jarod1001

I just cannot stand the new wave of animation in films these days (i.e., Incredible Hulk, etc).

Anyone agree?

Jinn

No. I like CGI.

Got anything else? Not much to discuss here.

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telekinetic

I disagree. CGI is amazing technology, and has brought to life many otherwise impossible cinematic experiences.

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xepherys

I'm a fan when it's done right. Some things can't be done by costume alone... *shrug* Unless you WANT it to look like it's from the 60s...

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LoganSnake

Precisely. When done right (Sin City, 300, Lord of the Rings, The Matrix..first one...), CGI is amazing.

When done bad (Boogeyman, the wolves in The Day After Tomorrow), it's pretty laughable. I mostly hate it when they substitute it for things that could easily be achieved live.

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telekinetic

Everything* sucks if it is used wrong








*(except vacuum cleaners)

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LoganSnake

And black holes.

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Lasereth

I totally agree. CGI can be used SPARINGLY and put to good use (like in Terminator 2..T-1000 still stands up today in terms of graphics, and crap that was made in 2002 looks embarassing now). It just has to be used so little that you don't even know it's happening or in a way that completely alters the style of the film (Speed Racer, Sin City, etc.).

Movies that use CGI but are meant to be real-life action movies are terrible. The latest Indiana Jones is a good example.

Want to see a truly awesome action movie that PROVES that CGI is unnecessary to make a good action movie today? Go watch Casino Royale.

Martian

How do you use a black hole wrong? For that matter, how do you use it at all?

I think part of the issue with CGI is that as a technology it still isn't completely mature and probably won't be for at least another decade. The quality of the animation depends a lot on the studio. Sometimes it's done well, sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it's seamless enough that you can't even tell. An example of this would be the new Indiana Jones -- I noticed several people complaining about the 'CGI jungles' even though the jungle scenes were shot on location. Which really just goes to show that some people like to complain, I guess.

The Hulk was a terrible film for a lot of reasons, but the CGI wasn't one of them (unless you're talking about the godawful cuts). I mean, sure the hulkster didn't look photorealistic exactly, but how photorealistic is a 16 foor tall green body builder gonna look? The CG hulk was an order of magnitude better than a bunch of green body paint.

EDIT for cross-posting with Lasereth -

Indiana Jones is a tricky one, though. Parts of it were meant to look fake-ish. The warehouse in the beginning wasn't meant to be photorealistic, and was designed to look like a matte painting in order to keep the film stylistically similar to it's predecessors.

Using CGI to do things that can easily be done without it is lame, but some things are very hard to do convincingly and that's where it should properly be used. How do you have a swarm of ants carry a guy away without using CGI?

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m0rpheus

Exactly. The CGI vampires from I Am Legend drove me nuts (along with most of the rest of the movie). Did they need fully CGI vampires? No.
What I have to say has pretty much been covered. Basically without CGI movies would be way more limited in what they can do, and many movies would cost way more, so much so that they couldn't be made.
Think of the cost to create models for sci-fi movies for example. Star Wars would have cost a bajillion dollars to make with models today, and would still have to have guys in rubber suits. Really the reason I don't like the prequels isn't the CGI, it's the fact that the scripts sucked ass. The space dogfights kill the dogfights of the originals visually because the originals were limited by what they can do with models. Same goes for the lightsaber fights. Compare the Vader/Luke fight from Jedi to the CGI enhanced showdown with Darth Maul in Episode One.
Think of how much Iron Man would have sucked if he couldn't be done in CGI. A big lumbering guy in a suit. Instead we get a guy who moves like a jet.

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ratbastid

I think people's main complaint about the CGI in Crystal Skull isn't the stuff that happens at the BEGINNING of the movie. If you follow me.

Martian

What, the ending sequence?

I have a strong suspicion that if it had been done with models a lot of the same people would be complaining that it could have been done better with CGI.

The thing is, I see people picking apart Crystal Skull, while seemingly forgetting that the defining trait of the franchise is over-the-top action sequences with gobs of special effects. The ending of Crystal Skull was no worse than Raiders; the only difference was the nature of the obscure artifact.

I have a strong suspicion that a lot of people were determined to hate Crystal Skull from the outset for the simple fact that it messed with their nostalgia. I personally thought it was well done and was very much in keeping with the overall feel of the other three.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Giant Hamburger

I think one problem with CGI, as technology advances, falls into "Uncanny Valley" hypothesis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley

As you approach realism in animation you reach a point were things seem almost realistic but there are intangible aspects to the scene that lead you to reject what you are witnessing. This is exaggerated when movement and physics become involved. The "valley" is lessened for stationary CGI effects.

