Computer Graphics, and why they're killing movies

[JustJack]

We live in a day and age where we can do just about anything with computers, especially in movies, which brings up a whole new medium for movie special effects. While movies like The Matrix may stun us with their expert use of flashy graphics, and animated movies are taken to a whole new level with smoother animation and faster paced editing....other movies are being killed by it.

In this case, I'd like to take MIB & MIB2 into concideration.
MIB, I just watched it a little while ago. IMO, the graphics and whatnot are realistic, moreso that MIB2(which was made later, and in theory, the graphics SHOULD have been much better, with modern technology). In MIB, any "stunts" are used pretty much with people attached to wires, and flung around. The space ship crash at the end of the movie was made using a model-ship landing into a pile of dirt, and then later being digitally enhanced and placing J & K infront of it. Using models and guy's attatched to wires...these things make movie appear more realistic. Everything looks in its place, all is right with the world. And with computers, they simply used it up to clean up the live footage. Remove the wires pulling the kid up the building, and tossing Jay into a car. Using computers to make a ship crashing through a globe look massive and real. Even when Edgar ripped the back of his head open and the CG-Bug Edgar pulled itself out..it looked clean and realistic.
The MIB2 comes along. I must say this was the most fake looking movie I have seen in a long time. For a long time, I felt that the CGI that surrounded Deacon Frost at the end of Blade(the first one), was terribly fake. But I must say MIB2 takes the cake. I can't get the vision out of my head...Zed being held up by Serleena's tenticles. Say what you will about the infamous "kicking scene"...but when Zed was floating about 2 feet over the ground, being "wrapped" in those...TERRIBLY fake tenticles...I felt like crying. 4 years of advanced computer graphics technology, and we get THIS?!! Serleena didn't fit in the movie at all...I still feel her alien form simply didn't match her surroundings. In the good ol' days, they may have actually made tenticle-wrappings, and tied Zed up with them, then hung him from some wires..and y'know what? It would have looked terribly real. BUT NO! Instead of using real props, we have an ugly..clearly computer generated green thing wrapped around him. When Jay was fighting the black-cloak dude who turned out to be 3 or 4 little dudes..you could tell Jay was CG fighting CG guys in hover crafts. Then you'd get a glimpse of Will Smith..and..it all fit together so terribly. And don't get me started on Serleena's ship. I have made more realistic looking things with my Adobe Photoshop. Sure, it may have been a tiny shiny thing..but....it was terrible.

I prefer the good ol' days when Hollywood would spend countless days and hours to rig up some spectacular stunt with cars flying around, and massive explosions, and all that good stuff. The classic stunts which take months of preparation and practice so that when James Bond makes that jump over the two buildings, he doesn't fall into the helicopter blades. The classic Jackie Chan stunts where he'll do anything that could get him killed, but in the end doesn't. No adays, just use RealScan technology, have the actors face implanted on a CG body..and the work is done from there. Sure, it looks fake.....but at least no actors are at risk....... :rolleyes:

I'll tell you one thing.....Jackie Chan dont need no Computer doing the stunts for him....

[Jedigreedo]

The Spider-Man cgi was good... but then again that was pretty much essential to the film.

I agree, that's one reason why I favor the Star Wars Trilogy over the Prequels, because while they're very ooh and aah, George is trying to show off the CGI too much. The greatest part about the trilogy is that it was so real feel, but in the prequels everything is more flashy and smooth. Even stuff that shouldn't be flashy and smooth.

It just makes you wonder, when Lucas makes the archival edition of ROTJ, will he add thousands of CGI Ewoks??? :eek:

Some of the CGI is necasary for scenes that couldn't be easily pulled off, but for crying outloud, did we really need to watch a chrome ship fly through Coruscant clouds for 4-5 minutes only to explode on a platform??? The shuttle arrivals in the Trilogy weren't nearly that long...or dull.

