ComputerMKII
Banned
CGi won't save a movie with a bad or inexistent story (e.g. Avatar, Transformers, Star Wars, Gravity)
Your thoughts on CGI-heavy movies?
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More_Badass
Member
Seriously check out the Fast Six video. I has thought most of that scene was CGI, so when I learned it wasn't, and seeing the behind the scenes of how they did it, is just so cool
Fudgepuppy
Banned
That's because those movies are completely animated. What is required for believability and stakes is consistancy. Just look at Spider-Man where they used a digital double during the swinging-sequences, and it was really jarring at times when obvious.
If we have a real character on stage fighting something that's not real, that's not the same as two not real characters fighting each other.
I'm fine if it's done well (but it often isn't).
It's a tool that should be used to enhance the visuals in the movie, and not a flashy toy that is waved in your face.
It's similar to the way people use video editors with special effects. Some people use these tools to add subtle little touches to the video editing to make things look better. But some people see the same tool, go "HOLY FUCK I CAN DO SHINY STUFF" and suddenly a normal video becomes a complete mess of screen flashes, lens flares, shitty filters and star wipes.
It's a tool that should be used to enhance the visuals in the movie, and not a flashy toy that is waved in your face.
It's similar to the way people use video editors with special effects. Some people use these tools to add subtle little touches to the video editing to make things look better. But some people see the same tool, go "HOLY FUCK I CAN DO SHINY STUFF" and suddenly a normal video becomes a complete mess of screen flashes, lens flares, shitty filters and star wipes.
More_Badass
Member
This. Having two real characters/stuntmen fighting, interacting, I feel brings a sense of weight and realism, idk how to say it...greater stakes?, to the action on-screen. Sure not worrying about the actors might give the director more freedom, but I think restraint goes a long way to elevating a shot. I'll use that F6 scene for example. Sure they could have CGI-d a tank and the chaos, but knowing they had one shot and seeing the real carnage just makes that whole scene more intense IMO
More_Badass
Member
Nice fight scene! What movie?
"How you do weight"? Are you kidding? This is fight scene is straight up comic book superhero bullshit.
I'm actually a fan of practical effects and The Thing is one of my all time favourite movies. However I feel often fans of practical effects are disingenuous about how good they look. Practical effects often look good in screenshots. However when in motion often look pretty ropey. The Thing in fact has some practical effects that look dreadful when in motion. The 'person' being smashed around into the ceiling and fan being a good example. Even Jurassic park that is often held as having great practical effects. When it switches to the practical T-Rex the hit to movement is shocking. It's all too obvious that the movement is too stiff.
Also often people who like practical effects choose the movies with the absolute best practical effects and then compare them to movies with poor CGI. Not saying the OP was doing this and I think was just aiming for a remake/prequel/whatever that terrible version of The Thing was. However it's something that is held up as some of the best practical effects versus something that has pretty bad CGI.
The problem with CGI is it is often overused or directors fall into the mistake of thinking it looks good enough. King Kong suffered from this.Kong himself looks great, but then the stampede scene is just shockingly bad. Or Public Enemies when Johnny Depp's face is CGI when jumping over a counter. I Am Legend's vampires. Bad use of CGI is a problem, CGI itself isn't.
I think the thing is though that often bad practical effects have a certain charm that bad CGI lacks.
Even effects that clearly aren't real but are just so cool. Harryhausen's work is obviously all models but it's just so amazingly well done that you kinda get absorbed anyway.
I think in the end they are good for different things. However when technology advances and costs come way down then CGI will probably be better in every way.
Also often people who like practical effects choose the movies with the absolute best practical effects and then compare them to movies with poor CGI. Not saying the OP was doing this and I think was just aiming for a remake/prequel/whatever that terrible version of The Thing was. However it's something that is held up as some of the best practical effects versus something that has pretty bad CGI.
