Is CGI ruining your movie going experience? (1 Viewer)

[Tyler Gagnon]

I don't know if this is the right place for this, if not please move it.

In the last few years i have become more reluctant to go to the movies for fear that cgi will ruin it for me, Well it has..Spiderman could have been a better movie imo me if cgi were not used, It made the fighting scenes look fake and cartoonish, Same for The last 2 Star Wars films, And i afriad that the hulk will suffer the same fate, I just looks really cheesey when someting that big and heavy moves like it is weightless, Although i must say that lord of the rings is the best use of cgi i have seen yet.Imagine if Superman were made today how much cgi they would have used to make superman fly ect. Or jaws for that matter.

Just wondering what the rest of you think?

 

[Matt Stone]

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In Spiderman, the CG was bad but didn't get to me. The last time I remember being really pissed about the CG was Blade 2. I've since loosened up to it after watching a few more times...but that video game CG drives me nuts.

Imagine if Superman were made today how much cgi they would have used to make superman fly ect. Or jaws for that matter.

Important point.

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

In the last few years i have become more reluctant to go to the movies for fear that cgi will ruin it for me,...

Even a small film like John Sayles' Sunshine State had some CGI in it. You'll practically end up watching very few films, if not close to nothing, if you stay away from films with CGI these days.

Anyway some films are good in utilizing CGI while some are not. Most of the ones I've seen have used CGI in a very positive way.

~Edwin

 

[Tyler Gagnon]

I said the same thing about a scene i saw for The Matrix reloaded, It looks like a video game.

 

[Stephen Orr]

Naw, doesn't bother me.

It took me a while to get over sound and color, though...

 

[Adam_S]

NO

Honestly, I don't care, and I rarely notice. I saw SpiderMan twice, and I never noticed any problems with the CGI, maybe I"m just not sophisticated enough, but it looked fine to me and the 80 million other people that seemed to enjoy it (just guessing on number of people that saw it). I suppose if I set the dvd on slomo I could pick out effects problems, but then my movie going experience would be ruined because I WOULDNT BE WATCHING THE MOVIE, just the effects.

That's not in an antagonizing tone btw, I'm not trying to be mean. :b

Seriously, from the thirties (maybe earlier, someone will correct me :b) onward animation has been used as special effects in films. I don't let the metamorphosis of the snakes in _The Ten Commandments_ bother me, why should computer animation bother me? Is the movie going experience of hundreds (probably thousands when you count stop motion and other special effects) of classic films ruined for you because they use animation? Why is CGI so special that it is signaled out as an inferior tool that somehow destroys your very enjoyment of a movie just by its presence and nature?

and I don't get the comment about Jaws and Superman, those were done with the best effects at the time, puppetry and special camera rigs. Today films still use those tools to achieve the same effects but use a mixture of CGI and 'real' effects (just like the staff to snake in Ten Commandments), Lord of the Rings is a prime example, but the new STar Wars is the perfect counter example, though. Spiderman was a mixture of reallife stuntmen, actors, and CGI, Matrix Reloaded, has a man who can fly, and I'm sure there's a healthy combination of 'real' footage and CGI in the flying elements. And is the choreography of the Burly Brawl meaningless because some obvious CGI is used in the 360 shot of dogpile explosion or the bo-staff section of the fight? Should we ignore the half dozen steady cam shots where Neo does some thirty or more moves in very quick (very real) succession?

Adam

 

[Scott McGillivray]

I am one who also thinks that a large majority of the current CGI effects are just not of a high enough quality. I think that most CGI characters do indeed look weightless. Odd that one of the grand-daddy CGI films, "Jurrasic Park" had some of the better effects, even by todays standards. That T-Rex really did look big and heavy. This, compared to the poor, lifeless and weightless animations of many charcters in Star Wars, The Matrix:Reloaded and others. I really miss the old days of "real" special effects. Movies like "The Thing" or "An American Werewolf in London" would not have the same impact if they were made today with CGI.

Could the use of props/gunk/puppets etc. as an effect be fast becoming a lost art?

 

[Galvin]

When they use CGI say for fight scenes are they even using a physics engine or doing the physics by hand?

 

[Troy_M]

I must say....I am tired of people complaining about CG ruining movies for them. There are some movies where the CG is integrated seamlessly and others where the CG is obvious as day. How many hi-tech,CG-filled movies are out there that don't have some obvious CG work? Even the amazing Jurassic Parks have some CG that is plain as day. Here is my take....We all know that we are almost at the point where CG will blend seamlessly into our movies(big budget movies for now).Would you rather that the writers and directors just limit their imagination and vision and sacrifice vision for realism? Be patient, the time is almost upon us when visual effects will blend seamlessly.

People seem to be so focused on CG that they forget about the story in the movies. Take the Matrix Reloaded for example, I can't remember the last time a big movie like this came out and 75% of the complaints about it were about the CG. Gimme a break! Did any of these complainers actually go into the movie for the continuing epic, or did they go in to see how bad the special effects were? I can understand complaints when a movie is made and a story is slapped on top of a special effects smorgasbord, that is bad film making and story telling in my opinion; but when the inverse is true...just sit back and appreciate the special effects effort. It is obvious that in our big budget Hollywood epics, the best of the best are hired to do the special effects. Do you CG complainers think that these guys are not giving these special effects their best work? I believe they are giving it all they have and getting paid big bucks to make it look as 'real' as possible. I tell you what, all those who complain about these movies...just go watch the National Geographic channel or either make us some better special effects.

