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Marvel Cinematic Universe Has a CGI Problem (screenrant.com)
Corey Hutchinson, writing for ScreenRant: The MCU may be the biggest thing in Hollywood these days, but there's no denying that its overuse of CGI is becoming more and more noticeable. Don't get us wrong; for the most part, the MCU's CGI has been great, even spectacular at times. Even at its worst, it's nowhere near the bottom of the pile in terms of poor special effects in superhero movies. And no single MCU entry has come anywhere close to the awfulness that is Justice League. But when a superhero franchise is pulling in this much money and getting consistently glowing reviews, the bar has to be set high, and several of the MCU's latest offerings just aren't clearing it. It's worth noting that the MCU's CGI shortcomings are a relatively recent thing. There's very little to complain about when it comes to the special effects behind their Phase One movies. They all hold up surprising well, in fact, and the same goes for the vast majority of Marvel's Phase Two films. There's a few dicey moments in Avengers: Age of Ultron, but it wasn't really until Captain America: Civil War kicked off Phase Three that any negative attention was paid to the MCU's effects work.
Take a moment to rewatch the second Black Panther clip that was released to the public a few weeks ago. Specifically, hone in on the 45 second mark, where you see Nakia shooting two guys, the second of which is very obviously computer-generated. Why the hell would they even bother to CGI that, you ask?
Take a moment to rewatch the second Black Panther clip that was released to the public a few weeks ago. Specifically, hone in on the 45 second mark, where you see Nakia shooting two guys, the second of which is very obviously computer-generated. Why the hell would they even bother to CGI that, you ask?
overuse of CGI is becoming more and more noticeable.
Yes, I can understand that, especially if your CGI script is written in bash and you haven't patched your system against Shellshock.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Oh wait...
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Serious question: Why does the bar has to be set high? They are there to make money, not to tell a story. That is just the side effect.
As long as they are making enough by low standards, why do more expensive high standards if that means less profit?
These movies are the fast food of the movies. Low quality for the masses. Nothing wrong with that, but do not expect anything it is not.
The quality is good enough to make the most money, just as McD and others make 'food' that is just good enough. The principle was explained to me in this way:
Fast food chains deliver 80% of the quality that they could deliver. The reason is that they always can reach that standard. It is high enough for most and low enough that they ALWAYS reach it. Imagine that they would deliver 95% most of the time and then suddenly they get a few days of 85%. People would be pissed and that will cost customers in the long run.
With 80% they will create the expectation. You know what to expect and will not be disappointed. The same goes for these movies. You expect a certain standard and that is what you will get. All along with all other movies where you know that the most expensive actor will most likely survive till the end of the movie. Boy and girl get together or whatever standards are available.
It is fast food and do not try to pretend it is fine dining. That does not mean fast food it bad. It is different.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
It's getting to the point where they won't really need humans. Be cheaper to do it all CGI.
They're pretty much cartoons as it is, why not go the whole hog?
Oh dear, is someone forcing you to watch these movies?
It's escapism, a break from the mundane. It doesn't have to be realistic or have a complex plot. It just has to be fun.
Eat the rich.
I read what you wrote, and found myself agreeing. And then I remembered enjoying "Back to the Future", "Robocop", "Conan the Barbarian", "The Princess Bride". "Escape from New York", etc.
So, speaking for myself, I've found that the things I really liked when I was younger do not hold up all that well to closer examination. The sword work is laughable, the premises farfetched, the plot holes abundant. Hell, I still enjoy watching those movies, especially the ones I first watched with my now wife. But while I -think- they are better than today's drek, I am not sure how much of that is just nostalgia.
So, I started watching "Wonder Woman", and stopped in disgust - not because of the woman empowerment, whatever that is, but because of how it shat all over World War I history, because of how ignorant it was of any historical martial arts, and because of how plot-hole-riddled it was. I got through "The Black Panther", but I many things annoyed me, would not dream of watching it again. Still, I wonder how much I would have enjoyed it if I had seen it when I was 15. Nowadays I mostly watch things that do not take itself seriously, or things that my wife can't even stand for being too grim and depressing. We just started watching "The Frankenstein Chronicles", and although it looks really good to me, it is too dark for her.
Maybe I am just an old fart, unable to enjoy the lighter things in life?
No good deed goes unpunished...
Marvel Cinematic Universe like the title says. I'm not even a fan of the movies (they're good movies to watch once with some popcorn, that's about it for me) and yet I figured it out before getting to the second instance of MCU in the summary.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Well, you know, its the first superhero movie to feature a black hero and as such must be celebrated for pushing its diversity.
Comments such as "what about Blade then?" or "so what, is the movie any good?" and entirely unhelpful to the narrative and thus often ignored completely by the MSM.
This says it well:
https://youtu.be/bL6hp8BKB24
TL;DW: There is a shitload if CGI in movies today, and 90% of the time you never knew or could even imagine that it was CGI.
The problem is, that you only start noticing it, when it is bad.
And that is why CGI becomes associated with bad SFX.
Scooby Doo is fun. For 5 minutes. Then it quickly becomes tedious, then boring then just plain annoying. Ditto most comic book films.
Someone who just watched Indiana Jones told me that it was insensitive for Indie Jones to pull out a gun and shoot the "Kung Fu" swordsmen.
I said, "what what what?". Regardless of what, the scene delivers a hard cruel truth to the young me, and strongly influenced how I view Kung Fu. It was high humor, and effective.
We are both too old for this generation of reality-hating snowflakes.
I think in almost all the group superhero movies, the story telling is kind of shit. And that's what movies, & comics should really be about... the story _telling_. The story has been here for decades, yet repeatedly they can't seem to properly tell it. Every time they just overpower the single bad guy, under power the heroes, and have a gang bang (really Aquaman couldn't hold a candle against Stephenwolf... underwater?!? I think Alfred & Gordon were more useful than Flash, Cyborg, & Aquaman combined.)