[James]

So are we getting to a point where we're trying to do things with CGI we should't be attempting until the next technological stage? I recall CSO (Colour seperation overlay - the terrible blue screen effect) reaching a similar junction.

I agree, even Spider-Man suffered the occasionally poor shot - such a high budget film you'd expect perfection. Are we pushing the FX envelope too much? Some people said that LOTR suffered occasionally and SW ATOC certainly did.

The best CGI is when you don't realise it is CGI - perhaps film makers should concentrate on blending CGI into a film rather than having to constantly create creatures and scenerios which make it stand out.

[TimTwoFace]

I have nothing against CGI or great special effects or anything. I just don't like it when a movie's script is SO lacking, that the people making the movie try to compensate with special effects and cool eye candy. More and more "blockbuster" movies are going this route these days, especially in the summer.

From what I've seen this summer, one movie really stuck out as a GOOD movie with good CGI - and that would be SPIDER-MAN.

ATTACK OF THE CLONES had great CGI and other effects, but the first half of the movie was an utter bore to me. The last hour was terrific, though - and coming from a true anti-Star-Wars guy like me, that's a big compliment. :)

MEN IN BLACK 2 was just disappointing to me - the effects were obviously the reason why the movie was made, because it lacked all the originality and the great underlying theme of the first one. Yes, it was still entertaining, but I would've liked for the movie to have more going for it.

And so on, and so on...

-Tim

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

A statement Carved In Stone at Pixar:

"No amount of technology is capable of turning a bad movie into a good one."

This is true whether you're talking about meticulously planned stunts with hundreds of extras and rigging/blue-screening out the wazoo or CGI. Plan 9 from Outer Space would still be a piece of trash even if they had ILM and the people who did the Resident Evil movie do the alien and zombie effects. Metropolis (the 1927 Fritz Lang version, not the recent animated one) is still a gripping and facinating movie, despite the laughably primitive effects by today's standards.

-- Ed/Ace

[JustJack]

All I'm saying is that as far as REALISTIC EFFECTS go, I say that they should still go with the "Build a Model, blow it up, then use computers to simply clean up the picture and make it look more massive" approach. Like in Independance day. They spent months building a model of the white house, they rigged up little cannons behind it, then blew it up. Then they used computers to make the explosion and everything look more realistic/clean and whatnot. I dont think anyone can doubt how REAL that scene look. If aliens really did blow up the white house, I can imagine thats how it'd actually look.

BUT in Independance Day 2(the upcoming sequal?), I can already see it now. Whatever gets blown up(speaking of which...what's left to blow up...??), I bet with be entirely Computer generated, and wont look nearly as good/real as the first movie. *sigh*.

Speaking of ID4, I loved watching the "making of the movie", and they had a street full of people running, and a bunch of cars rigged to wires, and being tossed up and thrown around. THATS the kinda stuff I'm talking about.

But as far as writing is concerned, I guess thats why Pixar not only puts out excelent-looking movies, but also well writen ones. I loved Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and I think everyone here loved Monsters Inc. Why? These were well writen stories! Even Pizar's animated shorts clearly had a lot of time and thought put into them, and I'd like to talk about the "old man playing chess" short as my prime example. That thing was wonderful. And it was only about a minute long.

Anyway. Lets get back to the good ol' days of well writen stories with realistic looking effects?

[oranthal]

sometimes CGI is necessary and if done right, it will add to the movie instead diverting attention away from it. one reason for the use of CGI is that saves on money. building sets for a scene can really be expensive, and using CGI is one way around that.

i remember when Ebert was reviewing "bourne identity" and said that using the real streets of france as the setting for the movie sets a tone for the movie that can never be replicated by any use CGI. i know some people may not like him, but i agree with his comment.

