I Hate Cgi

CyberGhost

I do, I really do.

It ruins so many potentially good movies nowadays.

I hate how the directors take the "easy way out" and "shortcut" instead of giving us proper special effects.

And STOP USING CGI IN HORROR MOVIES!!!! it's just not scary.

The magic of CGI is when you actually don't know it was CGI like in The Rock or Dante's Peak. CGI should be transparent to the viewers, not obvious.

Just hire Stan Winston ffs!

Take Van Helsing for example, the werewolves... NOT SCARY!!!

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=RmNtbHJYeks

Now take a low budget werewolf movie, Bad Moon,

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=DEwhRir3OCc

And the transformation sequence

http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=fB5vRYHTyUI


Now that is properly scary.

I just wish more producers/directors stopped using the CGI thus ruining what could've been great movies.

Almost all of the great horror movies used the least amount of CGI, take the Thing for example, I'm not even sure if CGI was at all used in it, but what a movie!

Then take I Am Legend, what a great beginning, full of suspense, till you see the CGI.


// Anger vented.

Running Bing

Just watched The Fly(1986) a few days ago and I was thinking if that was made today it would be all CGI ****e and they would completely ruin it.


Special effects used to be a genuine skill and look like the things were actually happening(The Thing, American Werewolf, Alien superb). CGI always looks fake imo and I agree it is polluting a lot of modern films. It makes me sad when I watch stuff from the 80's/early 90's and I think it actually looks better than stuff being made 20 years later:rolleyes:

Having said that it definately has a place and it is definately useful but it is worrying that proper special effects seem to be taking a back seat and more and more films are taking the cheap easy way out and going for CGI.:(

Very disapointing.

FruitLover

All the Spiderman movies have been ruined for me by the ridiculously obvious CGI bits

Thomas_S_Hunterson

Yea it really bugs me as well.

I really despise the laziness it encourages, where directors don't even bother to go looking for locations to film, they just do it all in studio in front of a green-screen.

BigWilly

Babybing wrote: »

Just watched The Fly(1986) a few days ago and I was thinking if that was made today it would be all CGI ****e and they would completely ruin it.


Special effects used to be a genuine skill and look like the things were actually happening(The Thing, American Werewolf, Alien superb). CGI always looks fake imo and I agree it is polluting a lot of modern films. It makes me sad when I watch stuff from the 80's/early 90's and I think it actually looks better than stuff being made 20 years later:rolleyes:

You're absolutely spot on there buddy.

Although something to take into consideraton is the improved image quality, which can make flaws stand out a bit more than they would usually, but there's nothing worse than having a film ruined by excessive cgi.

Some films, like transformers, are fine - because you know you're going to see big CGI robots. But when it's a regular film, i.e. I Am Legend, where the majority of the cast is unnecessarily CGI it absolutely ruins the film.

Vokes

CGI is sometimes necessary - LoTR, Troy, Sunshine - all examples of CG done well.

The funny thing is that most of the time, when its done well (like really really well) it integrates so seamlessly into a film that you and I may not even notice it, and you're just sucked into the film.

It only takes one or two films with bad CG for ppl to starting mouthing off at the whole industry.

I love (good) CGI

Karl Hungus

To play devil's advocate here, I don't really hate it. When it's done bad, it looks bad, but the same can be said of traditional effects.

Comparing Van Helsing to Bad Moon is ridiculous though, Van Helsing isn't supposed to be scary, it's supposed to be silly OTT action.

Call Me Jimmy

Yea I'm a hater too. Not only do directors use it for shots they need, they overuse it and make whole self-indulgent sequences that bore the bollocks off everyone but the guys who made it (see Star Wars Episode 1,2,3).

Pigman II

I think the main problem with CG technology (rather than being a limiting factor) is that it offers TOO much scope and an animator is suddenly in danger of getting carried away with himself if not careful.

Take Yoda from the star wars movies. You can do much more with a CG Yoda than you could with a puppet. Problem is that sometimes just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD. I personally feel the CG Yoda character in the prequels was a disaster because he was too OTT and generally unbelievable to watch in a purely physical sense. I primarily blame Rob Coleman for this who clearly fancies himself as an actor/puppeteer when he yet to show me an example of something that could cut it. Perhaps in the hands of another man more restraint could have been shown.

Incidentally for the prequel Frank Oz dubbed his dialogue in post production down a telephone line. That's how involved he had been made in a character he (more than anyone else imho) had initially developed.

Call Me Jimmy

Pigman II wrote: »

I think the main problem with CG technology (rather than being a limiting factor) is that it offers TOO much scope and an animator is suddenly in danger of getting carried away with himself if not careful.

