CGI Is Starting to Suck

I understand the producers etc are the ones who send it to the theaters but the movie going public does have a say. It's not like every movie has the same attendance numbers. The only public that matters are the ones going to the movies or buying them so they have to be the gauge of taste in this matter.

 

Please don't tell me you enjoy Ray Harryausen movies.

 

Well, luckily for Ray he seemed to recognize that stop-motion wouldn't necessarily work for main characters that talked. Also, the clay presents a physicality that is more realistic than animation, imo. It's all about suspension of disbelief. Shall we compare Ray Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans with the CGI-filled remake and see what makes the better movie?

 

I didn't think the orange and teal look was too bad in "JW", but it was nuts in "Mad Max".

In some circles, the "Mad Max" fans have claimed George Miller used orange and teal in a whole new creative way - somehow his orange and teal is totally different than everyone else's!

 

Look, I'm okay with some CGI, e.g., Jurassic movies included. I heard on the first one they tried to use real, live dinosaurs, cloned from DNA preserved in ancient blocks of solid nectar. After several sets of dinosaurs trainers were eaten alive on the set, they then turned to CGI dinosaurs. Just sayin' . . .

 

Now, it's cranked to 12.

I have occasionally referred to skin defocusing and similar "youthenizing" effects as a kind of "Auto-Tuning for faces," where you're covering up flaws and making it better than it really is.

I think the main audience they're looking for are under-35 people who are just looking for an evening's entertainment. There's still a lot of those out there.

 

i saw "the avengers" at the movies because of the hype and found it a terrible snooze....but i don't blame the cgi.....i blame the fight after fight after fight after fight after fight after fight after fight with invincible superheroes....that's just awfully boring imho, and i blame the STORY not the cgi ....then a movie like "guardians of the galaxy" which i reckon is a total cgi-fest, it has ♥♥♥ all the way through it's story and i love it...just like "the matrix"...the first one of course

 

Less is more, in my opinion. As others have stated, it's not necessarily the CGI but the way in which the CGI is used. CGI has given filmmakers more flexibility. That can be a good or a bad thing. If the screen is saturated with computer generated frenetic action sequences as it was in Avengers: Age of Ultron, CGI sucks. If it's used sparingly in conjunction with a well-written story, it can actually service the film.

 

Sure let's do that.

 

This is the one with cartoons and actors in front of the green screen, right?

 

You really think that looks less real than the Harryhausen stuff? Really?

 

The problem with Hollywood today is that its convinced that CGI animation looks completely real (the emperor's new clothes). Since nothing about film is inherently "real", this is in fact a moot point. It's how much the audience is along for the ride. And when you get the sense that nothing you see is in fact "real" (CGI/green screen illusion), the audience investment is diminished compared to the cool Harryhausen effects.

 

There is no singular entity that is Hollywood. I assure you that the many members of the film industry have many different levels of understanding, knowledge and experience with visual effects and opinions vary as widely as anywhere else when it comes to quality of visual effects. Personally, even at the age of 5 I could watch stop motion on our black and white TV and clearly see that the stop motion puppets did not move naturally and clearly were not really there with the actual actors. I honestly can not think of any visual effect that does a worse job of suspending disbelief. Of course I loved that stuff as a kid and I still enjoy it for the sake of nostalgia. But as far as realism and suspension of disbelief stop motion at it's best is at the bottom of the barrel. I don't think you can really speak for "the audience." Clearly the audiences have responded much better to movies like Jurassic Park than Clash of the Titans which in it's day did very very modest box office and was not well received by critics.

 

But because stop-motion was flawed, it was used judiciously, and other filmmaking tricks were employed to make up for what it lacked. Unlike CGI, which because it's so "realistic" has virtually been substituted for everything, -acting, costumes, sets, etc... Literally, I have a hard time believing even half of what you see in a typical CGI movie is even real. At least in Clash of the Titans, you knew Harry Hamlin was real, perhaps with heavy makeup applied, but reacting on a 3 dimensional set, nonetheless. And why do you bring up Jurassic Park as an examp CGI was used in only a couple of (very obvious) scenes in the original. And by the way, I saw Clash of the Titans in its original theatrical run, and with HBO and subsequent showings on TV, it could hardly be called a "modest" success. I would venture that more people are revisiting the original cult classic Clash of the Titans on this very night, then the stone cold FAILURE of a remake. Why such an attempt to make culture so disposable?

 

It was not used more "judiciously." It was used as the only means of doing certain things until newer technology superseded it. And it was often used as much as the budget of a given movie would allow. I think you are really making some overly broad generalizations about movie making and VFX. You say CGI "has virtually been substituted for everything, acting costumes sets etc." What live action movies have been made sans "acting, costumes, sets etc? Maybe a small handful have been made without sets, a very very small handful when one looks at the many movies that are made each year. But No acting? No costumes? What live action movies are you talking about?

 

I do. The only thing about those is that since there isn't any motion, there isn't any between-frame blurring like there is on actors, etc. That's what makes it so obviously animated.

 

I think art is very much defined by its limitations. In an art with absolutely no limitations, you find very little innovation.

 

That is a huge problem but hardly the only thing that gives away that they are anything but real.

 

There are always limitations. There is still plenty of innovation in the film world today.

 

It's all about the story. If well written (and acted), the movie could be shot on an iphone, B&W, green screen, etc. This phase we are going thru with over the top effects will be looked at in the future similar to the electronic drum/synth phase the music industry went thru in the 80's and the HDR phase in in photography. New toy and overkill use. As an artist myself, I would have to say standing in front of a green screen all day probably has some effect on acting as well. Although good actors overcome things, however, there still is probably (not noticable to 99.9%) a slight weatherman effect. Weather people get good in front of the green screen pointing to radar maps. However, there's that slight twitch of being un nnatural

 

I was never a big fan of stop motion animation either (though KING KONG 1933 and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG 1949 managed to transcend that because they were just great movies). My take is, BOTH stop motion and CGI are in the same basic category and for me are unconvincing.

I know I will be alone in this, but I much prefer the Toho approach of actors in suits, regardless of how "silly" the costumes sometimes look. Because regardless, you still get real people physically there. Hell, even the miniature city sets are still physically present. And while the Godzilla films of the '60s and '70s are kind of cheesy, they're still fun. But the Japanese monster films of more recent times (the '90s and '00s) have physical costumes and effects which appear more realistic.

 

You are clearly right in a technical sense. The stop action figures seem awkward compared to CGI and the latter can be integrated more precisely into the surrounding frames. However at a psychological/perceptual level I understand where @Plush is coming from. To me CGI seems to emphasize the 2D aspect of the movie screen while the stop action models for all their ungainliness seem to inhabit a 3D world. It just depends which is more important to the viewer.