Is cgi ruining films?

[Mykonos]

Is anyone going to mention the Wolverine Origins CGI?

 

[dwightsteel]

I love movies but nowadays directors are getting lazy and using computer made character models to do simple stunts. Cgi is now a being over used and it looks really fake. In the new x men movie cgi is everywhere and it is so fake looking. Before cgi was made, film making was at its peak with the scary models they used in aliens and terminator 2. If these films were not made in the 80s and made now instead they would have made the classic T-1000 into a fake cgi piece of poo or the aliens into empty shells of computer crap. Cgi should only belong in games.

I truly only agree in once facet of this. The development of better and better CG has superseded all other aspects of cinematic progression for the last 15 or so years, and many directors, especially the blockbuster makers, are starting to get lazy because of it. Used properly and sparingly, as many have said, can really add to the feel of a movie. But I think for a moment what would have happened if CG just never took off. It would have forced directors to continue to figure out better ways of making physical SFX. Imagine the kinds of movies we'd have, had they been forced to push the boundaries more on puppeteering and stunt work.

 

[quack35]

No.

 

[McClaud]

There's nothing wrong with CGI that's used properly, as about 15 other people have already told you.

People back in my day used to say that they thought special effects were pretty crappy. That we relied too heavily on special effects instead of story.

So it's not the tool, but the writers, who make bad movies.

 

[dontworryaboutit]

It depends on the film.

Live Free or Die Hard: no thanks

Anything by Guillermo del Torro: yes please

 

[Anarchemitis]

Sometimes CGI doesn't look fake. Watch Children Of Men - the CGI in that is so brilliant and subtle that you wouldn't even know which bits are CGI and which bits aren't unless someone told you.

CGI doesn't suck, it's just the films you're watching that aren't any good at it.

That and when the movie is essentially some studio's hour and a half demo-reel, movies that only exist to showcase their technolgies. Such as Monsters vs. Aliens, or the upcoming Terminator movie, which only exists to pander to the lowest denominator with guns and robots, and to shout how amazing The Halcyon Co. is at making a gritty robot.

 

[blackcherry]

Quite a lot of films pull of CGI quite well. Examples include the terminator films (yep, T2 won awards for its CGI at the time). However there are some bad ones, like SCAMola has noted:

No.

However I will admit that the use of CGI in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was horrible. CGI gophers anyone?

More importantly, the damn horrible CGI at the end for the boulders and

Spoiler

inter-dimensional ship. I mean WTF?

Those were worse that the gophers, as the completely broke the flow and immersion of the film, just as its trying to make you believe in a frigging stupid plot development.

 

[StarStruckStrumpets]

I think there is a difference between 'well done CGI' and 'overdone CGI'.

Well done CGI can accent a film, and make normally impossible, or crazy difficult, stunts or effects possible, and even look great.

Overdone CGI just saturates a film with effects in the hopes that all the pretty, flashy, shiny, and explody things will distract the audience from the sub-par film beneath it (Think Micheal Bay).

I don't mind CGI, but it should be like the icing on a delicious cake: Making a good thing better. As soon as it's used as a crutch, or band-aid, then it's wasted and poorly implemented.

This. I think CGI ruined the most prequels of Star Wars.

 

[The Infamous Scamola]

Those were worse that the gophers, as the completely broke the flow and immersion of the film, just as its trying to make you believe in a frigging stupid plot development.

Yes, but the fact that they used clearly fake CGI gophers in that scene instead of doing it with real ones or discarding the scene completely just demonstrates how they just didn't give a fuck.

But what should've I expected, it is a George Lucas film, and he's notorious for doing this kinda crap.

 

[ntomlin63]

I think CGI in Harry Potter films is great. Is the final battle on Ultimate Warriors on Spike CGI or something else? If it is CGI then it is the most lifelike CGI I have ever seen.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

CGI is a technique. Saying CGI is ruining films makes about as much sense as saying animation is ruining films, or the long take is ruining films. It's a technique, and some people don't know how to use it appropriately.

That said, I dislike when something looks pre-Gollum CGI, like the vampires in I Am Legend. They're trying to pass it off as real but there's something "wrong" with the lighting and animation that ruins the effect and disrupts the movie.

 

[blackcherry]

Those were worse that the gophers, as the completely broke the flow and immersion of the film, just as its trying to make you believe in a frigging stupid plot development.

Yes, but the fact that they used clearly fake CGI gophers in that scene instead of doing it with real ones or discarding the scene completely just demonstrates how they just didn't give a fuck.

But what should've I expected, it is a George Lucas film, and he's notorious for doing this kinda crap.

True. Did you know, that for the clone wars film (the CGI one, that I watched one afternoon with a friend) he wanted a character to be camper for no reason?! The designers were working on a Hutt character when in waltzes George, who 'suggests' that the character be more camp and 'have that Truman Capote feel' to it as he felt it was essential after watching a recent film on him.

So a Hutt turns from the Hutts we know and love into camp daisies on a whim. Wouldn't surprise me if Jar Jar came about after watching a few rasta films.

 

[G1eet]

Sometimes CGI doesn't look fake. Watch Children Of Men - the CGI in that is so brilliant and subtle that you wouldn't even know which bits are CGI and which bits aren't unless someone told you.

CGI doesn't suck, it's just the films you're watching that aren't any good at it.

There's CGI in that visual wonderland?
It never occurred to me while watching it...

 

[me06]

ill admit, at times its a shame to see them use crappy cgi when they could have made an amazinf looking mask . with the x-men film, i saw the unfinished version with half the special effects unfinished, and all i can say it, you in for watching a lot of grey blobs danceing on a green screen =/

 

[Pseudonym2]

I like it when cgi is used in weird art movies like Mirror Mask. That movie was beautiful.

 

[Dalisclock]

This. I think CGI ruined the most prequels of Star Wars.

Nah. George Lucas ruined them. Any Damage the CGI did was incidental.

 

[me06]

i miss cartoon films, now all we get is cgi animations =[

i apreciated cartoon films more as the people have drawn every thing, animated every thing by hand, but with cgi it feels like all they do now is press a button and the film is done already

 

[Charli]

I very rarely have a cold cut opinion on somthing but in this case it's: Pffft, no?

 

[chefassassin2]

If used sparingly, and well, CGI can be a beautiful thing. When used as a way of just saying, "Look what we can do, our efffects are the main basis of our movie, then yeah it ruins it for me. But can you imagine Transformers without CGI? Personally, the thought of Optimus Prime as a stop-motion or a puppet or a guy in a suit is just...wrong.