CGI in movies - your opinion?

Richard Dower

What is your opinion of CGI in movies, do you think it enhances a movie, or is it done for "effect"?, as in it seems required?

Do you think CGI is done to save time/money when practical effects would garner the same result?

Richard Dower

I'm a huge fan of CGI....if it's quality, nothing worse then a movie ruined by crappy/cheap CGI. It also has to work within a movie...too often films feature CGI for the sake of it, like the viewer almost expects it.

We're almost at a point where CGI actors will become a reality, what then?

kaimera

models > cgi the majority of the time.

but piss poor cgi is unbelievably bad

Jako8

I think the right blend of CGI and physical effects is the best.

I am a huge fan of animatronics and physical effects. I think it adds something to the movie when you know that they are interacting with a real object or reacting to a real situation.

Also animatroics are damn cool!

So, I feel that yes CGI adds something to movies. For example, CGI landscapes, when done correctly, look amazing.

cashback

The quality of CGI hasn't really improved loads over the years, or more likely, not enough is spent on decent CGI.
Look at Jurassic Park, brilliant CGI and animatronics and it's sixteen years old.

FX Meister

I think it's awful. Shouldn't be allowed. I thought the same when movies started being released in colour and not just black and white though.

Otis Driftwood

CGI sucks.

TheIrishGrover

CGI has its place in movies alright. I mean, take a look at Gollum! IMHO the best example of CGI around. Lord Of The Rings would have been impossible without extensive CGI. From Gollum to more subtle uses (one of my favourite examples of CGI in LOTR was when Gandalf rode to attack the Nazgul. The camera pans to the right, steadycam-like, and there's Minas Tirith. Almost a throwaway glimpse but brilliant.

However.....

I hate when a film builds and builds up to a CGI showdown at the end. Iron Man and both Hulks come to mind. I found Iron man quite dull after the first time RDJ put on the suit.

As someone said before, practical effects these days can be AMAZING. It's one of the reasons that I'm stoked about Guillermo Del Toro directing The Hobbit. We know that, if it's possible to do it physically, he'll do it. If not, then he'll have the might and perfectionism of Weta behind him

mike65

HATE THE STUFF! :mad: and I'll tell you why. Cos it alows film makers to do stoopid things for the sake of showing off. Okay I suppose some might like to see a falling bomb from the bombs point of view as it hits a battleship deck (Pearl Harbor) but funnily enough I don't. Tora Tora Tora (only 40 years old) blows that films attack sequence out of the water. Blade Runner beats the crap out of any CGI cityscape of tomorrow, 2001 still better any attempt to CGI a spaceship across a planetary system/star field.

The only area that CGI type opticals really have an advantage is stuff like Gladiator in the big crowd scenes where you can do clever multiples of a small number of people and then make scenes of thousands. When it comes to replicating "real world" and physical objects CGI comes off second best every time in my book.

fluke

Hey OP for the record try change the title of this thread - GCI??

There was a thread in this forum recently about the original Star Wars and how it's dated and doesn't hold up after all these years, and I didn't quite agree with all the criticism that was being said about the movie as a whole. However regarding the special effects of the movie of course it has dated somewhat...but I think the prequel trilogy which is laden with CGI (bad and not so bad CGI) is already dated looking and will probably surpass the original trilogy in terms of looking dated.

I think cgi should only be used in Pixar/animated movies or if in a live action movie then in the sparsest way possible.

jaykhunter

I'll admit that I'm a CGI/big budget whore. I love seeing beautiful landscapes and transformers rendered with the latest technology. I'd agree that the most important part of a good film is the writing (there's no shortage of good actors, just good writers) but if that's not gonna happen, i'd like the film to be gorgeous to look at.

CGI has to be tastefully done, though, i really don't like it when it looks fake. Sometimes real props looks great, sometimes they can look real ropey as well.

I guess I'll bring up Terminator 2 as an example. The prosthetic models of the T-1000 have a dull silver finish, while the CGI is a shiny, fluid look. I really, really prefer the shiny fluid look, I love it.