Martian

For a Giant Hamburger post, that's surprisingly... lucid.

Uncanny valley certainly applies to things like Beowulf. When CGI is used as a replacement for other special effects techniques, it's less of an issue.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

LoganSnake

I'm pretty sure it won't be long before we see movies starring deceased actors without being able to tell the difference if they're real or CGI.

And how long until computer heroes replace live actors?

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little_tippler

GH as always...you win. Love love your posts

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Redlemon

"CGI" by Sudden Death:

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fresnelly

Here are three examples of bad CGI use:

1.) In The Phantom Menace, the Jar Jars and the robots are having an epic battle on in a lush green valley against a deep blue sky. It occurs to me that there are no live actors in the scene and I'm watching a screen-saver.

2.) In Attack of the Clones, Natalie Portman gets dumped in the desert and then a CGI storm trooper (or whatever they were called at that point) kind of floats in like 75 Buick to save her. She gives his forehead an order to which he gives back a line and then floats away.

Not only did it look and play badly, but the fact that they green screened it rather than paying some schmuck in a costume to do the bit was confusing and galling.

2.) In Spiderman 2, Doc Ock Snatches Auntie May and scales a clock tower to due battle with spidey. The fight is well shot and it's a necessary use, but it also allows them to go too far with the action. That may be a clean representation of Auntie May being flung and dropped 50' but there's no way she should survive the kind of abuse in that scene. My suspended disbelief was pushed too far and they lost me.

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Redjake

Summed up my thoughts 100% verbatim - why must everything be replaced by CGI? I am reminded of the recent Indiana Jones movie, where half the movie was CGI, but could have easily been done live. It ruined the movie (along with the alien shit)

Some of the best examples of the EFFECTIVE use of CGI are scenes where you can't tell it's even being used - such as, Jurassic Park.

Yeah yeah, the dinosaurs are CGI, but did you know the jeep in the below scene is CGI as well? They couldn't get a jeep to turn upside down and get pushed along and nudge and crushed by the T-Rex to look right in real life, so they substituted it. And to this day, I still can't tell the entire thing is CGI. The particular moment where it's CGI is when the girl was trapped in it while it was being squashed into the mud. 1993 folks - 15 years ago.



Another good use of CGI was Starship Troopers. Sure, the movie was just flat out weird and shitty (albeit amusing and watchable), but the gigantic monsters in that movie and explosions are just great - all with CGI. I think Johnny Rico even jumps on top of the big bitch bug, shoots a hole into its hull, throws a grenade in, and the entire bug explodes as he jumps off of it - pure CGI, even Rico himself, and it looks FANTASTIC - made in 1997.



Lastly, and probably the most impressive for its age, is Terminator 2. 1991!!!! Fucking 1991. It's all about the integration of CGI into real sets.




Integration is the key - the CGI should support the scene of the movie, not replace it.

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LoganSnake

I'll see your 1991 and raise you 1989.

The Abyss.



That thing looks realistic to this day and it was done 19 years ago!

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Derwood

one of the (many) things I loved about the LOTR movies was how many of the effects were just plain camera tricks. Watching the documentaries on the extended edition DVD's was pretty mind-blowing. Also helped that most of the settings were actual places in New Zealand, not mountains and fields green-screened in

Baraka_Guru

And the Bourne movies. You can barely notice the CGI. The Bourne Ultimatum is especially good.

I've mixed reviews of CGI:

• Star Wars Ep. I - III are disgusting messes.
• Sin City and 300 (and I'm assuming the upcoming The Spirit) are eye candy. Delicious eye candy.
• The Matrix trilogy got progressively messy. (My official take is that there is only one Matrix film.)
• The LOTR trilogy is hit and miss, but it has far more hits than misses. Good balance of CGI and animitronics and makeup. (Weta, Weta!)
• I didn't watch Beowulf because it looks horrific.
• The Incredibles is incredible.
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars looks awesome.
• Where would Firefly and Battlestar Galactica be without CGI?
• I'm looking forward to The Dark Crystal 2, and it's hoped-for LOTR-esque CGI approach.

This, off the top of my head.

Oh, and The Incredible Hulk has yet to impress me. The first film I couldn't buy.

