Pixels Are Driving Out Reality (vice.com)

An article on Motherboard today investigates the reasons why people didn't go "oh-my-god, that was awesome" looking at the CGI-based scenes in the recent movies such as Independence Day: Resurgence, Batman v Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse. Though the article acknowledges that this could be the result of some poor-acting, spotty storyline, or bad editing, it also underscores the possibility that this could be the aftermath of a "deeper mechanism that is draining all substance from our cinematic imaginary worlds?" The author of the article, Riccardo Manzotti to make his case stronger adds that the original Alien movie was able to impress us because what we saw was strongly linked to actual life. From the article: The humongous spaceship Nostromo -- a miniature model -- provoked awe and respect. When the creature erupted from Kane's abdomen -- a plaster model encased in fake blood and animal entrails -- people were horrified. The shock was registered on the faces of the actors, who, per Ridley Scott's direction, weren't told ahead of time that the moment would include a giant splatter of blood. "That's why their looks of disgust and horror are so real," producer and co-writer David Giler said. Manzotti further argues that some of the modern movies haven't left us awe-inspired because there is just too much CGI content. Compared to 430 computerized shots in the original Independence Day movie, for instance, the new one has 1,750 digitized shots. "People have been looking at pixels for much too long," the author argues, adding: Our imaginary world has been diluted and diluted to the point that, so to speak, there is no longer even a stain of real blood, love, and pain. Nowadays, when spectators see blood, they see pixels. [...] VR and augmented reality and the steady pace of CGI have pushed the process of substitution of reality to a higher level. At least, movies were once made using real stunts and real objects. Now, the actual world is no longer needed. The actual world, which is the good money, is no longer required. The virtual world, the bad money, is taking over. Yet, it lacks substance. The author makes several more compelling arguments, that are worth mulling.

Comments

Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[uCallHimDrJ0NES]

I stopped feeling things when I was four. Thanks to Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, my perceptions were all made of ink.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, all the GCI overkill is boring as hell. Surprised it took someone this long to figure it out. My wife loves going to see new movies, but I have declined to sit through the GCI dickpissing contest they've all turned into and not been to the movies or bother much about watching new movies for over 5 years now.

I love watching older movies and TV shows with "real" special effects - models and stuff exploding for real, and real acting, heck Die Hard was on some random channel over the weekend, and I totally enjoyed watching it again.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, yeah although I'm sure the writer of this piece had some kind of idea in mind, it is not evident from the summary. I wonder if he knows Alien was actually fictional to begin with?

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[HornWumpus]

It dependence on effects that's the problem.

2001 had amazing model based eye candy for it's day. Puts you to sleep now.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[thundercattt]

It's more than the CGI although its a HUGE part of it. It's the pace of the film, the story the over acting. I too watch older movies because it's all really happening, they haven't sped it up, they haven't added shaking camera tactics to make it seem more crazy. It's just the actors performing. Still love Jackie Chan movies for this reason.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

2001 was great considering they didnt know what the earth would look like from space when it was made, they got it pretty close.

I watched 2001 for the first time a few years ago, and I liked it a lot, didnt find it boring. The ending however was wtf.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[im_thatoneguy]

This really is how absurd the argument is. By his reckoning The Lion King should have been awful since 0 frames of the film were real with real lions! Apparently UP had no room for a soul because it was all CG!

There are awful 80s and 90s movies that have no heart and no humanity and rely on shoddy gore squibs and bad miniatures. Every decade has had it's share of unwatchable films with large budgets. Waterworld had very little CGI and very little humanity and it was ridiculously expensive because it did it all for real on the ocean. By golly when that fish man jumps out of the water, that's a real person wearing prosthetics! And yet somehow nobody walked away from Waterworld with a sense of wonder about a guy with prosthetic gills.

What sets this decade apart isn't CG it's the fact that we are currently living it. When you look at all of the films of the 80s you can pick out 3-4 really amazing ones that represent a film every 2-3 years and say "Look how great the 80s were!" But if you're in year 6 of a decade you're statistically not living in the year where a great film was released. Every decade is great in retrospect because you only need a handful of examples to represent a decade while you need a new movie every weekend to watch. If you watch 30 movies a year in all likelihood the one you watch this weekend will not be one you would cite as the greatness of the '10s.

But just looking back I would say Guardians of the Galaxy was great and CG intensive, Inception was great and CG intensive, The Lego Movie and Inside Out were both great and entirely CG, Big Hero 6 was great and all CG, TED was funny and CG, Both planet of the apes films were very good and CG led characters (Compare the new planet of the apes to the horrible Tim Burton CGI free one!), I liked Men in Black 3, didn't think it was any worse than the original, The Wolf of Wallstreet was packed with CG and very good.

It's easy to find good movies in 2010-2016 but you need a year or two to forget how many shitty movies you also watched. You only remember the great Disney movies you watched as a kid. You forgot for the most part "The Cat from Outerspace".

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[HornWumpus]

2001 was released in 1968. Years after the first man made orbit, after the first space walks.

The had pictures of earth from orbit.

The docking sequence was dazzling eye candy in 1968. You have to admit it could use an edit for brevity now.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[MightyMartian]

But it is true that using actual physical special effects can create some unique film events. My favorite is the scene in ET where Elliot reveals ET to his older brother. The actor playing the brother was not actually informed of how ET was going to be revealed, so the shock you see on his face is very real. If ET was just a digitally-created image edited into the footage in post-production, it's probable you wouldn't get quite the same response, particularly from child actors.

To some extent that was also my observation watching The Force Awakens. The first scene from A New Hope, with the Rebel space ship being attacked by the vaster Star Destroyer still works really well, but the space scenes in the new film, and indeed in the Prequels, just don't have the same feel. The shadows being cast on the craft seem more real, because, well, they are. I also recently rewatched Star Trek The Motion Picture, and the way refurbished Enterprise was revealed was pretty breathtaking in a way that the reboots weren't. The Enterprise seems more cartoonish in the reboots, and less like a physical object.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[thinkwaitfast]

I fell asleep all three times that I attempted to watch the second Hobbit movie. I didn't even go to the last one. It's not about CGI (I very much enjoyed Avatar, but the bending of reality like unrealistic fight scenes where someone can fall off a 10m cliff, brush themselves off and run away like nothing happened.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

I get it now, it's about the actors looking fake because they're interacting with stuff that isn't actually there.

I agree with you - today's actors are very 2-dimensional. I think it's because the "greats" came from a generation with very different substance abuse policies.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

My stepfather once got an amoebic infection of the bloodstream from drinking untreated water (either from his time working abroad or doing DIY with rain collecting barrels). But either way he ended up one night shivering in bed, pale white as snow, with a large pulsing mass over his liver, barely able to speak. My first thought was should I dive left, right or attempt to grab the critter when it bursts out.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Movies like Star Wars and Blade runner were made using large miniatures and fibre optics to create internal lights. Just by going all of that plus careful positioning of lights and cameras, they got their photographic quality rendering for free.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Lije Baley]

Heck no, I always wished it was longer. More models, more of J. Strauss. I think I'll go watch some Space1999 now...

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[colinrichardday]

For all of 2001's brilliant effects, I wish it had more plot. The part after disabling HAL doesn't make sense to me.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Pseudonym]

I stopped feeling things when I was four. Thanks to Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny, my perceptions were all made of ink.

There's a good analogy here. Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, and even John K cartoons were funny in a way that Seth MacFarlane is not.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[smooth wombat]

in a way that Seth MacFarlane is not.

Wrong Seth. You meant Seth Rogen.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Pseudonym]

But it is true that using actual physical special effects can create some unique film events. My favorite is the scene in ET where Elliot reveals ET to his older brother. The actor playing the brother was not actually informed of how ET was going to be revealed, so the shock you see on his face is very real. If ET was just a digitally-created image edited into the footage in post-production, it's probable you wouldn't get quite the same response, particularly from child actors.

Further to that topic, CGI lets you create camera moves which are not possible in real life, in the sense that even if there was a fantasy/sci-fi/action/whatever thing going on, there's nowhere that you could physically place a camera which would get that shot. It violates the logic of the universe, which breaks the illusion for many people. In a film like Inception it can work but only because it's set in a surreal dreamscape, so you buy that it could work in that universe. But in a film like The A-Team it just looks ridiculous.

I loved the shakycam space battle scenes from the remake of Battlestar Galactica.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Ol Olsoc]

Further to that topic, CGI lets you create camera moves which are not possible in real life, in the sense that even if there was a fantasy/sci-fi/action/whatever thing going on, there's nowhere that you could physically place a camera which would get that shot. It violates the logic of the universe, which breaks the illusion for many people. In a film like Inception it can work but only because it's set in a surreal dreamscape, so you buy that it could work in that universe. But in a film like The A-Team it just looks ridiculous.

I loved the shakycam space battle scenes from the remake of Battlestar Galactica.

Which speaks to thte massive over use CGITO tell the truth - we are over inundated with it, and I for one find it boring, some sort of replacement for plot and character development.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[ChunderDownunder]

I thought he meant Seth Green, Dr Evil's ginger offspring.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the creatures had 10 ft.....

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[im_thatoneguy]

The actor playing the brother was not actually informed of how ET was going to be revealed, so the shock you see on his face is very real.

And nothing at all prevents film makers from putting in a terrifying character on set for the actors to reference. That's not an indictment of CG that's an indictment of directors failing to utilize the onset tools that are available to them. Conversely let me throw this back at this argument from a different perspective. People have a really hard time acting against an emotionless puppet. With CG and performance capture you can put a real actor in place that is human and can fully emote to give an actor something to act-against, and then paint them out and replace them with a CG character that isn't a stiff E.T. puppet. So you can get what you want when you want it. You can get the shock of the gore with real gore (and then replace the actual alien bursting from the chest with a CG replacement in post). You get the gore interaction with actors and you get something that doesn't look on-film like a bloody rubber dildo.

To some extent that was also my observation watching The Force Awakens. The first scene from A New Hope, with the Rebel space ship being attacked by the vaster Star Destroyer still works really well, but the space scenes in the new film, and indeed in the Prequels, just don't have the same feel.

That's probably because you were a kid when you first saw it. I saw The Phantom Menace as an 11 year old and the opening scene blew my mind! But here's the funny thing, both opening scenes from The Phantom Menace and A New Hope are miniatures. Almost all of the hangers in A Phantom Menace are miniatures. The Phantom Menace has a TON of miniature work. It has substantially more miniature work than probably the entire original series combined. A massive quantity of the Phantom Menace spaceship shots were all miniatures.

http://www.slightlywarped.com/...

Everybody jumps to complaining about the Prequels while the prequels were often practical where people were complaining CG looks bad.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[im_thatoneguy]

CGI lets you create camera moves which are not possible in real life, in the sense that even if there was a fantasy/sci-fi/action/whatever thing going on, there's nowhere that you could physically place a camera which would get that shot.

Easy to avoid. But also easy to do with real cameras too. Star Wars shot all of its sci-fi stuff as a miniature. You can make a camera on a motion-controlled miniature rig however you want as well. We're also always tearing down the limitations of what's an "impossible" shot in the real world. All of the great directors have been hunting for a unique shot that nobody else could pull off. You have the zoom-dolly aka hitchcock effect that's non-physical. You have wire cams these days for flying at high speed through trees. Some people build out entire rigs around a car so that the camera can placed on a gimbal almost anywhere outside a vehicle. There have been "process trailers" for ages where entire film crews ride around on a trailer with a car on blocks filming handheld in through the window. Gimbals make nearly impossible shots look smooth. Steadicam completely changed what "A real camera can do" by adding long smooth takes up stairs etc. Even take a look at the famous long shot from Soy Cuba in 1964:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's an "impossible" camera. The Matrix they even tried to launch the camera famously on rockets to achieve bullet time. With smaller go-pros it just might be possible today!

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Pseudonym]

Seth Rogen does cartoons?

Having said that, I disagree. Stoner comedy has not changed in quality since Cheech & Chong.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you better see it again.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Pseudonym]

Sure, I'm not saying that non-physical shots shouldn't be done, merely that CGI enables them to be overdone. The Matrix is a case in point: the Wachowskis were careful to use impossible shots sparingly, and only use them inside the Matrix; scenes set in the "real world" were much more conservative.

There is a story that Richard Donner put up a banner in the production office for Superman which had one word on it: "verisimilitude". That's what's missing from a lot of modern effects-heavy films.

That was a great shot from Soy Cuba. I'm also reminded of the opening of A Touch of Evil.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

What?

Think of the crystals as NVM cards in a hotplug, RAID array.

As you take them out, it starts slowing down due to the need to rebulid the information from redundancy. As too many are taken out, it starts losing memory. Think of the filesystem as error resilient too, such that it doesn't completely fail immediately.

It totally makes sense. A modern space-worthy computer of HAL's complexity might as well work like that, it has to withstand countless faults due to cosmic rays, possibly hard mechanical failures due to micrometeroids, you name it.

The pitch change you could say it was a simple time stretching technique placed there to hide momentary processor slowness, intended for momentary hicups, that just never reverted due to widespread damage.

I think it was brilliant.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

I fell asleep during the first LOTR movie. Excessive CGI was the least of the sins in those movies.

Peter Jackson will burn in nerd hell for his desecration of a great story. He turned an epic adventure story into a mindless action/romance piece of shit.

To this day, his best movie is The Frighteners, it is not even close and even that isn't very good.

JJ Abrams and Lucas will be joining him in nerd hell.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Could you imagine any 12 current actors trying to pull off 12 Angry Men?

99.99% of the movie is set in a small, bland room and is completely driven by dialog and 12 terrific actors.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

You hit the Nail on the head.
Some Movies are almost to the Point of being a cartoon. A Roger Rabbit world of Cartoon and real life mixed.
Look at the later Star Wars. The Robots aliens, and vehicles did not need to be built in there real world, and it showed.
Thing that can not exist did. Things moved in ways that are not possible. Just like Cartoons

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[arglebargle_xiv]

+1. When I go to see a film, I want to see plot, acting, drama, not a 90-minute nVidia commercial. Compare something like Apocalypse Now with... well, any equivalent film from the last 15 years. It'd be all CGI explosions and effects, with only the actors being real.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[infolation]

Could you imagine any 12 current actors trying to pull off 12 Angry Men?

Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Don Cheadle, Jonathan Pryce, Robert Downey Jr, Harvey Keitel, Vincent Cassel, Jack Nicholson, Jake Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Denzel Washington, Sean Penn,

Aside from people who'd actually get cast in such a movie nowadays, like Steve Buscemi, Paul Giamatti, Christopher Walken, John Malkovich, Tom Hanks...

Still no shortage of great actors.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta read the book.

Bowman is taken cross dimensionally in to the core of a star where with unlimited energy the aliens keep him in there menagerie, for some extended time...

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

You have to read the book. Then it'll make sense.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Dutch Gun]

I think it's going to take a little longer for directors to properly learn how to use the tools of their trade. Remember that ubiquitous CGI, or "the ability to create anything on screen that you want to" is a fairly new thing. And like any new tool, it tends to get overused at first, because everyone is excited about new and shiny things.

The same thing happened in the videogame industry. Unreal was one of the first shooters with colored lighting. End result: the environments looked like a radioactive clown puked all over them. The artists were so giddy to show off *colored lights* as a feature that they couldn't stop themselves from painting the environment in bright, vibrant, primary hues.

Fast-forward a decade. Programmable pixel shaders are a thing. Ooh, we can do *bloom effects*. Woohoo - crank up the bloom to 11! Let's live in a dream world! Or maybe motion blur, or film grain. Or depth of field. None of which really make for good gameplay, and in many cases, simply distract or annoy the player.

Rinse and repeat for each new technology that comes along.

These days, the best videogame artists have learned that a light touch on these effects are often better than slapping you in the face with them. I'm really hopeful Hollywood directors eventually learn the same thing.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[blackpaw]

I think I'll go watch some Space1999 now...

For a *really* cheesy English 70's series its aged very well. Have the DVD Box set. Always wanted my own Eagle for commuting to work.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

I think I'll go watch some Space1999 now...

For a *really* cheesy English 70's series its aged very well. Have the DVD Box set. Always wanted my own Eagle for commuting to work.

I confess, I loved that show for the models and the battles and stuff.

Also, The Invaders was a lot of fun too.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Ed Avis]

Resistance is futile.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[rainwalker]

Further to that topic, CGI lets you create camera moves which are not possible in real life, in the sense that even if there was a fantasy/sci-fi/action/whatever thing going on, there's nowhere that you could physically place a camera which would get that shot. It violates the logic of the universe, which breaks the illusion for many people.

I think you've got it in one, at least a lot of it. Once you start noticing that your viewpoint isn't quite natural, it's really hard to un-see, and it lends this feeling of unreality. I feel like the POV moves too quickly in some all-CGI shots as well, whereas with miniatures you're limited by how fast you can move matter around.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[AK Marc]

In Matrix, the film was released before it was possible to do the camera tricks it used. It was the first, and until the "making of" came out, "impossible". Yet, those camera shots were liked, because they were impossible, not hated because of it. People are still CGIing that effect.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[dargaud]

Didn't they have women in juries at the time ?

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[jtgd]

Read the book.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[jandersen]

If you will allow me to go off on a tangent - I wonder if people will eventually get tired of all these special effects and animations that are realer than reality. I haven't watched movies for years, really, other than idly sitting in on whatever was on the telly when I felt to wasted to do something meaningful. I watched factual programmes for a while, but even they are now full of irrelevant and unrealistic effects that I can only presume were gratifying for the team to produce - they certainly do nothing for me. In many ways I long for the era of David Attenborough - there was something about seeing him waist deep in a muddy swamp, talking with a quiet passion about something he really wanted people to understand. Now, all we get is crap that is speeded up, with added soundtrack, "reality tv" effects and a "human interest" story line. Utter crap, if you ask me.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[GuB-42]

In New York, they could have women in juries. However, in 1954, it wasn't the case in all states.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[houghi]

I noticed that the majority of these great films are originals and not some sort of "the same again" movie: Planet of the Apes being the exception.

Perhaps we remember great movies because of their originality as well as the technical quality and that technical quality is just an aid to a good story, like a good camera is an aid to a good picture or an expensive kitchen is an aid to a good cook.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[AmiMoJo]

A little shakey cam is okay from time to time... I got through about 20 minutes of Hardcore Henry before I felt too sick to continue.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[mrmatthewcarlson]

Holy shit dude, let's remake it with an all-female cast!

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

For all of 2001's brilliant effects, I wish it had more plot. The part after disabling HAL doesn't make sense to me.

You really should read the book then. It's like the instructions manual for the film. (I mean, they were made in parallel).

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[mrmatthewcarlson]

ST: TMP Enterprise looks REAL! The scene is so long... But even when you are aware of slow pacing it still helps to build the awe. Kind of like how you can't skip to the really exciting part of a long piece of music and get the same effect.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

The point is that it has nothing to do with CGI or using puppets.
Sure, badly done special effects can ruin a movie, but when done well it can never save an otherwise bad movie.

Blaming a special subset of special effects for people not being awestruck is silly, the visuals alone have never been able to accomplish that.
Without a skilled sound designer and director people will not be impressed. Just rehashing the same old will also not work to impress the audience.

IT is also a bit odd to think that movies like Independence Day: Resurgence, Batman v Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse that all were made to cash in on making a sequels should have a soul.
If you want to go up and meet Alien, ET or The Matrix you will have to take risks and push money on a project that does things that have never been done successfully before.
With some luck you will then get one or two such movies every decade or so.

It is easy to forget that there were hundred of failed movies that tried to compete with the great ones.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Watch 2010,
or read the book.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[liquiddark]

Sorry, this is a complete misunderstanding of how acting works. The way that an actor expresses surprise - or shock or fear or love - is very different from the way their character does so. Making a moment surprising or shocking or horrifying for an actor is anathema to the process of creating a moment using an actor. If you want that, just do documentaries and reality TV. You don't need to hire someone whose entire life has been spent refining their empathetic muscles if you just want the person onscreen to display their own feelings.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

"By his reckoning The Lion King should have been awful since 0 frames of the film were real with real lions!"

Dude, stfu. The Lion King is an animated film, it's supposed to be animated -- that's the art of it. We're talking about using CGI to mimic real-life photography and live-action shots, not for the art but simply to try to fool the audience. There's a difference, which you might have intuited if you weren't so quick to get snarky.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it relates to the current need to sell movies to a worldwide audience. Everyone understands explosions. Well thought out dialog and subtle plot twists can get lost in translation.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

I recently watched 12 Angry Men. It has not aged well.
The first scene in the court room is great. The face of the young man on trial is brilliant and does a lot to drag you in to the movie. The 12 men entering the room also helps to build up the mood.
The rest of the movie is just about Henry Fonda.

Some of the actors does a great job but not all of them. It is what you would expect form a cast of that size. A few good actors to sell the movie and a couple of acceptable ones to fill out the room.

The interesting thing is that where special effects heavy movies ages badly in that department 12 Angry Men really shows how much acting has evolved.
There are plenty of scenes where the overacting is prominent in that movie. You don't even see that in B-movies these days.
Perhaps it isn't really the acting that has evolved. It could just be that it has become a lot cheaper to re-shoot the scenes a couple of times and cut together the good parts in the editing room.
In a way that might be where computers really have made an impact on movies rather than in the CGI department.
These days it is easy to zoom in and pan to get rid of background bloopers.
Cutting together different scene progressions and compare them side by side is no longer as time consuming as it used to.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[thoromyr]

Admittedly I haven't seen The Frighteners, but going by the title it sounds like more of his trashy sub-B movie horror schtick. Have you seen Heavenly Creatures? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Creatures) That was a movie worth watching, IMO

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Zak3056]

They did a remake in the 90s. I don't remember everyone in the cast, but it had Jack Lemmon, Geroge C. Scott, Courtney B. Vance, James Gandolfini, Tony Danza (that was was a bit of a WTF, but he wasn't bad), and some other people you'd recognize. The biggest problem with the movie is that it was really just a remake, completely faithful to the original with minimal changes. That said, it was a solid effort and I prefer it to the original (probably because the actors are closer to my generation).

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think that it relates to the current need to sell movies to a worldwide audience. Everyone understands explosions. Well thought out dialog and subtle plot twists can get lost in translation.

Maybe we need to teach our young language and thought again. And attention spans of more than 20 video frames. Otherwise even translation to Newspeak might not help.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[dywolf]

part of it is also the simple oversaturation of large scale destruction, and these movies are too reliant on the mere spectacle of that destruction, using it (or trying) to cover other deficiencies in the plot or emotional content.

when the first ID destroyed those landmarks (using practical effects, not CGI, though not relevent to the point im making), it was shocking, but also rather unique. it hadn't really been done before, on that scale or that convincingly.

Now when the sequel has come out, no one cares really.
because in the past 5 years we've seen countless cities destroyed hundreds of times. its beyond the point of viewer fatigue now. and movies need to out grow it. sure, it was cool, and bit shocking, the first time, maybe even the 2nd.

but now its happening once every couple of weeks with each new movie, and no one cares anymore.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[dywolf]

oooo. good list.
that needs a mod up.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Cederic]

All the people going 'read the book'..

I read the book. Shit, I read the book before I even knew there was a film.

It's still a shit film. If you have to read a book to understand a film, the film is shit.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Cederic]

I'd watch that.

Except.. even with that cast.. why remake a great film? Just watch the original.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[dywolf]

don't forget that some of the most iconic scenes in matrix were also done practically, or mostly so, with minimal CGI, because they knew the limits (mostly) of the technology. (unfornately they forgot some of that in the sequels, and that's how we got Rubber-Neo fighting hundreds of Rubber-Smiths.....)

the slow mo swirl around Smith and Neo for example.
now, we'd just mo-cap them and insert them into a nearly 100% CGI rendering.

but at the time that shot was assembled from several hundred physical (and i believe high speed, since the action is still unfolding, ie they aren't simply stopped while the swirl happens) cameras surrounding the actors. the CGI in that shot was mostly to remove the opposing cameras from view and add the bullets/shockwaves. technologically, it wasn't that groundbreaking, as the cameras and wires etc were really new; what was really unique was the combination of that simple tech, along with simple level of resources (re: hundreds of cameras, and hundreds of hours editing time combining frames) needed to pull it off. the CGI itself there was a supporting/enabling tech, but not the main event.

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Cederic]

12 Angry Women?

Could easily work. The gender of the jurors wasn't relevant, it was the interplay between them, the oppressive setting, the characterisations. You could do that with female actors too.

As with a remake with men though.. why?

Re: Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Cederic]

Ah, c'mon. Apocalypse Now wasn't exactly short on explosions.

It's possible to do explosions and great dialog and plot. That Hollywood doesn't bother is pure fucking laziness. That they still make money is a sad indictment of western civilisation.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[dywolf]

Im quite sure you have no clue what youre talking about. Or rather, youre taking one method, and applying it to everything, and not everything and everyone has worked like that.

Many of the most iconic scenes in movies have come from keeping actors in the dark, getting their genuine reaction. Other have come about because the director manipulated the actor in some other way. They may know the scene, and have an idea whats coming, but in some way, they don't know it all. Or the director say, spent months flirting with his lead actress, and then destroyed her emotions the day of the scene.

Some famous examples:

Goodfellas - "Funny how?" ... only Joe Pesci and Ray Liotta knew what was about to happen. the other guys in that scene thought Pesci was actually getting mad. their obvious unease and discomfort was real.

The Informer - in the movie the The Informer, Victor McLaglen won an Oscar for Best Actor, largely because of one scene. the director, john Ford, already had a reputation as a hard ass, and for being unreasonably demanding, and berating his actors, even his friends, which McLaglen was a close friend. hours before this scene in which McLaglen was to be a shell of himself, reduced to tears, pitiful, etc.... Ford deliberately told him the wrong time to show up to work. when he showed up, Ford berated him in public for over an hour, just laying into him, calling him an awful actor, worthless, everything under the sun. McLaglen just took it, clueless as to why his friend and mentor was doing this to him.. Ford later said that he was sure he had destroyed their friendship, that maybe he had gone too far, and that Victor would walk off before they began filming. But he didn't, and when they started filming he just broke down into some of the most pitiful sobs ever filmed before. The final scene won him his only Oscar, and Ford another best director. (I highly recommend the movie.)

The Alien chest burst was mentioned.
the vomit scene of the Exorcist is another.

Willy Wonka -the kids never really were told beforehand what would happen, spending nearly the entire movie seeing things for the first time, reacting in true surprise and shock.

Glory - , the director had the offscreen guy keep whipping Denzel far past what they had talked about in setting up the scene. his pain, his anger, was all real.

Casablanca - has such a scene, of true emotional investment, though not frm manipulation. Because the film was made during WWII, when the patrons of the bar begin singing the anthem to drown out the german signing, many of those actors in that scene were citizens of occupied countries, real-life refugees cutoff from their homeland, who had fled the Nazis, particularly France, countries that were occupied right then. and their emotion as they sang their anthem, directed at actors playing germans (several of which really were german) was real.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Cederic]

Waterworld flopped because it was shit.

When you look at all of the films of the 80s you can pick out 3-4 really amazing ones that represent a film every 2-3 years and say "Look how great the 80s were!"

80 - Blues Brothers / Brubaker / The Long Good Friday
81 - Raiders of the Lost Ark
82 - Blade Runner / Ghandi
83 - Scarface
84 - This is Spinal Tap / The Terminator
85 - After Hours / Brazil
86 - Highlander / Top Gun / Ferris Bueller's Day Off / Aliens / Platoon
(holy shit '86 was a hell of a year)
87 - Full Metal Jacket / The Princess Bride
88 - Die Hard / The Naked Gun / Rain Man / Akira
89 - When Harry Met Sally
90 - Goodfellas / Brain Dead

Seriously, the 80s had cinema that more than stands the test of time. The current decade may eventually prove equal, but your examples? Really?

Guardians of the Galaxy? Yeah, that was fun, and is as good as 1-2 of the films I've listed. Only 1-2.
TED? Fucking awful film.
Planet of the Apes remakes? I'd rather watch Heston.
MIB3? Fucking hell, one of the star actors didn't even turn up for the film.
Wolf of Wall Street? Poor.

It's easy to find good movies in the past six years but you're not succeeding.
Black Swan / Senna in 2010, God Bless America / Tyrannosaur in 2011, Wyrmwood / Kingsman in 2014.

