Why CGI sucks and The Thing (1982) is the GOAT special effects

[TheGumby]

I've always felt jurassic park was GOAT.

 

[Turtlejuice]

It's funny, cause us adults look at cgi and say "it looks fake", and wish for practical effects. But I've heard kids, after watching older movies with practical effects, and say "it looks fake". I guess it's a matter of perspective.

CGI is badass though, the only reason you don't realize it, is because good cgi goes unnoticed. And yeah, good practical effects are awesome too.

You're kind of making 2 different points there. Very high budget CGI is often very good, and even then you can often tell looking at it, that it is not physically part of the world. High budget physical effects look very good, perhaps not as good as the CGI, but you can tell looking at it that it is part of the world, and not something imposed over the top.

Low budget practical and cgi effects both generally look fake, but at least the physical effects looks like they're real objects. Low budget cgi looks fake and like it's not real.

CGI has become a tool for the lazy. Using digital graphics to substitute creative thinking.

 

[BVG]

pretty great analysis!

 

[Prefect]

It's funny, cause us adults look at cgi and say "it looks fake", and wish for practical effects. But I've heard kids, after watching older movies with practical effects, and say "it looks fake". I guess it's a matter of perspective.

CGI is badass though, the only reason you don't realize it, is because good cgi goes unnoticed. And yeah, good practical effects are awesome too.

I think they are keying off of the frame rate of stop motion effects. I notice this even in stuff like T2 and it is a little distracting. Interpolating and adding frames in my opinion might help with stop motion. I would guess that would be easier than high frame rate stop motion. They grew up with CGI so just the fakeness of cgi isn't what is probably distracting. They are already wired to not be bothered that something doesn't look 100% real.

 

[Dizzy]

Video led me to another that said the studio that did the practical effects for the 2011 Thing and found out they were in talks to do the effects for I Am Legend. I always thought that movie's terrible CGI held it back tremendously.

To me it's so bad it almost ruins what I thought was a pretty decent movie otherwise.

 

[ReAnimator Reagan]

Honestly, what kind of an argument are you expecting in what boils down to a matter of taste?

perhaps one single reason
say I like IPAs, now this is a matter of taste, but i can still tell you the things about an IPA that i like

I do like
or
i don't like

with no reason is just an empty post.

CGI is only getting better. It's improving very quickly. I can just imagine what it's going to be like in 10 years. Same goes for video games, too. Movie CGI and video game graphics are very good today, but like always, I'm sure in 10 years I, as well as most others, will look back at the games of today and say "wow, these graphics are pretty shitty" or something along those lines because of how insane they're going to be down the road.

Well, the thing 2011 still looked like shit. How many years do you want to catch up to practical effects made in 1982???? A century?

 

[Prefect]

Video led me to another that said the studio that did the practical effects for the 2011 Thing and found out they were in talks to do the effects for I Am Legend. I always thought that movie's terrible CGI held it back tremendously.

To me it's so bad it almost ruins what I thought was a pretty decent movie otherwise.

Paycheck had some really bad special effects, which was sad since it is a neat movie. When I first saw it I was thinking it was made like in 95-96. It was made in 2003.

 

[SheetsMMAfan]

yeah, I prefer The Howling transformations over that other werewolf movie. I don't think CGI will ever do monsters convincingly.

I respect old movies for what they were, I truly do. Howling was one of my FAVORITE scary guilty pleasures as a kid and I have watched it a TON!

That being said, people don't want to watch a dude transform into a werewolf for 4 minutes on screen, when GREAT CGI could do it in seconds.

Their was VERY BAD costumes/design/special effects back in the day, just like their was/is bad CGI nowadays.

When done right, actually, when it's not even done BAD, I enjoy it and prefer it.

But really, watching a dude slowly transform into a werewolf like that was ahead of it's time, but no one wants to sit in a theatre seat, modern day, in the "I need it now" era we live in.

 

[ReAnimator Reagan]

I respect old movies for what they were, I truly do. Howling was one of my FAVORITE scary guilty pleasures as a kid and I have watched it a TON!

That being said, people don't want to watch a dude transform into a werewolf for 4 minutes on screen, when GREAT CGI could do it in seconds.

Their was VERY BAD costumes/design/special effects back in the day, just like their was/is bad CGI nowadays.

When done right, actually, when it's not even done BAD, I enjoy it and prefer it.

But really, watching a dude slowly transform into a werewolf like that was ahead of it's time, but no one wants to sit in a theatre seat, modern day, in the "I need it now" era we live in.

You do understand that you can still edit a scene down??? You do understand special effects does not mean you fired your editor. I still sit and watch the whole transformation scene even though I could play it a 2x.

The Thing 1982, did it have the same problem? I mean, there was practical effects and all in it.

 

[SheetsMMAfan]

You do understand that you can still edit a scene down??? You do understand special effects does not mean you fired your editor. I still sit and watch the whole transformation scene even though I could play it a 2x.

The Thing 1982, did it have the same problem? I mean, there was practical effects and all in it.

I get it, and I get what you are looking at and appreciating about what these teams have accomplished. I get that scenes can be edited down and such, I get that whole jargin and what you are trying to represent. I appreciate these guys for what they did and what they had to work with at the time as well.

I also REALLY appreciate these teams who are making visually stunning CGI scenes. Making a guy transform into a werewolf with nothing but camera work, physical effects and makeup was great for when they did it, but some of the stuff that movie companies are churning out now is just spectacular.