The problem with CGI is it is often overused or directors fall into the mistake of thinking it looks good enough. King Kong suffered from this.Kong himself looks great, but then the stampede scene is just shockingly bad. Or Public Enemies when Johnny Depp's face is CGI when jumping over a counter. I Am Legend's vampires. Bad use of CGI is a problem, CGI itself isn't.
I think the thing is though that often bad practical effects have a certain charm that bad CGI lacks.
Even effects that clearly aren't real but are just so cool. Harryhausen's work is obviously all models but it's just so amazingly well done that you kinda get absorbed anyway.
I think in the end they are good for different things. However when technology advances and costs come way down then CGI will probably be better in every way.
Fudgepuppy
Banned
Still looks real, even if it's outlandish, which is what happens if you do stuff the real way.
DeadlyDanger
Neo Member
It's hit or miss with me. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is an example of how questionable CGI can oversaturate a movie (the Gollum scene being the exception). A movie I recently saw where I thought the CGI was great, was Elysium.
More_Badass
Member
Ha, yeah I was like "Oh nice fight"...and then he punched a bowling ball
I'm going to take a guess and say this is one of the Universal Soldier sequels or something? Over the top but the fight choreography is pretty good
angular graphics
Banned
I will never understand their decision. WTF were they thinking?
Andrei Arlovski punches bowling balls as part of his MMA training. The scene was from Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning
Twilight Gap
Member
Is the issue here that it looks "fake"? Obviously it is. CGI is coming close, but it's not quite at the level of realism yet. In the more fantastical scenes (and especially when it comes to humans) it's very easy to tell when CGI is being used.
While I think more movies with live action should use as many real sets and effects as possible to ground the movie in reality (even if it's entirely fiction), what they really should focus on is how it's being used. Other parts of the film - the stories, the characters, the sound design - should be well developed and compliment each other. Otherwise, the CGI because overbearing and appears gimmicky (though often times it's entirely gimmicky).
Slightly OT, but why is the CGI on Asgard in the first Thor so poorly done?
While I think more movies with live action should use as many real sets and effects as possible to ground the movie in reality (even if it's entirely fiction), what they really should focus on is how it's being used. Other parts of the film - the stories, the characters, the sound design - should be well developed and compliment each other. Otherwise, the CGI because overbearing and appears gimmicky (though often times it's entirely gimmicky).
Slightly OT, but why is the CGI on Asgard in the first Thor so poorly done?
burly brawl always looked like shit. its face replacement too. and very often it doesn't even look like agent smith - there are real actors in some instances of that fight. the only time it goes all CGI is during the people flying everywhere bits and neo kicking around the stick.
I actually found the look kind of strange in MU. the real world bits was so photorealistic it just looked odd.
wut. Pacific rim can only be CGI. hongkong?
I tried to read most of this thread but might have missed it but no one mentioned WWZ? holycrap that was shit.
More_Badass
Member
Honestly, I enjoyed WWZ. As a faithful book adaption (I want my Battle of Yonkers!), it was a utter piece of crap, but as a zombie movie, I enjoyed it. Now there I don't think there would be any other way to portray the millions-strong horde of zombies described in the book without CGI, but the running and other elements just felt off.
And so Pacific Rim, saw it last night...story and acting was weak, but as it's been said, I didn't watch that movie for the story and acting. I thought the Jager effects were good, but weird; they moved too fast, too smoothly to seem real. But I loved the Kaiju designs and effects and thought those were crafted really really well. Especially some of the close shots were you see the skin textures and the light glistening off the jaws, etc.
Twilight Gap
Member
EXPLOSIONS
Messofanego
Banned
I've gotten used to it. It's when it's unneeded where it's more noticeable like here in Social Network where there's CGI breath...
Why?
Good thing bringing up The Raid because it has some great subtle CGI that you won't notice until you see it a bunch of times on loop.
Why?
Good thing bringing up The Raid because it has some great subtle CGI that you won't notice until you see it a bunch of times on loop.
triplestation
Member
This is straight mortal kombat
Messofanego
Banned
He just punched a bowling ball into dust! And the end! Goddamn was that a lot of fun to watch
Twilight Gap
Member
Holy shit that was good. I really like the low key ambiance in the background, as opposed to many fights that are saturated with music.
