But T2 is definitely recognized as one of the action films that brought CGI into the forefront, particularly with the T1000 effects, at least from what i remember. While it may not come close to the effects laden films out now, it certainly did "wow" people in that regard when it was released.

I think we can all agree that too much of any kind of special effect is a bad thing.

Like I said, it doesn't to me if it's done right but with that said I like to think of the original "Planet of the Apes" and to some degree the remake. This is a case of the performances overshadowing the sfx as it should be. The makeup for the original movie was awesome even with the double teeth and lack of movement in parts of the face. But the performances were so good you hardly notice those minor issues. In the new version the makeup and sfx were even better. They had the actors go the "monkey school" to learn realistic movement. Also, with some CGi mixed with live action they shot an amazing scene where the Apes were running on all fours. Something they never did in the original.

CGI wolves are hit or miss (more of the latter if you ask me), Brothers Grimm, Werewolf in Paris, Day After Tomorrow were terribly flawed in CGI. As for CGI blood and gore, some of it is used well, but after awhile, you start noticing it, give me old school Tom Savini grue.

It depends on who the 'lazy' remark is directed at. I would never say the process does not take pain-staking work on the part of the graphics team, so I wouldn't say THEY are lazy. But I think a director or producer can be considered lazy if he'd rather just shoot everything against a blue screen and pawn the effects work off on the CGI crew, rather than be forced to deal with makeup effects, sets, stunts, etc. But this is only referring to cases where the non-CGI way would result in a better looking final effect.

I have to say though that 2001 has INCREDIBLE SFX. Well except for the somewhat psychedelic ending, but it was appropriate. I just saw this movie within the past few years and was absolutely blown away by the SFX. I kept having to check the date of when the movie was made. I wasn't raised by CGI at all, I'm an 80's kid, so I have seen miniatures before but 2001 was just head and shoulders above the rest.

CGI is bad for horror films but it is essential for certain films

Movies like Xmen series and Spiderman would look terrible without CGI

Yeah even in Underworld the actor werewolves looked awesome; but then they had scenes where they were running on walls and getting shot that were CGI generated and it didn't look as good.

I thought Lupin looked horrible. but that is probably more of a stylistic mistake then SFX quality.

And it shows. I can only assume it is ignorance or nostalgia that drives your lack of understanding of what it takes to do CGI. If you believe any nerd with a PC can duplicate the stunning effects in todays movies, you are sadly mistaken. The amount of artistry that goes into all design work is at the same top notch level.

Maybe you don't want to grasp the painstaking tedious craftsmanship that goes into quality CGI, because it represents an artistry where you cannot visualize the process. Makeup, costume design, Matte painting or stop-action are pretty easy to visualize the process and say "WoW, I wish I could do that".

Now if you are doing the all too familar, comparing the best of one field with the worst of another, then there is no hope.

Here's the problem I have with CGI.

First, it's sucked a good portion of the magic out of movies. There used to be a time when you saw an incredible special effects shot and said, "Wow! How did they do that?" Now the answer is always the same - "Yawn. With computers."

Ironically, when CGI first made an impact in T2 and Jurassic Park, special effects were still magical and audiences were amazed. But now it's so common we are no longer amazed as we were when we saw John Carpenter's "The Thing."

This is not completely a negative rant against CGI, since there are cases where it's the only way to produce certain realistic effects. However, I hate it when it's overused to the point where movies are jammed full of unbelievable stunts not performed by real humans, or every square inch of the screen has something happening to cause eye strain. Sometimes less is more, and CGI rarely adopts this philosophy.

You know, I wonder if it's just that people are harder to amaze these days?

I mean today when a man changes into a Werewolf in a movie, CGi or Heavy makeup with automated facial features, we've all seen it. We've all seen monsters, amazing creatures, realistic extinct animals, metallic men morph inot different shapes, huge sharks attacking boats, head spinning green vomit spewing girls, and other cinematic creations so unless it's something truely special we just aren't blown away like we used to be. Is that Hollywood's fault?

