you can't do with a camera strapped to a following plane. I think it's just fine, and moving along with the times. Is the music we hear the final soundtrack? Seems awful synthesized for a Lucas flick. Did he blow his budget on fancy CG and all those upper-tier actors? Mark
It's because in the back of your head you know it's CGI and that you, as a viewer, can't be in the real world position to watch these dogfights so clearly and therefore consciously you reject the scene for a bit. If you can watch some 60s or 70s (or even 80s) fighter movies.. hell, watch Top Gun which everyone knows and has seen and you will notice the difference. Personally i had the same problem with LotR.. as grand and awesome the SFX were i always knew it was "just" a special effect and therefore it took me a bit out of the movie but only a tiny fraction. If the story is well written and acted i don't mind the CGI battles if they are also well done and judging from the trailers i'd say they are so i'll be in the cinema when it airs in Germany.
Then compare how the planes look and feel to another Aerial combat film for example "Battle of Britain"