I hate CGI!

CyberGhost

It seems all the directors now are switching to full CGI scenes which look awful and unreal!

CGI is supposed to be a scene enhancer, which means that most of the scene must be real! you just have to add CGI to the scenes where it's absolutely impossible to film a real scene!

I won't spoil any new movies, but did you see that ocean in the last James Bond? where he crashes and then flies with a chute - totally awful!

Horror and Scifi movies suffered the most from the CGI! Horror movies are just not scary anymore! CGI monsters suck! are unreal! and defenatelly not scary and Scifi movies are all CGI to save money! and since they switched to full CGI scene movies, look what a crappy movies they started to produce!

because of the CGI, movies became dumb! they are rated at what special effects they have instead of the other many more important categories, and the directors draw crowds with special effects! when a movie is created they first think of the special effects and then about the characters and story line that surrounds it! and not other way around

bottom line: I hate CGI! because it's an easy way out! why to build a set when you can just film an actor infront of a blue screen and add a crappy cgi later! why to fly to the north pole to film icebergs when you can just create a fake looking cgi, that most people will eat

I'm not saying that you shouldn't use CGI at all, you shouldn't over use it! like everyone does today!

full scene CGI movies = pop corn movies!

tman

aye, CGI backdrops can be great when they're done properly (the subway station in The Matrix) but can really take away from the film if they're done badly (the latest james bond:rolleyes: )

however, i'm a big fan of popcorn movies. Van Helsing is one of my favourite action movies of recent years, purely because the wolfman looked so ****ing cool.

lee_baby_simms

Originally posted by CyberGhost
CGI is supposed to be a scene enhancer, which means that most of the scene must be real!

im sure george lucas would argue that.

ixoy

Originally posted by tman
however, i'm a big fan of popcorn movies. Van Helsing is one of my favourite action movies of recent years, purely because the wolfman looked so ****ing cool.

Whuh whuh whuh? Van Helsing is the biggest load of toss produced by Hollywood in years - and one of the reasons is the overuse of CGI. It featured some appalling CGI, particularly towards the end. The action scenes became a confused mess. I thought Jekyll/Hide looked horribly cartoonish.

It's a bit of a cliché but CGI often works best when you don't know it's there. Troy, commendably enough, limits the use of CGI (because Pietersen knows its limitations). Phantom Menace and, to a lesser degree, Attack of the Clones are movies clearly suffering in the hands of a CGI lunatic (who, admittedly, owns the company producing it) and it hurts. Also many smacks to the Wachowski brothers.

I'll agree with the poster - CGI has too often become an use for lazy, slovenly film making that relies purely on spectacle without any story to back it up. Unfortunately I don't see it getting any better...

Obscure

A brilliant example of how to use CGI was "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". CGI all over the place but it played perfectly into what was happening in the pic. You didnt even think of the CGI involved, cos it was seamlessly put in!

CGI monsters are ****, gimme a plastic alien model anyday!

tman

Originally posted by ixoy
Whuh whuh whuh? Van Helsing is the biggest load of toss produced by Hollywood in years - and one of the reasons is the overuse of CGI. It featured some appalling CGI, particularly towards the end. The action scenes became a confused mess. I thought Jekyll/Hide looked horribly cartoonish.

pfft, you're obviously immune to the entertainment value of Kate Beckinsale in a corset;)

aye, it does seem like they were running on a shoestring budget when it came to the cgi for Mr. Hyde. one of the major low points of the movie (and where the hell did he find a cigar that size )

TCamen

I find it interesting that Van Helsing's budget was $35m higher than 'The Day After Tomorrow'. Fine 'Van Helsing' had a fair few sets (the Transylvanian village for example) and bigger stars to pay in Hugh Jackman & Kate Beckinsale, but seriously, where did the FX budget go that a cheaper movie looked so much better?

The CGI in 'Van Helsing' looked dodgy pretty much all of the time, keeping in line with 'The Mummy/Returns', whereas 'The Day After Tomorrow' yielded better results on a smaller budget.

I'd agree with everyone that's posted though-- movies will FX overload like recent Star Wars movies and 'Van Helsing' just smack of laziness. I'd much rather see a real set built, then with CGI to add extra detail if necessary. A bigger concern from my point of view is that these movies are impossible to connect with/ take seriously, because of the amount of CGI used throughout.

joe_chicken

waitwaitwaitwait....


this is crap...

CGI rules. Can anybody else remember the first time they saw the brontasaurus (I dont know if thats spelt right!!) in Jurassic Park...

WOW...

the Troll in fellowship of the ring...