I just wonder if our movie watching expectations aren't just too Jaded and "sophisiticated" for our own good?

Some people didn't realize that Titanic used CGI. I know its somewhat obvious to those that pay attention. But still, CGI was done very well on the long shots of the ship at the begining of the movie.

Again, I think people are comparing apples to rotten apples. You can't take the worst CGI has to offer and compare it against the best of traditional effects.

It is being used ineffectively in some scenarios. Especially computer generated blood. But CGI, has the power to be extremely realistic, so much so that the only time you should notice it is when it ISN'T working.

This is true. And now we expect everything to look perfect. Too perfect. Hence the digital futzing-with of Star Wars. It looked too "outdated".

I remember the smoke in Titanic looking iffy (as the ship was leaving), but that was 1997 and the rest looked amazing. Of course, they had also built a huge set. But I would only expect the most cutting-edge from Cameron.

I have to say it depends on the movie.While some work better with plain old SFX especially horror movies,others intend to need CGI for thnigs that just cannot possibly be done.Do i prefer CGI? hell no,i love good ol SFX or guys in rubber suits,just think of older quality movies where CGI did not even exist like An american Werewold in London,John Carpenters movies The Thing and Christine,Back To The Future even Aliens had guys in rubber suits except for the queen which was a gigantic puppet on strings still look more real to me than CGI today.Also,fake CGI blood and wounds look horrible compared to good SFX.To this day,the only movie that truely impresses me with extensive CGI work is Starship Trooper and that was in 1987,that is the best ,most convicing CGI work i have seen to date in my opinion also included excellent SFX.T2 did start the use of CGI for all other movies to follow but is was brief,moslty just the morphing technics the rest was SFX which by the way is my all time favorite movie.I think CGI will get better in time but we will see less and less of real make up effects and other SFX which probally cost more to do than CGI,computers take all the fun out of it anymore,bummer!

I'm not saying I don't have respect for the artists that do CGI, it does have its place in moviemaking. But it seems to me that it's used so much now (watching Land of the Dead, I was surprised how many gunshots to Zombie's heads were CGI "blood" spurting) that it's distracting. As I think about my issues a bit more, it's not that CGI doesn't require a lot of time and artistic talent, they obviously do. But most of the software packages used to have built-in modeling and such. Don't make it sound like there's a team of 500 programmers writing code line-by-line to make it all work, because it isn't the case.

This has nothing to do with nostalgia, I don't believe. You're going to tell me that Jar-Jar Binks was more realistic than the werewolf in An American Werewolf in London?

And you're telling me De Laurentiis' Kong looks more realistic than Peter Jackson's Kong?

That's just silly. No, Cooper/Schoedsacknor's nor Guillermin's Kong looked as good as the new Kong. You win.

However, I was comparing special effects done in 1981 vs. CGI done as recently as 2002. Not because I wanted to purport that CGI is useless and SFX are supreme. I was simply stating that with SFX, generally, there's a sense of three dimensions and realism. Most CGI still looks flat, glossy, and GENERALLY - unreal looking.

The new Kong looks *FANTASTIC* (although I'm baffled at the success of the movie - I thought the relationship between Kong and Naomi Watts' character was real and geniune - I thought the rest of the movie was way overrated).

But I will say this: I don't think blue-screen technology has come very far. There were many scenes that (to me) looked no better than blue-screen shots from movies done in the 70s.

In any event, I will say this - I personally prefer the original King Kong movie to the new one. But when I watch Kong move/interact with others on-screen, I don't sit there and say "this would look way better with CGI". I'm carried away to Skull Island in the original. In the new one, I'm impressed by how neat King Kong looks...

But you were comparing apples to oranges in putting up AAWiL to Jar Jar.. I compared Washington Red Apple to a Grannysmith with Kong vs Kong.

