Really c'mon why do all these films try to fool us with their computer-generated objects? I see CGI as animation. That is all it is, and that's how it will always be. All these movies like Star Wars, LOTR, etc, are the same as Roger Rabbit. Its animation mixed in with real life. I really wish this phase in Hollywood would end but apparently its not gonna to. End Rant

This integration of live action and animation is getting old. Like that rediculous animated film King Kong. How old is that? Seventy years!?!!? Enough already, get over it Hollywood.

All jokes aside, It's not the nature of the effect or how it is created, it's the story and the way the effects are used to tell it that's important.

Special effects are and always have been the art of combining live action elements with artificial or "animated" elements. Think of the stop motion animation in the Star Wars films. Think of the matte paintings in The Wizard of Oz. CGI is simply an evolution of previous concepts. Anyway, it allows us to see things we wouldn't otherwise be able to see. If we didn't have CGI, what would the LOTR films be like? Would you prefer to have Gollum be a guy in a rubber suit?

Yeah, sometimes they don't even animate it... I heard lots of movies have "Matte" paintings (maybe some guy named Matt was the first to do these??) in them, to take the place of backgrounds... I mean, come on, just shoot the real backgrounds already!!! A prime example of this fakery was on Mission to Mars, I heard they used these "Matte" paintings for lots of the background shots. Why couldn't they just shoot the backgrounds when they were there on Mars filming the actors??

Special effects are special effects...if you object to CGI then you should object to make-up (as in monster), costumes, miniatures. There is no difference.


Unless your watching a live action news reoprt, what you see in no way resembles "real life" or "reality" AT ALL. Hell, even if one is watching a life broadcast, you could still argue it in no way reflects reality.

If one is to take your point of view, all film is fake. All of it. No one part is anymore fake than the rest, it is an illusion constructed from a variety of different methods, of which CGI is but one (others being direction, editing, lighting, costume, set design, etc...).

Now, were you to object to the manner in which most CGI is utilized, that I could agree with.

And no, not all film is fake. There are tons of fine films that don't rely on special effects. Again I'm all for creating for the illusion of film, it's just that CGI is horrible, especially when they can use other methods which are more realistic.

what do you consider to be horrible? i think the best uses of any computer generated imagery is when you don't even think there is any. one example that i always find interesting was the scene in contact when ellie runs up the stairs to get her father's medicine. and later on in the film.. reflections of jake busey in ellie's car window as she's driven back to the observatory while all the vegan fanatics are out.

sure.. over the top uses for CGI can get way out of hand. but i've liked the subtle uses as well as the large scale ones... as long as it's all relative to the story.

sounds like the reason you hate CGI is cause you only notice the bad CGI. If you could spot the good CGI it wouldn't be good CGI. You have to realize that there is a ton of CGI in movies that you probably never noticed, most of us would agree that sometimes Hollywood goes overboard but for the most part, like it was stated, this is an evolution not a revolution or a fad.

yeah that is sort of how I look at it too.. For example, the sharks in Deep Blue Sea were "ok" but the some of the attacks just looked really, really bad IMO and more or less broke the mood of the film for me being I was not thinking "Ahhhh shark attack!!" as much I was thinking ---errrr well that looked fake---

ah but then Reign of Fire was soooo good that when I saw it on the big screen I pretty much felt I was watching some sort of freaky trained real life dragon!

I think in a few years it will get to the point it will be hard to even tell where it has been added into a film. Plus there is a lot more to CGI effects then a creature in a film. Take Beautiful Mind for example, and the time laps stuff with the snow and so on... nothing wrong with that and it was seamless with in the film.

The stranger thing for me is to watch a DVD with the commentary one and hear all this little digital effects they do that one would never even think about. For example, in Collateral Damage they went in and added a little "danger" stick to a fuel line and so on.. so you would know it was a fuel line.. errr ok

I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Where were the realistic effects then?

I remember seeing cheesy rubber suits and stiff puppets and that weird blue matte fringe around composited images. I remember obvious miniatures with normal sized water or fire that always gave them away. Matte paintings that looked like matte paintings because the camera couldn't move. I remember iguanas passed off as dinosaurs. I remember that weird stacatto effect on stop-motion creatures (I adore Ray Harryhausen but did ANY of his effects EVER look real?). I remember obvious latex heads or appendages whenever they had to be chopped off. I remember flying people and things always had wires (when they didn't have blue matte fringes).