 

[JeffLl]

great post Troy..good points

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Yes and know. I find pure CG fight scenes to be boring compared to far less complex practicals.

That said, I don't see how you could say that Spider-Man would have been a better film without CG... it couldn't have existed without CG.

 

[derek]

Not that I'm planning to see it...but have you seen the crappy CGI in the '2 Fast 2 Furious' commerical? I cannot believe they'd use garbage like that in a released film or why its even necessary within this genre type (except of a few specific scenes.)

 

[Lew Crippen]

I must say....I am tired of people complaining about CG ruining movies for them. There are some movies where the CG is integrated seamlessly and others where the CG is obvious as day.

Don’t forget that there is another type of CGI, where computers are used not so much to create special effects, but to make physical special effects more realistic. The computerized removal of the wires in the fight sequences in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is just one example.

But overall it is criticism of the existing standard that helps advance the state of the art.

 

[Greg_C_T]

CG isn't ruining my experience, but I am sad that I can't just assume things I see on the screen are actual locations or sets anymore.

"Oh, we need a mountain/building/waterfall/highway here? We'll just add it in later!"

It's hard to say "what a beautiful location/setup" when you don't know if what you're seeing is real of CG.

 

[Marvin Richardson]

The CGI in The Matrix Reloaded did not detract from the movie at all for me. Yes, it was cartoonish. Yes, it was "unrealistic" (whatever the heck that means). The thing is, I didn't give a damn. I was too busy enjoying a fun, thought-provoking movie to care about that. Same deal with Spider-Man. In both cases, I don't think that the perceived poor quality of the CGI is due in any way to lack of talent, skill, motivation or desire, but rather taking on a little too much. CGI with people, whether you place a real person on a CGI object, or create a CGI person, does not and cannot look real with current technology, at least not in a well lit dynamic scene involving lots of movement.
Some movies on the other hand, when all they have going for them is CGI (like the last two Star Wars movies...just my opinion) I do care what the CGI looks like, and the bad CGI gets on my nerves then.

 

[Artur Meinild]

Although i must say that lord of the rings is the best use of cgi i have seen yet.

Starship Troopers and Jurassic Park are also excellent if you ask me...
The thing is, these movies use a combination of CG and models - this somehow makes the CG look more real, as it *has* to be comparable to the model.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

I am tired of people complaining about CG ruining movies for them.

I don't think many people feel CG is ALWAYS bad or ruins ALL of them. However, it can be a genuine distraction. There's something to be said for effects that still feel "real". Maybe models and whatnot can't be as ambitious, but they have a believability about them that CG lacks.

Also, as noted previously, CG starts to make us suspect everything we see is fake. Not because it all LOOKS fake, but because we're getting trained to feel suspicious of what we see. I'm not anti-CG in general, but a lot of it rubs me the wrong way...

 

[Ted Lee]

i'm on the fence with this one.

someone mentioned the effects in the thing and an american werewolf in london? now THAT'S some cool effects. there's just something really "nifty" about old-school effects. maybe it's the sweat that goes into making those types of effects work. even simple things like car chase scenes or explosions just look better when you know it's real stuff that's getting crunched or blown up.

i sorta feel that current cgi is "cold". especially when it's not well done it really does distract me. i can certainly get over it and move on, but it does make me blip-out for a second.

but i admit cgi is getting better all the time. cgi characters like gollum, gimby (or whatever that thing was called from harry potter)are good examples. and i agree that the dinosaurs from jp are just awesome - to this day i am still amazed everytime i watch the raptor scene when they're in the kitchen.

so, clearly it still requires strong talent to pull off cgi.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

The trick to getting around problems with watching extraneous CGI use in films is to either realize that there's probably a LOT more CGI than you notice (and there really is) or to think "well would it really have been better if they used another method?" Looking back at films like Jaws and even the first Matrix, a lot of things just look fake. Even in the first Star Wars trilogy. I'd rather have CGI characters that have physics that look realistic (such as the punches in Matrix Reloaded at some points) than have extraneous use of puppets, robots, machines, and strings that look too much like what they actually are.

In The Matrix Reloaded, I looked at the one scene with the 100 Agent Smiths as "a very cool idea, regardless of the amount of CGI" and that made it easier to watch. Then again, I could care less about the existence or absence of CGI.

 

[david stark]

well yes and no. I do think that cgi should be a last resort for film makers because it doesn't fully integrate yet (by this I mean cgi characters and scenes, not just removing wires from scenes). I have been a bit dissapointed with a few films (Spiderman, matrix reloaded as a couple of examples) that I have really enjoyed, but I do think could have been done better with a little less CGI. Not no CGI, but using a bit more live action.

The one recent film that I thought really suffered was blade 2, one scene (with the 2 ninjas fighting blade near the beginning) looked like it was taken straight from street fighter. Possibly the worst use of cgi was the fast and the furious, I couldn't stop laughing during the car chases.

For me using car chases as an example the chases in ronin and the bourne identity were actually done without special effects and becasue of that are far better than any cgi offering.