Maybe the formula shouldn't be "some guy's vision of the hero".... because outside of Wonder Women's movie, and Iron Man 1; they been shit. Maybe the directors should pick some older comic nerds and incorporate their opinions into the scripts. Also, why are the theater versions of these movies less than the Blueray? Isn't that a spiral of encouring less people to go to theaters and thus poorer theater versions?
Side Rant: Dear Apple, in what stupid universe does "...in almost..." autocorrect to "...I'm almost..."? Autocorrects the first word multiple times after the second as if Siri is absolutely sure I am wrong and doesn't want to offend me by correcting!! Seriously, are you guys that lost without Jobs QAing this garbage?
Black Panther (1988)
Wait...
So you're saying that in the movie set in a reality whereby a woman possesses Psionic Energy Manipulation; a boy gets bitten by a spider and can climb walls; a man can pick up and throw a car when he gets angry; and both magic and time travel exist - the *real* problem is that an African country is ahead of the rest of the world?
Not happy with reverse cuttural appropriation?
You're not actually watching the movie.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act!" -- George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
Because they enjoy them? Personally, I watch movies for my enjoyment; not yours.
In addition to not rotating when pushing or punching things that are more massive than they are; the protagonists also seem to have an infinite amount of friction when it comes to the bottom of their feet.
It really, really takes me out of the moment.
Don't get me started on Wire-Fu.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
The complaint against overly-obvious CGI is perfectly valid, when they start relying way too much on it, rather than doing actual stunts or redoing shots that were less than optimal. It is a valid critique, and may lead the author to skip future Marvel movies if they continue in that direction.
Viol8 is complaining that not every movie is made specifically to his taste, but no one is forcing him to watch them.
Eat the rich.
I did as Corey Hutchinson suggested and watched that moment in the clip, carefully, maybe a dozen or more times.
I'm most assuredly not a CGI specialist, or even anything to do with film or television. However, I would hazard a guess: the crew shot that clip as part of the entire end-to-end series of shots needed to complete that portion of the story. Then, when they got the prints back and were looking at it in editing, they realised that something which happened on the balcony [i.e. the second guy getting shot] simply didn't work as they wanted it to.
For reasons we don't understand, they then set up a green-screen shot and had an actor repeat the moves as if being shot directly, then composited it in to the main take. Unlike Corey, I don't think that what we see is a CGI moment, I think it's a human actor painted back in during editing.
Does this quality as CGI or the over-use of CGI? I'm going to argue the negative and offer two reasons:-
1. I don't think this is CGI per se. I think this is two sequences shot separately and then brought together via compositing.
2. We have no way of knowing what the original shot looked like. But I'll give Marvel's editing team the benefit of the doubt and take on faith that this was the "least worst option". Marvel aren't in the habit of deliberately screwing up one of there movies when they have a better way on hand. [ Speaking of which, that would likely have been a complete re-shoot of that scene. We simply have no way of knowing if that was even possible... ]
Viol8's critique boils down to "this is not to my taste, therefore it's bad for everyone". He can just skip the movies and not care about them, in silence. Not every movie is for everyone.
Eat the rich.
We still have Rick and morty.
MCU is a microcontroller unit. The larger and more expensive ones can often use CGI because it can be very lightweight when used with a small web server.
Ezekiel 23:20
Seeing that Marvel is first and foremost a graphic novel distributor, I really don't know why they just don't use all that marvelous Pixar tech they bought and push out animated versions. I know Spiderman is slated for the end of the year, and the trailers look ok, but seeing all these movies get storyboarded to begin with, why not just continue with a toon?
And then I remembered enjoying "Back to the Future", "Robocop", "Conan the Barbarian", "The Princess Bride". "Escape from New York", etc.
The others didn't hold up too well, but I saw Princess Bride recently and it still is terrific. Come to think of it, BttF3 held up okay as well.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
And you are perfectly entitled to your wrong opinion.
Actors have been shooting blanks at each other for a century very safely. A single freak accident doesnt imply any measurable amount of hazard for an actor.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Proof of concept?
bickerdyke
PoC I think he means is "Person of black colouredness"
Actors have been shooting blanks at each other for a century very safely. A single freak accident doesnt imply any measurable amount of hazard for an actor.
How ironic that the whole very safe statistic was likely exactly the reason they chose to use real guns on the set of The Crow.
I agree, it's obviously rare, but when it goes wrong, someone's life can end. When someone's life is on the line, it tends to dictate at least some risk analysis. If CGI shooting does not detract from a movie, then perhaps it does hold value.
Blade wasn't an anti-hero at all, he was a good guy, battling his demons (as they all do) to be a saviour of humanity whilst kicking arse. Besides, all heroes are anti-hero to some extent, otherwise they'd be as boring as superman - and even he had to have some aspects of self-doubt applied to him.
I'm not convinced Hancock was a comedy movie either, but I can see where that comes from given a large amount of slapstick, there was an equal amount of traditional pathos in that movie too. But I'll accept it "wasn't good enough" to satisfy certain people.
Interesting reason though, cheers.
"Why the hell would they even bother to CGI that, you ask?"
I've not seen the clip but:
No actor to pay, just a CGI company already commissioned to work on the project. No cameraman. Get the shot exactly as you like, and do it years after shooting. No studio required. No casting agent. No wardrobe. No safety equipment or risk. No insurance required for stuntmen. Get the perfect shot and adjust as you go. No working hours. No rights.
No worker's unions for all those groups of unnecessary people. No royalties to them, either.
To be honest, I don't like the way movies are all about the CGI either. But they are also STUPENDOUSLY expensive, if you look at their budget figures. In some cases it would be cheaper to actually launch a shuttle and film scenes in space than it would be to make a studio set and film that way. But it's EVEN CHEAPER to just CGI everything in on footage shot on a backlot with a greenscreen. Even main actors (e.g. the "old" Terminator in Terminator:Genisys).