Take Yoda from the star wars movies. You can do much more with a CG Yoda than you could with a puppet. Problem is that sometimes just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD. I personally feel the CG Yoda character in the prequels was a disaster because he was too OTT and generally unbelievable to watch in a purely physical sense. I primarily blame Rob Coleman for this who clearly fancies himself as an actor/puppeteer when he yet to show me an example of something that could cut it. Perhaps in the hands of another man more restraint could have been shown.

Incidentally for the prequel Frank Oz dubbed his dialogue in post production down a telephone line. That's how involved he had been made in a character he (more than anyone else imho) had initially developed.

Well I disagree that that was the problem coz even when he was sitting in the chair doing **** all it looked blatantly like something out of a computer game. The whole 3 movies did! The effects are supposed to seemlessly immerse you into the film but the overuse of CGI (such as South Africa, Asia, the Iraq) such as the star wars films does the complete opposite and removes you from the experience so ye feel like you're watching sequences from an RPG.

Sad Professor

Bad special effects are nothing new, I wouldn't blame it on CGI. The problem is really with the director. Years ago they could see first hand how terrible an effect looked and would shoot around it, sometimes very cleverly. Jaws is a good example of this. The shark that was built looked awful and didn't work most of the time so Spielberg had to be creative. If a young Spielberg were making that same film today he'd just assume ILM would create a great shark in post-production and by the time the shots was finished after months of expensive cgi work it would be too late to fix it.

Galvasean

But, if it werent for CGI, just imagine how bad Nic Cage's torso would have looked in Ghost Rider!
Sometimes CGI is required (eg: Jurassic Park or Transformers), when traditional special effects just are not feasible (Who the heck is gonna build a full sized robot Brachiosaurus or a complex robot for which the technology simply does not exist yet?)
On the other hand a lot of filmmakers these days rely on CGI far too much. I mean look how fake Spider-Man looks in his movies or how the Star Wars prequels just look like video game FMV sequences.

Tusky

CGI has its place but should be used with great care. For the most part, it was used very well in Lord of the Rings (apart from a couple of scenes), Sin City & Dawn of the dead(2004). I completely agree that it can ruin a horror movie though. CGI monsters are never scary. I think the key for me is that CGI can easily look impressive and give that wow factor (Matrix, Gladiator etc) but in my experience it never looks scary. CGI monsters look like something out of a cut scene from a computer game, which destroys any realism and removes you from the movie.

I have no problem with vast armies done in CGI (gladiator, Troy) but it should be used carefully. If you look at the making of Lord of the Rings for example, Jackson used lots and lots of models and real sets, only using CGI for things that he couldn't do with makeup, i.e the troll. This is the best approach.

Anyone who doubts conventional monster make up needs to look at 'The Thing' which was made about 20 years ago and looks better than any horror movie made today.

[edit] An American werewolf in London transformation scene > bad moon - http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=AKgjUop81Tg

robby^5

I dont think its CGI, its just bad films that happen to be riddled with CGI.

Take Transformers as a recent example, awesome CGI and quite decent film too, didnt over use CGI ie. actual car chase scenes instead of just doing it all in CGI, actual explosions etc. Sin City is another example, which deliberatly looked for a gritty realistic but yet fabricated look through CGI.

I think some directors honestly think people are satisified by all stlye and no substance.

KTRIC

Starship Troopers was the perfect example of how cgi and tradition effects can work together when done right. That movie is 10 years old and still looks amazing compaired to some of the sh!te thats coming out now.

the_syco

Who remembers old school VGA graphics in films. They actually added to the film.

TBH, most films were sh|te before CGI touched them.

Thomas_S_Hunterson

the_syco wrote: »

TBH, most films were sh|te before CGI touched them.

You're being sarcastic right?

big_show

Tusky wrote: »

Anyone who doubts conventional monster make up needs to look at 'The Thing' which was made about 20 years ago and looks better than any horror movie made today.

exactly, the defribrillator scene is still disgusting today! great stuff

TerrorFirmer

I wouldn't say I hate CGI generally, but the problem is that it's way, way over-used as opposed to just plain lacking - take a look at Battle Royale 2 and Behind Enemy Lines 2 as the most annoying examples that immediately spring to mind - even the blood and muzzle flashes are cgi!!

CGI is particularly great in sci-fi movies, epics, and certain horror movies in creating ghostly apparitions and entities that make up can't capture to the same extent and portrayed scenes of such scale that weren't possible before, or at least possible in a credible sense. It would be futile, and idiotic, to argue that CGI is inferior to traditional effects. But it's overuse, in creating objects and beings that could have just as easily been done in prosthetics and make up and probably more convincing, really annoys me. Instead of only using it when necessary, films are turning to it to create everything in entirety.

