One of the main reasons CGI outshined techniques like stop-motion was movement. The physics are off.Īfter the success of movies like Terminator 2 and Jurassic Park, it became apparent that CGI was the best way to create realistic effects. The CGI reinforced the idea that the dinos weren’t just static robots, and the robots reinforced the idea that they were really in the scene with the actors.
What you got were wide CGI shots offset with closeup live action animatronics. They couldn’t design the animatronics to walk around for the wide shots, so they used CGI to solve this problem. Jurassic Park is a great example of complimentary CGI. Even Steven Spielberg had this mindset until he introduced Shia Leboeuf going full-on Tarzan with CGI monkeys in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The CG Supervisor for that movie had this to say: “Viewers will hardly notice the 45 minutes of CGI in the film.” Really? Because of this, is was used as a last resort. CGI has transitioned from a complimentary dish to the main course.ĬGI had major limitations when first introduced. Is CGI getting worse? Or are audiences harder to please? Let’s take a closer look at the state of VFX industry in the following post. Sure, you have amazing anomalies like Gravity or Interstellar, but on a whole, CGI quality is trending downward. It seems like “good” CGI, or at least audiences perceptions of good CGI, is in decline over the past few years. It's like the scene foresees your low expectations and somehow manages to limbo further under them.How much CGI is too much CGI? Let’s take a look at ten issues I have with modern CGI. It's not that the effect doesn't hold up, it's that even though you remember it being bad, you're never prepared for just how bad it is when you see it again. From day one, this scene has had the aesthetic appeal of a very smart gorilla's attempt to draw using MS Paint. It started out bad, looking like a cruel practical joke being played by a mischievous AMC projectionist. This is a special addition to the list, in that it didn't just age terribly like whatever the opposite of a fine wine is. Remember Metal Mario from Super Smash Bros.? They were made out of him. Ejecting his nigh-unbreakable blades from their fleshy sheaths, the audience is stunned when, in a twist, he doesn't have Wolverine's classic claws, but rather six cel-shaded mistakes jutting from his knuckles. In a scene that will live in infamy, Hugh Jackman, recently having had his bones reupholstered, takes a quiet moment to check out his sick new knife hands in the bathroom of a kindly older couple.
This left us with a cartoon protagonist whose skin had all the natural luster of a Stretch Armstrong doll that was left lying prone in the sun too long. Somebody must have offered to stay late and paint some details into Neo's face, but their boss didn't want to seem overbearing and told them to go home to their family. Transitions between live action and animation have all the creamy smoothness of a small town pothole. What we ended up with instead was a grudge match between Keanu and a few hundred Elronds that's definitively hard on the eyes. Surely, somewhere nestled in four and a half hours of sequels, we'd get something as iconic.
The first installment in the series gave us bullet time, code vision, and the 360-degree kick and slow-motion dodge scenes that everybody and their mom and their mom's friend Karen who drinks too much spent the next two decades parodying. Look, finding flaws in the Matrix movies is like shooting fish in a low-security aquarium, but if there was one thing we were supposed to be able to count on them for, it was wildly immersive visuals.