I think most one-on-ones should be purely sound effects to focus on what's happening between the duelers.
More_Badass
Member
Couldn't that just be a mannequin or something? You know, how when they do car crash scenes and they replace the actor with a prop?I've gotten used to it. It's when it's unneeded where it's more noticeable like here in Social Network where there's CGI breath...
Why?
Good thing bringing up The Raid because it has some great subtle CGI that you won't notice until you see it a bunch of times on loop.
MilesWebber
Member
I thought it was cool back in the day with Immortel and Sky Captain. 300 was the peak I think. Now the whole Alice in wonderland and oz styles are turrible.
Grimm Fandango
Member
But entirely recreating him? It looked off the entire movie, surely you must admit that.
Does anyone know what the studio did to make Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen young in the beginning of X-Men: The Last Stand? Seemed like a mix of make-up and some CGI on wrinkles.
More_Badass
Member
In Tron, it only bothered me in the "real world" scenes. In the digital world, it kind of made sense that he would look weird and unrealistic, since he was a program
Messofanego
Banned
It could be, but that exact same skin colour and body proportions for a doll, I don't know! Whatever they used, it's effective.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
That's my point - the storytelling and the character work makes the action scenes in those movies just as valid and effective as an action scene in a live-action movie. You don't need stuntwork to effectively essay an action scene at all. You need a good eye, a good sense of pacing, and a means to make what's happening onscreen MATTER.
Action sequences don't happen in a vaccuum. They're there to serve a story. Even in the THINNEST action movies, the action is happening in service of SOME story. The more you can make those characters feel real, the more the fight means something.
Now, if your story is thin/lacking, then the action sequence needs to carry a lot more weight. It needs to justify itself. At that point, bad effects work can REALLY sink a film. But your film is already in a rocky/dodgy place if it's absolutely depending on the visual effects to rescue it from mediocrity.
Most of the complaints in this thread seem to not take any of this into account. It's just a binary "This looks fake, this doesn't" - well analytically, it ALL looks fake, because it IS fake, even carefully set up stunts. Once you know where to look, even practical effects can simply become an exercise in spotting the seams.
The challenge is in creating a story, raising the suspension of disbelief, so that when the action kicks in, you're not looking for seams. You're invested in the characters. So much that even IF a stray seam pops right in plain sight - you're willing to overlook it.
Again - it's a strange dichotomy modern film fans find themselves facing: 20+ years of non-stop advancement in the field of visual effects, using multiple tools and techniques to achieve things that were otherwise unthinkable before 1985; and yet people still constantly complain about how there's "too much" CGI, that CGI "takes them out of the film" so on and so forth. But many of those same people will argue that film should die, that we all need 4k 3D 60fps technology, we need it soon, and we need to stop artificially inhibiting the forward progress of film because we're "not used to it."
You can't go forward while constantly complaining that the view is better when you look backwards. I mean, yeah, sometimes it is. But a lot of the time, it isn't.
More_Badass
Member
Uh...what? Who said that? Who even implied that?
I think CGI is great, it's made wonderful worlds and many incredible jaw-dropping moments. But at the same time, it can be overused and can be very jarring. I totally appreciate the advancements that CGI has given the film industry, and how it has allowed filmmakers to evolve their craft far beyond anything they thought possible. That ILM doc was fascinating.
But I'll still take quality practical effects, animatronics, stunt work over CGI and digital doubles most of the time
C'mon son
Fuck outta here with that bullshit
Damn, that was good.
Bobby Roberts
Banned
You saying this doesn't happen? That there's no overlap on that Venn at all? Because it's pretty obvious there is.
It's a tool, like any other tool. Practical isn't INHERENTLY better than CGI, and vice-versa. You can implement both tools really well, or poorly. CGI can be overused like say - whip-pans are overused. Or oversaturated lighting. Or surround mixing. It doesn't make CGI inherently bad, any more than handheld footage inherently makes makes cameras bad.