I Am Legend for example, would have been far, far better if the vampires were made up actors as far as the script allowed it (obviously some scenes call for cgi). Instead they looked stupidly cartoon-ish for want of a better description. Best example I can think of in recent times were CGI was actually decisively detrimental to the film as a whole.

Snake Plisken

Great example 28 Days later, make up effects etc vs I am Legend total CGI, once I saw they were CGI vampires I am legend just stopped being scary, where as 28 Days later scared the hell out of me, same as The Descent, no cgi equals scary as hell. As mentioned above American Werewolf and The Thing are great examples of makeup and non cgi effects working effectively. I'm afraid todays studios just sign off on any old crappy cgi which ruins most of the films its applied to.

Also with the advent of HD, its more easy to spot bad CGI effects. I will be interested to see LOTR trilogy when it hits HD to see if the effects standup on the HiDef format.
Also did I read somewhere that the next Indy movie will have no CGI effects in it? Maybe its my wishful thinking

conzy

Bad CG is horrific....

But good CG is incredible! Look at 300, LOTR, Children of Men
(the baby at the end is fuly CG ) Most of the amazing environments in LOTR are all CG...

You dont hate CG, you hate bad cg....

L31mr0d

yeah it really is a grey area, as when its done well like Neo in the Matrix: Reloaded *snigger* or lawnmower man it adds to a movie.

Ok joking aside, i'm still amazed at some movies like Jurassic Park which even today I can't flaw the dinosaurs, the scene with the TRex chasing the jeep is still amazing to this day.

Which is why I don't understand how they are still getting it wrong. The clip for I am legend with the Tiger in it looks so CGI'd its laughable. The technology just isn't there yet to do animals or humans correctly. CGI when used for buildings and vehicles though always works well. Like some of the worlds in the last 3 star wars movies.

Pigman II

L31mr0d wrote: »

Ok joking aside, i'm still amazed at some movies like Jurassic Park which even today I can't flaw the dinosaurs, the scene with the TRex chasing the jeep is still amazing to this day.

Which is why I don't understand how they are still getting it wrong. The clip for I am legend with the Tiger in it looks so CGI'd its laughable. The technology just isn't there yet to do animals or humans correctly. CGI when used for buildings and vehicles though always works well. Like some of the worlds in the last 3 star wars movies.

Another thing to consider with CG is representation of real world elements which we have visual experience of.

We know what a tiger looks like, we don't know what a dinosaur looks like. That's perhaps why JP still looks amazing to this day. We've no point of reference.

This is also why CG humans will probably be the last thing they get right. We just spend too much time looking at them every day to be easily convinced.

the_syco

Sean_K wrote: »

You're being sarcastic right?

Sorry. Said that wrongly. Most films that use CGI to make them better won't improve, as CGI doesn't magically improve anything.

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Also with the advent of HD, its more easy to spot bad CGI effects. I will be interested to see LOTR trilogy when it hits HD to see if the effects standup on the HiDef format.
Also did I read somewhere that the next Indy movie will have no CGI effects in it? Maybe its my wishful thinking

Doubt it. The special effects crew, WETA, are often seen to be better than Lucas's effects crew.

=-=

It depends on who you use. LOTR created it's own crew, as did Lucas, and both are seen as world class. The rest, meh, you get what you pay for, I suppose.

robby^5

Hmmm about CGI in Indiana Jones, I heard a terrible story when it was just going into production, that for some legal reason Harrison Ford wasnt allowed use an actual whip, and they were going to replace the whip with cg! In the end I assume it got sorted because Ford was none too happy with that.

Galvasean

Apparently they are making CGI filled remakes of The Thing and Clash Of The Titans... *runs*

The first Resident evil movie is a good argument against the overuse of CGI. Take the Licker monster, there was a puppet of it which looked very realistic, but then the CGI bits (which were totally needless) looked incredibly fake. Seriously, if you can't afford good CGI don't use CGI at all.

L31mr0d

i still think there is still room in movies for animatronics and scale models. I mean watching the old SW movies now and the ships and vehicles still look excellent, but in the new ones you can obviously spot the CG spaceships or aliens.

Where they get CG wrong is the texturing and lighting, something they don't have to worry about when using real world materials for aliens and scale models.

In saying all that, they are making great strides in CGI. See this link I posted over in the games forum, relevant here:

http://www.image-metrics.com/

faceman

I dont hate CGI. I just think there is a lot of bad CGI out there. CGI is expensive, and movie budgets become over inflated if they dont control the CGI they use.