WOW...

all those sentinels in the matrix... or the bit where neo comes back to life in the first one...

sure theres bad CGI... just like theres bad acting,editing,lighting,directing,writing...

if its done badly its because the people behind the computer are crap, not that CGI is crap

TCamen

CGI rules. Can anybody else remember the first time they saw the brontasaurus (I dont know if thats spelt right!!) in Jurassic Park...

For me that falls under 'acceptable usage' i.e used sparingly. There were still loads of animatronics in Jurassic Park, not just incessant CGI dinosaurs.

the Troll in fellowship of the ring...

I'm not a big LOTR fan, and I happen to think that there was too much CGI in the trilogy.

I never said I hated CGI, and most people have just stated that they like CGI within reason i.e as a tool to enrich movies, not overtake and overload them.
For fantastic CGI, I was really blown away with the seamlessness of the effects in parts of A:I, especially when they open up the robot girl's face in the boardroom. The splitting apart and reintergration of her face all in one shot is wonderfully realised with CGI.
Trouble is, not all movies have the budget/expertise behind them to achieve these results, so you end up with shoddy CGI like in 'Van Hesling', where nothing is convincing, and all is distracting.
Poor CGI didn't ruin 'Van Helsing', I blame the rubbish script/direction sooner than the effects. However, the effects were not good, so the movie was an all-round painful experience. Poor application and/or overuse of CGI is something I really don't enjoy seeing.

Wacker

CGI can work, and can be cool. Look at Gollum from the second two LOTR movies. I think he will be the biggest legacy of those movies. He looked perfect, except for one shot, in my opinion.

It can also not work. Remember the villian in Resident Evil? Did anyone else laugh?

Or how about Torque? The end was just a CGI blur. I don't even know how he villian died!

I think what Tarantino said in Empire a few months back was really funny. It was when the Houe of the Blue Leaves fight was compared t the burly brawl scene from the Matrix Reloaded. The quote was something like "If I wanted all that computer game sh1t, I'd stick my d1ck in a focking nintendo."

So, restraint is paramount. But that is no different to any other technique in films. Too much of anything is too much.

funky penguin

Originally posted by lee_baby_simms
im sure george lucas would argue that.

Thats cos George Lucass is an idiot.

MrGump

CGI is similar to food intake, that is a balanced diet is key. So Roland Emmerich

gluttonous bast.ard next time try to use real wolves! (day after tomorrow)









this message has been brought to u by Drgump :Nutritionist

CyberGhost

Originally posted by MrGump
CGI is similar to food intake, that is a balanced diet is key. So Roland Emmerich

gluttonous bast.ard next time try to use real wolves! (day after tomorrow)









this message has been brought to u by Drgump :Nutritionist

yeah, I didn't want to spoil that, but since you mentioned it MrGump, I've got to agree WHY THE HELL! would you use CGI wolves? I understand using CGI dinos because they don't exist anymore but wolves!!!??

joe_chicken

Originally posted by TCamen


I never said I hated CGI, and most people have just stated that they like CGI within reason i.e as a tool to enrich movies, not overtake and overload them.
For fantastic CGI, I was really blown away with the seamlessness of the effects in parts of A:I, especially when they open up the robot girl's face in the boardroom. The splitting apart and reintergration of her face all in one shot is wonderfully realised with CGI. [/B]

funny... i hated A:I with a burning passion

definitely a film that is driven solely by CGI.
the way i see it is that its not to do with CGI in moderation its to do with how well its done...


people dont complain that theres too much animation in cartoons!!!

gluttonous bast.ard next time try to use real wolves! (day after tomorrow)

funny that was the best part in an otherwise crappy film...

edit/ have you ever tried to film starving wolves hunting down their prey through a small corridor...no i didnt think so... you couldnt of done that scene with real ones...

or at least you could have but they would have looked like golden retrievers

mayordenis

really dont want to take away from it but in moria in LOTR:TFOTR that was lazily slapped together in comparison but i think this is all down to our modern standards if we looked at those wolves 6 or 7 years ago we would maybe be saying "i could hardly tell the difference . Kudos on the the special effects":ninja:

RicardoSmith

Enemy at the gate, and Thin Red Line used a lot of CGI, but most people wouldn't even be aware of it. The CGI in the last Matrix is a bit hit and miss. The machinery looked great, but some of the fights, had a rubber neo in them, which looked really bad. The Hulk was another film which had dire CGI.

Pugsley

CGI is at its best when you cant tell its there. ie: troy.

edit: oops bad typo

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by Pugsley
CGI is at its best when you can tell its there. ie: troy.

I disagree. When you know its there but you can't see it.

joe_chicken

Neo did look a bit rubbery in the matrix, but it still looked good... IMHO

the effects in the hulk were great

Karl Hungus

I'll concur that it is heavily over-used, but when it's good, nobody can argue with the results, such as Gollum and all.