As you say, the films are out there, but shit, two of those are documentaries and the rest would be excellent films with no CGI.

The current use of CGI in place of plot, acting, cinematography and direction is fucking horrific.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[The Grim Reefer]

To some extent that was also my observation watching The Force Awakens. The first scene from A New Hope, with the Rebel space ship being attacked by the vaster Star Destroyer still works really well, but the space scenes in the new film, and indeed in the Prequels, just don't have the same feel.

That's probably because you were a kid when you first saw it.

No. It was because at that time there had been nothing quite like it before. Very few science fiction/fantasy films before that looked very real. In fact most looked pretty cheesy and it was obvious they were using miniatures. Although there were a few exceptions. But even the more realistic ones never gave the impression of just how enormous those capital ships were actually supposed to be like that scene in Star Wars. That was a "holy shit!" moment for adults and children alike. We also weren't jaded like we are now.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[lucien86]

The secret of why the space sequences in 2001 look 'slow' and why so much modern CGI looks like shit is simple. CGI effects are pure graphics - no laws of physics, no momentum, if objects meet they can actually fly right through each other and hence no solidity. 2001 in contrast tried to make the effects look and feel as realistic as possible, hence big things generally move slowly. Modern films can do it realistically - and they end up looking like 'Interstellar', or to some extent 'Gravity'.
The first Independence Day, care and attention to detail - mostly looks at least semi-real. Independence Day 2, Star Wars Prequels, Hell Rider, etc, etc ???
A simple basic rule is that good CGI tends not to be much cheaper than using models.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[lucien86]

What about Braindead? for sheer over the top zombie madness. Mover - strap - carnage....

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[lucien86]

But ironically with even less realism than most cartoons.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Some_Llama]

MIB3? Fucking hell, one of the star actors didn't even turn up for the film.

um. from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt14...

Why isn't Rip Torn in the film?
Rip Torn isn't in the movie, because he was arrested after breaking into a closed Litchfield Bancorp branch office in Lakeville, Connecticut, where Torn maintains a residence. He was charged with carrying a firearm without a permit, carrying a firearm while intoxicated, first-degree burglary, second-degree criminal trespassing and third-degree criminal mischief. The Connecticut State Police said that Torn broke into the bank thinking it was his home.... On December 14, 2010, Torn pled guilty to a litany of charges: reckless endangerment, criminal trespass, criminal mischief and the illegal carrying of a firearm and was given a two-and-a-half-year suspended jail sentence and three years probation.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Cederic]

Which is interesting but not terribly relevant when I'm referring to Tommy Lee Jones.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Hognoxious]

It is indeed excellent. It'd be pretty darn good even if it didn't have Kate Winslet prancing around in her (albeit sensible) underwear.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[liquiddark]

Directors being sociopathic dicks aside, the fact that you *can* get reactions is entirely outside my point. Those actors could certainly have given those performances without those stimuli. What you're describing is called "The Method", except because these directors are stupid sociopaths, they don't trust their actors to use the method in the appropriate way. See, the normal way that shit works is that you find a piece of yourself that maps to the moment in question, and then you work on that mapping internally until it fucking clicks. You don't use shit off the cuff, and you don't fuck around with things you're not ready to use. Putting the stimulus into the real world eclipses any hope of actually doing that work.

I've cried in productions. Cried to break my worthless little heart. It's not fucking hard. It's hard not to when you get the work done and you get into the scene. There's nothing interesting about taking the option of doing the work out of the actor's hand; it's quite simply something that caters entirely to someone's worthless ideas about what they want.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Pseudonym]

...just like a real FPS?

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Wolfrider]

>You forgot for the most part "The Cat from Outerspace".

--The book was better, IIRC. Been a long time since I read it tho

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

dude that is an amazing camera shot. holy cow.

CGI lets you create camera moves which are not possible in real life, in the sense that even if there was a fantasy/sci-fi/action/whatever thing going on, there's nowhere that you could physically place a camera which would get that shot.

Easy to avoid. But also easy to do with real cameras too. Star Wars shot all of its sci-fi stuff as a miniature. You can make a camera on a motion-controlled miniature rig however you want as well. We're also always tearing down the limitations of what's an "impossible" shot in the real world. All of the great directors have been hunting for a unique shot that nobody else could pull off. You have the zoom-dolly aka hitchcock effect that's non-physical. You have wire cams these days for flying at high speed through trees. Some people build out entire rigs around a car so that the camera can placed on a gimbal almost anywhere outside a vehicle. There have been "process trailers" for ages where entire film crews ride around on a trailer with a car on blocks filming handheld in through the window. Gimbals make nearly impossible shots look smooth. Steadicam completely changed what "A real camera can do" by adding long smooth takes up stairs etc. Even take a look at the famous long shot from Soy Cuba in 1964:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

That's an "impossible" camera. The Matrix they even tried to launch the camera famously on rockets to achieve bullet time. With smaller go-pros it just might be possible today!

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[silentcoder]

You mean like "Saving Private Ryan" ?

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[silentcoder]

The only example to do it some sort of 'good' in the last while was Avengers - and 90% of what made it good wasn't in that movie, it was in Agents of Shield and the follow-up marvel films (especially winter soldier). The actual political and social fall-out of the destruction being investigated - and real stories being told in the mess that came after.

That doesn't exist for almost anything else - so it actually had a new story and vision to tell. Avengers was spectacle - but actually dealing with the consequences of the spectacle was the most original thing in movies in a long time.

The closest parallel I can think of would be the series Dark Skies which only starts AFTER a successful and hugely destructive invasion and focuses on the survivors attempts to fight back and reclaim what was conquered. That was a great series the first few seasons but after season 4 it seems to have run out of stories. They had a few big successes and now what ? If they win - you get no more story, if you knock them back too far - then it gets too repetitive, the writers have tried to come up with an interesting way to keep the story going but I've not been impressed by the last two seasons, it lacked the substance and sense of hopeful desperation that made the early ones work. A key part of that formula lay in story and acting. The core of the plot was the former history professor becoming a major military leader - by drawing on his knowledge of past campaigns, he knows when and how underdogs have won and uses this to give his band of underdog refugees a fighting chance.
But you don't have a story anymore if the underdogs win (there the movie format works better - it lets the story end after the victory).

It's easy to show massive destruction and, as you correctly point out, we're tired of it. The impacts on the lives of the people no longer jump up in our minds when we see it because we've seen it a million times and our lives haven't changed because of it - so I think Marvell is on the right track there, the only way to care about the destruction is to, once more, care about what it means for all the people who are NOT part of the big battles, and you can tell great stories with that. Daredevil did that especially well - a great deal of the season one plotline was around corruption in the process to rebuild what the avengers invasion had destroyed.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[NotAPK]

Much better funnier smarter braindead zombie madness.

Re:Man, animation must _really_ be evil then.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, I haven't seen it, I will check it out.

Obligatory Matisse quote

[Anonymous Coward]

"A large part of the beauty of a picture arises from the struggle which an artist wages with his limited medium."

Re:Obligatory Matisse quote

[Ol Olsoc]

"A large part of the beauty of a picture arises from the struggle which an artist wages with his limited medium."

Creativity comes not from the ability to do absolutely anything you want, but from the restrictions put on the process of what you are creating.

Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Anonymous Coward]

Normally, the extremely good plot and characterization would blow away what is no more than an extended car chase.

The difference? One was 99.9% CGI, the other was real actors in real environments doing real stunts.

QED

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Shadow of Eternity]

Mad Max is an example of CGI used right. Almost all of the stunts and scenes involved real actors and practical effects while computer imagery was used to put everything together and fill in backgrounds.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[thinkwaitfast]

The Hobbit vs Dragonslayer . I remember thinking while watching District 9, wow this is like watching a video game, how boring.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Dunbal]

Mad max was also filmed in actual colors, not that horrible blue-gray dreary palette that makes everything look dark and all movies look the same.

Re: Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Nidi62]

Well, District 9 did arise out of a desire to make a Halo movie, so it makes sense you would feel that way. As a side note, really wish they had made areal Halo movie. Forward unto Dawn wasn't bad for what it was, but it was too short.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[JaredOfEuropa]

I'd cite Avatar as another example. Not great writing but good use of CGI in a movie that is filmed almost entirely in a CGI world. But it's not easy, it demands an extra effort from the actors (VERY noticably lacking in films like the Phantom Menace), and Cameron employed some innovative techniques to make the camera movements believable, as it things were filmed using a camera on a dolly or boom in a real world.

Getting creatures right isn't easy either. Again Avatar did a decent job, but look at the more recent Star Wars movies, even the latest state-of-the-art production, and compare the creatures to the puppets from the original movies. The CGI looks plastic and faky in comparison.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Ranbot]

I loved Mad Max, but it's in the same blue and orange palette hollywood is obsessed with. Mad Max scenes were shot in full [Namibian desert] daylight, so it looked brighter, but undeniably blue and orange. Read here: http://priceonomics.com/why-ev...

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Pseudonym]

Oh, yes the Portal colour scheme. That annoyed the crap out of me, too.

Having said that, to be fair, there are only so many ways you can adjust Namibia to look like country Australia minus all the plants. Do an image search for "Coober Pedy" or "Mallee" some time and you'll see what I mean.

Re: Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Pseudonym]

As a side note, really wish they had made areal Halo movie.

I think they should make fewer movies of video games (or, if you must, do something like the upcoming Assassin's Creed and set a new story in the same universe). Movies are too short to get across the amount of story that you can fit into a video game.

A better alternative would be the epic TV genre which is all the rage at the moment. Imagine the Halo trilogy told over three seasons, 13 episodes each.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Ol Olsoc]

Do an image search for "Coober Pedy"

I'm half afraid to. Should I set the browser on safe search?

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Rakarra]

I liked the cracked.com take on it which was written when the trailers for Jurassic World and the new Terminator movie came out. It pointed out six big mistakes that many CG-heavy movies make, and many times it's not just the effects shots that are to blame for why it looks unrealistic. Summarized:
6) Lack of visual restraint where you can make objects move in unrealistic ways when everything else in the movie obeys the laws of physics.
5) Color grading nightmares. Jurassic World had this dreary blue/grey sheen over every shot, digital or not. It made the whole movie look poor.
4) CGI was originally used as a last resort. Entire scenes weren't created CG, you had, say, close-ups of the T-Rex from Jurassic Park using animatronics, and that gave CG artists a baseline to match when lighting their digital creatures.
3) Most films forget a camera needs to exist. In wholly-digital shots, many directors feel the need to zip the virtual camera around in ways we couldn't possibly move -- and again, it just adds to sense of unrealism. I liked the Misty Mountains bridges/etc sequence from the first Jackson Hobbit movie as an example.
2) Uncanny Valley -- this can be triggered by miniatures as well. We also knew when CG didn't look quite right, so Jurassic Park did the smart thing by hiding most of it in the rain and dark. Some of the daytime outdoor scenes look terrible by today's standards, while the T-Rex rain attack still holds up.
1) I'm not sure the author really made his point well here, but it was something about how big effects sequences should have a build-up (first two Jurassic Park movies) and awe.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[GuB-42]

There is no such thing as "actual colors" in film. A camera and your eyes don't react to the same wavelengths and displays are also different. Additionally, your brain preprocesses what your eyes see in a way that is adapted to the real world, not a movie screen.
Colors are not realistic to begin with, so what you see on film are either an artistic choice or the result of technical limitations. Probably more of the former than the latter in any movie worth its salt.

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Bob the Super Hamste]

So I'm not the only one who hated CGI Yoda (Clone Wars series exempted).

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[Cederic]

Thing is that Avatar was just a shit film.

Fucking pretty, but shit.

Step 1 : Make a great film

At no point in that guide to making great films did "do lots of CGI" appear, pretty, shitty or otherwise.

If you really want beauty in a great film, try The Fountain. That's a beautiful film, and despite being made in the CGI era didn't need it. If Aronofsky can do it, why can't the cunts with massive budgets?

Re:Compare The Hobbit to Max Max

[JaredOfEuropa]

"Fucking pretty", yes. That was what we were talking about; effective or not so effective use of CGI. Not about the other qualities of the movie. Avatar did cgi well, really well, even though it was a shallow (but very enjoyable) movie otherwise. The Fountain? A beautiful movie with great visuals and a great soundtrack based on an interesting premise. But even so I thought the execution was average. A lot of it was just eye candy in another form, art for arts sake, a convoluted telling of a Ho hum tale.

Compared to 430 computerized shots in the original

[Threni]

> Compared to 430 computerized shots in the original Independence Day movie, for instance, the new one has
> 1,750 digitized shots.

I don't have a fucking clue what a "computerized shot" is or how you add them up but I know that i'm not amazed by anything in movies any more. Not visually, anyway. Nobody is amazed by something they've seen before. Computer graphics are part of the language of movies now; you can't make a sci-fi movie without them, so the focus should be on the story, acting, pacing etc. A lot of movies use graphics the way a lot of movies use car chases - to replace any vaguely meaningful plot. Graphics aren't going to go away, but i'm not sure it's possible to read anything into how no-one really cares about them; it should be obvious.

Sandbox rules get old fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Challenges and limitations keep things interesting. In a world where the screenwriter can rewrite every rule of the real world, and the CGI folks make it happen, there is no wonder, no surprise, no "how is that possible?" Everything's possible, so everybody's prepared for everything. *Shrug*, oh, he went there, whatevs. It's like playing in the sandbox, where no rules are made to be followed, just to exist until they're in the way and superseded at the whim of a kid. It's arbitrary.

Re:Sandbox rules get old fast

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the technical term is "plot device", an abundance of them.

Pixels SUCKED.

[Anonymous Coward]

Adam Sandler is a crime against Humanity.

Re:Pixels SUCKED.

[Anonymous Coward]

...and that took you how many Sandler movies to realise?

Re:Pixels SUCKED.

[Cederic]

Adam Sandler is a crime against his own talent. He can actually act.

He just chooses to make a very lucrative and comfortable career being mediocre instead of seeking out the writers and directors that could make him so much more.

I would pity him, except that he's insanely rich as a result. I guess it's hard to criticise really. You can always choose not to watch his films..

Re:Pixels SUCKED.

