Cgi vs. old-school fx

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

Which would you rather see a movie use? Would you rather a film use computer generated images (CGI), or old-school special effects (puppets, blue-screens, props, animatronics, etc.)?

 

Personally, I like the old-school FX a lot better. The CGI stuff looks TOO fake. Case in point: Alien vs. Alien Resurrection.

 

The majority of the aliens in Resurrection were CGI. I thought they looked like shit. They looked TOO smooth, TOO refined...too cute, really. Now, the suit they used in Alien was killer. Yes, it had its faults (I doubt the person in it could move around much), but they covered up the faults beautifully. Something about the suit made it more life-like, more menacing.

 

In closing, FUCK CGI.

[Guest razazteca]

Star Wars Episode 1 is a perfect example of the overuse of CGI, from Jar Jar Binks to the alien armies.

 

give me stockmotion animation like Puppet Master or Toy Soldiers and I will be happy.

 

But pure CGI movies that glorified cartoons also look good like Final Fantasy and Toy Story.

 

It just depends on how the producers and directors use the special effects.  I dislike George Lucas overuse of the technology just because he owns a studio that produces CGI effects.  Matrix made the effects look cool with the "bullet time" effect.

[Guest El Satanico]

Overall i prefer old school fx but i don't mind cgi if it is well done.

[Guest]

I agree that a lot of cgi looks so real that it looks fake, because the world has imperfections, and overall I prefer the old school style

 

I think in a movie like Cast Away, where they used a lot of cgi but a lot of it you couldnt tell that they did, is a good way to use it

The worst example of cgi for cgis sake I can remember is Godzilla... the guy in the suit was a million times better

[Guest Ripper]

I'm sorry, but most of the old school effects absolutely suck.  I am a computer animator myself, and while nothing annoys me more than bad computer animation, the still out do old school effects.  Lack of real world imperfections usually come from the animators a: not getting paid enough or b:Just being lazy and knowing they can get away with it.

[Guest ArkhamGlobe]

It depends on how well made the CGI effects are. If they are well made, they often look better. If not, they look outrageously horrible and fake.

[Guest evenflowDDT]

In general, I prefer "old-school" practical effects.  Although CGI has been the factor behind the best American animated movies ever since Toy Story, it's still pretty obvious and out of place in "real" pictures.  Sometimes this works well for a general effect, like in The Matrix, but watch it in any low-budget film, or even the trailer for the new Star Wars film, and it looks terrible.

[Guest Kahran Ramsus]

It depends on how well they are done.  For example, the conventional effects in Tora! Tora! Tora! remain some of the best special effects to date.  For stuff like explosions and things like that, CGI simply cannot compare with conventional effects.  Another good example of better old-school effects is the much better puppet Jabba in Return of the Jedi, as opposed to the cartoony CGI versions in A New Hope and Phantom Menace.  

 

What CGI is good at is creating worlds that simply cannot be done with conventional effects.  It would be extremely difficult to do something like Lord of the Rings without CGI.

[Guest]

I prefer the old school style make-up and animatronics.

 

A perfect example is how cool Jabba the Hutt looked in Return of the Jedi and how fake he looked like Star Wars Special Edition and Episode 1.

 

Also, watch The Dark Crystal. The entire film is made using puppets, robots and backdrops. It looks incredible.

 

Oh yeah, and Blade Runner. The film had no CGI and looks better than any sci-fi film made since.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

Well, as a hardcore fan of horror movies, I hope you, Ripper, can see where I'm coming from.

 

Horror movies need the old-school FX. Squibbs, stuntmen, props, costumes, fake limbs. Some of the best old-school FX I've ever seen were in The Dead Hate The Living. Rent it, and then tell that the scene where Maggot punches through Marcus' stomach doesn't look real.

[Guest TUS_02]

Horror films are always going to rely on the old school fx because getting cgi for them would be damn near impossible because of the budgets they are delt with (I mean, be honest... are we ever going to see a horror film with a huge budget?)  This is good.

 

What is also good is the idea of cgi.  I don't think back in the 20's, they would have ever thought films would be made with small cameras and with computers.  It was an evolution that was waiting to happen.  

 

What is bad is the use of cgi.  It's the current trend so if someone sees that they can put cgi in their film... they will... even if it's beyond unessisary.  Give it a few years to settle down so that only movies that NEED cgi will use it.

[Guest Ripper]

But when horror, thriller movies use cgi, they really get to kill the SHIOT out of the people.  Old school effects in horror movies always just get a laugh out of me.  That chick getting hit by the bus in final destination is what gets a "OH SHIT" out of me.  On the other hand, I enjoy old horror movies more but its not really because of the effects.  

 

Some things like explositions and basically any natural effect will look better in the real.  But trust me, all the animation that you see, they know how to make it look better. They just want more money, basically.  Studios won't see paying a extra 5 million dollars to have all the effects run through radiosity rendering because the think it looks real enough.  Movies like Fight Club spent the extra money and you have animation sequences in that movie that some people still thinks are real(i.e. the sex scene).

 

I just enjoy the camera movements and realism in things like car and airplane crashes that you can get with cgi that you can't get with natural effects.  Or maybe I just want to make sure that I keep a steady income.    I'm all for using old school fx when it can be used and looks conviencing, but CGI has just opened the doors on somethings that make my movie viewing that much more enjoyable.

[Guest]

Cgi looks like like special effects with throw-up all over it. That's how bad they look. Computer animated films are dumb. I bet my 5-year old cousin could come up with something better than Cgi.

[Guest CoreyLazarus416]

I can think of one movie that has pretty fucking killer effects, both gore and otherwise, without CGI...

RoboCop.

 

Sure, it's obvious NOW that ED-209 was stop-motion animation, but it's still done very fluently (for the time period).

 

I'm really against CGI because it's taking something that takes a ton of a lot of skill with your hands, your eyes, your imagination, and overall artistic ability, and replacing it with knowledge of a computer.

 

As for Fight Club...yes, perfect use of CGI, no problem there.

 

But mainly...they should keep CGI out of horror and most sci-fi films. I fucking hate CGI like no other, simply because most CGI-creations have no depth to them. It's the same reason I prefer live-action films over animated.

[Guest Ripper]

"I'm really against CGI because it's taking something that takes a ton of a lot of skill with your hands, your eyes, your imagination, and overall artistic ability, and replacing it with knowledge of a computer."

 

Dude, dude,dude, dude, dude.... CGI takes just as much imagination, skill with hands, eyes, and artistic ablity...sometimes even more.  That is a major misconception about CGI, that the computer is just doing everthing.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  Making something in CGI is most times harder than doing something in real life.  It can take a day to make a latex face and weeks to model a realistic CGI one (I know they always show digital scanners on the making of whatever movie, but you are only like 5% done at that point.  What follows takes weeks)

 

CGI is like making sculptures, except you are working with a mouse..trust me it is much harder.  A person without any artistic ability can have all the computer knowlege in the world, they would be crappy computer artist.  As I went through school, I couldn't tell you how many people dropped out because they came in thinking that anyone can do it and the computer basically does all the work.