I am not trying to take away from that stuff, just trying to say that in this day in age, CGI over took all those larger scale manual processes for a reason.

I still LOVE the way that Nicotero and his teams can do some VERY badass makeup. TWD cannot do CGI for shit really, but they have top notch teams doing physical applications all the time. There, I would LOVE to see more physical work than CGI no doubt.

When I watch Ironman prance around in his billion dollar suits of armor, I would much rather see all that in CGI. Physical applications would be VERY clumsy and restrictive in those cases.

I am not saying there was a "problem" with the stuff lasting/taking awhile, it's just that the stuff was fine back then for what it was. This day in age, most people want stuff NOW and PERFECT.

Perfect example before i am done trying to overexplain myself...

Hulk TV show vs Hulk in Avengers (o any time he hulks up in newer movies). Lou was perfect for what they had at the time, but for the speciman that Hulk ACTUALLY is, CGI is the go to for that. I still watch the TV show ALL the damn time and am in awe of Lou's build, but I love my CGI when it's done right too.

On the topic of Horror, I do agree man. Horror felt so much scarier back in the day when it was physically done, but when CGI is done right and all t's are crossed and i's are dotted, it looks spectacular.

 

[benebox]

I watched Terminator 2 for the first time since I was a child expecting it to look terrible and the effects are better and any film I have seen in the last 10 years.

 

[usulrah]

perhaps one single reason
say I like IPAs, now this is a matter of taste, but i can still tell you the things about an IPA that i like

I do like
or
i don't like

with no reason is just an empty post.



Well, the thing 2011 still looked like shit. How many years do you want to catch up to practical effects made in 1982???? A century?

Of course the cgi looked shit it was a very last minute add to the film, it was rushed and unfinished. You can't use one films shit cgi to say all cgi sucks, especially a film with a very good reason why the cgi is so bad. Did you think the cgi in the new planet of the apes was shit ? I'd say that's caught up to the thing 1982 or atleast is close

There's heaps of films with shit practical effects too

 

[Dan O]

Has anybody seen The Void? Pretty lackluster story (weird combination of Hell raiser and HP Lovecraft lore) but the practical effects were pretty great for a horror movie in this day and age.

Just watched it earlier today.

Really enjoyed the effects.

Would recommend

 

[the ambush]

One of the things that is kind of messed up now is that a lot of those horror movie special effects were done low budgets so they were made to look only as good as they needed to be. Some of them don't look as good when scaled up to HD or 4k. Not that that is their fault but some things just don't look as good when scaled up. I think even if you went with practical effects, you might still have to touch it up with CGI because you start noticing more stuff at higher resolutions.

One thing I enjoyed in the older movies, especially horror movies was the haze you will get with the film. Reference Rosemary's Baby, Jaws, or The Omen (1976) for the classic grainy film. It may be difficult to explain yet I can't stand the contemporary movies and the clear, glossy look to them.

 

[PEB]

Really good CGI can take years to develop and produce extremely good results. Creating a high quality human form for a movie specially a character who resembles one of the stars could take 6 to 10 modelers up to a year or more. Case in point when the old terminator faced the young terminator in Terminator Genisys it took like 6 modelers 3 months just working on the young CGI terminators eyes to get something reasonable.

The eye truely are the windows into the soul and check out this complexity of creating a decent eye.



They are building massive libraries of human models that they can latter use instead of going back and redo them again given the amount of work to produce them in the first place.

EDIT: Going to a Hollywood studio and requesting 3 years to produce and film a movie gets most a lot of dead air. Very few people are given the luxury of time and budget to do high quality CGI based films do to the massive upfront costs. People seem to think great CGI movies are cheaper to make then practical effect based films most cases no.

James Cameron Titanic and Avatar used CGI but Avatar raised the bar to the point that Fox almost walked away from the project. Development costs for CGI and sets ran into the 10's of millions so much so that James Cameron had to make a statement that the next Avatar film was going to come in well within budget. He said much of the assets developed for Avatar would be used again in Avatar two and even then he only willing to say that it will take years to finish.

 

[Plutoburn]

CGI doesn't suck.

The problem with CGI is that it's a thankless job. In most occasions, the best compliment you can give to a CGI is to think it's not CGI. So the really well done ones get overlooked. And when it's done poorly, then it sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

[PEB]

Terminator Genisys model face on the stunt actor. The rendered Terminator on the right.

 

[PEB]

CGI doesn't suck.

The problem with CGI is that it's a thankless job. In most occasions, the best compliment you can give to a CGI is to think it's not CGI. So the really well done ones get overlooked. And when it's done poorly, then it sticks out like a sore thumb.

You almost feel bad for the CGI people when the work gets torn apart.

 

[SheetsMMAfan]

Great contributions PEB!

 

[PEB]

I like to also talk about the Jurassic Park effect there was a lot of CGI in the film but also tons of practical effects. Most of the close up shots with the raptors was done using practical effects "robotic". The close up of the T-Rex again was done using practical effects. The CGI stuff though impressive it really was not as big a deal as people make it out to be but at that time it was impressive. People also did not have the level of experiences with CGI in films they really where taken in by the CGI dinos. Today the bar is up almost to the sky working on getting CGI right. This includes measuring color saturation and light intensity on a CGI object in a mixed with real world objects in a scene. They have built into their tools meters for getting reflections and color right in a scene. They do weeks of pre-visualization by watching how sun light behaves and if there is even water in the scene how the CGI object will reflect in the scene based on where the sun is currently at that specific time of day. Crazy level of detail work.