Anyone else sick of CGI?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Django, Jul 24, 2014.

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  1. Django

    Django Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    Obviously an amazing tool, but it's so over used now. I think it's all the exaggerated movements that bugs me.
     
  2. Deuce66

    Deuce66 Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    When it's used properly not at all, it beats the alternatives.
     
  3. F_C_FRANKLIN

    F_C_FRANKLIN Forum Resident

    The newest 'Apes' film is a great example of well used CGI to help serve the story, instead of making the film look like a crazy video game.
     
    Purple Jim, rburly, Jrr and 1 other person like this.
  4. Deesky

    Deesky Forum Resident

    What I'm sick of is not CGI, but vapid, idiotic scripts that take the audience as fools.
     
  5. Jrr

    Jrr Forum Resident

    I am sick of cgi that basically IS the movie, as if the technology is so amazing that you are expected to set aside any desire for a good story or decent actors. Planet of the Apes proved you can have both.
     
    jsayers, junk, peter fuller and 4 others like this.
  6. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    no I am not..I welcome more. It entertains.
    actually, I really love it!
     
  7. theoxrox

    theoxrox Forum Resident

    Location:
    central Wisconsin
    BINGO!
     
  8. agentalbert

    agentalbert Senior Member

    Location:
    San Antonio, TX
    I'm sick of CGI fire, which always looks awful.
     
    byrdman and clhboa like this.
  9. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident

    A lot of it always looks fake to me. Somehow even though it has gotten far better over the last years, I find I can "Tell" it much more easily also.

    Shots of planes, wild action, fire, they never "Seem real" anymore, but look visually impressive.

    I feel I am pulled out of the movies "reality", many times, and say to myself....."Wow, CGI messed that part up"

    It looks as if they are getting lazy in how they employ a lot of action CGI, and as if they do not even test an audience and ask, "Does it really look real"?
     
  10. BayouTiger

    BayouTiger Forum Resident

    I saw "Apes" last weekend and it was OK. I thought the CGI was pretty good, but, honestly Gravity set the CGI bar pretty incredibly high. Lots of stuff, a little far fetched in the story, but the visuals were amazing, and after watching some of the BTS features on the BluRay, it's even more impressive. I don't generally watch the special features, but the ones on that set are really interesting.
     
    ssmith3046 likes this.
  11. danner

    danner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Birmingham, AL
    I think the problem with CGI for me is that it's taken all the mystery out of special effects. It's not like when I was a kid and had the "How'd they do that?" reaction to movies. Now I just look at a movie and go, "Oh yeah, computers and stuff."

    For some reason, I think CGI works really well in space movies. I think it's when you mix CGI with more organic looking settings that it starts to show its limitations.
     
    Last edited: Jul 25, 2014
    Dave, Ghostworld, BayouTiger and 6 others like this.
  12. SonOfAlerik

    SonOfAlerik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westland, MI USA
    Like movies about cars and trucks that transform?

    This is why so many older films still hold up so well. The story and characters were the primary focus. The effects are a tool to help tell a story not the story themselves.
     
    eddiel and Rufus McDufus like this.
  13. xdawg

    xdawg in labyrinths of coral caves

    Location:
    Roswell, GA, USA
    It sickened me to see the CGI that was inserted into the early Star Wars movies. Also, as big a fan as I am of the LOTR & Hobbit movies, some of the gratuitous use of CGI in those movies bummed me out too. OTOH, I've seen many other movies where it looked great. As sucky as the plot was in Avatar, the CGI in it was awesome.
     
  14. BongRattlingBass

    BongRattlingBass Forum Resident

    Location:
    Plainfield, IL
    I was never a huge fan, but after watching "Man of Steel" in theaters, there was so much CGI in that film it looked tacky and lame. It does not add any excitement. It's just animation in a film with real actors in it.
     
    Vidiot and byrdman like this.
  15. The Wanderer

    The Wanderer Seeker of Truth

    Location:
    NYC
    As a substitute for story and when used unnecessarily for (distracting) 'effect'
     
  16. erniebert

    erniebert Shoe-string audiophile

    Location:
    Toronto area
    I'm sick of having my intelligence insulted by how fake it looks. Special effects looked more real 35 years ago.
     