Its not everyone's cup of tea but most of the effect shots in Bay's Transformers were top class. However Bay is very particular about effect shots looking real.

I agree with the comment about starship troopers, i still enjoy watchin it and it doesnt feel dated!

Pigman II

The tone of Starship Troopers is what helps the look of it. It's a movie that doesn't take itself seriously (I hope?) and as such you forgive it for anything. Must stick on the DVD of it now actually.

dRNk SAnTA

Totally agree with the OP about I am legend. Once you see the vampires it ruins the illusion. As some people have said, Jurassic Park which was made about 14 years ago still looks so real, yet many of today's big budget movies manage to look horrible.

Call Me Jimmy

L31mr0d wrote: »

materials for aliens and scale models.

In saying all that, they are making great strides in CGI. See this link I posted over in the games forum, relevant here:

http://www.image-metrics.com/

How is that link a great stride? That improves productivity, it doesn't look any more real, you can't look at it and be fooled into thinking it's a real person so it is a big stride sideways if ye ask me.

Fremen

Am I the only one who thinks Golem will ruin Lord of the Rings in ten years' time by making it look dated? Maybe he looks halfway realistic, but I still think there's a slightly cartoonish feel to him

Sad Professor

Well I think the great accomplishment with Gollum was the performance rather than how realistic he looked.

I mean compare Yoda in the TESB to the Yoda we saw in ROTJ and TPM. He was obviously a puppet in all three but it's still amazing how much more convincing he is in TESB compared to the latter films. Most of this is due to Irvin Kershner's incredible persistence at getting every little nuance he could out of that damn puppet. All the while Lucas was telling him to hurry up.

The Bollox

L31mr0d wrote: »

i still think there is still room in movies for animatronics and scale models. I mean watching the old SW movies now and the ships and vehicles still look excellent, but in the new ones you can obviously spot the CG spaceships or aliens.

that's the main thing I don't like about CGI. it's very hard to make models and CGI work in unison. Jurrasic Park is one of the films I think really did it well. it's sad that so few films can replicate that and instead overblow their budgets using too much CGI bringing it's quality down and ruining the scenes.

I said it before, but I think the film whose special effects blew me away the most were the ones used in 2001: A Space Odyssey. it really left me flabbergasted and the thing is a lot of the effects were very cheap and easy to make (the floating pen at the start) but they work so much better than CGI could ever do.

I don't hate CGI, I hate directors who rely on CGI to make their films

Galvasean

The Bollox wrote: »

I don't hate CGI, I hate directors who rely on CGI to make their films

Here here. *raises glass*

Theboinkmaster

Perfect example - star wars episode III when about halfway through a clone trooper hands obi wan his lightsabre back on some planet after he killed the main bad guy. just before he does the trooper takes off his helmut to reveal temura morrison. now instead of having the actor wear an actual real suit and take off his real helmut what does lucas do? uses a cgi helmut and body and pastes the actors head on top of the cgi body and looks terrible, to the point it distracts you - check it out, makes me cry. cant believe the effect was cheaper - just lucas being stubborn, surrounded by 'yes' men

/end of rant

mcquickerson

OP tbh that transformation you posted was ****e

the original and best:
http://ie.youtube.com/watch?v=AKgjUop81Tg


CGI isnt bad

BAD CGI is


Its still in very early stages, and the designers think of deadlines rather than the finished piece

unreggd

Just saw I Am Legend

class, but wayyyyyyyyyyy too much CGI! The baddies didnt even do much that would require 100% CG!!


I think its just to keep that sector in business, and for newbs to show off

kowloon

When done right and only when necessary cgi is fine.
The problem these days is that even the big budget films that can afford it are going for cgi that looks very fake, i think they want it this way, you cant impress people with you cgi if they can't tell its cgi. :rolleyes:.

It's all limited by animator skill anyway, regardless of technology, they still repeatedly fail to make things move right if they haven't been motion captured.

Full_Circle

One thing that really gets my goat is when CGI is used to replace people. I didn’t quite get the reasoning behind this in I Am Legend. 28 Days (& Weeks) Later and 30 Days of Night were much more effective, scary and probably FAR less expensive using regular people in traditional make-up (although I think the latter used some subtle CGI effects to enhance a few of the vampires faces). What stuck me about the CGI creations in Legend was how similar they were to those in The Mummy, even though that movie is quite old at this stage! I can forgive it in Spiderman, as most shots would never be achievable with some guy in a suit :P

So of course CGI is sometimes necessary and can be great when used sparingly. But all you have to do is compare the original Star Wars trilogy to the prequel trilogy to see how badly CGI can be abused. Now no amount of decent effects would make those films any more tolerable, but they are already looking horribly dated, whereas the majority of the effects in the original trilogy (stop motion clay creatures aside!) still hold up. The spaceships in particular are still gorgeous to look at.

