[OT] Down with CGI!

[shadow]

I apologize in advance for this topic being unrelated to D&D, but seeing the Star Wars and Spiderman theads really made me start thinking. I know the latest buzz in movies has been CGI. Everything now is CGI this and CGI that. I don't know about everyone else, but I'm really beginning to get a little ticked at CGI. At times, it can produce amazing results in movies, but to much of it just makes me sick. Do we really need a CGI yoda, when he has been doing fine as a puppet in the last 4 Star Wars movies? What about the CGI Scooby in the upcoming Scooby Doo movie? (yech!!!) Take for example the famous T-1000 is T2. The T-1000 couldn't have been done in any other medium. That was a great example of early CGI. Now think of the CGI abomination known as Jar-Jar Binks! Now that CGI allows cheap and versatile special effects, Lucas and other movie makers are only thinking about whether or not such a CGI character is possible, not whether it is necessary. Methinks that Lucas added Jar-Jar to show off the capabilities of CGI rather than to make a real character.
Some of my favorite movies such as Aliens and the original Star Wars trilogy were filmed before the advent of CGI. They still have good special effects, without CGI.
Moreover, often CGI and real actors just don't combine. There just is something that doesn't look right with slick CGI images superimposed upon scenes of real actors and real backgrounds. There are plenty of cheap CGI scenes to demonstrate this.
Don't get me wrong. There are some places where CGI works really well, and I think that some all CGI movies such as Toy Story were great. However, too much CGI in the wrong places is just sickening.

 

[Crothian]

The problem with CGI is when it overshadows the movie. That is when I don't like it. There is a more to a movie then special effects.

Yoda as CGI should be okay if they need him to do things that aren't easy with a puppet. But until I see it I can't pass judgement.

 

[ColonelHardisson]

It's good that all this CGI is being used in such high-profile films. This is because it raises the bar, forcing CGI to continually improve and progress. At this rate, CGI will be next to impossible to pick out in 5 years or less; the only way to tell would be if something that obviously couldn't really exist or happen was on screen. Actually, that may be part of CGI's problem now; it's being used to portray stuff that couldn't possibly be in the real world, so it's easy to point at it and say CGI. There have been some good, subtle uses, like in Saving Private Ryan or Enemy at the Gates.

 

[Droogie]

I kinda see what you mean. After seeing trailers for AotC, I think it has a good shot at being nominated for the best animated film oscar next year.

But like it or hate it, CGI is here to stay. From what I understand, Yoda kicks butt in the new film, and he pulls off some interesting acrobatics that you couldn't do with puppets.

I agree that there is good CGI and bad CGI. But in the good 'ol days there was always good fx and bad fx. Thanks to CGI, there has been an explosion of cool films that could have never been made, namely, LOTR.

Even though most of us hate Jar Jar, I have to admit, the character CGI was done quite well. If Jar Jar had been done with a suit and mechanical mask, he would have looked like a silly muppet.

 

[Droogie]

There have been some good, subtle uses, like in Saving Private Ryan or Enemy at the Gates.

I agree Colonel. Thanks to CGI, films like these would have been extremely difficult to make.

Some of the best CGI effects are the subtle ones, like in any Bob Zemekis film in the past 8 years. Remember how they erased Gary Sinise's legs in Forrest Gump?

 

[Randolpho]

Well, I think CGI is good. Without CGI, we couldn't have such wonderful things as this forum, for example. Then there's things like shopping carts, search engines, and classifieds, none of which would be possible without CGI.

 

[Ashtal]

Personally, I think a muppet participating in a full-fledged, ass-kicking fight scene with a lightsaber would have been truly laughable.

Long live CGI!

 

[mattcolville]

I apologize in advance for this topic being unrelated to D&D, but seeing the Star Wars and Spiderman theads really made me start thinking. I know the latest buzz in movies has been CGI.

CGI was the 'latest buzz' ten years ago.

 

[Aeris Winterood]

CGI

I for one, like what or where CGI is going. I think it is true that the truely fantastic (cave trolls) ( flaming eye) are awesome and we know that it is CGI because we know they do not truelly exist. I agree about the subteldies of CGi.... i.e. Private Ryan and Gump....

Like the Colonel, in 5 years or so we may not know what is actually real!

 

[Nightfall]

CGI has nothing on my dark and twisted imagination!