Anyone else taken out of movies by CGI arrow shooting? (1 Viewer)

[Carlo_M]

First of all, yes I know movies are "made up" and not real. And yes I can forgive a lot of things in terms of effects (I still enjoy Harryhausen movies even with the archaic stop-motion claymation figures).

But I have found that CGI arrow shooting motions (like found in the Avengers movies with Hawkeye, and Wonder Woman with the Amazonians) really take me out of the movie. Because they clearly aren't drawing anything, and the people who do the CGI insertion of the arrows into their hands, from the quiver to bow, do not do a very convincing job of it.

I know, this is a minor knock, but you'd think with the tremendous advances we've made in CGI tech, we'd be able to create a more realistic looking rapid-archery movement than what we have.

That is all.

 

[dpippel]

What takes me out of the movie CGI-wise is the "patented 360 degree aerial circling of the scene". Peter Jackson, um, "perfected" this tired virtual camera move in his LOTR films and finely honed it in The Hobbit films, but it has been done to death by practically every filmmaker in existence today since.

It's like Jeff Goldblum's character, Ian Malcolm, espouses in the original Jurassic Park - "Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you SHOULD."

 

[Carlo_M]

Lol about PJ and the 360 circling. It's his version of the JJ Abrams lens flare.

 

[dana martin]

First of all, yes I know movies are "made up" and not real. And yes I can forgive a lot of things in terms of effects (I still enjoy Harryhausen movies even with the archaic stop-motion claymation figures).

But I have found that CGI arrow shooting motions (like found in the Avengers movies with Hawkeye, and Wonder Woman with the Amazonians) really take me out of the movie. Because they clearly aren't drawing anything, and the people who do the CGI insertion of the arrows into their hands, from the quiver to bow, do not do a very convincing job of it.

I know, this is a minor knock, but you'd think with the tremendous advances we've made in CGI tech, we'd be able to create a more realistic looking rapid-archery movement than what we have.

That is all.

my suggestion, watch more classic westerns, or maybe Errol Flynn's Adventures of Robin Hood, not made up and works perfect, actually that arrow shot from the Costner film isn't bad either

not rapid , but still fun,

I know what you mean about CGI,

 

[Mysto]

Mine has to be the explosion flames coming up a hallway/shaft/mine/etc as the heros run in front of it and then dive to the ground as it passes by.

BTW I liked the 360 aerial shot

 

[TravisR]

Not to deviate too far from the original topic but CG fire is what bothers me the most. Followed by CG water or blood. An object with straight lines can look perfect in CG but things with 'less defined' shapes (like water, fire or a monster) can still be hard to replicate believably.

 

[Tony Bensley]

Mine has to be the explosion flames coming up a hallway/shaft/mine/etc as the heros run in front of it and then dive to the ground as it passes by.

BTW I liked the 360 aerial shot

Of course, no CGI in the above iconic shot. If I recall correctly, the filming of this shot kept getting pushed back due to rainy weather around Salzburg. It was finally filmed on just about the last day of location shooting, and the filmmakers almost didn't get it, due to weather related challenges.

No such issues with the CGI 360 degree shots, which have become a real trope on TV and at the Multiplex.

CHEERS!

 

[TJPC]

This shot of course is profoundly unrealistic as well. I had friends in Salzburg who laughed their heads at this movie which jumbled up locations. At the very end when they escape the family apparently would head over a cliff in reality!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Of course, no CGI in the above iconic shot. If I recall correctly, the filming of this shot kept getting pushed back due to rainy weather around Salzburg. It was finally filmed on just about the last day of location shooting, and the filmmakers almost didn't get it, due to weather related challenges.

No such issues with the CGI 360 degree shots, which have become a real trope on TV and at the Multiplex.

CHEERS!

Can you imagine the number of IBM punch cards it would have taken to create a CGI of that shot in The Sound of Music?! Yes, I am so old that I actually used computer punch cards in my early days.

