CGI has been with us for sometime now. I have a friend who can't stand it at all; that when ever its in use, he can tell, and it ruins the movies sometimes. Me? I am easy to fool. I can see obvious CGI (LOTR movies have parts, as does Harry Potter) but they are getting better. Do you have an eye for CGI? Are you underwhelmed by movies that use a lot of it? Rob
It's no more obvious than still-motion, puppetry, or most of the myriad other techniques used. People who complain about CGI are just lost in a bubble of irrational hatred.
It's the crappy CGI that really gets noticed. There is actually an awful lot of CGI in modern films that nobody realizes is CGI because it's so well done. The only CGI I really dislike is the kind that has that "cartoony" look similar to what you find in a typical video game.
Agreed...i cant fault old movies like TRON or LAST STAR FIGHTER (which needs a remake)...but its some of the later so called "big" ticket movies that will have, i think, obvious CGI and yet Jurrasic Park still look awesome all these years later.. Rob
You mean those weren't real Fell Beasts in LOTR? Myself, I'm extremely forgiving when it comes to effects. Either that, or I hardly ever see a CG-heavy movie with bad ones.
I didn't like the rubbery Spider-Man in the movies. Using too much CGI, like in the Star Wars prequels, just made the screen look cluttered. If they do a new prequel to The Thing I don't think it will have the same visceral effect to have CG gore as opposed to actual latex and fake blood that looks still more real because it's actually in front of the camera. No, that wasn't sarcasm. But it's great to be able to bring anything you can imagine to the screen.
I'm ambivilent about CGI. I think I always spot it, and spotting it annoys me. But, on the other hand, I'm often amused and surprised at what film and tv makers chose to CGI. I applaud their inventiveness. I think I can always spot it. For me, CGI landscapes have a lack of "something" (and I don't know what that "something" is) that can depress me. In Avatar for instance, I enjoyed the 3D but was still underwhelmed by the CGI because for me it has a flatness and lack of light or life, or something. Maybe I'm just lost in a bubble of irrational hatred!
This is true. At the same time...a lot of the stuff that the pros think is indistinguishable from reality isn't quite there yet. For example, I was listening to the commentary track on the Jurassic Park III DVD the other day – the one with the Stan Winston and the VFX supervisor from ILM – and they spent a lot of time patting each other on the back for how it was impossible to tell the difference between the animatronic dinos and the CGI ones, and then IDing what was what for the audience. The only problem was, I was calling which was which about 90% of the time, before they did. So CG is getting good (and, as someone who wants to work in the industry, I love it on an aesthetic level), but we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking it's perfect.
I guess I'm an easy target. For example; the opening of DS9, when they altered it for the Defiant? I always thought it was a model in the opening titles, but was surprised to find out it was CGI, and that was over a decade + ago. My friend, however, hates the new opening because of the Defiant being an obvious CGI...go figure.. Rob
I haven't seen any DS9 in a while, but I didn't know that! I'm off to youtube to check that out! Well here's the intro to season 6 with the Defiant. Looks fine to me. I can't tell it's CG. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsOE73pxpys
I tried to create a bubble of irrational hatred with CGI once. Never could get it to look quite real.
So your friend can tell that the stories-tall robots in Transformers and the bug-aliens in District 9 are CGI? Wow. He's... awesome... I guess? I'm a bigger fan of more practical effects because I think it looks better but CGI done well can look very, very good. The disaster scenes in 2012, the scenes in District 9 dealing with the aliens, alien equipment, the establishing shots with the ship, the dino-CGI in Jurassic Park and so much more all looks, very, very good. But your friend would shrug it all off because he "knows" it's CGI? Why should knowing how an effect was done ruin a movie? Sure if the effect is done poorly then, sure, I can buy that. Countless movies with poor CGI in it that just looks terrible and ruins the involvement of the movie. But just being CGI shouldn't ruin a movie anymore than models, stop-motion or any other SFX technique would. "I hate Moon! I can just tell all of those effects were done with a mix of models and CGI!"
The best CGI is the kind you don't notice is CGI at first glance. And of course the kind that can completely overwhelm you on how real it looks when immersed in a live action setting.
^ That's my favourite bit: cgi in a mostly live-action setting. That's the stuff I enjoy seeing and, ironically, recognising. I'm often thinking: oh, it's cgi, what a good idea! There was a tower a couple of weeks back in Lost made from cgi, and I was so impressed!
LOST is good at CGI; most of the time. Other times, especially some of that SUB footage, it isn't too god. Same thing with the airplane stuff, (recently HUMAN TARGET had some airplane CGI material) but mainly its because I know it had to be CGI but not because it was bad CGI...make any sense? Rob
Of course. On the Avatar pre-release thread, someone posted a picture from the movie of the villain in his mecha and asked posters as to what part of the shot was CGI. I figured the mecha, of course (obviously so, didn't seem quite real), and probably the forest, though that was better done. Nope. The whole damn thing. Even the human villain. And looking at the picture I still can't tell that he isn't CGI. So, yeah, I think CGI is coming of age, and the possibilities are endless when it does so.
But movies like THE HULK seem to fall way short, IMO. I think the Hulk movies, and even spiderman CGI, is very uneven, and these are big budget movies. But they are getting better... Rob
I like a blend of CGI and practical. I love how guys like Peter Jackson or Guillermo del Toro blur the lines between the two in their films.
I was surprised in the making of when the villain hopped into his mecha that it WASN'T all done with CG.