CGI Is Starting to Suck

I can recall that initially when Jurassic Park came out, Ray Harryhausen gave several interviews praising the film and being very gracious about the filmmakers. But as time went on, I think Harryhausen began to feel a sense of anger, partly because his style of filmmaking had fallen by the wayside, and partly because he felt (with some legitimacy) that there's a kind of "stiffness" to CGI that removes the humanity of the animation he used to do. He rarely talked about it in interviews, but I have it on good authority from people who have interviewed him that he was bitter on the subject in the last 10 years of his life.

I was always aware, even when I was a little kid, that all the fantastic images I saw in Harryhausen films were a kind of miniature puppetry. You could admire it on many levels, but at the same time you were aware what you were seeing was unreal, but your suspension of disbelief would carry you through. Also, I think people's awareness of and tolerance for visual effects was a lot different in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s than it is today.

My problem with digital VFX today is that people use it as an excuse to go too far. A prime example (for me, anyway) are movies like Sin City, where practically every shot is green screen, even something as simple as two people talking in a bar or a car driving down a lonely mountain road. To me, the only time to use green screen is when it's a shot you physically can't get any other way, and the only time to use a CGI background is when there's just no money to build a city or a mountain or whatever you need behind the actors, or it's just mammothly impractical. CGI characters I get, at least in cases where there's no way to do it in real life; Terminator 2 and The Abyss are early examples of this, where you only really have CGI characters in maybe a few dozen scenes in the entire film, for shots where characters turn into liquid or do something completely beyond the laws of physics. To me, both films still had good characters and an entertaining story (though only T2 was commercially successful).

 

See, I always thought they were doing that to purposefully create an atmosphere of artificiality, maybe a hyper realism so you know you're watching a "graphic novel." I agree though, it can rub you the wrong way. Too much of a good thing.

 

For me, the worst use of CGI was in the Star Wars prequels in which writing seemed to take a back seat to digital settings and computer generated characters. Imagine if Lucas had the use of CGI when making the original trilogy.

 

You thought correctly.

 

I dunno. I found both Sin City films to be oft-putting and weird, and the use of CGI and VFX was way too heavy-handed and weird for me. I don't deny that they were going for an intense, over-the-top film noir look, but at some point it just looks very plastic and "digitalish" to me. If they were going for a dark '40s detective film kind of look, I think there's a way to make it a lot more natural and still tell the story. I get that it's a comic book, but there's a point where it leaves planet Earth and just becomes very, very artificial.

 

They were trying to literally bring the graphic novel to the screen. Whether or not one likes it, they did what they set out to do.

 

Well, Sin City 2 didn't make money and got horrible reviews, so in that respect, it might not have been a great thing to do. In fact, it's the biggest bomb of Rodriguez' career... and I often like his work very much.

 

Captain America: the First Avenger was on TV last night, and in the 20 or so minutes I had it on, I didn't see one background that wasn't computer-generated. It looked like a video game with human actors inserted.

 

I don't think so. I think this was as real as Harryhausen could make the VFX given the limitations of technology in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. It's interesting that he really disliked having to go to color (because they lost about 3 stops of light when that happened), and he also disliked having to work in anamorphic scope for First Men in the Moon.

I think the air of artificiality -- I would more accurately call it a kind of "fantasy world look" was something they held on to because it fit with all of the fables and legends they were trying to tell. It's interesting that many of the classic Harryhausen stories took place hundreds or thousands of years ago, and the contemporary stories (It Came from Beneath the Sea, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, 20 Million Miles to Earth, etc.) have a different feel to them.

I love all of these films, but even as a kid, the moment the extra film grain kicked in from the double-exposures or rear projection, I'd say, "ah, here comes a special effect." Nowadays, there's no warning that an effect is going to come in because there's effectively zero generation loss in digital.

I don't think this is a bad movie at all, but I would agree it pushed the digital background thing pretty hard. But a lot of it is a very stylized 1940s thing, and I believe director Joe Johnston did a really good job on the film.

