Poll: Too Much CGI!

[Soviet Heavy]

Whatever happened to good old fashioned Model work? To this day, the T. Rex from Jurassic Park, or the Space Battle from Return of the Jedi feel more realistic than anything being thrown at us nowadays.

I'm a massive fan of costume and model work in films, a physical object has weight and presence that a CGI model just doesn't. If you wanted to show some fantastic/horrific examples I'd recommend showing the puppet work from The Thing.

God that thing was creepy. I'd also recommend anything that Guillarmo Del Toro has done. Hellboy and Pan's Labrynth are fantastic examples of top notch model and animatronic work.

How can you possibly be immersed in a film, if what you're thinking about is how they did the special effects?

Unfortunately I am quite an analytical person. I love finding out how things work, and if it interests me, I can appreciate them all the more because I understand the effort that went into making it work as well as it did.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

I disagree. That Episode III space battle you linked is way more awesome than the other. Star Wars has always been about the spectacle, and you can't get much better than that.

Do you also prefer the Yoda puppet in Episode I to the CGI Yoda in the other films?

Yes I do. The puppet Yoda looks far better than the CGI one bar none. Particularly Attack of the Clones Yoda looked awful.

Oh god. I'm sorry but I can't take anything else you say seriously now. How old are you?

That puppet looked seriously out of place. The CGI Yoda has far better movement, better expression and much better lipsynching. Plus, it gave them the ability for Yoda to fight Dooku and Sidious, two great lightsaber battles.

It did not look out of place. Puppets were used extensively with the original trilogy. The Wampa Ice Monster, the Trash Compactor Monster, as well as everything in the Cantina were all puppetry or costumes. It only looks out of place following the CGI remasterings from 1997.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

CGI is a race to distract the eye. Modelwork is tighter but has soul.

It's like listening to a mime track versus a live recording. The mime track maybe exactly autotuned to perfection and have the singer singing three lines simultaneously, but the single cough in the live version destroys all that studio interference.

CGI, imho, has only worked in the hands of PIXAR. Especially in patchwork rubbish like that battle.

Point out who is fighting who and then I can invest some emotion into it.

Yes I do. The puppet Yoda looks far better than the CGI one bar none. Particularly Attack of the Clones Yoda looked awful.

Oh god. I'm sorry but I can't take anything else you say seriously now. How old are you?

That puppet looked seriously out of place. The CGI Yoda has far better movement, better expression and much better lipsynching. Plus, it gave them the ability for Yoda to fight Dooku and Sidious, two great lightsaber battles.

Totally in agreement with Soviet Heavy. The puppet had far more depth than that CGI nightmare. The lightsaber battles were pointless, irritating and counter-exposition.

And I'm old enough to know a good puppet when I see one.

 

[Yuno Gasai]

Honestly, I understand the complaint, but I don't think the space battle from Star Wars III is the best example. Space battles are probably one of the best (opinion) times to use CGI.

The problem with a lot of CGI, which is still apparent in the SW prequels, is that everything looks so pristine, even when a large part of the movies take place in a desert. Along with that was the almost complete lack of a set or anything other than a big blue area to guess what they are looking at, putting the actors in a much more difficult position.

I agree with you, although I also believe that a combination between model/animation work and CGI can be incredibly effective. (Look at some of the things Red Dwarf did - I know that Red Dwarf is a sitcom and not a movie, but still.)

The tough acting conditions means that those who can pull it off and make it believable receive more recognition, though, so I guess that acting with CGI isn't all that bad. Just not ideal.

 

[Nimcha]

I disagree. That Episode III space battle you linked is way more awesome than the other. Star Wars has always been about the spectacle, and you can't get much better than that.

Do you also prefer the Yoda puppet in Episode I to the CGI Yoda in the other films?

Yes I do. The puppet Yoda looks far better than the CGI one bar none. Particularly Attack of the Clones Yoda looked awful.

Oh god. I'm sorry but I can't take anything else you say seriously now. How old are you?

That puppet looked seriously out of place. The CGI Yoda has far better movement, better expression and much better lipsynching. Plus, it gave them the ability for Yoda to fight Dooku and Sidious, two great lightsaber battles.

It did not look out of place. Puppets were used extensively with the original trilogy. The Wampa Ice Monster, the Trash Compactor Monster, as well as everything in the Cantina were all puppetry or costumes. It only looks out of place following the CGI remasterings from 1997.

That is exactly my point. It looks out of place because the CGI looks better. It looks old, a relic from a bygone age.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Note that I am talking about the saturation of CGI in live action films. I have nothing against Pixar or Dreamworks Animation for making fully CGI films. It is when it overtakes the actors in real life that it bothers me.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Honestly, I understand the complaint, but I don't think the space battle from Star Wars III is the best example. Space battles are probably one of the best (opinion) times to use CGI.

The problem with a lot of CGI, which is still apparent in the SW prequels, is that everything looks so pristine, even when a large part of the movies take place in a desert. Along with that was the almost complete lack of a set or anything other than a big blue area to guess what they are looking at, putting the actors in a much more difficult position.

