CGI Is Starting to Suck

I have a kid in his 20s who's dead sick of computer graphics in movies. What's his excuse? He's not prematurely gray!

 

Again...humor....

 

Will follow? You ever see the original Jurassic Park?

 

^^Without a shadow of a doubt, Spielberg is the best VFX director of all time. The original Jurassic Park as well as War Of The Worlds are pinnacles of CGI. And speaking of subdued effects, War Horse was also beautifully made.

 

I love it all...CGI rocks.

 

KINGDOM OF HEAVEN does look good and it has tons (I mean TONS) of CGI in it. Ridley Scott certainly wouldn't think twice about using CGI instead of real set if it gives him the looks he wants, quite rightly too.

 

I've been following this guy's YouTube channel for quite some time, but it's uncanny that hours after this subject is brought up here, he's uploaded a lengthy discussion about how the recent "improvements" in CGI have negatively affected the visual quality of the superhero genre in particular, despite this supposed being at its all-time peak:



WARNING: There is some strong language, but he's just being passionate and making a few great points that I absolutely agree with...

 

How "good" does CGi need to get before they get it RIGHT? Programmers need to learn about physical laws like "mass" and "inertia". An 800 pound gorilla is not going to leap from place to place like a toad. And there is TOO MUCH MOVEMENT. You talk with your mouth, not your entire body. Your head might move a little when you talk, maybe your body might tilt, but that's it. You won't be going up, down, back, forth, in, out, etc. Things are just too "fluid" and "gooey" in computer animation. If something moves from X to Y, it does so in Z number of steps, all evenly spaced. Nothing moves like that in nature. Stuart Little would have been better if he moved a bit LESS. CGI is easier, and therefore cheaper. It is NOT better. I don't like it.

 

Programmers don't animate. Animators animate.
Don't blame the computer, you see bad animation because the animator did a bad job.

 

But there are so many sequences in films these days that could not be accomplished any other way. In the days of physical effects the writers had to construct sequences that were possible to achieve within the technical limitations and budget they were working with. I've read many interviews over the years where writers expressed that the final result was not their initial plan because it was discovered it was impossible to pull it off as they imagined it. Those constraints disappeared with CG (except budgetary of course). Now pretty much anything that can be imagined on paper can be realized on screen.

Also, the idea that it's "easier and cheaper" kind of vanishes when some films like Avengers had 12 different VFX companies in 8 different countries working to complete over 3000 VFX shots. A film like Life of PI had over 600 animators working year-round to complete the effects. That's not cheap...or easy.

 

Yep, very much so.

That's precisely the problem. I've worked on films where every shot has been tampered with in some way, often to the point where you want to ask, "why not try harder to get it right during production?" And a lot of it is just pixel-F'ing, done because they can.

A lot of these questions applied to animation over the last 80-90 years. The real trick for the great animators of the past was to give their creations a sense of weight, so that when Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny jumped up some stairs you believed they're in 3-dimensional space and have mass and bulk. Sometimes, the CG stuff I see -- even in $200M+ budget films -- feels like pasted-on video game bullspit.

I just saw Tomorrowland last week, and while the movie looked beautiful, this was another case where the effects are trying to carry what I think had a weak and nebulous story. The less said about Furious 7, the better; there isn't a semblance of reality in the movie, and that's OK for some if you can handle 2 hours of intense, over-the-top CGI that completely defines all logic and any laws of physics. I can accept that to a point, but there are always moments where the effects are a little bit off and the illusion evaporates.

 

But Jurassic Park only used cgi for long shots involving dinos running , etc. so really it's become more of a problem since films around the time of LOR. although Titanic had its fair share as well.

 

At least the Need for Speed movie realized real effects were better.

 

Exactly. It seems that a lot of these animators being hired,either A) have no idea how to do that because their training was in subpar video game land (there are those that do video games quite well I should add) or B) because it looks cool and the director said to do it. Now, Hitchcock would have things thst might be impossible but he sold it with physical effects that STILL obeyed the laws of physics and gravity. Some of this stuff (like the scene from The Hobbit where Leglos is jumping from rock to rock look just dumb. When they were done in cartoons it was for comedic effect and the comedy arose around the contradiction between the real and cartoon world. Cgi is becoming so cartoony thst it eliminates the ability to suspend disbelief bexause, well, it just looks and feels wrong.

Now,there are brilliant films that use that effect for dramatic intent (2001, heck, even Star Wars with its look of a serialized Flash Gordon or Buck Rodgers turns, shots, etc) but when its just placed there without a purpose because it just looks cool, it robs the film of its earned credibility with the audience.

Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should

 

Except a lot of the stunts were done physically in that film as well (including the dropping the cars out the plane sequence). Here's some making of footage:

 

Why not blame the writing rather than the effects? It's the screenwriters who aren't doing good work, not the effects people.

 

But is it the norm?

 

Not even. You know how many kids are clamoring to make practical effects films? And a majority of the rest have never known what they've been missing, they've nothing to compare it to. Check out what's going on in Canada these days. Bad CG looks like crap not matter what age.

This campaign asked for 50,000 bucks for practical effects alone. They've gotten over 80K:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-void--10#/story

EDIT: Whoops. Read your post below. Still leaving up my reply though cuz it's valid to counter that point of view for anyone taking it seriously.

 

Who disses the Seven Samurai (those are REAL arrows!)? It's like Joni Mitchell. Never heard a detractor in my life.

 

You obviously haven't read my responses in the Mad Max thread.

 

Yeah, well George Lucas and Peter Jackson used to say the same thing...

 

So does the Mono version of Sgt. Pepper.

 

well I love the STEREO version.

 

Much of the time animators aren't even to blame. It's lazy directors and producers that give these teams such an impossibly quick turnaround to produce decent results. It can't be done. And the shadow argument against CG is that despite what it can do, because of directors' and producers' view of the "tool" (i.e. quick fix, cheap fix, substitute for story)it can never be utilized properly, thus making its existence to do good work moot.

 

No McCartney scat for you.