 

I find the biggest difference between practical effects and CGI is the "wow" factor.

Practical special effects (or non-obvious CGI effects) that look entirely convincing: "wow! how did they manage that?!"

"impressive" CGI since the mid 90s: "whoop-de-do, it's CGI."


I'm not saying all CGI is bad, as things like the Harry Potter films could not have been made without it, but the use of it to make otherwise ordinary things is absurd.

 

This is an issue. It is getting very hard to wow an audience these days

 

I don't understand what you mean by 'practical effects', do you mean effect shots that are done without using the computer?
Most effects are done digitally now. People tend to point out the badly done digital effect shots as CGI without knowing that a lot of other shots are also 'CGI'.

 

Practical effects = shot live on the set. Explosions, glass breaking, car wrecks, huge stunts... these can all be practical. The general term is "Special Effects" (shot live in front of the camera) vs. "Visual Effects" (added or changed in post).

I'm all for using VFX to enhance images when it's done with taste and subtlety, but there is a line that gets crossed where it all goes to hell...

 

They both have their merits.

 

Very true. Nowadays, I don't think you can get by with just one or the other. Either or both can still overwhelm the picture if the script and characters can't carry the storytelling.

 

The Wolf Of Wall Street has some bad CGI - the helicopter crash landing looked fake, while the background out of the window of the Swiss office looked dreadful. The boat/storm sequence looked like a video game too.

 

The problem is most people look at the picture on the right and think it is VFX ( as the caption seems to suggest), rather than BAD VFX..

 

Correct. That was the entire point of the movie. To criticize a movie for going for a stylized visualization is misguided and not understanding the point of the movie itself.

It's like criticizing Spartacus or 300....they're intentionally going for a comic book/other world look.

 

Exactly. Throwing in the kitchen sink doesn't make VFX better. Subtler is often the best way to go.

Did you read the reviews? Are you aware Sin City 2 lost more than $25 million?

 

Of course I read reviews. I saw the movie. The stylization of the film or the excessive CGI wasn't the reason the movie flopped.

 

Angelina Jolie's Unbroken has some important CGI sequences in the first half of the movie and they're terrible. (I didn't much like the movie and the poor FX didn't help.)

 

It's when the filmmaker leans on CGI and VFX too heavily to try to makeup for a weak script and marginal performances that things really fall apart.

 

I think CGI as a technique has progressed very little in the last 20 years.
It seems to work fine with wide-angle shots (backgrounds), but as soon there's fire or water involved or close-ups are needed it still looks artificial. The scariest creatures in the movies for me are the ones with a physical presence..

 

I finally caught Woody Allen's Magic in the Moonlight and once again, I should have seen it sooner - I enjoyed it and love his "small" films. A pleasant little film and precious - I will miss Woody dearly.

I had heard first Woody used "CGI" to get rid of a mike on his shirt in '93 on Manhattan Murder Mystery. A "touch". Digital white-out.

But what the HECK was that "wash" they put on Magic in the Moonlight? Teal... has Woody ever done a O! Brother wash like that? DP was Darius Khondji... worked for Fincher. He also DP'd Midnight in Paris but I don't recall it being so... messed with. But now, I want to revisit that flick.

Any insight on this wash? Woody has gone on record this past Cannes that he'd like to go digital on "his next one". He can no longer "see the difference" between film and digital.

I finally saw Mad Max in the theaters, and though certain shots were obviously CGI, it was more seemless than those - thank-you-from-the-summer-break of Avengers films. Mad Max felt like practical cars/trucks were thrown around. CGI enhancements aside, I agree about the lack of gravity in all-CGI crap... and yes, almost every shot in every film these days has SOME kind of VFX or CGI in them, but mostly, they are subtle in non-action flicks.

But I thought Mad Max is a great example of how throwing real **** around "Blue Brothers"-cop car style just can't be bested. Not today yet, anyway.

Jeff