 

[DaveF]

Can you imagine the number of IBM punch cards it would have taken to create a CGI of that shot in The Sound of Music?! Yes, I am so old that I actually used computer punch cards in my early days.

I thought it was manually created using analog voltage controls, output on an oscilloscope?

 

[Johnny Angell]

This shot of course is profoundly unrealistic as well. I had friends in Salzburg who laughed their heads at this movie which jumbled up locations. At the very end when they escape the family apparently would head over a cliff in reality!

Movies have been doing things like that forever. There’s an exterior scene of real building, a character enters, the interior is a set. I remember watching a movie when I still lived in San Diego. It showed a zoo in Germany (I think). Many people recognized it as our own SD Zoo.

As far as CGI goes, everyone has their own point of view. I go into the movie wanting to accept what the movie presents and I don’t try to visually dissect what I am seeing. I haven’t noticed that the bowing in WW is not realistic.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I’m taken out of movies by pretty much everything CG because it all looks so clean and fake. It’s really distracting.

 

[TonyD]

That’s an oddly specific thing to have an issue with

 

[Johnny Angell]

I’m taken out of movies by pretty much everything CG because it all looks so clean and fake. It’s really distracting.

So the cg dinosaurs in the Jurassic movies look fake?

 

[John Dirk]

I go into the movie wanting to accept what the movie presents and I don’t try to visually dissect what I am seeing.

Same here except in really egregious cases such as some of the Transformers films, etc.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I’m taken out of movies by pretty much everything CG because it all looks so clean and fake. It’s really distracting.

I keep reading this and I have to reply again. With respect, Clinton, I find this attitude unreasonable. “Pretty much everything CG” is fake looking for you. There’s a lot of great CG out there. I thought PJ’s King Kong (specifically Kong himself) was a very realistic creature. The dinosaurs in the JP movies look like they exist.

Once again, with respect, I couldn’t not reply to such a blanket condemnation of CG.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I keep reading this and I have to reply again. With respect, Clinton, I find this attitude unreasonable. “Pretty much everything CG” is fake looking for you. There’s a lot of great CG out there. I thought PJ’s King Kong (specifically Kong himself) was a very realistic creature. The dinosaurs in the JP movies look like they exist.

Once again, with respect, I couldn’t not reply to such a blanket condemnation of CG.

And there's tons of "hidden CG" in movies - all sorts of tweaks and small tidbits.

Some people view "CG" as obvious fake elements - I think many people would be shocked to learn how much CG appears in movies that they never notice.

Anyone who says they detect all CG and think it all looks fake is either the most perceptive person ever or just doesn't understand how much CG is out there...

 

[Carlo_M]

Yeah I can't blanket blame all CG either. A lot of it is really well done. Most CGI doesn't take me out of movies. Bad CGI does. And arrow shooting motions by real actors who are drawing and nocking thin air (with arrows to be CGI'd later) is really distracting. Because since they're not holding anything, they don't have a frame of reference of how to move an arm that is supposed to be holding a 26.5" shaft of wood (or metal, whatever Hawkeye and the Amazons are supposed to be shooting).

 

[JimmyO]

Gotta be honest here, I think the arrows in WW are just fine. Maybe I am not familiar enough with archery so that the nuances one might observe from an archer are lost on me.

But I suspect those effects are more than good enough for most of us.

One thing I did notice that I found interesting was when Robin Wright was making the rounds on talk shows and promoting the movie. They showed the clip of Antiope fighting germans on the beach. In one of her moves, she punches an enemy soldier in the throat. In the theatre I had no issue with it, it looked well done. But the video clip she shared on a talk show clearly showed that the move didn't really connect at all and it was very obvious.

Looking at my own copy of the film, it seems that there was motion blur/blending which obscured that. Its an interesting trick, or may very well have been a simple side effect of a 24FPS vs 30FPS presentation.

Either way I thought it was a smooth way to obscure little flaws like this.

 

[Blimpoy06]

Mine has to be the explosion flames coming up a hallway/shaft/mine/etc as the heros run in front of it and then dive to the ground as it passes by.