I would however disagree with what CyberGhost said about Horror not being scary because of the use of CGI... While I'd certainly prefer most 'Old school' techniques, The Devil's Backbone, which had a considerable amount of CGI shots but it was all done very well, and had to be one of the best horror films of this decade. Utter brilliance.

joe_chicken

or indeed the frighteners... that film rules

mayordenis

in the second matrix the neo vs. too many agent smiths was just too blatant but because that the idea is soo good i think below-average cgi is acceptable in some cases.

mike65

Ray Harryhausen rules!

Mike.

BlitzKrieg

Originally posted by CyberGhost


because of the CGI, movies became dumb!

no offence but the majority of hollywood films tend to be dumb because the appeal has always been the specticle and not the depth (from its very beginnings to now) so CGI has gone to hollywood like fish to water and will for a long time be overused, it appeals too much to the hollywood style of film-making...There were some great points on this topic the last time we had this debate should look it up.

ferdi

we need more of this type off special fx (below) - much better, seriously.

Karl Hungus

Originally posted by mike65
Ray Harryhausen rules!

Mike.

I'll drink to that!

TCamen

Ray Harryhausen rules!

Medusa, the Kraken and Calibos II from 'Clash of the Titans' still freak me out

They better not remake that movie with OTT CGI or else :mad:

Also, top marks for the pic of Swamp Thing and Heather Locklear

flogen

while CGI can be great (gollum etc) and terrible (Jar Jar Binks), theres something I just love about stop animation, like in the old sinbad movies, I dont know why, i just think it looks cool

Flogen

Wacker

Flogen, if I were to guess, that would be because you saw those movies as a kid, and are thus fond memories. Its impossible to be objective about such things.

mike65

Thats true for me to a degree one of the first filums I saw was The Golden Voyage of Sinbad. Plus they always cropped up on tv from time to time. I think the reaon stop motion is good is simply this - its fun! You can just enjoy the movement and "wierdness" of things like the skeleton warriors in Jason and the Argonauts whereas CGI is just "there" really...

http://lavender.fortunecity.com/judidench/584/jasonand/images/00000172.jpg

Mike.

RicardoSmith

Personally I think because you don't get hung up on the fact that its not real, but is just a prop to aid the telling of the story. The problem is when the CGI prop becomes the story to the deteriment of the actual story. Bad CGI (even if its well executed) distracts you from the story.

Tusky

I think CGI should only be used when it looks real and you cant tell its CGI... Was used well in LOTR , Matrix , Eternal Sunshine , Hulk ETC...

It is very overused lately... Just take a look at "The Thing" 10 times scarier than any CGI monster.

Memnoch

i dunno why ppl moan so much about it tbh, I don't really notice cgi in movies, and all those movies ppl seem to be complaining about lotr, etc I enjoyed a lot... oh well if you don't like the "cgi" sucks for you, myself and many many many others will still be enjoying the films, OUR loss I guess

joe_chicken

Originally posted by flogen
while CGI can be great (gollum etc) and terrible (Jar Jar Binks), theres something I just love about stop animation, like in the old sinbad movies, I dont know why, i just think it looks cool

Flogen

the effects in them do rule.. but there not better than CGI... there just not

if they had CGI they would have used it

funky penguin

Originally posted by ferdi
we need more of this type off special fx (below) - much better, seriously.

We also need more pics of heather locklear

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by funky penguin
We also need more pics of heather locklear

...oh yes indeed.

CyberGhost

Originally posted by Tusky
I think CGI should only be used when it looks real and you cant tell its CGI... Was used well in LOTR , Matrix , Eternal Sunshine , Hulk ETC...

It is very overused lately... Just take a look at "The Thing" 10 times scarier than any CGI monster.

Well put!

another comparison: Look at "Bad Moon" and "American Werewolf in Paris"

Bad moon scares the piss out of me!


AND! Another reason why CGI ruined the Horror and scifi movies:

What is the scarriest part of the horror movie? the anticipation of the monster! and Alien is very very good example of that! the monster itself isn't usually as scary as anticipation of it is!

and that is what todays horror movies lost! the directors hurry to show great special effects! but they forget what makes a good horror movie!


and I bet the Alien vs Predator movie that is going to come out in August will suck too! because they'll just throw the special effects at you and that will be it!

mayordenis

the lotr and the matrix and loads of other films fould smple not be feasible whatsoever if not for CGI simple as.

Furp

I am a big fan of VFX and CGI I love to learn all about it how effects where achieved, CGI can be done very well and it can be done badly or they ran out of time, money, or sometimes it just does not come off right when all the different parts of a shot are put together.

The best cgi as with any effects work is when you can't tell its there.