I'll take whatever's most successfully advancing the story being told by the filmmakers. I don't care whether it's CGI or Practical, or a blend of both.
Yes, let's forget the several decades of terrible practical effects before they became refined enough in the late 70's. I bet a lot of people was saying "I can always tell it is fake" when you could literally see the zippers in the monster suits.
...at the very least think about all the good it does to the environment, without having to blow a new set of cars every time the damn actors miss their lines.
...at the very least think about all the good it does to the environment, without having to blow a new set of cars every time the damn actors miss their lines.
Fudgepuppy
Banned
No one's saying CG is bad, just that it inherently creates a thought-process that allows directors to do outlandish things where there is no need, which does create a disconnect.
People don't get disconnected when watching Sin City because of its CG, but other when watching other movies that don't do it right.
More_Badass
Member
Nice to see practical effects still being used effectively. F&F6 had the great tank scene, and the new Need For Speed is all practical...yes, even that scene when the heli hooks onto the car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVln_VZZhtg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVln_VZZhtg
BodySystem Lars
Neo Member
I just saw The Green Lantern for the first time last night. Actually that's a lie. I saw the first 20 minutes of the Green Lantern last night. Had to turn it off cause the CG was so terrible and I watch Once Upon a Time occasionally, so that's saying something.
To Far Away Times
Member
There's something to be said for practical effects. I like the ingenuity behind all of it. CGI should only be used for the impossible.
When you have a computerized version of Johnny Depp jumping a counter in public enemies, you've done something wrong.
When you have a computerized version of Johnny Depp jumping a counter in public enemies, you've done something wrong.
mariachi507
Member
There is no cgi in The Thing if I remember correctly. There is some stop-motion effects at times but I think it was completely practical. The spaceship scene at the beginning might be the exception. I wish that more filmmakers, particularly in the horror genre, would embrace practical effects again. CGI is great when used correctly, but most of the time it seems to be used because the filmmakers were lazy.
Note: This doesn't include movies like Transformers, Avatar, or Gravity. Those are examples of necessary CGI.
RoadHazard
Gold Member
Depends on how obvious it is. Gravity being 99% CGI didn't bother me in the least, simply didn't think about it.
SonicMegaDrive
Member
Lol.
I tend not to have a problem with it if it is either stylised or subtle. The opening 20 minutes of something like Man of Steel is a shitfest however.
CGI stunts came damn close to killing Bond for me. I love good live action stunts.
CGI stunts came damn close to killing Bond for me. I love good live action stunts.
JackAubrey
Member
The thing that I often find jarring is not the CGI in films itself - but the unreal camera movement. Shoot 10,000 digital Orcs with camera placement where you could imagine a real camera position being - on a hill, in a chopper - then it can be convincing. But start a huge camera pan where the point of view swoops down between the legs of fighters, back up into the air and rides some arrows and the illusion falls apart.
I've seen a few historic epics that really let themselves down this way. The big battles and CGI would have worked fine if we'd only had viewpoints only possible for people there in that day and age. Ridley Scott is usually very good at this - if you think about films like Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator we rarely see action from impossible positions. He's also a master of framing so he doesn't need to dick around with moving camera to hide his lack of visual flair.
I've seen a few historic epics that really let themselves down this way. The big battles and CGI would have worked fine if we'd only had viewpoints only possible for people there in that day and age. Ridley Scott is usually very good at this - if you think about films like Kingdom of Heaven and Gladiator we rarely see action from impossible positions. He's also a master of framing so he doesn't need to dick around with moving camera to hide his lack of visual flair.
But Gravity was just terrible beyond the effects.
SlickShoesRUCrazy
Member
doesn't bother me at all. A good movie is a good movie.
Goemon is an awesome movie and it's pretty much mostly cgi haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpss7Kk-bfo
Goemon is an awesome movie and it's pretty much mostly cgi haha.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpss7Kk-bfo
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