I think, while we still care about "it looking exciting" over "it being a good movie" we'll have an inexorable slide towards this kind of "virtual" studio.
Even great movies. The Shawshank Redemption. Two main actors. A disused prison. A library room. A sewer pipe full of chocolate sauce. A couple of outside scenes. No clever CGI or big stunts. Sort of thing you could film on the smallest of budgets. It cost $25m to make, in 1994. And that's chicken feed by modern movie standards.
This is why the independent studios are popular among people who like movies to have plot, storyline, acting, etc. No big budgets, no eye-candy. Sure, "dull" by comparison but that's like saying that the book of 1984 is dull compared to a movie version. It's almost a different media in that same way.
My ex- was European and hated anything that came out of the Hollywood... it was all the same dross with different explosions to her. I can see that point. Though I can turn my brain off and watch something mindless, I don't go to the cinema or watch most of the movies that everyone else does precisely because of that. I've got through any number of movies for about ten minutes and then just think "I'm bored".
Hollywood is bouyed up by CGI, big-name actors, famous franchises, lots of comedy in even the biggest of movies, and loud music which follows the action. It's like a fast-food meal. Maybe satisfying and quick and mindless, but after a while you do get a bit sick of it.
Video games are no different, though. This is why things like scandi-drama crime thrillers are now much bigger than they ever were... they are just actors acting in front of a camera with a decent plot.
Careful man, /. has become "news for people pretending to be nerds," as such we must welcome the dregs of comic conventions with open arms.
Oh wait, we don't. Fuck the wannabe nerds, send everyone who upvotes this story back to Reddit where they belong, this shit article doesn't even meet the qualifier of "tech" which most of the slashvertizements do.
Ah... ok...
but still... desperately finding reasons why all the previous ones don't count... really?
bickerdyke
So, I started watching "Wonder Woman", and stopped in disgust - not because of the woman empowerment, whatever that is, but because of how it shat all over World War I history, because of how ignorant it was of any historical martial arts, and because of how plot-hole-riddled it was.
You are watching a movie with a woman who can fly, fights gods, and has a magic truth telling lasso and THAT is what bothered you? Maybe you need to lighten the hell up and just enjoy the movie for what it is. Or try to up your dose of whatever medication you are on so you stop taking things that aren't important too seriously.
It's a popcorn super hero movie, not a historically accurate period drama. Try to figure out the difference. You'll enjoy life a lot more when you don't take everything so damn seriously.
Maybe I am just an old fart, unable to enjoy the lighter things in life?
Gee, ya think?
I think a better question to ask is why anyone over the age of 15 goes to watch this sort of cookie cutter content free derivative crap with people in silly costumes doing not even suspension of disbelief believable stuff in the first place.
Because they are fun, enjoyable, and entertaining.
But maybe you're right. Maybe you're the only sane person around and the vast majority of the world are the crazy ones. Just because you're dead inside doesn't mean the rest of us don't genuinely enjoy these movies. Especially Thor because that was a frigging hoot.
Oh dear, did someone insult something you like by giving their honest opinion of it?
No. Actually if you read the original post someone directly insulted the GP, not just something the GP likes.
Well, you know, its the first superhero movie to feature a black hero and as such must be celebrated for pushing its diversity.
Blade, Hancock, ... and those are just the more recent ones
How come you SJW's dont know shit about literally anything? You act like you are pioneering something thats already been fucking done, and done a lot better too, and at the time there didnt need to be a bunch of SJW's praising it.
You people are awful.
"His name was James Damore."
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Grammar nazis REPRESENT!
HEIL WEBSTER!
#SayNoToJive
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I'm a bit skeptical of these superhero movies in general, but I have to admit I quite enjoyed Wonder Woman. I'm not sure why historical accuracy would detract in a movie that invents a new Greek/Roman god, who is then integral to the events in the 20th century. I mean, all bets are off, right? At the very least, you could have turned the sound off and enjoyed the eye candy that is Gal Gadot for 2 hours.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
We have it - it's called "the east coast".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
by this logic we should use CGI because transporting actors to the set (often by gasp car) could result in their lives being ended if something went wrong.
The risk is very low, because the probability is remote, even if the cost is high. When the probability is so near zero there is little investment that is reasonable to control for it.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
" Why the hell would they even bother to CGI that, you ask? "
I think a better question to ask is why anyone over the age of 15 goes to watch this sort of cookie cutter content free derivative crap with people in silly costumes doing not even suspension of disbelief believable stuff in the first place.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a get off my lawn rant, I love action films as much as the next guy, but the utter dross that are the "stories" from comics (no, they're NOT "graphic" novels, they're comics - for kids) don't deserve to be on daytime kids TV, never mind $100M+ spent on them per film.
Whereas, I don't like superhero movies either and think they're pretty dumb; really, it's for each their own. Most people on here won't like my taste in music, and I won't like theirs. We probably like different books. If people get a kick out of superhero movies- I don't have a problem with that. I'm more bothered by the commercial blasting I get everytime one is released than the movies themselves. That's more a product of our society than anything else though.. If it weren't superhero movies it would be some other movie being overly commercialized and advertised.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
If you want something not to count toward your narrative, you make it counts as something else. "yeah those movies happened, but this is the first one in this very specific subgenre so it is special somehow.
I don't think it is as malicious as that sounds though. I think it is more that people like to be a part of firsts. So any excuse to make something" the first time [such and such] has happened " will be jumped upon.
"Or I guess Marvel Comic/Cinematic Universe if you don't loathe these comic book crap movies. I've stopped watching movies since almost everything produced is a comic book movie now. "
I can relate. Also, the problem is the not CGI but the 4.50$ spend for the script.