[Anonymous Coward]

He proved that he can act in Punch Drunk Love, I don't know why he went back to making bad movies after that one.

A Good Thing?

[bjwest]

Maybe this will get us back to the idea that movies should portray a story instead of a bunch of action shots blowing things up and a line or two of dialog here and there.

Re:A Good Thing?

[tbannist]

Maybe this will get us back to the idea that movies should portray a story instead of a bunch of action shots blowing things up and a line or two of dialog here and there.

Well, that should put Michael Bay out work then, and good thing too

Re:A Good Thing?

[dinfinity]

It really doesn't help that any time you criticize the story, you are so often met with the following classic comment: "Oh, shut up, it's just a movie. I enjoyed it."
No, that movie had a shit story which was riddled with plot holes, both of which you failed to become aware of because the filmmakers were shaking rattles and dangling shiny things in front of you.

Obligatory Harry Plinkett review and filmmaking 101 class:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:A Good Thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

You offered your criticism to the wrong person, that's all. Then you insulted them in the next sentence. Good luck getting them to listen to you about anything after all that.

Re:A Good Thing?

[thegarbz]

Why? What makes you think that action scenes have taken the place of the script? The person responsible for the one has nothing to do with the other.

There's no reason at all to believe that cutting back on digital camera work will make the script any better.

Re:A Good Thing?

[JaredOfEuropa]

Meh. Different movies, different standards. A good blockbuster action flick doesn't need a great story, it needs to be simple and not have too many plot holes in it. A few holes are fine. Some of us just need to veg out from time to time with a few rattles and shiny things, plot holes and character development be damned.

With that said, the crop of good, enjoyable blockbuster action movies in the past few years has been rather meager. There were plenty of attempts, but what such movies do need is a few original ideas. And by original ideas I don't mean a gratuitous deep dive into the soul of cardboard cartoon characters. Think "Edge of Tomorrow", but I will even take "Battleship" over yet another god-damned superhero reboot.

Re:A Good Thing?

[dinfinity]

A good blockbuster action flick doesn't need a great story

The quality of a story is not a binary thing. A story is not either great or shit. Action movies indeed do not need a great, thought-provoking story, but if the story is inconsistent or full of plot holes it is shit and should be allowed to be called out as such.
People get their panties in a bunch when you dare call movies they liked shit and start attacking you for being a killjoy and start throwing all kinds of straw men at you. Instead, they should just accept that they like shitty low-quality things from time to time, which is fine (and which in areas such as food doesn't seem to spark the same aggression towards critics).

Some of us just need to veg out from time to time with a few rattles and shiny things, plot holes and character development be damned.

There is this concept called 'the suspension of disbelief'. A story with fewer plot holes makes 'vegging out' much, much easier, because there is less disbelief to suspend.

I will even take "Battleship" over yet another god-damned superhero reboot.

The sentiment in the latter I agree with. But you should understand that in a way, you are partly responsible for those. The 'vegging out'-crowd is (still) not only rewarding but being very defensive of ever crappier movies with lots of rattles and shiny things in them. That (lack of) selection pressure is evolving the blockbusters in a certain way.

Re:A Good Thing?

[dinfinity]

I agree that the second part of that (fictitious) reply was not very constructive. It is something I would think as such but generally utter in a paraphrased manner.

Do note however that in this hypothetical (but common) situation, the first real aggression comes from the "oh, shut up"-part. People feel personally insulted when you criticize something they like, in this case (the quality of) a movie. Even though I would not be insulting them personally, they would experience it as such and proceed to attack me ("you're a killjoy", "shut up", "just enjoy the movie") for voicing my opinion.

I find the latter objectionable.

Re:A Good Thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Best reviews ever.

He shredded those three piles of shit in ways that can not be refuted.

The side story about the captive hooker was more interesting than the prequels.

Re:A Good Thing?

[Hognoxious]

Tripe. The director is responsible for both.

Re:A Good Thing?

[houghi]

Or when they have a great story, but decide to rape it. "I am legend" as proof. They just did it so they could extend the copyright a bit more. At least I hope that is the reason they did it, because if they actually thought it was a good idea to rape the story this way, that would be WAY worse.

Re:A Good Thing?

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Hey I like The Expendables for what it was, 103 minutes of pure brain melt with a plot shallower than the pool my kids play in.

Re:A Good Thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

DYM the producer?

Re:A Good Thing?

[jjoelc]

Counterpoint = John Wick

Re:A Good Thing?

[thegarbz]

Tripe. The director is responsible for both.

Hardly. The director is often hamstrung by the desires of the studios, producers, investors and other interested parties. That's how you end up with shit lines about copyright being a crime working it's way into movie scripts. That's how you end up with directors actively disowning their own movies and regretting taking part in the first place.

Directors have little leeway. They have more when they are also the producer. They have even more when they also procured or wrote the screenplay. They have the most when they also own the production studio... which is sadly also how we got Starwars Episode 1.

Re:A Good Thing?

[Hognoxious]

False dichotomy. Just because he doesn't have total control (yes, ultimately money talks loudest) doesn't mean he has no control. If the script is shite he should force a rewrite or sack the writer.

A well made miniature is still better

[stargazer1sd]

Go watch 2001, a Space Odyssey again. It was done with miniatures and painted glass mattes. It still feels a lot more real than a lot of modern movies.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[HornWumpus]

No. 2001 was one of the first 'eye candy' movies. It suffered from it. Can you stay awake through the space docking sequence?

'Forbidden Planet' was an old movie with about the right amount of special effects (and a beautiful pair of tits!)

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[ihtoit]

or the city scenes in Bladerunner.

According to the included documentaries in the SE box set, only one camera was used, with up to 16 overlaid exposures per frame.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

Also stop motion used for ED209

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[im_thatoneguy]

There were awful miniatures and there were awful matte paintings. Today there is awful CG.

For every 2001 there was a 2000 and 2 buck rogers from the 30th centuries with shoddy miniature work. Today for every rushed CG shot in a film there were 3,000 you didn't even realize were CG because they were perfect.

Every time someone whines about the quality of a CG shot I remind them of what things used to look like:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_grTE...

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[MightyMartian]

Trumbull is a master was special effects, and nowhere is this seen better than 2001. After all these years, it still remains the most accurate portrayal of space ever made. The only jarring part, and this can't be pinned on Trumbull, is the scenes on the Moon where no one shows any indication they're walking on the Moon itself. But the docking scenes and the various scenes in and around Discovery are still breathtaking.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[MightyMartian]

I've seen 2001 about seven times and I've never fallen asleep. A lot of Kubrick's work is like that, more contemplative and more willing to let a shot linger without trying to punch it up with dramatic sound tracks or explanatory dialogue.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[thinkwaitfast]

I don't think it's as much about good/bad cgi as now being able to do things that are so over-the-top unbelievable while at the same time looking completely real. The uncanny mountain?

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

Trumbull is a master was special effects, and nowhere is this seen better than 2001. After all these years, it still remains the most accurate portrayal of space ever made.

Actually, I'd say Apollo 13 topped 2001 for accurate portrayal of space travel, but that's not really science fiction, it's a docu-drama.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[myowntrueself]

Go watch 2001, a Space Odyssey again. It was done with miniatures and painted glass mattes. It still feels a lot more real than a lot of modern movies.

Gerry Anderson. Not only actual models but actual pyrotechnics! Theres nothing like stuff actually catching fire and exploding!

Of course, these days, in Hollywood there would be some major insurance and litigation issues to cover so use of real pyrotechnics in movie making has to be a thing of the past in North America.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[iggymanz]

shit taste plebeian detected

the docking sequence is awesome

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed! The Emperor definitely had clothes on.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Rakarra]

No. 2001 was one of the first 'eye candy' movies. It suffered from it. Can you stay awake through the space docking sequence?

There were quite a few movies in the era that moved much more slowly than movies now do. I somewhat prefer the long takes of yesteryear to the current "cut every 1.5s" trend.

'Forbidden Planet' was an old movie with about the right amount of special effects (and a beautiful pair of tits!)

Maybe I got distracted by the tits! I was very young when I first saw it, and I found the Creature of the ID to be absolutely amazing. Watched it again yesterday, and the ID monster leaves a LOT to be desired. The practical effects and the matte paintings are still fantastic, but the lasers and the ID creature during the fight used low-budget Disney animation (not kidding -- they contracted out to Disney).
https://www.rogersrocketships....

I would love to see an updated version, but the matte paintings were just so good I'm worried a remake would ruin the effect.

Oh yes, Forbidden Planet suffered from a wretched soundtrack. Bad for the time, bad by today's standards. It was very experimental, but as with most experiments, you'll have some hits and some misses.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

Planetes

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

The Forbidden Planet ist one of the best soundtracks ever for me, especially for a sci-fi movie.The creation was very experimental, they build their own circuits for alle the sound used, but I wouldn't call it an experimental soundtrack, rather 100% synthesizer-based.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Danathar]

2001 was also made for Cinemascope, which I'm sure makes those first 15 minutes much more cool than watching those minutes on a small flat screen.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

ED-209 always looked fake as hell. It wasn't even very good stop motion by 1987 standards.

Same with the skeletal Terminator, they should have re-done that using another method.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate that movie with a passion. It did not feel real. Alien felt real.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Rakarra]

Well, this was back in the 50s, right? I'd say just about anything synthesizer-based was experimental back then.

Re:A well made miniature is still better

[Anonymous Coward]

The space docking sequence isn't the problem with 2001, IMO. It's the part near the end where Dullea/Bowman is transcending into a higher plane of existence. He starts accelerating through the universe with trippy colours, which is a cool effect. Except that it goes on. And on. And ON! OK, OK, I get it, he's transcending into a higher plane of existence already!

That scene is in special need of editing and trimming.

It's the story stupid.

[LWATCDR]

"An article on Motherboard today investigates the reasons why people didn't go "oh-my-god, that was awesome" looking at the CGI-based scenes in the recent movies such as Independence Day: Resurgence, Batman v Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse. "
Out of those three I only saw Batman v Superman. The problem was that it just wasn't good. Yes we are past the point where CGI alone will make us happy. Take a look at Captain America Civil war for example. It was chocked full of special effects but it also had some kind of story and frankly a sense of humor.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[tomhath]

Though the article acknowledges that this could be the result of some poor-acting, spotty storyline, or bad editing

They acknowledge the fact that the films just aren't very good. But then they go looking for other things to blame the suck on.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[thegarbz]

Out of all of those I just saw *the worst of the lot*. Seriously Batman vs Superman was just garbage. The rest of those however were a visual treat as well as a good story that stood up on their own.

But then that's no surprise. Man of Steel and the Watchmen were okay, but the rest of Zack Snyder's movies can only be described as woeful.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[BoberFett]

I blame piracy.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[Ranbot]

As a counterpoint, the story of Mad Max was by no means great or compelling. Heck, the main character spends the first quarter of of the film grunting through a steel mask/gag. That didn't stop the movie from being nominated for ten Oscars and winning six, including best picture.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[Gr8Apes]

the story of Mad Max ... first quarter of of the film grunting through a steel mask/gag. That didn't stop the movie from being nominated for ten Oscars and winning six, including best picture.

That pile of crap won 6 oscars (no, I can't be bothered to confirm it myself). I'd say the original was far far better, as were a bunch of other C movies made back then.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[Gr8Apes]

I saw ID: Resurgence. It was an ok popcorn movie that I did not dislike. Like the first, I didn't expect an awesomely well-acted movie. I expected some entertainingly humorous blow up some aliens action with some corny lines. It delivered that, mostly.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[colinrichardday]

No Mad Max film has won best picture at the Oscars, though Fury Road was nominated for it.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary really makes me hate the writer.

The argument is that classic special effects make movies have more soul than modern special effects.
The following examples are brought up for modern effects: Independence Day: Resurgence, Batman v Superman and X-Men: Apocalypse
For old effects we get: Alien

Cherry picking one of the best movies that were made during that decade against three cash-grab sequels that were released within a couple of months hardly makes a point.
It's not like there weren't plenty of crappy soulless movies made with old style special effects in the 70's and 80's.

Had the write not been a complete retarded asshole then the comparison for one or the other would have been Alien vs. The Matrix or something along those lines.
No-one (except for possibly some not so very bright producer) expected the examples given to be anything but plot-less action-packed B-movies.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[Ranbot]

Interesting comment considering that the main reason Fury Road won so many Oscars is because Miller bucked Hollywood's 10+ year infatuation with green screens and CGI, and went back to classic old-school movie-making [like the original Mad Max films] with real effects, stunts, explosions, cars, costumes, choreography, and landscapes. Here's an article with more details and pre- and post edit comparison photos from the movie... http://www.dailydot.com/upstre...

Re:It's the story stupid.

[dyslexicbunny]

And even then, Civil War wasn't all that great. Winter Soldier blows it away simply because the script was tighter. Civil War seemed like an excuse to get from action point to point so we could have the heroes fight each other.

Re:It's the story stupid.

[Gr8Apes]

Yes, but he forgot to have a writing team that could put together more than two coherent scenes in a row, much less create a coherent story. It also looked like he mashed up the worst parts of the worst mad max movie (Beyond Thunderdome) with some of the abandoned (with good reason) film styles of the first. A shallow copy at best that left me with apathy about any of the characters.

Hey you Pixels, get off my lawn

[turkeydance]

blue screen whippersnappers

Basic Fact Checking?

[Anonymous Coward]

per James Cameron's direction, weren't told ahead of time that the moment would include a giant splatter of blood....

Um, James Cameron didn't direct Alien, Ridley Scott did. Basic factual errors like this make me wary.

Re:Basic Fact Checking?

[avandesande]

Actually it angers the alien living in my abdomen, making her wary.

Re:Basic Fact Checking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong Director.
But the story is easy enough to find as true.

Too much action, not enough care in making us care

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it's even the 'pixels' but the sheer amount of effects, real or not.

Time was, the occasional movie had a HUGE jump-scare. Now your average horror has twenty of them.

Time was, you'd remember the early 80s action movie you loved because one guy killed this other one guy in this awful way and it really stood out. Now a recent single Game of Thrones episode (the penultimate) had more awful death scenes with limbs flying, being torn off, horses stabbed, headless riders etc than a dozen '80s horrors. Love good death scenes, but piling more and more on top of each other has diminishing returns.