I don't mind either as long as it looks good, but as I said, I'm a CGI/big budget whore :D

nyarlothothep

Yes, however, it shouldn't be the point of the movie. I like movies with storylines, like visual novels, thats my preference but I love spectacle and exploring imaginary worlds and cgi is required for this. I like physical models, old rotoscoping techniques etc too. In fact I would say the effects in old movies had a lot of charm in order to compensate for the dodginess of the effects. Evil Dead 3 would come to mind in this instance with the skeletons and the affectations and quirks that they had. Again ghostbusters had some really interesting concepts. The danger I suppose is that the original idea gets lost in the ether when you can make things look so good with cgi, you don't necessarily need a unique and mezmering visual to make an impression on the viewer when you can render out generic spaceship101 which will look incredible but will look like every other spaceship from sci fi movies past.

That said cgi is like the nuclear bomb to chemical explosives. It allows you so much finer control in a virtual environment generated from code and particles. The smaller you go to get a macroscopic classical world result, the more powerful that result will be.

Galvasean

I think CGI should be reserved for when it is simply impossible to make the intended scene with traditional special effects. After watching Johm Carpenter's The Thing last night, it just shows how much can be accomplished without CGI. That said it has it's uses. For example this epic scene in jurassic Park would not have been possibl without CGI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7ul3x-k3vo

Looks pretty damn realistic. The majority of recent blockbusters cant compete with this in terms of CGI. Take I Am Legend for example. The CGI effects in that were relatively poor and therefore distracting.

Voodu Child

I'm a huge fan of CGI....if it's quality, nothing worse then a movie ruined by crappy/cheap CGI.

Anybody see Blood TLV? Great camera work, wire work, stunts, fights etc, and then smack bang in the middle of the movie is a terrible CGI monster that wouldn't look out of place in a Harryhausen film. Ruined the movie for me.

Karl Hungus

It's a technique, a means to an end in telling a story. I don't love or hate it.I love how some directors use it, and absolutely despise how others use it.

I hate how Michael Bay, or Roland Emmerich uses it, in their films CGI is a spectacle, it's the focal point and the movies scream at you "Oooh, look at this awesome effect!" and the way scenes are built around these effects shots, draws your attention to them. It's these effects sequences that are exactly the same in so many big budget films, and the production just piles money into expensive CGI and expects everyone to be blown away by it.

Other directors have CGI as part of the background, and don't have the need to make the effects shots the focal points of the story. I like it when CGI is part of the process, but it's not the complete focus of the film, when sequences that feature CGI are filmed around those elements and attention isn't drawn to them, it's not a spectacle.

A film like The Fall has me far, far more blown away visually than any big budget effects movie.

mike65

Voodu Child wrote: »

Anybody see Blood TLV? Great camera work, wire work, stunts, fights etc, and then smack bang in the middle of the movie is a terrible CGI monster that wouldn't look out of place in a Harryhausen film. Ruined the movie for me.

Thats pretty scandelous! Ray Harryhausens creations had charm and their own unique "vibe".

transylman

One movie that definitely suffered from having cgi was Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull. The older movies may have had some dodgy looking stunts, but that was part of their charm. In crystal skull everything was just way over the top, and very little of it looked good enough.

Duggy747

I love Hyper-budget CGI movies for what can be done with the latest technology but I much prefer models in films (Total Recall, Dark Knight chase scene where Batman drives the Tumlber head-on into the truck was a model). The first Transformers movie made me drop my jaw numerous of times with some great blending moment with live-action.

Plus, the first time we saw Optimus transform from truck to robot was fantastic. The amount of work that went into animating the parts to fold away was something else.

But....

Went to Transformers 2 expected a Bay movie but I wanted to see the CGI advancement from the first one and I WAS BORED OUTTA MY SKULL!!! The action sequences were just *yawn* Though I will say the most accomplished part of that film was the forest battle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz4jG380nvk

I love spotting the use of CGI in a scene and the ones that trick me are always the most memorable.

Terminator 2 FTW!!

krudler

This is some of the best use of CGI ever, and most people dont even realise, hell I didnt when I first watched it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT491ctM8Kk


Still think the best cgi creation of the past 10 years is Davy Jones in the Pirates movies, its perfect:



When i first saw it I assumed Nighy was wearing a prostethic and the tentacles were added in, but he's ALL cgi, even his clothes, amazing