Considering his opinion is they aren't even good enough for daytime tv, let alone their 100 mil budgets... the only answer really is: they get those budgets because they bring in a whole fucking lot more than that in revenue. Not his taste, fine; too stupid to understand something so basic about business.... well, he can be as stupid as he wants, but his stupid opinion doesn't mean Marvels not making a shitton of profit, and because of that, they'll keep making movies.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
Sorry - but this article is just clickbait. Someone is getting paid for the number of watches of black-panther-clip-dora-milaje-fight-scene at screen rant.
Move along. Nothing interesting at all.
This comment was written with the intention to opt out of advertising.
So, I started watching "Wonder Woman", and stopped in disgust - not because of the woman empowerment, whatever that is, but because of how it shat all over World War I history, because of how ignorant it was of any historical martial arts, and because of how plot-hole-riddled it was.
You just have to let go. Every plot has holes, but some of them have good stuff also, you have to look for the good stuff. In Wonderwoman (there was nothing realistic about a movie featuring the God of War) the philosophy was deeper than in any movie we've seen for a long time. It presented a full awareness of the evilness of both sides in a conflict.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Where are the Asians? The Native Americans? The Middle Easterns? The Hispanics? Considering the cast is 97% Black, this is hardly the bastion of diversity you think it is. Unless the definition of diversity has come to mean "more Blacks, only!", don't talk to me about "diversity" in Black Panther.
It diversifies Marvel's content by finally having a black lead in one of their films. Overall, they're still pretty white-washed, but this diversifies their portfolio some.
What amuses me is BBC content (well British content in general). Their idea of diversity seems to be based upon US racial makeup. The BBC has no problem including black actors, in fact, I think black actors probably make up a higher percentage of actors on TV shows in Britain than they do the British population as a whole. However, Asians (specifically South Asians) make up a lot larger percentage of Britains demographic (twice as many people from Indian peninsula in Britain than there are black people) and yet they're hardly represented on British TV at all.
It's good that British TV is good at promoting black actors- it's amusingly sad how bad they are at recognizing the existence of other races.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Blades not really an anti-hero though, is he? Sure, he's half vampire, but he's never indulged that side of himself. If it's purely the "revenge" angle, that would lump Batman in as an anti-hero as well. I always give the movies a grain of salt... and Blade was never one that i read back when it came out, so i suppose his comic origin might place him as such... i just don't remember it well enough.
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
>I read what you wrote, and found myself agreeing. And then I remembered enjoying "Back to the Future", "Robocop", "Conan the Barbarian", "The Princess Bride". "Escape from New York", etc.
>So, speaking for myself, I've found that the things I really liked when I was younger do not hold up all that well to closer examination.
Yeah it's just you, all of those movies are still amazing. And the first time I saw Escape from New York was just a few years ago so it's not just nostalgia. Seriously, go watch Robocop right now, because there's way more to it than you remember liking as a kid.
I haven't seen Wonder Woman or Black Panther, but even the supposedly good Marvel movies have been a disappointment. The little character moments when Iron Man or Thor just screwing around are pretty fun but my main issue with them really is the action. They usually set up these enormous stakes and huge battles but there's no emotional weight because you know they won't genocide the Asgardians and nothing will happen to Thor. So you end up with Jackie Chan fighting an unarmed guy with a ladder being 100% more entertaining because you know he's really doing it and can get hurt and the stakes are realistic.
Yup, UK demographics show blacks as about 3% and Asians at 8%. Yet the TV industry only considers blacks. I put it down to the number of black people living in proximity to the BBC offices, so the liberals working there see so many of them they think the population is 50% black.
They need to get out to Birmingham. turns out they're more racist than the "fascists" they rail against so much.
lol. you didn't even read the 2nd sentence in my 2 sentence post! well done you.
muppet.
There is a very simple reason to CGI that shot - complexity. There are actually 2 shots here. The first is the 1st where the camera travels up to the top floor - that's all CGI except for the extras. Then the 2nd shot as it lifts over the edge of the banister. It's technically very challenging, if not impossible, to do that shot in one continuous movement. Just on a simple level, the camera in the 1st shot is on a crane - they would need to remove the banister mid-shot for it to get the final angle in her fight.
If you've got to split it up like that, why have all the expense of having everyone on set? It's a 2nd unit shot with 4-5 extras and a stunt double for the gunshots and some CGI, or insane complexity getting the choreographing just right. Between the gun angles, timing, and framing her face so that we see who's fighting right as the camera lifts over the edge - that'd be horribly difficult/expensive to do.
To your greater point that the MCU has a CGI problem - I don't think it's the MCU. I think it's an industry problem as a whole. Between video games, TV, and movies the amount of CGI being done is huge. There is only so much artistic talent to go around and eventually something is going to go to the B or C team. A couple long distance henchmen is a normally good place to compromise on CGI rather than on your primary visual effects where DC seems to like to compromise. In this case it was a mistake because the gunshots were drawing your attention to them as a connecting visual so it became very obvious.
What I think is a bigger problem is that because CGI is so "easy" they aren't putting a lot of thought into what they're actually creating. Wakanda's city was pretty but it was very rudimentary from an architectural perspective. That city is likely something that could be built with normal technology. They didn't think through what vibranium would allow them to create. It's a small detail but if you're bothering to do these long "inspirational" sequences showcasing your visuals - make sure they evoke something other than "here's a city".
So don't watch them? Who cares if other people like them. I don't like the electronic music my son listens to, he doesn't like the metal I listen to. Somehow, neither one of us wants the other's music to not exist.
As to why they deserve to have $100+ million spent on them - people who have the $100+ million to spend think they'll make a better profit doing so than the alternative investments they could make.
They had to move to CGI due to the various accidents that happened when doing things for real. Actors (Vic Morrow, Renee Chen and Myca Dinh Le), got killed when a helicopter got buffeted by explosions and sliced into them during the filming of an episode of the Twilight Zone
So it is far safer to just use hand weapons for a scene and composite in the gun smoke and bullet holes in the suitcase right where the directors wants them than to redo the scene each time until they get it "good enough".