[Joker85]

I agree 100% Just Jack! I think that CGI is killing movies. You brought up the Matrix. See, I didn't like that crap in the Matrix, even though it made sense to have him dodge bullets in slow motion, but now alot of movies are doing the slow motion thing and its ridiculous looking! And I agree about MIB2, it relied to heavily on CGI. Same for the new Star Wars trilogy. See, the problem there is, no matter how good a job you do on the CGI characters, they will never have the same personality as an actor in suit. The original Star Wars aliens had character. Look at Chewbacca, Greedo, Jabba, etc. versus Jar Jar and the other CGI aliens in the recent 2. They look pretty cool, but thats it. And the first fight around the Death Star, was shot on like a model or something that they built out of popcicle sticks. Thats whats cool about that kind of stuff. They can use their imagination and creativity and make something that looks totally believable. But it kinda take the fun out of it knowing that it came off a computer. I am in total agreement here and I think you brought up a very good point!

[Jedigreedo]

"They had cannibalized thousands of battle ship kits and set them up on ping pong tables in the parking lot and were just making passes in a jeep." - Mark explaining how they did some DS trench run shots.

In Spider-Man they also had the slow-motion thing, but it was actually well inserted. It did seem a little too over-done in the part where they're just taking the "camera" all around the hallway to show off the Spider sense, but the rest of it was nicely pulled off.

[Simpler Simon]

Originally posted by JustJack
I prefer the good ol' days when Hollywood would spend countless days and hours to rig up some spectacular stunt with cars flying around, and massive explosions, and all that good stuff. The classic stunts which take months of preparation and practice so that when James Bond makes that jump over the two buildings, he doesn't fall into the helicopter blades.

Actually, that particular stunt *WAS* CGI enhanced...when Bond's stunt double jumps over the roof, the blades aren't there, they were added in much later. That, I think, is partially why the new Bond movies aren't the same as the old ones. In The Spy Who Loved Me, the ski jump off the cliff is real. So were, in the other Bonds, the 360-car jump, the Eiffel tower jump, the parachute sequence. Yea we knew it was never the actor playing Bond, but the scenes were just so damn impressive that no one cared. Now, when we deliberately see Pierce Brosnan's mug as he runs from the helicopter blades, we know instantly that he'd never be allowed to perform that himself, and it really cheapens the scene instead of drawing us in.

Basically what it comes down to is that the special effects don't detract from the flick. Remember, there's a reason movie companies are switching to CGI for effects. For the great "traditional" effects shots like the opening Star Destroyer chase in Star Wars, the Endor battle in ROTJ, the cool aliens of the cantina, we get that short glimpse of an x-wing toy over the death star (you know the one, it stands out now especially since the shots before and after it are CGI), sy snootles pre-special edition of ROTJ, the force blob under Luke's speeder, the empty hallways of cloud city pre ESB SE, etc. Those last few really took me out of the movie just like bad CGI did.

In the case of the new Star Wars prequels, I think the fact that everything looks so clean is more a Lucas thing than a CGI failure. If you've been to starwars.com and seen the few actual sets the crew did use, they're all a sterile gray, very smooth, very "set-looking". And while Jar Jar was annoying in character, as a CGI creation I thought he was excellent, with little nuances and stuff a puppet could just never pull off. Same with Watto (my fav), Dexter Jettster, and the CGI Yoda maybe even surpassed everyone's expectations

[Jedigreedo]

I like Jar-Jar, and I liked Yoda in AOTC because I'm sure if they tried to pull more than 75% with a puppeteer that person would then have one that actually bends 360 degrees afterwards. :D

I didn't like the CGI 3PO in AOTC though... I know it was supposed to be directed towards kids, but it could've been directed towards kids and been less coincidental and such to appeal to more ages.

[James]

What I hate about CGI technique is the copy syndrome.

For instance, you have the explosive wave effect in Star Trek VI. How many times have we seen that rendered since? In virtually every space movie - Star Wars SE included.

The Matrix slow motion action - again overkilled in every movie. We get a new effect and it's overkilled. By the time it got to Spidermam I barely noticed it...