Straight up action used to be a special thing to punctuate something we'd been drawn into really caring about by telling a story. That's not to say pure action movies can't be exceptional, Fury Road really did it for me - but again I suppose it's carrying through a character who had a story from thirty years ago too.

Then there's Transformers. Apart from two characters in the first movie, I really couldn't name *one* in all the others that I knew long enough to connect with emotionally. With those connections stymied by more and more action, I'm not watching a *story*, just a set of barely connected CGI demo reels.

Poor examples

[Anonymous Coward]

*minor spoilers of bad movies ahead*

Didn't see xmen one, but the other two are terrible examples of CGI in movies. In the Independence Day move, they went too far with the size of the space ship to be believable, all the 'attach to earth' scene is just f***** stupid, and made all the movie pointless. So they want the core of the planet, and they have a spaceship that probably could ignite all the atmosphere and kill all the insignificant life on the planet, but no, lets just park it in the middle of the ocean and let the humans have a change of destroy us.

And the final battle of Superman vs Batman was like watching a cutscene of a poor game, lifeless characters bouncing on the screen.

Stargate Lesson

[Dutchmaan]

People fail to learn the Stargate lesson. Stargate being the first movie IMHO, that had significant CGI effects, was fragged down by a lackluster story line. It had beautiful imagery but that doesn't carry a movie. Conversely take Forest Gump where the CGI was so good that you didn't even know it was there and took its rightful place as a tool to tell a story, not the star of the film.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Stele]

I've been writing software for the visual effects industry since 1992, and software I've written was used extensively in both Stargate and Forrest Gump (among hundreds of others). Having gotten into digital film post production since the beginning, I've always had a keen eye for visual effects, especially the "invisible effects" that my software was used heavily for. I would go to movies with friends and occasionally exclaim "wow, did you SEE that?" when clearly they didn't think anything "special" had happened. I once overheard a lady complain during Forrest Gump that it was a shame they made that poor actor with no legs run around and stuff for most of the movie on fake legs - he must have been very uncomfortable. I'd routinely watch a movie twice in row - the first time to check out the effects and the second time to actually "watch the movie".

As the quality of visual effects has increased, especially their exponential use in invisible effects, it is quite a bit more difficult to "see" effects in most movies these days. I still keep an eye out for bad composites (matte edges, grade matching, DoF/angle matching, grain matching, etc) and unrealistic CG, but I'm always really happy at the end of many films where I forgot to look for effects at all and just get sucked into the movie. Sometimes I'll just say "that movie SUCKED. But the visual effects were AWESOME!". It's been fascinating to watch (and be involved with) the evolution of visual effects over the past 25 years.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[es330td]

Sometimes I'll just say "that movie SUCKED. But the visual effects were AWESOME!".

This is the reason that for the Academy Awards each category, save Best Picture, is voted on only by the members in that category. A movie can absolutely suck but have great music or amazing editing. The people who work in a field know for what to look when they watch and know good work when it happens.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[thinkwaitfast]

Did you work on Contact? The medicine cabinet was my favorite FX in the whole movie.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Strudelkugel]

You and your colleagues are doing great work, no question about that. It's too bad that the story telling doesn't make use of it most movies today. I just watched the trailer for "Star Trek Beyond". I thought that it had spectacular effects, but could barely figure out what the story was. It looked like every other sci fi movie for the past ten years. Pew pew lasers, stuff blowing up, overdone aliens... Seriously Hollywood, you can't do better than this?

Re:Stargate Lesson

[perry64]

if you can find it, the ACM SIGGRAPH's "Story of Computer Graphics" (http://www.siggraph.org/movie/) from 2000 credits 1982's "Tron" as being the first film with significant computer graphics. There is a lot of discussion from people who worked on the CGI about how they did it.

However, to a man, they all said that they walked out of the theater saying, "Meh." They realized that the effects can't make the movie, there has to be something more.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people don't even notice how awesome it is.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the academy awards consistently miss the good in nearly every category, every year.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

The medicine cabinet gif have been re-posted so many times that it have almost reached meme-status by now.
It's still a great shot and provides a bit of mind gymnastics every time it is watched.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Stele]

I didn't work it on it directly (though I got to help out on some of the mecho-morph shots in Stargate), but my software was used a lot in Contact. That also was one of my favorite shots in the film, and a perfect example of something I noticed and people I was watching with didn't. "Did you SEE that? What? She opened the cabinet from the opposite side of the mirror! You're an idiot." That kind of stuff.

Another favorite scene was the long, "continuous" sequence where Ellie is driving in from the radio telescope array and then runs into the building, up the stairs, and into the control room and you can see the dishes out through the window. Since they couldn't shoot inside that building, there is an "invisible cut" when she opens the door and then they transition to a set, with the dishes composited in through the windows. Excellent! There are a bunch of effects shots like that, and Forrest Gump is FULL of them. I think my favorite effects shot in Gump was when Lt. Dan is on the floor on New Years Eve after falling out of his wheelchair. He shifts his legs around and gets back up in the chair, the entire time with that spool table in front of him. But when they shot that scene that table was never there, because his legs would have hit it. They did the same thing with the side of the boat when he swings around and jumps in. An entire section of the side of the boat was removed so he could do that in a "natural" way. Love that stuff!

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, did you miss the 10 seasons of Stargate SG-1, 5 of Stargate Atlantis, and 2 of SG: Universe?

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Cederic]

Yeah, on that topic Amelie was an eye opener for me after I'd watched it and not even noticed several hundred CGI effects.

There are a couple of obvious ones but primarily it's been put together with skill and subtlety that lets you focus on the story, the people, the film. I like that.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Dutchmaan]

No, did you miss the part where I was talking about the original movie?

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not "difficult" to see your shitty CGI in movies, you ARE the asshat who doesn't understand physics. Where a stuntman, true to his trade can't redefine the laws of physics, and these men and women in the trade should be paid far more, you are the asshat who this it's ok to do so with CGI and that no one will notice. Your CGI sucks, you can't even replicate the simplest stuntman moves without defying the laws of physics, and in doing so destroying the credibility of the the story. Yes, you, took a perfectly good story and f'ed it up with bad CGI. FYI: no body believes your shit and that's the problem. That's why you don't have ticket sales, that's why old movies with real hero stuntmen are better than you will ever produce. Let us not forget the giant "RAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH" from the bad guy just to test our speakers. FU I know my speakers are good, it doesn't improve the story, it doesn't impress me, it doesn't even scare a 5 year old anymore... Oh my, guess what, who did the whole raaahhh thing? CGI asshat's like yourself. FU CGI asshats of the world. You have ruined more movies than the bad directors could have ever done.

Re:Stargate Lesson

[Hognoxious]

I've been writing software for the visual effects industry since 1992 [...] their exponential use in invisible effects

Are you sure? I'd have thought a job like that would require at least a nodding familiarity with mathematics.

bullshit about nothing

[Gravis Zero]

lots of movies come out and the reason people like them has nothing to do with how much is life-like and everything to do with how it's presented.

this article is bullshit about nothing.

Yes but no.

[jxander]

While the point is valid, the 3 movies listed were hot garbage for reasons completely divorced from their special effects.

Though ... there could be a correlation. CGI effects are cheap, plentiful and ultimately disposable. Didn't like a shot? Just tweak a few setting and re-render. Try it 10 more times. Did an actor screw up? Just fix it in post.

Conversely, something like Mad Max: Fury Road, Alien, or Nightmare Before Christmas all require meticulous planning, careful coordination and the utmost dedication to each and every take. Things are literally blowing up, there's tangible blood splashing across the actors faces, and every scene in a stop-motion movie is hours and hours of tiny movements that can't be easily reshot.

So, I don't think it's the CGI itself causing this problem, but rather the environment it fosters.

Re:Yes but no.

[im_thatoneguy]

Except that Mad Max is one of the most CGI intensive films in recent history.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Though ... there could be a correlation. CGI effects are cheap, plentiful and ultimately disposable. Didn't like a shot? Just tweak a few setting and re-render. Try it 10 more times. Did an actor screw up? Just fix it in post.

Conversely, something like Mad Max: Fury Road, Alien, or Nightmare Before Christmas all require meticulous planning, careful coordination and the utmost dedication to each and every take. Things are literally blowing up, there's tangible blood splashing across the actors faces, and every scene in a stop-motion movie is hours and hours of tiny movements that can't be easily reshot.

I've heard Ben Browder (Farscape) claim the exact opposite of what you're saying (I think it was inthis video ). Basically he said (paraphrasing):
- CG is very expensive
- consequently the whole dialog is heavily scripted in advance, to the point where the actors come in, stand in their assigned spots (to match the CG), do a few takes to say their lines, and leave
- this kills any improvisation, and gives actors little room to put more into the performance
- so the end result looks very slick, but is lacking "soul". It feels scripted because it is.

Re:Yes but no.

[thegarbz]

Please stop with this meme. When we talk about CGI we are talking about complete computer remakes of entire scenes for no reason, often even rendering the main cast themselves.

Mad Max stood out against this. Every scene had some CGI but that was window dressing to the core components of the action scenes which were shot in a way that is basically unique in modern cinema.

Re:Yes but no.

[lgw]

Which goes to the point: it's not the abundance of CGI that's the problem, it's the lack of practical effects. Practical effects help bring the actors into the movie, which in turn helps bring the audience in.

The actors reacting appropriately to the effects is quite important (as any B-movie knows: if you can't afford the effect, just focus on the reaction and skip the shot). It's really hard for even good actors to react appropriately to something they can't see.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

I was going to mention another reboot as an example of how CGI doesn't make a movie worse, it's the story (or lack there of), but apparently merely mentioning the title triggers the lameness filter. Would explain why there's been nothing about it on Slashdot even though you'd think it being a nerd classic there'd have been SOMETHING. In any case it's yet another example of CGI not really adding anything to the movie, but not really subtracting anything on its own either. But the use of the CGI to add pointless CGI scenes that add nothing and exist solely to show off your ability to make CGI shots (or, as in this case, say "HEY THIS IS A CAMEO OF THAT THING YOU LOVED IN THE ORIGINAL, DID YOU NOTICE?") - yeah, that DOES detract from the movie.

Story, pacing, characters, plot: these things matter, and CGI doesn't have to detract from them. But as you mentioned, when you have CGI as a tool, it's way too easy for a director to just fall into the trap of throwing in pointless, needless scenes because the CGI lets them rather than because they serve any purpose. Said reboot of a classic is a great demonstration of it - so many CGI scenes that serve literally no purpose towards forwarding the story, but are only there because they can.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

^^ This. Mad max used CGI brilliantly to enhance real life action instead of trying to make a really good cartoon.

Re: Yes but no.

[jxander]

Exactly. And to take it a step further, it's harder for the entire crew to get fully invested in a film that's all green screen.

"Pretend there's a giant dragon or something," will simply never create the atmosphere of the giant animatronic Rex from Jurassic Park.

Lazy atmosphere begets lazy writing, lazy acting, lazy production.

Re: Yes but no.

[jxander]

An interesting take. I'll definitely have to watch the video.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be that one guy ... oh wait.

Re:Yes but no.

[im_thatoneguy]

Please stop with this meme. When we talk about CGI we are talking about complete computer remakes of entire scenes for no reason, often even rendering the main cast themselves.

So they drove through a giant fire tornado?
http://animation-boss.com/imag...
There is a large formation of rocks with a giant waterfall spout built into it?
http://animation-boss.com/imag...
http://oneperfectshotdb.com/wp...
The main character's robotic arm was a real prosthetic?
https://hardinthecity.files.wo...
The cars weren't composited in for safety?
http://www.gizmodo.jp/images/2...
http://i2.wp.com/www.cgmeetup....
http://i2.wp.com/www.cgmeetup....

Entire canyon environments weren't created in CG?
http://www.konbini.com/en/wp-c...
The wheels weren't entirely replaced and the entire ground moving under the vehicles wasn't added in post to make shots of parked vehicles look like they were driving fast?
http://oneperfectshotdb.com/wp...

It's not a meme that a substantial portion of Mad Max Fury Road was shot on greenscreen. As much as any other big blockbuster like The Avengers. The only difference is that many Mad Max Fury Road (which I loved) are in plain denial about the extent of the CG in the film. There is a reason it was nominated for VFX.

https://vimeo.com/132806170

Re:Yes but no.

[thegarbz]

So they drove through a giant fire tornado?

Yes they drove. In the vehicles that were built for the shoot. That is exactly what I was saying. Every other movie would have just animated the cars and the people on it from the ground up.

No one is in denial about the use of CGI. You're just completely missing the point of both what is being said about Mad Max and the entire discussion here at hand.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

CGI effects are not cheap, they're cost a bloody fortune. This isn't some toy engine like Unreal or Unity, it takes thousands of hours to rending one second of today's CGI in the major movies (excluding all the shite that's peddled with game engines for kids).

A small team doing stop-motion is infinitely cheaper that the hundreds of artists and asset creators used in a typical CGI borefest like Deadpool or anything by Peter Jackson.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

When we talk about CGI we are talking about complete computer remakes of entire scenes for no reason, often even rendering the main cast themselves.

I think you're the only one using that definition.

Please don't speak for me or anyone else who hasn't asked you to.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

That's an interesting parallel to how modern records are made.

Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers talked about it in Runnin' Down a Dream It used to be, the whole band would be in the studio, and they would rehearse takes, then step into the booth to record individual parts.

Then Jeff Lynne and Dave Stewart changed the whole approach, and he'd be sitting at home and get a call saying "come in to the studio now." He'd record a few keyboard lines, and be sent home. The record was assembled at the mixing board.

Re:Yes but no.

[im_thatoneguy]

They didn't drive. I posted an image of them very much parked on a sound stage with a fan and a green screen.

No film relies exclusively on CG except for animated films. Even the worst offenders of over-the-top CG according to you also have practical effects. I understand exactly what's being said and what it comes down to is "when I like the movie they used CG properly" "When I don't like the movie they used practical effects!" Because there is no objective distinction between the actual film-making approaches used between a regular cgi reliant blockbuster and what they did on Fury Road. Fury Road relied heavily on fans and greenscreens where the vehicles were effectively props. And there are plenty of big blockbusters where they have an on-set vehicle that's actually filmed.