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Ill meet you guys in the middle. I wrote mine in csh
(being the default shell on Solaris at the time)
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
That's not the complaint, though. The complaint was about completely unnatural movement. There wasn't even an actor there to composite bullet holes onto, and the CGI-generated bad guy moves in a very Uncanny Valley way, which does take you out of the suspension of disbelief.
Eat the rich.
It is far cheaper to create cartoons than it is to pay actors.
Seem apropos for the cheesy escapism that dominates cinema in the US.
"CGI has fully ruined car crashes. Because how can you be impressed with them now?
When you watch them in the '70s, it was real cars, real metal, real blasts.
They're really doing it and risking their lives.
But I knew CGI was gonna start taking over." - Quentin Tarantino
Originally it was an actor who eye-raped somebody in post production stage
I do not believe in karma. "Funny"=-6. Do good and forbid evil. Yours, Oft-Offtopic Flamebaiting Troll.
I didn't really notice that the second guy shot was CGI while watching Black Panther. What I did notice was that everything was SUPER NOTICEABLY CGI when the climactic fight scene on the mag lev track starts.
To me, that was the worst CGI I've seen in the MCU.
Action movies are the best sellers for the CGI. Kids used to the spend their Saturday mornings watching slapstick movies like "The Three Stooges", Westerns, The Disney Club and other comedies like "Laurel and Hardy". Spaghetti Westerns were made in Italy (like "My name is Trinity") and had more comedy in them.
It was discussed here on slashdot years ago that scriptwriters had been told to make sure that their storylines were comprehensible to an average 12-year old.
But there are many movies presented at the Independent Film-maker festivals and in other countries that don't have all those special effects. Her indoors would normally flip the channel the minute there are people dressed as aliens or explosions, but she is absolutely gripped by a TV series that has time portals that allow the main character to get between present day and the past (World Wars) and the relationships they build up.
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Because many of us are kids at heart.
As an adult myself (who can be considered middle age) real life is complex, People with the authority to do things, lack the ability. People with the ability often are not given the authority. Big complex problems need to be expressed at an 8th grade education level, so the masses will get on board, otherwise they reject any idea they don't understand.
There are a lot of things, it is complex, often unfair, and anything we do has limited impact on this.
So yes I like to go to the movies, watch people who more or less live a simple life style, in a world with an obvious bad guys (even if you can relate with them and are sympathetic.) and good guys with the Power and Ability to do something about it.
We don't have Tony Stark worry about going out and saving the day, because he will miss a meeting of an important contract which would cause him and his family to loose everything they own. Or Captain America having to figure out how to make ends meat after leaving shield as it closes down, he just finds an other organization or country to reside in.
I know it is fiction, however after watching it, I feel slightly more empowered, where I may just take that extra risk to bring me forward in life.
This stuff is for kids, but kids live in a world of possibilities, where the future has many options, so such shows opens up options to them. As an adult it brings that childhood like optimism back for a little bit.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Too many people onscreen - who the hell cares what happens to the thousand CGI extras that just got squished by Thor or Hulk? Their sheer number means I am instantly desensitised to whatever happens.
Then give them completely fake guns that and add the firing effects in CGI rather than giving the actor a real gun and adding the person being shot in CGI...
Maybe put a speaker in those fake guns so that pulling the trigger makes a bang sound if you want the actors to blink at the right time. Make them clearly not guns but brightly colored with tracking markers all over them so they can be CGIed really easily to look like real guns. All of that seems better than replacing a person with CGI since people see things that are "off" about a person far more easily that most things.
Or spend even more money making the CGI actually look right if you don't want to have stunt people falling over pretending to be shot in case they get hurt (which they do tend to do after all).
Agreed on Spawn, but I don't see Blade as an antihero. In addition, the X-Men films have all featured Storm as one of the main characters (black and female), though perhaps they don't count because she was part of a team (and, I think, the one with the fewest lines and no character development).
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They are just getting lazy on the cgi, I am sure they know that ANY marvel movie will make XXXX dollars. what is not being talked about is full CGI characters, even Hollywood recognizes them and has a term called Syn thespians. One day most likely less than 10-20 years. we will have fully CGI characters. instead of paying a actor 20 million, they can use a cgi for 10. Two movies have touched on this subject. Simone and Looker
The things is super mutant with power is the basis of those universe. If you can't suspend belief about that, you won't watch those film. but even within those universe some thing are more difficult to swallow than other: e.g. your belief has to be suspended far harder. Alien with advanced tech ? Yes sure. Some part of human advancing far more than the rest of the world ? Be it Atlantis or Wancanda or whatever ? Nan. See most tech is based on advanced from earlier tech. This is why the world advanced more or less by period, the WHOLE world. But having par utterly isolated and having such advanced tech ? Difficult to swallow especially when the isolation ITSELF require already existing advanced tech like that shield. See tech would have spread to neighbor city BEFORE that shield would have been invented. That is why this is far more difficult to accept that suspension. There might be a bit of prejudice, I have no doubt of that, but for some people like me such highly advanced isolated iv is utterly incompatible with trying to suspend belief. Even in spite of accepting a boy bitten by a spider.
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I'd have to agree that The Princess Bride is still an awesome movie - has held up exceedingly well over time. The special effects are questionable in some parts, but for something filmed over 30 years ago I can forgive it. It's still a far better movie than anything produced within the MCU.
The Back to the Future series was tongue in cheek when it came out still plays out pretty well. The time travel treatment alone is well done even with the continuity errors. Sadly, the comically bad Conan the Barbarian with Arnold is still better than all the current Conan/Hercules/etc movies that have come out over the past decade. Robocop and Escape from New York are painful today.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Box office receipts agree with you.
Well, you know, its the first superhero movie to feature a black hero and as such must be celebrated for pushing its diversity.