[Weatherman]

I'l lagree that way to many movies realy way too much on CGI. Even some of those scenes in Spiderman where he's kicking those thugs around could very eaisly have been done in Wire-fu, ratherthen the very CGI-looking CGI they used. Still, when done right, it can produce some really good stuff, ala The Matrix, LotR:FotR and Minority Report.


One quick comment about the SW:AotC opening scene with the ship flying by, I think that scene was actually very well done. It gave us a sense of how vast this planet is when the buildings reach up above the coulds. yes, Lucas did rely on CGI for some shots that would have been very doable with physical effects, but how aboiut we save most of out nitpicks about that movie for the hideously bad "love" story,ratehr then George's love affair with his computers.(ok, so that wasn't so quick, sue me :P )

[Jedigreedo]

The opening scene I agree was very well done, but for someone who's been quoted to say that he doesn't like movies that hang on to one scene just to show off special effects it's pretty much a time waster. There could've been more the Geonosis battle if they hadn't spent so much with like the 3PO scene and the opening sequence.

[Weatherman]

The opening scene really wasn't that long, maybe 2 min at most, but you're right about C-3PO. He was amazingly anoying and we definately could have done without his babbling on Geonosis.


Another great example of how CGI can enhance rather then replace the actual movie is Fight Club. Everything was integrated, natural and it served the story, rather then the other way around. Wish more filmmakers could learn that trick that Fincher uses.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

I felt (and still feel) that the absolute best use of a CGI effect was in Amelie, when the lead character turns into a puddle of water as she swoons. It manages to speak VOLUMES about what she feels at the time, far more than any single gesture the actress could have done. It is the one and only time I have ever seen a special effect of any kind used purely to tell the audience something about a character, rather than being little more than eye-candy.

BTW, it's worth mentioning that for all the touting Lucas does for digital technology and CGI, Episode II used a huge number of model shots and good old fashioned, non-CGI effects. I think the opening shot was actually done with models; the computer only added the reflections on the Naboo ship.

-- Ed/Ace

[Fallout Boy]

Originally posted by Weatherman

Another great example of how CGI can enhance rather then replace the actual movie is Fight Club. Everything was integrated, natural and it served the story, rather then the other way around. Wish more filmmakers could learn that trick that Fincher uses.

Yes! That scene in the Narrator's apartment when the IKEA-like catalog comes to life is a classic!

[Weatherman]

Exactly Falloutboy. That kind of seemless integration where the effect enhances the scene rather the just replacing the actions of thr human leads is the best way to use CGI in a live action movie.

Ace, that opening scene was model work? Wow. So the clouds and the reflections were the only additions eh?

[Floydian Slip]

if you want to see crap CGI, look at spy kids 2. it looks terrible, as does the movies plot.

[Simpler Simon]

Originally posted by Travis 3pB
if you want to see crap CGI, look at spy kids 2. it looks terrible, as does the movies plot.

Well thats due to several factors:

a) Has it even been a year since they released the first one?
b) The original was made for a low, low, $35 million, so the studio execs probably thought there wasn't any reason to enhance the budget much, especially for a family film.
c) The target audience isn't as picky about CGI.

[Ed Liu]

Howdy,

Originally posted by CaptainJustice
a) Has it even been a year since they released the first one?
b) The original was made for a low, low, $35 million, so the studio execs probably thought there wasn't any reason to enhance the budget much, especially for a family film.
c) The target audience isn't as picky about CGI.

Actually, the studio asked Robert Rodriguez how much more money he wanted for the sequel after the original was a hit. He asked for less and then went over-budget, resulting in a sequel that cost about the same amount of money as the original. There's an article about him in this past weekend's New York Times Arts & Leisure section.

Remember that this is a guy who made his first (and, IMO, his best) movie by selling himself out for medical research to raise money. He's all about getting as much as you can on screen for as little money as possible, which is a discipline I think a lot of directors could use. If the effects don't look as awesomely amazing as they could, that's a conscious choice on the part of the director.

-- Ed/Ace