So every film is guilty of what you accuse them of. You only though seem to apparently care when it fits your narrative.

Re:Yes but no.

[thegarbz]

Yes I only care. And reviewers only care. And the movie industry awards only care. And apparently everyone in the industry only cares except for you.

Yep everyone is the problem here. .... I just noticed your name is Im_thatoneguy and I spat coffee on my screen. Thank you you've made my morning. Now please go back again and review what makes Mad Max so different before you come and tell me what my narrative is.

Re:Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

A small team doing stop-motion is infinitely cheaper that the hundreds of artists and asset creators used in a typical CGI borefest like Deadpool or anything by Peter Jackson.

Deadpool had a relatively small budget for an action/superhero movie, but yes, it did rely on large teams of artists from multiple fx houses.

It wasn't the CGI that made it good, it was the writing.

Re: Yes but no.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently it was this video instead, if you're still interested, finally had time to check.
The part I talked about was around the 42m46s mark, but the whole video is worth a watch.

no, ID:R really did suck

[ihtoit]

SPOILER ALERT: they beat the aliens again with impossible technological crossover and obscene luck. Really, it was ID4 again only this time they fixed the tidal influence issue (and made a major plot point out of it yet STILL managed to fuck it up), stretched the suspension of disbelief thing WAY too far by trying to have us believe that surviving aliens built a twenty mile wide, five high structure out in the middle of the desert and in twenty years NOBODY spotted it... there's so much wrong with the movie, not least the terrible acting, you could run a thirty minute Youtube video and probably gross more.

Re:no, ID:R really did suck

[Richard_at_work]

Read the official prequel book to ID:R, the structure wasnt built, it was a ship that landed (they covered that in the film as well), and the issue was that it was in the land of an African warlord who was keeping everyone out - the book covered the "why" of not forcing access.

The film still sucked - for me, it was the leaping headlong from one scene to another, the pacing was way way too fast. The original had decent pacing, but ID:R tried to cram twice as much in, double the plot complexity and twice the cast and it doubled the pacing to make up for it.

Scale Matters

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a moderate fear of heights. I nonetheless flew in an ultralight aircraft once, in which there is no cockpit or other physical separation between you and several hundred or thousand feet from the ground. I recommend it - the purity of that form of flight is really something.

During this flight, I discovered an interesting phenomenon: up to a certain point, the distance between me and the ground was causing me quite a bit of unease. As we climbed higher, that unease went away. My working hypothesis was that my brain, evolved for life close to the ground, was able to comprehend distances of a few hundred feet, but after that it became unable to and everything became pretty abstract at that point.

Same thing with movies and CGI: once you leave the scale that represents actual human reality, you lose the emotional connection. Seeing ONE building fall down, or a chestburster popping out of ONE guy's chest is comprehensible. It's relatable. Your brain can connect to that. When entire cities are blown up or the world ends for the umpteenth time on film, it's just pure spectacle. It's not a relatable experience, and you'll never be able to emotionally connect to it in the same way.

Uncanny Valley

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a typical case of the uncanny valley?

Ridley Scott

[SvnLyrBrto]

The first Alien movie... the one with Kane and the Nostromo... was directed by Ridley Scott, not James Cameron.

FFS, Slashdot. Why the head do you call yourself editors if you can't be bothered to, you know, edit. If you're going on posting this luddite, "Oh noes, substanceless technology is disconnecting us from reality." crap, at least get the basic facts upon which you're basing your argument correct.

Re:Ridley Scott

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah saw this one too and I was surprised. Alien is such a classic Ridley Scott film in every way. You'd think geeks would know that.

The sequel was fun and more action oriented, but never rose to the same level of terror.

Re:Ridley Scott

[Anonymous Coward]

In defense of /. editors, that section appears to be quoted (presumably from The Fine Article).

Re:Ridley Scott

[Anonymous Coward]

It suffered from the same effect as Agent Smith in the Matrix movies. One was terrifying. When there were hundreds of them, they were just annoying.

Re:Ridley Scott

[Anonymous Coward]

In defense of /. editors, that section appears to be quoted (presumably from The Fine Article).

Checked the article. It says Ridley Scott. Perhaps it didn't when submitted to /. and vice didn't note that it was corrected. Journalists suck. News at 11.

Special effects

[Anonymous Coward]

Try some stop-action claymation... HarryHausen(?).
'Natural Born Killers'
and a few older sci-fi movies....
Men in rubber suits ( OLD Godzilla and other monsters).
And some good dank!

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[thinkwaitfast]

Good sci fi does not need SFX. Everything else is fantasy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

The wonder is gone

[Anonymous Coward]

CGI is to the point that pretty much nothing is interesting any more. "How did they do that" is no longer a question, the answer is the same: CGI.

When you have entire virtual worlds like Avatar and Jungle Book, where anything goes, there's nothing out of the realm of possibility for a modern director, save budget. I appreciate that modern CGI is not drag and drop. Jungle Book was not a cheap movie to make. But the better things like Jungle Book get, the cheaper everything else gets until CGI is flat out everywhere and ho hum.

It used to be that the Special FX were part of the draw of a Special FX movie. Good effects could overshadow poor scripts or acting. But not anymore.

I'd rather watch a bad Jackie Chan movie, knowing that what I'm seeing is what was done (at least it used to be, until he started doing wire work).

So, for me, the summer movie season, is pretty much dead. I wait for the dramas of the Fall, and the also rans of the spring. Try to get a good story.

Less is More

[avandesande]

They purposefully limited the views of the creature itself to build mystery and suspense.. a technique that seems to have been lost on most contemporary directors.

Re:Less is More

[Anonymous Coward]

I was a young kid when Alien was released on VHS and you couldn't be more right. Aliens was fun, but nowhere near as stand on your chair scary as Alien.

As an adult, I remember being freaked out by the aliens in Signs, that is until I actually saw the aliens in full detail. The scene where you only see the leg being pulled back into the corn field still makes me shiver. Once you actually got a good look at them, they were much less scary.

More recently 12 Cloverfield Lane was completely ruined by the ending where you see the Alien invaders. That is a prime example where leaving the story open as to what really happened would have been so much more impactful.

Pet peeve

[Fwipp]

It's all pixels. Anything you watch on any pixel-based display will be pixels.

If you mean CGI, say CGI.

Re:Pet peeve

[gweilo8888]

This.

/and also, get off my lawn

Confirmation bias at its finest

[Mrs. Grundy]

It's a simple recipe: have an opinion and then mine the past for confirmation of this opinion. If the amount of CGI in a film is inversely proportional to how much audiences like it, then Avatar should have been a failure and Waterworld should have swept the Oscars. You can make the exact opposite argument just as well by simply picking different films.

If the author wants to test this theory he needs to find a way to predict the success of the film based on his hypothesis before the fact, not after.

It's not CGI, it's familiarity

[rknop]

Remember when Jurassic Park came out, how impressed we all were with the dinosaurs?

Remember when T2 came out, how impressive the liquid metal man was?

The problem isn't that CGI is "bad". It's just a technique, that can be used well or poorly like anything else. It's mature enough now that you can use it a whole lot. But there's nothing intrinsic about it that makes it less impressive or less verisimilitudinous or less worthwhile to watch than other filmic techniques.

The real problem is that "lots of things moving at once look at the spectacle!" is no longer novel. We have scads of movies every year come out that show us that. So, when Jurassic Park had cool dinosaurs, it was *the* movie that had that. When Return of the Jedi had fighters flying all over the place in a massive space battle that upped the ante from the previous two Star Wars movies, it was fresh and cool and new.

Nowadays, that's just same old, same old. You can no longer impress by having lots of specatcle out there, because audiences have been there and seen that. it doesn't matter how you accomplish it -- CGI or otherwise. CGI only gets blamed because that's how people usually accomplish it nowadays. Maybe you can blame CGI because that's what made it cheap engouh to be overused so much. But it's not CGI itself.

Done well, it still entertains. Somebody else has already mentioned Mad Max. As another example, the speedster running through the exploding house scene from [i]X-Men: Apocalypse[/i] was a lot of fun, because there was more to it than just spectacle. The same movie at the end had lots of crap flying all over the places in a special effects spectacular, and it was kind of boring, because it was just gratuitous spectacle for the sake of spectacle, and that's old hat.

Re:It's not CGI, it's familiarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Jurassic Park was only impressive to anyone that had not been rendering 3D scenes on their own computers, non-nerds. The best scenes all used practical effects with animatronics.

Re:It's not CGI, it's familiarity

[Anonymous Coward]

Disagree. I was taking an animation course using 3D Studio in 1993, and when I heard they were going to use CGI for the dinosaurs, I immediately thought "this is going to be horrible."

I was wrong. I was blown away in the theater. Some of the shots did look cheesy (the T-Rex stepping out to gobble a gallimimus), but when it crashed through the fence in the rain, I just went NO WAY. It was FAR more realistic than the stop-motion of the day, which was what Spielberg originally intended to use. The animatronic puppets look stiff by comparison.

That, and the raptor falling over on the floor seen from above (the ceiling panel), getting up and leaping toward the camera sold me. CGI was obviously the future of cinema.

The word you are looking for is NOISE

[UnknownSoldier]

The secret sauce is noise.

Here is a picture of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Top: Real
Bottom: CG

They have both the SAME number of pixels, which means it must be the colors which are different.

Peter Jackson (used to) deeply understands using miniatures and bigatures to convey the "warmth" and "depth" with unique texturing and realistic lighting.

George Lucas on the other does not understanding anything about noise. Notice how the bottom textures look all bland. Everything looks fake and plastic. The word "Sterile" comes to mind.

It isn't about less, but more. Namely adding noise so objects look more realistic.

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[Anonymous Coward]

George Lucas on the other does not understanding anything about noise.

I beg to differ. Well, at least in the Original Star Wars (not to be confused with Episode IV). The Rebel X-Wings and Y-Wings were dirty. R2D2 and C3PO were banged up. The Jawa Sand Crawler was a giant slow piece of crap. I remember thinking at the time "Wow, for once everything isn't shiny, pristine, and perfect."

Then it all went downhill.

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[thinkwaitfast]

That was by design. By Ep4, things have been collapsing for quite a while. Ep1, there is still a lot of economic activity and things are still new, people can afford to maintain things.

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[UnknownSoldier]

He wasn't responsible for the special effects in the original Star Wars though.

* http://www.starwars.com/news/t...
* http://www.wired.com/2013/02/s...

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[bluegutang]

More like, adding noise so people blame the lack of realism on the noise, not the object being filmed.

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[Anonymous Coward]

It has nothing to do with noise. Your poor example is blatantly illustrating completely different lighting situations. This has nothing to do with your incorrect noise nonsense. The rendered image is shit purely because they used poor software, or poor artists; which didn't create a correct lighting environment. It's rubbish single source, no diffusion, no ambience - all absolutely basic stuff. You've obviously never rendered or filmed a single frame in your entire life (no, crap on phones does not count).

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing movies from different years. The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, the first LotR came out in 2001

In those years, 2 years is huge. Not to mention different budget.

You're also talking as if Lucas could just tell the CG artists to make it better with noise. Technology wasn't there yet. And Lucas didn't have the budget.

Re:The word you are looking for is NOISE

[Anonymous Coward]

You're comparing movies from different years. The Phantom Menace came out in 1999, the first LotR came out in 2001 In those years, 2 years is huge.

Seriously? Two years is nothing in movie studio time. A big picture can spend more time than that just in pre-production.

Not to mention different budget.

Not by much.

SW:TPM: $115,000,000
LoTR:FotW: $93,000,000

I'm not going to RTFA

[Wain13001]

If the summary is even remotely close to what this and is suggesting, then it appears he really thinks that an overabundance of CGI is what makes people indifferent to films, and not the complete dearth of decent storytelling, character development, acting, and direction. I cannot RTFA...if I do I'll spend every 3 sentence griping to myself about what a useless idiot the author is, and how the article is pure tripe...

This would not be good for my mood or my evening. I'll pass.

Re:I'm not going to RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. This. Good storytelling is primal. It cannot ever get old, or boring, or substanceless. The author is an idiot because good storytelling defines substance.

Ever hear of a couple of old yarns, the Iliad and the Odyssey? They survived for 2300 years simply by being good stories. Many of the stories in the Bible are great stories, never mind the religious messages. Tristan and Isolde, The Pied Piper of Hamlin, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Lady Godiva, the Canterbury Tales, the list is long. Such stories have entered history as cultural landmarks. My list is Western oriented but there are many fantastic stories from the Near East and Far East too. Every developed culture has such stories.

Add some good acting and some good CGI to such a story and you have a sure-fire winner. CGI is only bad when it's bad, or a crutch, or out of place.

Our primitive ancestors told stories around campfires. It's that old and it's that deeply embedded in our psyche. To this day campfire stories are welcomed by almost anyone.

Now, the shock (or surprise) value of seeing something entirely new because of CGI, OK, that can only happen once. When Terminator 2 showed us a liquid metal robot, that was mindblowing. However the eternal rule of innocence is that it can only be broken once and become adult knowledge.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[ihtoit]

I could make a sci-fi movie without having to resort to computer generated visual effects.

It's not all flying saucers and shit.

1984 being right in there with a movie you could shoot with one camera and no computer to be seen.

No, no they are not!

[Anonymous Coward]

"VR and augmented reality and the steady pace of CGI have pushed the process of substitution of reality to a higher level"

VR and AR BARELY exist. Literally in their infancy. 95% or more of your average movie consumers (not theater, MOVIE!) didn't have access to either of them until last week when Pokemon GO! Came out. Blaming either of them at all for this is ridiculous.

CGI... its laughable really how its getting blamed for anything considering how often its still done badly. Classic Kurosawa flicks with the giant arcs of spraying arterial blood are more realistic than the blood done with CGI in most movies even today. That's why you don't get much reaction, it just still LOOKS entirely fake.

But lets look at your 3 movie picks in the summary here:

ID: Resurgence - Tons of CGI, and fairly well done. Not much blood and the ship battles were incredibly hectic even compared to the original in which fleets of spaceships and fighters went at it. In fact, This movie was a CGI fest and not really much else, and that was a huge detraction. Special effects are supposed to be special, when they are made to carry the entire movie... well, audiences get bored and after the first few "Wow this looks awesome!" moments, it wears incredibly thin. I felt nothing for the characters in this movie for the most part because aside from the gay scientists no one else had much character development at all (and even theirs was merely that they were obviously a couple, though i felt that was very well done.)