Comments such as "what about Blade then?" or "so what, is the movie any good?" and entirely unhelpful to the narrative and thus often ignored completely by the MSM.
"What about a couple of niche films from 15 years ago" is a bit bullshit isn't it? Compared with the 20 or so Marvel films in the last decade?
And the film appears to actually be good. Sorry if that shits on your "I'm cleverer than the MSM" parade.
Hey
I'm going to skip answering most of the replies, since they seem to be people insisting on missing the point, but around Storm/Ororo Munroe, think of it as the difference between Storm being a supporting character in the X-Men movies (really) and an Origins movie for Storm, depicting her past growing up in Africa, and finding an identity.
One doesn't bring much new to the table though it lets some people see someone that looks like them in a hero-role, while the other lets a large group of the people around you celebrate a shared culture, past, identity, and do so through-out the movie - it becomes about themselves as a group, because of the way it's centered around the title character.
That's part of what Black Panther is, that no other movie is, at least for 1 segment of society, and I'm personally happy that Black Panther does this for them.
(and something that Blade in no way is able to reach)
Note: There was a reason I suggested giving that podcast a listen - TJ, one of the hosts, explains it a lot better than I can ever hope to do :)
Hope this helps
I think a better question to ask is why anyone over the age of 15 goes to watch this sort of cookie cutter content free derivative crap with people in silly costumes doing not even suspension of disbelief believable stuff in the first place.
Who peed in your cereal this morning? If you don't like it don't watch it. Nobody cares if it isn't your particular brand of vodka and I don't agree with your assessment of it's artistic merit either. You aren't convincing anyone so I'm puzzled why you would hang out in a place like slashdot that clearly and overwhelmingly does not agree with you.
Don't get me wrong, this isn't a get off my lawn rant,
Yes it is.
And don't forget the "If you're not with me, you're against me" binary logic that has permeated almost everything in our society. If you're not a SJW, then obviously you're a Self Centered Sociopath.
I realize that you may not be saying exactly that, but enough people reading what you said, agreed, quickly reinforcing their own binary view of the world.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I haven't seen Wonder Woman or Black Panther, but even the supposedly good Marvel movies have been a disappointment.
You're entitled to your opinion but I (and millions of others) don't agree with it. Literally every marvel movie I've seen in the last several years has been reasonably well done and fun to watch. Some better than others but none of them sucked and I've considered the time spent watching them time well spent.
So you end up with Jackie Chan fighting an unarmed guy with a ladder being 100% more entertaining because you know he's really doing it and can get hurt and the stakes are realistic.
So there has to be real risk of bodily harm to the actors and stuntmen for you to find it entertaining? Wow, that's kind of barbaric of you. How about you just go watch some MMA fights if you want to actually see someone get hurt.
And specifically in this case, was not for "safety reasons" as the CGI character didn't do any real stunt.type move, he just fell down on the same floor he was standing on.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
If the move is good, then bad CGI won't ruin it.
If the movie is bad, then bad CGI won't redeem it.
If the movie is mediocre, bad CGI might tip it into the "bad" category, but who cares? The movie was mediocre to begin with, and with so many movies being released, there's no reason to settle for watching mediocre ones.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Someone who just watched Indiana Jones told me that it was insensitive for Indie Jones to pull out a gun and shoot the "Kung Fu" swordsmen.
I said, "what what what?". Regardless of what, the scene delivers a hard cruel truth to the young me, and strongly influenced how I view Kung Fu. It was high humor, and effective.
We are both too old for this generation of reality-hating snowflakes.
I loved that scene in Indiana Jones. It worked on many different levels. It was funny (from a childish perspective), unfair (based on movie rules), and had a dose of reality at the same time. I think, though, that you have to be at a certain age for it to have it's full effect. As a child you would just find it funny, as an adult you wouldn't get the same sense of humor or feel just how unfair it is (based on movie rules). You have to be in your early teens to get the full effect.
I'm thinking that this is true for superhero movies as well, especially Marvell. They are being developed to appeal to teens and young adults, not the older adults that first grew up on comics. In my opinion, the only superhero movies that are geared towards adults is the Batman Dark Knight trilogy.
Maybe that's why a lot of original comic fans are being turned off by CGI, simple story lines, etc. Because they have matured and realize that all the CGI in the world can't make up for poor acting and bad scripts....
"If you're not with us, you're against us" is famously from the President Bush of this century. I never regarded him as an SJW or leftist.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
This is the free market in action. If you like a movie, pay to see it. If you don't, avoid it. People can complain about other people's tastes, but enough people like the Marvel Cinematic Universe to keep it going.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I saw a clip some time later of Indy going after the sword guy with his whip, so I don't know how much work Harrison Ford got out of there. There was also the scene in the second movie where he's confronted by a swordsman, reaches for his holster, and finds it empty.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
You're probably remembering wrong, or just don't know what swordplay actually looks like
I've watched it in the last year, and I've fenced at state level, made baron in the SCA twice with two different weapons, and helped run a HEMA club. So I think I know more about swordwork than most. Maybe not so much about swordplay.
The Princess bride is entertaining, but the fencing is typical Hollywood fare - at close distance, attacks on the weapons to make it visually entertaining, slashes with rapiers and no thrusts to speak of, and never, ever, ever, an attack that would need to be parried.
I know why it is done - the leads are not fencers, flynning is entertaining, shot framing is important, and no one wants to even risk an injury so no attacks that could actually land, and sure as hell no thrusting.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Similarly, in the MCU, Falcon's black, but he's a secondary hero that goes around with Captain America. Nick Fury is black, and plays a larger part in the stories.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
While looking good the physics in these movies make me cringe now.
In secondary roles, if they exist. Wong (Dr. Strange's supporter) is Chinese. The TV series Marvel's Agents of Shield does some better. One of the continuing main characters is Asian, one of the people with special powers is Hispanic, and the big black guy is clearly religious.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
How is winding up with an almost all-white cast "treating everyone as equals"? I'd bet on inequality showing up somewhere in the progression of events leading up to it.