I agree with you, although I also believe that a combination between model/animation work and CGI can be incredibly effective. (Look at some of the things Red Dwarf did - I know that Red Dwarf is a sitcom and not a movie, but still.)

The tough acting conditions means that those who can pull it off and make it believable receive more recognition, though, so I guess that acting with CGI isn't all that bad. Just not ideal.

Take my Jurassic Park example, a perfect blend of excellent CGI and incredible animatronic work.

 

[Conza]

Well, there are a few different questions proposed in the original OP, which space battle do I like more (invested in), which I'd say ROTJ, by a fraction, but it would've benefited from CGI and therefore, I think the one about too much CGI, I'd have to say no.

Ok, I'll concede that the very beginning of the ROTS, when they flew by each other, that was slightly confusing and hard to follow with my eyes, but there are bits in the ROTJ clip, eg, the ship crashing into the death star, that looked pretty stupid (especially the people inside reacting).

Which clip I prefered overall, ROTS.

 

[Mallefunction]

The models any day. CGI looks too clean and always has. Going to the Alien example, both Aliens in the first two movies looked DISGUSTING, dripping with saliva, etc...and the same kind of effect can't be captured with CGI. Sure, CGI is going to get better and better, but you know there is a reason why we still use fake blood instead of CGI blood in films. It just looks more real. Hell, that's why we still use ACTORS in films.

Not to say that you can't get emotionally invested in animated fictional characters...but definitely not to the same degree.

 

[Ren3004]

I don't mind CGI at all, unless it's painfully bad. Like in Wolverine, in a scene it looked like his claws weren't part of him. They couldn't even make dirt getting blown upwards by bullets to look right. I'm pretty sure the first X-men films looked better.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

That is exactly my point. It looks out of place because the CGI looks better. It looks old, a relic from a bygone age.

Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to CGI a Jedi is insignificant next to the power of the puppets.

 

[Canid117]

Does anyone else think that total silence in a hectic space battle like the ones from Star Wars (And I do mean total silence no music or anything) would create a beautiful contrast?

I also have a question for someone educated in physics. Seeing as how there is no gravity in space, would G forces be as extreme or even present?

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Does anyone else think that total silence in a hectic space battle like the ones from Star Wars (And I do mean total silence no music or anything) would create a beautiful contrast?

I suggest you go out and watch Firefly if you want realistic space sound. Since there's, you know, none.

 

[Canid117]

Does anyone else think that total silence in a hectic space battle like the ones from Star Wars (And I do mean total silence no music or anything) would create a beautiful contrast?

I suggest you go out and watch Firefly if you want realistic space sound. Since there's, you know, none.

True but the only large scale battle occurred in the movie and the actual fighting only got about ten seconds of screen time.

 

[Blind Sight]

I'm of the opinion that CGI for things like gore tends to make them a lot less threatening or scary. One of my favourite movies is The Thing, and the puppets and gore in that is just outstanding, it's absolutely creepy because it feels like it's actually there:

 

[Stammer]

Yes! That is why I compared the old trilogy to the new. Take the shot from the Endor video to where the fighters are screaming along the Death Star, right before diving in. It looks insane to this day. How hard would it have been to make that shot? You need to build the set, work with precision camera movements for the sweeping shot, and then mimic those exact camera shots again superimposing the starfighters over top.

Compared to the Revenge of the Sith shots, where it was all done on a computer. The CGI in the prequels has not aged well. Look no further than the Jedi temple shots from Attack of the Clones, they look horrible.

I'm pretty sure that every single scene (or at least the significant majority of the scenes) in the prequels were done entirely on green-screen. One of the reasons why the movies fail is because they're completely artificial. Almost nothing is actually "there" on the screen.

I think everyone here needs to watch Red Letter Media's Mr Plinkett's review of the 3 movies. Each review is like an hour and a half long (so in total you're looking at a LOT of video to watch), and they have a lot of really dark and messed-up scenes in the reviews so I will not post them here. But I seriously suggest you all check them out. He gives a lot of reasons why the prequels sucked in comparison to the original trilogy in those 4 1/2 hours.

 

[Nimcha]

I also have a question for someone educated in physics. Seeing as how there is no gravity in space, would G forces be as extreme or even present?

Yes, of course. Newton's first law. An object that's in motion, stays in motion unless acted on by an outside force. Now, consider yourself strapped in a spaceship that suddenly makes a hard turn, your body still wants to go in the direction it was going but is suddenly objected to go in the new direction. That's g-force, basically.

 

[MikeOfThunder]

Peter Jackson used a ton of model work during the filming of Lord of the Rings and mixed it with CGI. I think, if you want to use lots of CGI then overload it like in 300, so it looks amazingly surreal!

 

[Nimcha]

I think everyone here needs to watch Red Letter Media's Mr Plinkett's review of the 3 movies. Each review is like an hour and a half long (so in total you're looking at a LOT of video to watch), and they have a lot of really dark and messed-up scenes in the reviews so I will not post them here. But I seriously suggest you all check them out. He gives a lot of reasons why the prequels sucked in comparison to the original trilogy in those 4 1/2 hours.

Oh really would people stop with this? These 'reviews' are geared towards people who hated the prequels to begin with. It's just a self-fulfilling prophecy.