B vs S: Dawn of Seriously Can We Get Some Lights In Here: Ok, first up, I liked this movie. Shut up. The CGI in it was not overdone, but the visual tone of the movie, the pacing of the movie (i did almost fall asleep the first time through, damn theatre seats are getting comfy nowadays!), and fact we were trying to follow several storylines at once and none of them were that well-fleshed out... the CGI just didn't wow amongst all that. Supe's eye blasts are pretty awesome. The Kryptonian ships... come on, one was covered with a tarp for the entire movie. Its not that the CGI didn't wow, it just... couldn't. It was too big, all the flying debris, the huge pieces we can't put into proper scale becuase we aren;' given decent points of reference... that ship was on teh ground, we saw it in 3 perspectives: from ground level walking with Lex towards it but no drawback shot to establish its sheer size; from above via helicopters and Superman, again no real scale given; and from inside, where it looked a lot like the inside of an Alien ship for some reason that's never been explained considering it comes from a culture that was super heavy into crystals (and probably also hot yoga).

X-men: Shit Yeah Its Time to Get Real: I liked this movie too (seriously shut up). But the CGI again had scaling issues. And I think B vs S had this same problem: when you do these huge effects and have no people in them at all, they are tiny dots barely distinguishable to anything else, then its just not a wow moment. Twister got these shots incredibly right, and the audio really helped with that. Screams are too clear, the noise from these massive goings-on should interfere, should blend, even overpower to near-indistuingishability any screams. Panicked people are either ants or right in your face overpowering the shot, thus spoiling the effects. the battles between mutants were incredible though, and I think it kind of shows where the director's focus really was. Even some of that was a little bland though, because its pure combat. I loved the explosion scene (not a spoiler, if you saw it you know which one I mean, if not, this ruins nothing there are dozens of explosions of course). It was a little campy but at the same time it was also incredibly well done. Total CGI fest throughout, yet good enough i think it might have had a lot of reality in it too. If not, kudos for getting it over on me, i thought it was amazing and could watch it a dozen times in a row.

The problems with CGI still come from not using it correctly

Sort of like 3D

[Archfeld]

This reminds me of why 3D has never really impressed me that much, because it is used as the end all be all, instead of something to enhance a story that is good on its' own right. The CGI in the battle sequences of the Lord of the Rings movies is very impressive and was just used as an aid to a critical part of the story rather than for the wow effect. With the ability to animate effects and the entire world of literature to draw on, why is it Hollywood seems to just reboot the same lame crap over and over again ?

Who ya gonna call, Ballbusters ? Why isn't the 'new' Ghostbusters a new standalone story, rather than a reboot with 4 women ? 4 women could just as easily carry off a good new expansion to the franchise.

Girl Shy

[Cornwallis]

That's a silent film (1924) by Harold Lloyd. Funny as hell and a fantastic 20 minute chase scene at the end of the movie that still holds my attention especially when you consider he's doing his own stunts and it is as real as it can be 92 years ago.

Why? Because you know damn well it isn't CGI. You don't even notice it is a silent movie. It's available on Youtube. If you don't want to watch the whole thing starting at 56:00.

Lloyd has to stop his girl from marrying the villain so he's trying to get to the ceremony to stop it.

Re:Girl Shy

[MightyMartian]

Lloyd's work is extraordinary, still some of the most breathtaking stunts ever filmed.

I also think of Metropolis, with all its ingenious use of mirrors, camera angles, forced perspective and all the tricks of the day. Lang was a genius (as well as being one of the first directors for whom the epithets "tyrant" or "dictator" could be ascribed), and some of the shots, even in this age of over the top special effects, still seem very impressive. Again, it's because you have to ask yourself "How did he do that?"

Another phenomenal special effects film from the old days I highly recommend is The Thief of Bagdad. To ponder that this was all done through trick photography and editing gives you some idea of the skill of filmmakers in those days.

People are just desensitized to spectacle

[Anonymous Coward]

It's really no more complicated than that.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[Oligonicella]

So... Could you point us to some good scifi?

Re:Too much action, not enough care in making us c

[MightyMartian]

That may be part of it too. I compare the space battle for Star Wars Episode IV with Episode III, and you can see the problem. The final Death Star battle scene sequence feels a lot like a WWII air battle (I'm sure that was intentional). There are quite a few fighters, but not huge numbers, and the shots aren't filled with wall to wall laser blasts, explosions and other visual noise. Compare that to the opening battle of Episode III, and it's like watching a film directed by someone with ADD. And the reason is, of course, that with models, there's significant cost to having multiple models for a single dogfight, and even where you have just a few models, it takes effort to cut and edit together various shots to create the illusion of lots of spacecraft. With CGI, particularly as the technology matures, you can just make as many spaceships as you want, as many laser blasts as you want, as many explosions as you want. I like to refer to it as the Michael-baying of special effects. Shots are so short, and speeds so fast that it becomes incomprehensible. Craft no longer seem bound by the even iffy laws of physics as found in your average science fiction epic.

Compare anything to Jackie Chan

[goombah99]

The best part of a Jackie Chan flick is the credit sequence out takes. In them you get to see how they filmed jackie chan jumping off a bridge onto a moving overcraft, how he lept between two buildings and nailed the fire escape, or how they made it look like he sledded off a cliff and grabbed a helicopter landing rail.

answers: He sledded off a cliff and grabbed a helicopter landing rail. No nets. He jumped off the building. No nets. he jumped off the bridge onto the hovercraft. he broke his leg. So they re-shot it with him doing it again this time in a cast that had been painted to look like the tennis shoe he was supposed to be wearing.

Seriously, when you know the guy is doing an insane stunt in a cast, one doesn't really need more and more and more to make it exciting. Watching Iron man plummet from the vacuum of space just isn't very thrilling compared to any dumb stunt jackie pulls off. I really dont' even mind he wears a safety wire when they are spinning him around at the end of ladder on a flying helicopter. it somehow doesn't ruin it for me. :-)

Re:Compare anything to Jackie Chan

[Anonymous Coward]

I was on set for a flic, talking to a stunt man, and he had a part folks liked where he was spinning through the air. He said the way the wire was wrapped around his middle for the spin felt like he was being cut in half.

Re:Compare anything to Jackie Chan

[houghi]

A lot is not so much the use of 'tricks' but the way of filming. Wich Chan you will se the whole fighting scene. There will be a few cuts, but in general you see the whole scene in one go.
You know what is going on.

With modern movies, you see a lot of close ups and a lot of cuts. And half of the scene is cut so that you need to imagine what happened. Two guys in a dark alley, close up of the eyes. Fist the moves. A face that turns with blood flying out of it. And this for 10 minutes.
That is not a fight scene, that is a epileptic seizure. Oh and do it in the dark, in the rain with loud music.

Compare that with Chan's movies where you see everything. It could be two stick figures and it STILL would be better.

If you only show effects and none of the story telling, you will get none of the story telling and people will not be interested after a while.

Re:Compare anything to Jackie Chan

[Kiwikwi]

Reminds me of watching Tom Cruise climb Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible, and thinking, "enh, the CGI is not really believable".

It may caused by jump cuts and other bad directing choices, but somehow, CGI is managing to ruin real stunts now.

Re:Compare anything to Jackie Chan

[samwichse]

On this note, have you seen the Daredevil TV series?

There are some overcut fight scenes, but some of them are nice and long and well choreographed. The first time I watched it, it actually made my brain say "something is wrong, I can actually follow this fight."

Standard old-fart rant about new media

[Namarrgon]

The whole article reeks of "fake effects were so much realer in my day". While his underlying point about ongoing desensitisation in society is valid, the focus on "pixels" as the new bad guy is merely echoing the same old complaints about new-fangled technology that we've heard since Plato.

At the time, when spectators saw red stuff, they saw blood.

No, they saw fake blood, as stated a couple sentences earlier. Imagine how much more genuine the actors' expressions would've been with REAL blood! But that isn't used because it has a few notable drawbacks, so a realistic fake is acceptable. Does it really matter what medium is used to produce the fake effect, if it's realistic?

Take explosions. People have been blown up (unconvincingly) in movies for a long time, but because setting off large pyrotechnics next to your talent is generally frowned upon by their agents, those are shot separately and composited later despite the extra acting challenge this requires. But if modern CGI allows us to send limbs flying without crippling insurance payouts, could this not be more realistic than practical effects?

But it's the movie examples TFA gives that really undercut the whole argument. Claiming that the biggest problem in Bats vs Supes was the pixels is going to induce severe rolling-eyes damage in anybody who's actually watched it.

Jackie Chan

[goombah99]

See also Jackie Chan, the inheritor of Harold Lloyd's mantle.

I use shaky cam in my work all the time.

[Anonymous Coward]

Im a court videographer.

Less to do with CGI

[rsilvergun]

more to do with China. Movies have to be watered down until they translate across cultural boundaries. That plus there was a golden age in the 70s and 80s when directors like Ridley Scott were given carte blanc to make whatever they wanted. A few high profile bombs and some focus groups later and everything was crap.

Re:Too much action, not enough care in making us c

[thinkwaitfast]

Close Range

Re: Compared to 430 computerized shots in the orig

[Anonymous Coward]

A "computerized" shot is anything that has been bluscreened or Green screened. After a horrific indoor studio accident involving a real helicopter crashing to the ground and killing two actors, Hollywood had to remove all risk of danger to actors.
So they film all motion over padded green props, then composite in the actors over CGI backgrounds and extras.

Safety Last

[tomhath]

If you're afraid of heights, don't even think of watching Lloyd's famous clock scene

Avatar is calling says "WUT ?"

[Crashmarik]

The new independence is bad and unengaging because it is bad and unengaging and a sequel to a movie that wasn't that great.

It has nothing to do with CGI vs Practical effects.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[narcc]

I doubt it. Some people just hate everything.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[zippthorne]

You could shoot 1984 with a piece of clear glass....

The perspective of a 3D animation professional

[Bruce Perens]

This is just like the way people whined that color film had ruined the medium, and the ones before them who whined about talkies and yearned for the days of silent films.

I started at the NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory in 1981 and left Pixar in 2000. These days I produce or am on screen once in a while.

While I was at NYIT they weren't story oriented, and thus all you see of them is demos. Pixar, on the other hand, always put story first. We knew that we could not make a film stand up on effects alone.

Today, a good 3D animation house can make absolutely any scene they like. And thus there isn't anything special about doing so. It's there if it needs to be there to tell the story, and not otherwise.

Re:The perspective of a 3D animation professional

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for saying oriented and not orientated.

Practical effects

[gsilver0]

I watch movies with my friends, usually old ones, and usually bad ones. We recently watched Rambo: First Blood Part 2, and while I can easily say that it's a bad movie, "Real explosions will always look good" and as a result, the action was still engaging. Likewise, the tanker explosion in The Terminator is still gorgeous. The explosions in such movies have so much more "physicality" to them, which seems to lack in modern CG. Especially how the fire works. I'm not saying that they *can't* make CG look that good, but it isn't there yet.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[im_thatoneguy]

1984 being right in there with a movie you could shoot with one camera and no computer to be seen.

Except if you make it look like 2016 New York people won't buy it because it's present day and they know that the present day isn't exactly like the film. It will look like their known universe while existing in a future or alternate universe.

So unless you set your entire film in-doors with slightly different fashion or you have a massive budget to build a slightly alternate reality technology/architecture/fashion world for them to visit outside it's going to feel claustrophobic. CG will make your film better. CG made Children of Men *better*. You could tell the whole story of a near-future without CG but imagine children of men without his drive through London--but-not-London-as-you-know-it.

For instance take a look at this shot from Children of Men where they added a video sign to the bus. Sure they could film in London, but why bother, the end result is perfect and it is substantially cheaper. Or you could cut the 'gag' but you miss out on a nice subtle homage to children of Men's encouragement of suicide which enriches the immersion into the world.
https://www.fxguide.com/wp-con...

It's not the CGI...

[haedus]

...It's the lack of compelling dialogue.

Give me a god damn fucking break! How many fucking comic book movies, fucking remakes, holy fucking goat balls what the shit!!!

I mean now and fucking then a real movie appears out of some where, but it sure as hell isn't in the fucking theatres...

Are you fucking kidding me? Spider man? Batman? Wonder woman (did they do her yet)? Batman (said that already)...

Holy fucking dog shit, what does it take to write a decent fucking script with a compelling story line and emotional dialogue.

THE FUCKING "GOONIES" IS BETTER THAN PROBABLY 82% OF ALL MOVIES MADE AFTER THE YEAR 2002 or 2003ish or SO!!!

YOU HAD A BUNCH OF KIDS IN A FUCKING CAVE WITH SOME CRIMINALS AND EACH CHARACTER DEVELOPED EMOTIONALLY ALONG THE WAY AND SHIT HAPPENED... GOONIES NEVER SAY DIE!! TRUFFLE SHUFFLE!!

NOW... NOW!!! I get to see Independence day: resurgence in the movies... and what do I get? THE BEST PART OF THAT MOVIE WAS SEEING CHEF GOLDBLOOM'S FACE UTTER A FEW WORDS... ...I think there were some actors, that I could the hell know who they are, that pretended to have some kind of mysterious ability called acting, and probably got paid for it by some act of strange dark magic... WAIT WAIT... Chef Goldbloom was a decent part, but the best fucking thing about that movie was the fucking coward and the tribal warrior... I paid fucking 15 dollars (plus bent over for munch food) to see about 5 minutes of character developement and emotional exchange... Everything else was toilet floats to justify special effects to prop up the name of a movie made 20 years ago that actually earned some fucking money...

Don't even get me started on the new star trek movies... It's like some one jerked off in a napkin and it made it's way on to the silver screen...

I've seen movies that were 85% CGI, and the CGI was not amazing, but the dialogue was cryptic and compelling and the story flowed, and moved, like a stream of water. It was poetry, it was cinema

Most of what comes out today is the equivalent of a gravy loaded hive mind dump on your face you get the liberty of justifying, by the fact that, at least you paid for it...