I think it all comes down to the director and budget. Lucas seemlingly does it because he can. He pioneered the technology and is using it to its fullest capacity whether for good or bad. And I will probably get flamed for this, but it's not about filmmaking anymore when it comes to Lucas and ILM.

Other directors don't have the eye. I'll take AAWiL over Sommer's werewolf in Van Helsing. Heck, Sommer's is the one that approved the horrendous looking Scorpion King from the Mummy Returns.

And then others know what they want and push the envelope to achieve it at its highest quality like Cameron. AAWiL was an exceptional piece of SFX. But you also had The Howling and Silver Bullet to look at mediocre to poor SFX. The same can be said for VFX. It's a case by case basis that you're trying to throw a blanket over.

I can agree with much of what you're saying (especially the part about Luca$).

And you're right - SFX can be done poorly, of course. But AAwiL's SFX is top-notch, no doubt, although admittedly, according to the commentary on the dvd, they weren't even sure they knew what the hell they were doing. But Jar-Jar, to use a tired analagy, was top-notch CGI, was it not? Otherwise, I agree completely.

But I still say the original King Kong is a better movie. No amount of SFX or CGI can save a bad or even just decent movie.

Not really. People were complaining about the CGI for Jar-Jar even before Phantom Menace was released:

http://groups.google.com/group/rec.t...e=source&hl=en
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.a...e=source&hl=en

I'll throw in my 2¢ here and say that (from what I gather from a lot of the comments here) some of you haven't a clue as what it is you're seeing onscreen. A lot of people are assuming certain fantastic imagery is completely CGI, when it isn't CGI at all.

The attitude seems to be: "Wow! That's amazing! It must be CGI. Yawn."

The really good films (in terms of filmmaking technology, not from a storytelling or other point of view) use every technique available. Not just CGI.

A lot of people like to slam Lucas (and others) for overusing CGI, but the reality is that (just like Peter Jackson's Weta crew, and others) LucasFilm uses every technique under the sun. Many of which go back to the beginning of filmmaking.

BTW, none of my comments are meant to be a defense of poor quality FX work, regardless of whether it's CGI or whatever. We've all seen crappy model work, matte paintings, blue/green screen, stop-mo, etc., etc, not mention just plain poor cinematography.

That I'm going to say is absurd. Compositing technology has come a LONG way since even the early 1990s, and even the worst bluescreen (Sound of Thunder excepted) looks better than most everything done before the early 1990s.

While you might notice the irregular look in some shots, what you don't see is enormous halo lines around the people, completely off lighting, and pretty much no motion control in relation to the foreground and people in the bluescreen.

I've got to say...when it comes to blue screen work, what they do nowadays is far, far beyond what they did 15 years ago and further past. I'm sure you can point out some funky looking shots in a movie like Kong, but to say it's barely come along is just absurd in my opinion. I'm know there are tons of shots in movies like KOng and Star Wars where most people don't even know where the blue screen ends, and the set begins.

I recall the shot of Kong throwing Ann on his shoulder. Many people complained this didn't look real. But on further thought, if you were to lock on a camera to a moving creature at that obtuse angle, even if you shot it for real it'd look strange. Of course, nothing is perfect but you attempt any of those shots you might thought have looked bad in a modern film, and I promise you they wouldn't have been able to come close to the quality of what they're doing today (well, assuming we're comparing productions with comparable talent and budgets).

Ok, let me rephrase what I said:

There are blue-screen scenes in Kong that are no better than some scenes from movies made 25 years ago. The dinosaur chase scene - in many places, it looked very little or no better than Superman flying back in 1978...

Thank you for illustrating my point. Jar-Jar Binks is universally hated. You cannot compare something that DIDN'T work with something that DID. It tells us more about your motive than your point.

Hey, lets compare Golem from LoTR with Teen Wolf. WoW !!!!! the reverse is true too :-)

It is easy to rig an argument with unbalanced comparisons.

EDIT: I just read all the other posts after his reply. I realize I just said the same thing as many others.