I remember mostly how special effects always seemed compromised, somehow. You'd see some really cool image on the poster or remember it from the book and then see it, and it was a cheesy puppet or something.

I remember seeing all these things and still enjoying the movie. Yeah, we'd comment on how fake something looked, but we got over it. You just expected it.

Now, when I see a movie, I see nothing compromised. Anything that can be imagined can be represented. I can see 10,000 Orcs attack Helm's Deep or see 100 Jedi fight 1000 robots, or see a giant 2 headed dog, or see dinosaurs that don's stutter when they move. I can see giant insects that don't look like they are just walking over a photo of a building. All it takes is acceptance of some CGI. Is it perfect? Nope. I can still spot it. But you know what? I don't care. It is a technique that has improved film effects so much that I forgive it. I have yet to see the dinosaur film that ever equalled Jurassic Park. I can finally see Lord of the Rings the way it should be seen. Has it hurt film? Depends. Some filmmakers use it to make moving Colorforms stories rather than real films with any kind of a soul(Read: George Lucas). But for the most part, it seems to do more good than evil.

Its just part of how things have changed. People whine about modern special effects when the old ones weren't any better and you didn't hear us whine about them. People whine when there is some slight difference when something is adapted from a novel or comic book to the screen. When in history has there ever been a movie that was exactly like the book?

Meh, this whole thread is just getting me angry. I'd better leave.

There is no difference between the continuity editing used to convey realism (which is rather artificial if you really watch) and CGI.

I will however agree that where other methods will provide better results they should be used. Somethings can only be done through CGI however and i would disagree that CGI is inherently horrible...sometimes you don't even notice it.

It sort of sounds like its the way that CGI is used that bothers you and i agree with that a lot of the time.

Yep, the CGI sharks couldn't compare to the robot sharks in Deep Blue Sea, it was very obvious when they weren't using the robots.

I had a debate about this with my brother. I told him I was going to see Spider-Man and the first things he says it "It's a cartoon". When I asked him what he meant by that he said " Do you really think he's swinging from building to building?" So I retorted with "Oh no I forgot, Woody Allen is really the president of San Marcos".

You can say that CGI is only "animation", that's partly true. But what CGI is it's a tool for telling a story that only a few years ago wouldn't be possible. For example. The climatic battle scene in Attack Of The Clones ( regardless of what you think of the movie I'm going somewhere with this) that kind of scene with over a quarter million troops on the ground wouldn't have been possible without CGI. As would the battle of Helm's Deep in the upcoming film Lord Of The Rings; The Two Towers.

Lord Of The Rings is the best example of how a movie probably could not be made without the use of CGI. For anyone who has read the trilogy they'd be able to tell you that the sheer magnitude of the imagery would be nearly impossible to pull off without the use of some CGI effects.

What alot of movie goers have to remember is that CGI is a relatively new technology. As with anything it's going to get better over time. Take the CGI used in Toy Story. Mostly plastic, sterile textures. Compare that to the CGI used in Attack Of The Clones and Lord Of The Rings.

There are some people who will say "Well I don't like fantasy I like movies that are 'real'." I think that's somewhat of a misnomer because unless you're watching a biopic or a documentary what you are watching is not real! It's all a work of fiction. Like I said before, do you really think Woody Allen is the president of San Marcos?

I hate screws. Screws are stupid. Why don't people use nails?! Nails are much better than screws. I just wish this whole screw fad would end. I keep telling people this but for some reason they ignore me. I can't understand why.

My screw can beat up your nail, nailboy. Don't be messin' with my screw now.

We're there now. There are so many films with so much CGI that's simply impossible to detect. A Beautiful Mind had much more subtle CGI than the time lapse stuff, which was obviously an effect. I forget everything that was in there, but there were scenes where they just added in some trees, or changed the color of the leaves, or something like that (ack, my brain's going...). Then there's the scene where the little girl is running with the pigeons. Again, you'd never know there was CGI involved.

And like someone else mentioned, Contact is a great example of completely seamless CGI. Listen to the commentary track with the FX team, you'd be amazed at how many shots in that movie had CGI work done on them.