I would argue that some of the more traditional effects such as miniatures, make-up and matte paintings are still a better option than all out CGI creations, but the reality is that when using CGI, directors end up having greater control over the end product. I imagine it’s far easier to tweak or edit a CG effect than it is to go and re-shoot a motion controlled model.

Laserface

totally agree with the topic

i hate cgi....FECKIN HATE IT!!

there was never a film/scene/shot using cgi that did not look totally obvious.

good cgi is just as pointless as bad cgi..sorry lads

when i watch the old starwars films i cry tiny lasertears

Placebo

are you people serious? it all depends on the budget. With the exceptions of Silent hill [the weird creatures at the start], I am legend [WTF]


but lets no forget
Lord of the rings
Matrix trilogy
The occtopus man in Pirate of the caribean

Mitch Connor

Laserface wrote: »

totally agree with the topic

i hate cgi....FECKIN HATE IT!!

there was never a film/scene/shot using cgi that did not look totally obvious.

good cgi is just as pointless as bad cgi..sorry lads

when i watch the old starwars films i cry tiny lasertears

Disagree.

I can still watch Jurassic Park now and it still looks great imo. Granted, they used a mixture of CGI, Anamatronix(SP?) and guys in suits, but the CGI scenes were very good imo. The T-Rex scenes in the rain and the first real shots of the dinosaurs are believable.

rejkin

I dont mind CGI in films if its evenly used right or used sparingly but I find it annoying when they use it for backgrounds ofcities when it would look so much better to just film the real city,I know its cheaper but it still makes the scene look terrible

CerebralCortex

Placebo wrote: »

are you people serious? it all depends on the budget. With the exceptions of Silent hill [the weird creatures at the start], I am legend [WTF]


but lets no forget
Lord of the rings
Matrix trilogy
The occtopus man in Pirate of the caribean

Lord of the rings - powerfully great story to begin with
Matrix trilogy - Very obvious cgi in the sequels, agent smiths v neo
The occtopus man in Pirate of the caribean - good example

CGI ruins a movie when the visual parts of the plot completely depend on the it. I think (imo) if directors used cgi only to bridge difficult gaps then we'd have much better looking (or simply better) movies out there.

But the mainstream loves bells and whistles.

Full_Circle

Placebo wrote: »

The occtopus man in Pirate of the caribean

Ooooh, I second that. On the whole, that movie had great effects, but for the creation of Davey Jones alone it justified its Oscar for best effects. Its was probably the first time I'd seen a humanlike creation that I thought LOOKED real, so much so that at times I wondered if it could possibly be some kind of prosthetic!! I mean, I knew it was CG, cause such a thing cant exist, but my eyes were telling me something different (though this might have been due, in part, to Bill Nighys excellent performance).

Otis Driftwood

CGI doesnt bother me that much cos I generally dont watch movies that it is used in ie a huge amount of movies recently released.

Some dodgy CGI (IMO) that took away from the movie include

The hotel room scene in The Devils Rejects(knife in chest)
The closing scene in the Devils Rejects.
(both of these are the reason it doesnt get a 10/10 for me)
Alot of the effects in Land of The Dead annoyed me.
Some of the shootings in The Proposition,particularly the head shot about half way through.

This may seem like nit-picking to some but its just my opinion.

Call Me Jimmy

Placebo wrote: »

Matrix trilogy

Make that the first matrix only. The other two had absolutely terrible cgi, lol at the agent jumping onto the car, ****ing joke!

daveharnett

CGI is a limited tool, just like any other special effect. As stated by others, it is not a bad thing in and of itself.

I would like to mention CGI's effect on actors. Standing in a green room having a conversation with/fighting/running away from a tennis ball on a stick is not terribly conducive to good performance.

faceman

Laserface wrote: »

totally agree with the topic

i hate cgi....FECKIN HATE IT!!

there was never a film/scene/shot using cgi that did not look totally obvious.

good cgi is just as pointless as bad cgi..sorry lads

when i watch the old starwars films i cry tiny lasertears

so i take it you didnt enjoy lord of the rings?

Wacker

Call Me Jimmy wrote: »

Make that the first matrix only. The other two had absolutely terrible cgi, lol at the agent jumping onto the car, ****ing joke!

Much of the first Matrix film has terrible CGI too; try taking those Sentinels seriously today. Hard to do. The CGI was top notch when it really mattered though.

I have really come to this thread too late to say anything new. CGI should be used as rarely as possible, like was done in the LOTR movies.