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telekinetic

Watch the special features on Cloverfield. They did an absolutely staggering amount of CG city work. No models whatsoever.

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RetroGunslinger

I can't see any problem with CGI when used correctly, and that includes animated films. While I miss hand-drawn animated movies, I'll live. As already stated, it's all about integration. As long as directors only use it when absolutely necessary, I see absolutely zero problem with it.

And Baraka_Guru, I think the first time I have disagreed with you is Star Wars: Clone Wars, it looks almost as bad as the recent movies. To each their own, I suppose.

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Baraka_Guru

It looks like a highly produced cartoon in the same vein as Pixar's work. This is what Star Wars should be instead of the digital mess that was Ep. I - III. I'm saying it looks good; whether it actually is will be another thing. It looks good for what it is stylistically. You can't really compare it to the live-action movies.

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MSD

The appeal of the originals was that they were like movie versions of pulp stories. From what I've heard, they took the concept and smeared Hollywood all over it.
Now that you mention it, the color saturation doesn't match the rest of the scene, especially on the wheel on the left, but I never really noticed before you pointed it out.

Speed_Gibson

Some of this has already been said, but here is my input

Effective examples in my opinion:
Terminator 2 - From what I recall from the DVD commentary, that was done with Photoshop 0.67 on on a cluster of 486 systems with 20 MB hard drives. Still incredible today

The Mask - they spent half of the 20 million budget on CGI and it was well invested. Of course Jim Carrey pulls it all together with his performance but the over the top CGI with the just right minimal plot (similar to the Marx Brothers films) works quite nicely.

an older one that is special effects rather than CGI - the scene in the 1947 classic The Bishop's Wife where the angel played by Cary Grant (the role Denzel Washington had in the 97? remake) throws the index cards in the air and they and all land in perfect order in the right box on the desk.

The Golden Compass - my thoughts may be not so friendly about the important part of the film but the visual look is gorgeous.

Kill Bill Vol. 1 - This film put me to sleep three times before I finally finished the DVD (I was tired from work just once there) but at least it looks good while you wait for the plot to begin in Vol. 2

Not so great or worse:
recent Star Wars, at least Ep. 1 & 2. Never have tried to endure Ep. 3 after managing not to walk out of the first two in the theatre. And yes, the plot and storyline are the main culprits there but the CGI lost me very quickly. Right after watching Anakin being a whiny bitch and Jar Jar causing wincing. At least there was the pod race, and the uh....nothing that comes to my mind for Ep. 2 .It has been 10 years or so though, most of the plot and everything else in II slips my mind now aside from Sand people getting slaughtered off camera.

I know there are plenty of others on the thumbs down list but my head is a bit tired this very moment and not recalling them now.

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blahblah454

Redjake - I still don't believe you on that Jurassic Park bit, as well as the Starship Troopers. Those look too damn good to be CGI! I am going to have to rewatch those movies and see if I can spot anything.

hannukah harry

i'm sure they could already make movies starring dead actors (we've see fred astaire dance with a vacuum 4 or so years ago as a commercial, and directtv or something has been using scenes from old movies where teh characters talk about the product instead of the normal lines, but break scene to talk to the audience).

but i doubt they'll replace live actors with CGI anytime soon. there's too much of a cult of celebrity to be overcome. using celebs to voice cartoons brings fans to those movies, but i doubt nearly as many tickets would get sold if we never see an actor, just hear their voices over CGI characters.

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boink

can you explane Giant Hamburger ?


in most cases, I agree about CGI. I think it was Roger Ebert who said...looks real feels fake...as oposed to something like stop motion puppets that feel real (cause they are) but look fake sometimes.

in the CG Beowulf, I felt that the main monster looked nearly flat, like some flashy magazine cut outs animated like south park. overall I thought Beowulf sucked ass. I vastly prefered the live action one that came out just a bit earlier.

in movies like JP, I can precieve the surface of the CG models look smooth and the skin texture is projected on. at times I can see the texture stretch on the model and it dosn't look like actual surface relief but a flat image of texture. you know like a game ?

another thing I see in movies all the time is the CG models seem to have lighting inside their mouths as if the modelers wanted to show off all the carefull modeling they did inside there. it looks un realistic that their mouths are so well lit.

and....heh, tonns of CGI has a washed out look agenst the live action, it's undersaturated. I see that in all movies w/ CGI and it's so obvious I cant understand why someone dosn't fix it before the final render.

hair dosn't look real, motion often isn't quite right, secondary animation often left to the computers to calculate is often too smooth looking.