Black Hawk Down is one example their is quite a bit of cgi work there but you wouldn't necessarily notice it, if you have the dvd you know what I'm talking about.

However, no matter what, still in this day a lot of cgi work is still integrated into effects overall with models, matte paintings, live action plates and cgi rendering and compositing.

Even in the Star wars films there is a lot of model work, an example in TPM is when Obi Wan is walking down the corridor with those beings, the corridor is a set, the aliens are cgi, the clone factory through he glass windows is mostly a physical model with some matte backgrounds. It still doesn't look quite right though.

Pirates of the Caribbean has some great cgi in it and I'm not just talking about the skeletons there is a lot of other stuff going on there too which you wouldn't notice.

The problem with films like this is that when you see things you know are not possible i.e. talking skeletons you are drawn more to scrutinise this whereas you know that a large boat on the sea is possible so your attention is not drawn to the fact that half of the ship you are seeing is a cgi model, and the other half a physical set piece stuck on top of a modern day barge.

Anyway enough of my rambling if your interested in vfx there are some great sites out there to check out and learn about what goes into some of these films,
http://vfxworld.com/ is a great site with lot of articles and interviews.

http://www.cinefex.com/ not much new on the site but a great magazine with some fantastic effects articles.

http://www.cinematography.net/ Good site with practical info on cinematography.

RossFixxxed

You should check out the "making of" feature for the freeway chase in Bad Boys 2. It's really really interesting to see where they used CGI, ie on none of the important parts. The car flipping over flying down the road is real, the car narrowly avoiding it is fake. Scenes where they just CGI the crap out of everything ruins the thrill of an exciting stunt.

Studies have show that babies and children get bored watching CGI much quicker than watching something real. I often finding myself being taken out of the moment by a big CGI scene myself, with exceptions. Most of The Day After Tomorrow was great just because there was no other way of totally destroying LA (at least until I get a REALLY BIG budget )

Ross

davej

There's going to be a ton of cgi movies from the present day that, in 20 years time, people will be laughing at.

College Students will organise cgi nights where they'll all have great fun watching dodgy special effects, just like the way they watch old 50's B movies/Godzilla movies today.

davej

Fungtank

Have you seen the cg in the day after tomorrow.

Unbelievable. In this day and age. What a load of complete crab bollocks

joe_chicken

Originally posted by davej
There's going to be a ton of cgi movies from the present day that, in 20 years time, people will be laughing at.

College Students will organise cgi nights where they'll all have great fun watching dodgy special effects, just like the way they watch old 50's B movies/Godzilla movies today.

davej

nobody laughs at sinbad or jason and the argonauts

they're done well

things that look good (not necessarily look real) stay good

mayordenis

nobody laughs at sinbad or jason and the argonauts

they're done well

things that look good (not necessarily look real) stay good

everybody laughs at them

lodgepole

Originally posted by Fungtank
Have you seen the cg in the day after tomorrow.

Unbelievable. In this day and age. What a load of complete crab bollocks

Are you serious? With the notable exception of the wolves, what other effects did you think were ****?

flogen

its probably true that I like them cos I saw them as a kid, but its also because they looked brilliant in context (for their time, this was cutting edge stuff).

I can see those CGi night alright, I shall laugh too, there are plenty of CGI scenes that are amazingly bad today, imagine what we'll think of them in 20 years time when CGI is supremely better (and probably been replaced by something else, like humanoid actors or something... they'd be great stunt men).

Flogen

RicardoSmith

Originally posted by joe_chicken
nobody laughs at sinbad or jason and the argonauts

they're done well

things that look good (not necessarily look real) stay good

Ditto the effect in the original starwars.

joe_chicken

Originally posted by Lodgepole
Are you serious? With the notable exception of the wolves, what other effects did you think were ****?

the wolves were the best effects!

TCamen

the wolves were the best effects!

I don't think they're quite as bad as the Brides of Dracula or Wolfman, Mr Hyde or *any* of the CGI in 'Van Helsing', but they certainly weren't the best effects in 'The Day After Tomorrow'.

The tornado destruction of LA and the tidal wave flooding NYC were much better. The wolves at least didn't feature too much, but c'mon, the bit when they're howling in the cage in the zoo? It looked crap.

CyberGhost

Tornados looked the best IMO, and I liked the freezing typhoon, but the freezing effects itself but the thing tha caused freezing looked good

TCamen

Tornados looked the best IMO, and I liked the freezing typhoon, but the freezing effects itself but the thing tha caused freezing looked good

Tornadoes looked great. The freezing effects on the buildings were pretty cool, as was the freezing cloud/eye but I didn't think the frost creeping along the walls in the library were all that great really.