  17. dkmonroe

    dkmonroe A completely self-taught idiot

    Location:
    Atlanta
    It beats the hell out of the rubber suits and styrofoam blocks that I grew up with. Yeah, some CGI is awesome and some's not, but part of my job as a viewer is to suspend disbelief. I go to movies to enjoy them, not critique them. If my critical faculties overtake my enjoyment, then it's a bad movie, but they don't need any help.

    And of course no amount of CGI will save a bad script or bad acting.
     
  18. hutlock

    hutlock Forever Breathing

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH, USA
    To me, CGI absolutely ruins some movies. For example, I love me some superheroes but I think the Spider-Man films -- ALL of them -- are positively destroyed by the CGI, especially when used on Spidey himself. The whole concept of Spidey and why he was popular in the first place was because unlike Superman and Batman and all the heroes that were popular before him, he was HUMAN and had feelings and doubts and all of that stuff. So mix that concept in with CGI that seriously DOES look like a videogame and it just loses any and all punch to me.

    Contrast that with, say the Nolan Batman flicks, where if they DO use CGI, it is very tastefully done and restrained for the most part. You really feel like Batman is fighting a villain at least, really punching someone. There is no way you could watch the action sequences in Spider-Man films and think they were ACTUALLY a dude in a suit. Just no way at all.

    I don't have a problem with CGI as a concept, as I think that if it is tastefully done and blended well with the rest of the movie, it can be very cool and very effective. I just find that MOST of the time, that isn't the case.
     
    byrdman likes this.
  19. Picca

    Picca Forum Resident

    Location:
    Modena, Italy
    Sorry but last night I've seen Batman Begins for the first time and I didn't understand a heck of what was happening during the fights. I'll be 50 in a couple of months so maybe I'm used to veeeery old ways of filming fighting scenes in movies, but to me it was a complete mess.
     
  20. hutlock

    hutlock Forever Breathing

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH, USA
    Well, true enough -- I think in the case of Batman Begins, the fight scenes were filmed WAAAAAY too close and it leads to that exact problem -- you can't tell what the hell is going on most of the time. It was a little better to see on a big screen, but on a TV, even a large one, forget it!

    But to my point, you almost certainly could tell they were REAL people fighting and not computer images... right?
     
  21. Picca

    Picca Forum Resident

    Location:
    Modena, Italy
    Yes, right. It happens most of the times in current 'special FX movies': I don't understand what's happening. I guess it has to do with age, seriously. Probably my 10 years old son perfectly knows what's happening when Transformers fight. I only see scrap irons clanging. :confused:
     
  22. hutlock

    hutlock Forever Breathing

    Location:
    Cleveland, OH, USA
    You might be right. I'm 42, and I have trouble following a lot of fight scenes in modern action films too. Maybe our eyes are just too slow for the modern film?
     
  23. Picca

    Picca Forum Resident

    Location:
    Modena, Italy
    Yes, surely. I don't know if it's a matter of 'eye training' or something. Probably we kind of 'care' in a different way for a filmed fight (or a car chase). Maybe my son enjoys the thrill of it with his senses while I'm trying to figure out the meaning of what's happening. It's a possibility.
     
  24. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    My problem with CGI is that invites all kinds of abuse in camera work, the sort of look-at-me shots that take you right out of the drama. I'm not talking about movies that never were intended as anything more than videogames with dialogue to begin with -- TRANSFORMERS, FAST & FURIOUS, etc. -- but otherwise "normal" films like LORD OF WAR or PANIC ROOM. And then years later, as we acclimate to the results of ever-more powerful computing, the CGI inserts look ridiculously artificial and dated.
     
  25. SonOfAlerik

    SonOfAlerik Forum Resident

    Location:
    Westland, MI USA
    Another thing that bothers me in modern films and TV is the lack of use of a tripod. But that's for another thread. LOL.

    It seems as if something isn't in constant motion the viewer will tune out.
     
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