I really think so far it's a "king has no clothes" issue. poeple have spent tonns of money on this tecknology and they need to justify the money spent so they use it. but it's still got alot of problems or people haven't really gotten a grip on how to use it best.

the chrome T100 was fine, but what refrence to chrome people is there ?
same with the water creature in Abyss.

it's when I see dino's in the new King Kong (barf o rama) or JP or some of LOTR series I think it falls apart.

granted I'm 46 and I grew up on Stop Motion. but honestly I don't think some of my observations are just bias and "glory days" talk.

say the first Alien movie... when the face hugger first shows up as the egg is opening, fantastic !! honestly the only time I've ever jumped with fear in a movie. then, the CG huggers in the first AVP ? when they slo mo fly through the air and grab people... not real looking at all.

I took a course in Softimage for about 6-8 months. I learned how to model texture animate and build lighting. I can say I've played with it a lot and XSI some too. I know the power is in there, at least for the lighting and texture problems. but most people don't seem to get it right yet. I also feel the computer calculates the secondary animations too smoothly...like the way hair might flow in the wind or as a character runns or walks along.

looks real, feels fake is the best comment I've herd on it.

when it comes to 100% CGI cartoons, well, there's no live action in them to make the CGI look off so I spose they'r fine aside from the generic character designs...is there only one character designer in the world of CGI toons ? to me, the Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Toy Story, Monster House...they all seem to have the same person doing the modeling or at least some ridged style they adhere too.

I didn't care for the first Hulk CGI movie but this new one I have higher hopes for. Ed Norton is shurly a better actor and I like the design of Abomination even though he's not in line with the original comic virsion. I'll definatly rent it.

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Wyodiver33

CGI too often is used as a band-aid to cover for a bad script, as in Star Wars Prequals. Also, too many CGI-packed movies end up looking like non-playable game demos. Ugh.

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Martian

Nobody can explain Giant Hamburger. He just has to be experienced.

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I wake up in the morning more tired than before I slept
I get through cryin' and I'm sadder than before I wept
I get through thinkin' now, and the thoughts have left my head
I get through speakin' and I can't remember, not a word that I said

- Ben Harper, Show Me A Little Shame

Derwood

here's a good example of CGI vs. non-CGI:

28 Days Later zombies: people in makeup: AWESOME



I Am Legend zombies: total CGI: FAKE AND LAME

telekinetic

Almost all of that street (and every street in Cloverfield) is CGI

Here, this is a single film student who is still in school, working alone. Not a big studio. Again, this is a school project, and it is 100% CGI. This was posted a little over a week ago.



CGI does not suck.

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Redjake

Ineffective use of CGI sucks

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guyy

Labour costs. It promises to be cheaper, although i don't think it always works out that way. At any rate, instead of being a Walt Disney to your animators, you can just fire them or never hire them in the first place. Happy happy happy!

Redlemon

Is digital animation considered to be CGI? I didn't think so, I thought CGI only referred to the use of digital effects in live-action work.

Also, just because an animator is using computer tools, he doesn't stop being an animator.

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guyy

This is semantic quibbling. The cost issue is still there.

To answer your question, i understand CGI to be digital image work. Whether the finished product is cartoony or realistic doesn't really matter. Old school animation takes many forms, from claymation to stop-action to cel-block and is/was used with or without live action.

Bilbert

Soon I hope. Realistic and affordable CGI would put the story teller back in charge. Right now the money people are in charge and it shows. How may millions does a cheap movie or TV show cost these days? Serious risks can't be taken with that amount of money.

godspeed2048

CGI sucks... has always sucked... an will likely continue to suck.

In the 15+ years that CGI has been in use, I have yet to see a single CGI effect that looked even remotely realistic. Not one.

While I'm here:

The Matrix SUCKED
Spiderman SUCKED
LOTR completely SUCKED

...and I won't waste any additional keystrokes on the suckiness of the 'new' Star Wars movies. We all know they sucked.

What do all of these films have in common?
(besides over-inflated hype and huge budgets)

You guessed it: BAD CGI (as if there is any other kind)

...I take that back. CGI is great when it's used for something that's supposed to look cartoony. Toy Story and Tim Burton's 'Nightmare' come to mind.

But when CGI is used to emulate photo-realism it ALWAYS fails... Miserably at that.

I guess I wouldn't mind so much were it not for hoards of people telling me how great it is. It's not.

Seriously, CGI sucks!