Unequal results don't prove unequal opportunity, but we've found it to be a very good place to look to find unequal opportunity.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'm going to skip answering most of the replies, since they seem to be people insisting on missing the point, but around Storm/Ororo Munroe, think of it as the difference between Storm being a supporting character in the X-Men movies (really) and an Origins movie for Storm, depicting her past growing up in Africa, and finding an identity.
I think this misses bigger problem: the writing for Storm was really bad. She was a completely two-dimensional character, with no development, no story arc. She was just there. I don't mind that being black wasn't portrayed as an important part of her identity, I mind that there were literally no memorable aspects to her identity. The role of the black female X-Man was to stand near the white X-Men and agree with them. She wasn't portrayed as a person with independent agency who was adding a lot to the team, she was portrayed as a cardboard cutout with superpowers.
Contrast this with Blade. He had back story, which led to his complex motivations. He was on a team with an old white dude, but he was the one that set the agenda for what they'd be doing and who led most of the action. The other characters in the film were defined by their relationship to him. Most importantly, he wasn't a character whose identity was defined by his colour (except in the sense that it made him more able to go out in sunlight than the pasty white evil vampires). He was a character who had interesting development and kicked ass, who happened to be black. You could have taken the Blade story line and, with minor tweaks, made him pretty much any ethnicity and it would still have worked (though given that you'd also be ruling out Samuel L. Jackson as well, you'd find it difficult to cast an actor who would pull off the character as well).
If you read science fiction from the '60s, a lot of writers have the same problem with female characters: they can't figure out how to give them personalities, so they make them gender stereotypes plus some special ability. Hollywood still has this problem: they can't write a character for whom gender or race is a contributor to their personality, they either write cardboard cutouts or generic stereotypes plus some superpower.
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It may not top Reservoir Dogs, but it's probably among the top five best films in the superhero genre. It's a helluva lot better than most of the Marvel films, and better than anything DC has produced in its latest iteration (though the original Superman still sits at the top of the genre, to my mind_/
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
You do not understand the word "involuntarily".
Actors have been shooting blanks at each other for a century very safely. A single freak accident doesnt imply any measurable amount of hazard for an actor.
Some actor in a "male-model-saves-people-in-spare-time"-type of series, in the late 1980's or early 1990's, was goofing around on set with one. He held it to his temple and fired -- not thinking about the wadding in the barrel (or simply the air pressure wave of a shot) -- and killed himself right there on set, totally by (stupid) accident.
John Eric Hexam? Last name was Hexam or Hexham for sure.
I've made a few movies. We had an injury from an actor falling (from standing up) entirely on his own, because he didn't do anything to catch or control himself. It looked great, though!
There are lots of "safety reasons" that aren't obvious in the final cut. Falling on concrete, debris, or from any height above standing is immediately a cause for concern. Given how cheap it is to throw an extra in a costume compared to the price of a CGI editor, I would expect that there is some reason we just can't see.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Lots of the Marvel characters have mutant powers, sure, however impossible. However, there are exceptions. Doctor Strange studied magic, and became extremely good at it. A few characters are the product of scientific experiments (Captain America, Black Widow, Winter Soldier) where the science has been lost. Some are gods from elsewhere (Thor, Loki). More to the point, Iron Man is nothing more than an unstable narcissistic supergenius with an alcohol problem and superscience. Vision is the product of Iron Man's meddling with superscience. It's just as vital a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as helicarriers, maybe more.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I think the main issue is not CGI can't be great but that the short timelines don't always allow for perfection. Superman's moustache is a prime example. You'd think that it's trivial for a special effects company in general to remove his moustache but why was the effect so bad? Someone looking at the timing of film argued that given the change in directors, story, and re-shoots, the CGI company might have had a few weeks at best to do all the new CGI that was required including removing the moustache.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
It was the fault of the director. Even with blanks you shoot *to the side* of the actor, not *at*. If you need at, you layer two shots.
Your imagination is toast. It happens. Notice how kids (and cats) can be wildly entertained playing with an empty cardboard box for hours? Not a lot of adults can do that.
Rehabilitation consists of building a blanket fort and sitting in it reading Calvin and Hobbes.
Yes. Everything prior to the current epoch, generally defined as beginning sometime in 2016, was pure racist evil. Nothing good happened, ever.
Specifically, hone in on the 45 second mark, where you see Nakia shooting two guys, the second of which is very obviously computer-generated. Why the hell would they even bother to CGI that, you ask?
I'd wager, it's cheaper to toss in some CGI victim, than paying an extra to fill that role of guy getting shot.
I think an unnoticed detriment of CGI is simply employment in this industry. You can really see it in a lot of small screen shows. They are really skimping on extras and supporting actors. They use camera trickery to make a line of people seem like a crowd, sometimes they bother to fill in the backdrop with more CGI crowd, but hell, some small screen doesn't even bother with that.
I worry about what potential talent is missing out on their break cuz studios are hiring graphic designers and CGI technicians rather than extras to fill in roles and possibly impress someone. Oh well.
Suppose you were 15 years old, had never heard about the 6-day war, and you saw a superhero movie set in the backdrop of that war. Whatever happened in that movie, even if you knew it was fiction, would become your first impression about the war and the people.
Grow up. It is not and should not be the job of fictional superhero movies to educate people on world history. Stop being such a kill joy.
The writers should take some caution when using a historical or cultural event as a backdrop.
That's not their job and expecting it to be their job is irrational. Their job is to write an entertaining story and to make money doing so. Historical accuracy only matters insofar as it results in more people paying to see their work. Their job is not and never will be to educate 15 year olds about history. That is the responsibility of parents and teachers.
both the food and the people. The food gets massive farm subsidies, the employees are subsidized in the form of food stamps, low income health care, etc. There's also a ton of hidden subsidies around the wasteful packaging (oil subsidies make the cheap plastics possible and we shift the cost of the waste disposal). And the farming techniques used to keep those prices down have a ton of long term issues (that's where the "sustainability" comes in).