The problem, though, is... Those were different times... You could sell VHS tapes then, DVD's, people would buy them... The printing press is here (internet)... They can't get away with selling indulgences anymore cause Joe Schmoe can find salvation in his own copy...

Doesn't mean true Cinema doesn't still exist and can't still be created, it just means the producers of true cinema perhaps just aren't that interested anymore... If your best bet on cashing in is ticket sales, you go with the safe bet.. which is bat woman, wonder robin, and super avengers... Cause the consumer is more likely to bet on what they know, vs take a risk on something they are unfamiliar with...

besides, everyone is a terrowitz, and nobody wants to take a chance on compelling, riveting, make you think dialogue...

Re:It's not the CGI...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Don't even get me started on the new star trek movies..

Or the "remastered" TOS with absolute shit CGI that looked copped from a video game...!

CGI sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

non-CGI characters made out of rubber or whatever look more real.

The biggest issues is that movies today suck ass. The last star wars and star trek was rehashing old story lines and offering nothing compelling. That they shared the same director is not a coincidence.

I lost interest in movies a long time ago. TV shows are where it is at. It has been at least 10 years since I have been in a movie theater and nothing I have seen when they come out on blu-ray has made me regret that decision.

Re: Compared to 430 computerized shots in the orig

[AK Marc]

After a horrific indoor studio accident involving a real helicopter crashing to the ground and killing two actors,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twilight_Zone_accident That sounds like what you are talking about, but it was outdoors, and 3 dead (two children). Not an exact match, but close.

As Tarkovsky said, it got rid of the riff-raff

[Anonymous Coward]

As Tarkovsky said, it got rid of the riff-raff.

That scene is cinematic history and beauty. It is positively sublime. You sir, are a philistine.

Begone!

Re:As Tarkovsky said, it got rid of the riff-raff

[HornWumpus]

The stewardess with the velcro shoes? Sublime?

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[dwywit]

In no particular order, Blade Runner, Dark Star, Planet of the Apes (w/ Charlton Heston), Silent Running, Donnie Darko, Metropolis, Alien, Aliens, The Terminator, Terminator 2, The Man who fell to Earth, Solaris, Serenity (+Firefly) for starters.

Bring back analog gore

[frrrp]

Seriously, it's a dying art form. Thank glub for folks like Olaf Ittenbach who maintain the faith.

48 frames per scond would help

[transami]

I wish more film makers would use 48 frames per second. When I saw the Hobbit in the IMAX I was awestruck. I felt like I was watching a stage production. The fast pace action of modern CGI is just too blurry at old school rates. (And forget the haters who panned it. That's just the tired refrain that always comes out against anything new.)

Re:48 frames per scond would help

[TeknoHog]

I wish more film makers would use 48 frames per second. When I saw the Hobbit in the IMAX I was awestruck. I felt like I was watching a stage production. The fast pace action of modern CGI is just too blurry at old school rates. (And forget the haters who panned it. That's just the tired refrain that always comes out against anything new.)

If the anti-CGI crowd were really about realism, then they should embrace higher framerates in their live-shot movies. The insistence on flickery 24 FPS just proves that it's not actually realism they want, it's basically a certain kind of visual effect in itself.

OTOH, the art of cinema grew out of early animation experiments, and it could be argued that realism is just one stage/genre in its development. Real artists are always interested in new ways of expressing their ideas, rather than churning out photorealistic copies of kitchen-sink drama. I'm sure guys like Bunuel or Dali would have loved to have modern CGI tech at their disposal.

Re:48 frames per scond would help

[gsilver0]

I also wish that higher frame rates were more common. The funny thing is, Youtube of all places is becoming the premiere place for high frame rate video. It's mostly used for videogame footage, but I eagerly await it being used in more big-budget movies. //Low framerates in movies have always looked bad to me.

Define the enemy

[AgNO3]

Don't be afraid to identify the enemy, Radical Hollywood pixels.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[ihtoit]

location location location. If you want a built-up ruin, there's that beach resort Hitler had built to house workers on holiday that wasn't occupied for what, forty years? Most of it's still empty. You could basically walk in and shoot a movie in there. If you don't fancy a trip to Germany, there's wilderness locations everywhere. Seven miles up the road from me there's an abandoned railway station, and right next to that there's a spot where it's so quiet you can hear your own heartbeat. The 2006 Shane Meadows movie "This Is England", set in 1983, was filmed in Lenton, Nottingham, among other places - with no set dressing and no CGI. I know this because I saw them filming it. All they did was put up a windbreak and a video camera, that was it. You don't even have to be in the place your movie is set in. All of the outside scenes in Doctor Who which were *apparently* set in London were in fact filmed in and around Cardiff.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[Anonymous Coward]

and by Solaris he meant Solyaris (unless you prefer American remakes of foreign films)

to toss a few more Akumulator 1, Brazil, Kin-dza-dza!, On The Silver Globe, Seksmisja, Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea, The American Astronaut

Cracked has said this better many times

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with the premise to much CGI had made movies as boring as shit. OP's article isn't very good though. There have been many and much better articles on Cracked about why CGI is killing movies: https://www.google.com/search?...

My 2c: It's not just the CGI, but it's shitty plots and recycling stories and themes which as done it too. The world still loves superhero movies. I think there have been a few good ones, but most of them are very ordinary and they no longer do it for me. Stark frowning at Rogers, and Batman frowning at Superman, tells me they have ran out of ideas.

I wish they would do something else, but when they try - like Edge of Tomorrow - the crowds stay away. Yet do a dump in a toilet bowl and slap a "Hobbit" or "Avengers" sticker on it and crowds will line up around the block and pay good money to see it.

Big green room

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

On the rare occasion I watch TV or go to a movie, I can't help but realize that none of that shit is real, none of it. The actors are just jumping around in a big green room 99% of the time, and everything is added later- the set, the background, the other "people", the sky, walls, buildings, traffic....everything.

Watching the green screen show reels on Youtube has ruined it for me. I still enjoy the movie (usually) but deep down I know they're almost never actually on location or even on a stage set...they're just in a big green room and everything is filled in later.

Surprise..

[Reisrdok]

So CGI has stopped selling. What a surprise.

Things that have been forgotten by tv and movie industry:
- Best actors aren't always young and pretty. Characters need character.
- Good scripts cannot be mass produced with real time ratings as a driving force.
- Best tv series usually have a bad first season, maybe even second season. Tv series is a long time investment.
-- NEVER just pull a plug on series. NEVER. Always make a closing episode. Always bury your creations properly.
- Staying true to the genre creates markets. You cannot please everyone at the same time. Specially important when designing spinoffs.

Just my opinion. I'm usually more wrong than right. But I keep changing my opinion until I'm right.

Reliance On Special Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

To add to it too many movies these days rely on special effects to try & make up for the absence of a decent plot

The real issue we face

[angularbanjo]

Today, with the amazing compositing and rendering software we have at hand for filmmaking, it's no longer a question of whether we can, but rather whether we should. The storytelling skill needs to have mastery over the tools.

Like all tools

[drewsup]

CGI should be used to enhance a movie, not be the point of it. Its more a reflection of the poor scripting/producing going on these, a good movie should stand on its own, the cgi should only be icing on the cake, unless the whole thing is shot in cgi,(Like Avatar).

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[dargaud]

Computer graphics are part of the language of movies now; you can't make a sci-fi movie without them

I'm currently in the middle of watching Space Milkshake and I can tell you that there aren't any CGI in it more elaborate than matte paintings. And it's still very enjoyable. Will finish watching tonight.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[Anonymous Coward]

The turning point for me was in Godzilla when godzilla tears his way through Las Vegas. I think it was just one city destruction too many for me. It's everywhere now, in Transformers, Independance Day, Pacific Rim... Team America World Police. It seems like they can't show impending danger without destroying a city anymore.

Bond, James Bond

[Anonymous Coward]

James Bond movies went off track for a while there...
The rebooted Casino Royale started up with an amazing parkour sequence I instantly knew they were back on track. The Spectre movie's opening sequence in Mexico City was brilliant too.. check out the "making of" featurette !

Re:Bond, James Bond

[Anonymous Coward]

parkour is stupider than shit. I'd rather have 90 minutes of fake CGI.

Good movies would be things like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. But you aren't likely to see films like that anymore from Hollywood.

Motherboard pls...

[Anonymous Coward]

From sausage fingers to a fear of pixels.

Practical CGI effects

[sabbede]

That's one of many reasons "The Force Awakens" was so much better than Episodes 1-3. Heavy use of practical effects.

Re: Compared to 430 computerized shots in the orig

[mrmatthewcarlson]

Team America was visually exciting though.

Paul Giamatti

[ThatsNotPudding]

He was fabulous in Twelve Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer. Nice out take at the end too.

It's not "too much CGI"

[Anonymous Coward]

It's "Not enough story", where the story includes the acting, the dialogue and other bits that aren't CGI but aren't even the stage props, which CGI is replacing in part.

If I don't go "Oooh!" at the story, why the hell would I go "Oooh" at the graphics?

Practical effects limit you

[Anonymous Coward]

And in getting round those limitations, serendipity and creativity are allowed to live and breathe. You have to find a DIFFERENT way of doing things, even dropping the idea entirely and trying to get the point across a different way.

See the Alien in the eponymous movie and how it didn't appear because the special effects were insufficient, and how that made it a better movie. Same with Jaws. Effects were spared and the effect had to be gained a different way.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I would add GATTACA to that list.

The first bad use of CGI was...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dancing baby on Ally McBeal, god that was awful and every media outlet on Earth put it in their weather forecast. Uggh.

Re:Too much action, not enough care in making us c

[Anonymous Coward]

The final Death Star battle scene sequence feels a lot like a WWII air battle (I'm sure that was intentional).

It was. :)

Unrealistic gravity and inertia models...

[Anonymous Coward]

... might have something to do with it. Static images from CGI look fantastic, but as soon as you see them moving, you know they are CGI - because for some strange reason, the programmers deliberately coded the gravity and inertia models to be incorrect. It can't have happened by accident, because everybody who has ever seen CGI KNOWS it is CGI, instantly, because of this. Look at Gollum in Lord of the Rings, every time he moves it looks wrong.

So WHY have they done this? So that they can use the CORRECT gravity and inertia models when they want to make fake footage - and thus the public will believe it is real, because all of the previous CGI footage they have ever seen, has been deliberately made to look unrealistic.

Am I the only person who can see this?

Re:Too much action, not enough care in making us c

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish Transformers would just zoom out and let us see the action. I wasn't able to finish the last Transformers film, they just bore the hell out of me.

I'm becoming picking in my old age.

At the end of the day it's fake

[Anonymous Coward]

What else do they need to know

The action scenes moves too quickly to be any good

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't want you focusing on the imperfections in the CGI so the action is a blur and the result is no one cares. I watched the Transformer movies. They never kept the "camera" on any one Transformer for longer than a second so you wouldn't spot the CGI. I couldn't tell you what Optimus Prime looked like because he was always just a blur the "camera" was quickly panning over. Same story in Independence Day 2. Cant remember any details of the alien weapons because every action scene was a blur. In Alien you got good solid shots of aliens and the ships and the people and everything wasn't just one explosion after another. The stuff today is not watchable. Its Idiocracy made real.

It's fake

[OrangeTide]

No, it isn't real blood, it's fake blood.

Re:It's fake

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, I don't know where the author comes off saying it's "driving out reality."

Unless you're watching a documentary, nothing you're seeing on the screen is "real."

Re:Too much action, not enough care in making us c

[Anonymous Coward]

Several shots from the Death Star battle in IV are modelled exactly on shots from The Battle of Britain, which was shot with miniatures and *a whole bunch of real Bf 109s and Spitfires*. This puts hard limits on aircraft behaving like aircraft. It's not exactly realistic for X-wings to manoeuvre aerodynamically in space when they could, in fact, flip orientation on a dime with thrusters (why don't they flip around while maintaining their inertia to shoot TIE fighters behind them?), but it's definitely more believable this way.

The prequel space battles are annoying and impossible to follow and don't appear to follow any coherent rules of how things move around.

Obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

As CGI replaces cameras and actors with absolutely life-like shots, the more important elements of story-telling, like plot, satire, etc. will re-emerge as the definer of what makes a good movie.

Good.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[Cederic]

No challenge to any of those. A couple I didn't like but that's me, not the film.

I was about to ask which Metropolis, but both the old Lang one and the very different Japanese Manga version count as sci-fi, and are both worth seeking out.

The Japanese Manga one is extraordinarily rare in that it's pretty much the only non-English film for which I'd recommend watching the dubbed version rather than the original with subtitles.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[Cederic]

I think parts of This is England were filmed in Grimsby weren't they?

Great film though :)

It is nothing shocking nor original

[Anonymous Coward]

It is simple desensitization.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[powerlord]

Story should always be the primary focus, but lets not forget that CGI can help if done right.

Not to switch away from the big screen to the small screen, but take a look at either Game of Thrones or The Expanse.

Both definitely have their share of CGI scenes, and when they DO go CGI, they go heavy, but in both cases, even if the CGI scenes are sometimes meant to "ooo" and "ahhhh" the audience, they are also in service of the story ... not the other way around.

The simple fact is that way too often a director gets his mind around an action/fight/chase/whatever that will wow the audience, and tries to deliver a bunch of these instead of a good story. Summer blockbusters have usually been especially egregious of forgetting this.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-11-defining-features-of-the-summer-blockbuster/

BS.

[Anonymous Coward]

The "shock factor" is gone because everyone and their grandma is using it. How many times must you see the Earth, the solar system, the Universe, or reality itself get destroyed before you just kinda say "MEH."?

Re:The action scenes moves too quickly to be any g

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched the Transformer movies. They never kept the "camera" on any one Transformer for longer than a second so you wouldn't spot the CGI. I couldn't tell you what Optimus Prime looked like because he was always just a blur the "camera" was quickly panning over.

You're fucking high.

Better than the alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

This just shows that our brains are working well. Would we prefer the alternative where our minds weren't powerful enough to tell the difference between CGI and reality?

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[ihtoit]

probably... they also filmed in Leeds and Sheffield.

Re:Compared to 430 computerized shots in the origi

[ihtoit]

oh, claim to fame: the short-lived reboot of the ITV soap "Crossroads" had some scenes shot in my old apartment (Willoughby Court, Lenton, which is no longer there having been demolished).