Fast food is 'cheap' because the costs are externalized.
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Personally I found the obviously fake punches (kicks) to be more of a distraction than the CGI. If you are going to miss your punches by that much make sure the camera angle is such that it at least looks like contact was made.
Who do you think Thor and Loki are?
Now stop complaining about a box-office crushing epic movie that everyone of all races loved.
No, we're not going to CGI in more Star Wars tropes like you want.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Back to the Future", "Robocop", "Conan the Barbarian", "The Princess Bride". "Escape from New York", etc.
But while I -think- they are better than today's drek, I am not sure how much of that is just nostalgia.
It's not just nostalgia. Those are objectively better movies.
Note that not a single one of those was originally made to be a "franchise" or a "universe".
They were self-contained stories, much better written and directed than the average movie now OR then - not an obligatory stepping stone in a predetermined 20+ movie "universe", which by the way also includes 14 different TV series.
Those movies you list were all (apart from The Princess Bride) franchise starters due to their quality.
MCU movies come with a predetermined franchise attached to them. Regardless of quality.
They will be churned out even if they are really, really bad... Just look at all the attempts to start a Hulk franchise.
Or take a gander at Thor and how nearly all characters or even events in those movies DON'T MATTER.
They've now literally erased first two movies, cutting them down to just being the source for characters of Thor and Loki - cause those are the only parts that work.
Hell... Iron Man was holding the entire "universe" together based solely on Robert Downey Jr.'s charm - movies are again nothing but filler.
Even a supposed "big gun" movie like Avengers 2 is pure filler in the story they are supposedly trying to tell.
And Captain America... Hell... if THAT movie was made in the '80s, with '80s technology and actors... it would have been the 1990 Captain America movie. One with J. D. Salinger's son.
Amazingly, the second Captain America is actually a good stand-alone movie... but still filler in the "grand scheme" of the supposed "universe".
Watch Captain America: The First Avenger together with The Shadow (1994) and The Phantom (1996) and you'd be hard pressed to call it the best of the three - DESPITE being the most expensive of the bunch and having the best tech at its disposal.
Those '90s movies turned out to be franchise non-starters. That's where Captain America should have ended up as well.
Except it can't.
Cause it is a part of a predetermined series and movies WILL BE MADE no matter what.
Someone will watch them. There are 3 billion more people in the world. All those new and huge markets which didn't exist in the '80s and '90s.
Just advertise the movies long enough and loud enough.
E.g. By including adverts for the "next" movie in your current movie. Or by constant bombardment with ads online.
Or by holding fucking rallies for fans. Rallies! Remember that Robocop 2 rally? How about the Back To The Future 3 Celebration? No?
Those things look more and more like political rallies where people renew their commitment to the party and the Dear Leader than what they really are - promotional events.
Advertisement for a movie.
Also, toys.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
heroes have built-in helmets with perfect aim and the grunts pass out from a bitch slap while being unable to shoot any primaries with an Uzi.
Which is why the shoot out in Heat is probably one of the best ever.
Time to offend someone
I don't know that I'd say they don't belong to be aired - while the science may be make believe, comic books and especially x-men cover issues of racism and bullying very well. Entire major story arcs are devoted to exploring how society struggles to accept someone they view as alien/different. Setting it in a fantastical world allows them to get away with it while still captivating an audience - good luck getting people to sit through a lecture on race relations as entertainment.
Source
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
it was long, boring and hard-work
Umm. Fucking hell.
See there are great films and there are watchable films
The great films are great because so many people found them watchable - and more. Pretentious arthouse shite doesn't get into the IMDB top 250.
You may have bounced off Reservoir Dogs but that doesn't mean it isn't watchable. It means you didn't like it.
Learn the difference, and don't go telling me some CGI fest is 'fun' and 'drama', or that 'happy-ending' is in any way fucking desirable.
I'd say saturation is the key, as you mention. Every stinking website has an Avengers ad or somesuch. Same with in-stores, mobile ads, etc. In reality, there really aren't all that many comic-book movies, but the ginormous studios spend millions to advertise them, so that's all we see.
Frammin' on the jim-jam, frippin' at the krotz!
as an adult you wouldn't get the same sense of humor or feel just how unfair it is (based on movie rules)
Nah, I still laugh at it.
I'm not a fencer but yes, the swordplay in The Princess Bride is a visual feast accompanied by quality acting and a truly great script.
It's not fencing, and it doesn't look terribly realistic as sword fighting.
The special effects are questionable in some parts
To be fair that was the case when it was first released too.
So I was also thinking the other day, since I just recently rewatched Blade, how Wesley Snipes was fucking cool.
I didn't worry what fucking skin colour everybody was because I'm not an insufferable cunt.
Yep.
doing not even suspension of disbelief believable stuff in the first place.
To be fair, DC's a lot worse about that than Marvel - with the exception of Batman:
Barry Allen: What are your superpowers again?
Bruce Wayne: I'm rich.
The parent comment wins the thread as far as I'm concerned.
Watching entertainment as entertainment is entirely pendant upon your ability to suspend your disbelief and enjoy the ideas. Kids tend to have fewer disbeliefs to need to suspend, so they're good at taking a movie as entertainment.
If your idea of consuming these things is to analyze and pick them apart wherever possible, then you're going to be a lot less entertained unless simply being a whiny bitch entertains you. I have to say that listening to someone take apart a movie doesn't make me think less of the movie...
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
And specifically in this case, was not for "safety reasons" as the CGI character didn't do any real stunt.type move, he just fell down on the same floor he was standing on.
tell that to Brandon Lee... oh, you can't.
The Hex Girls are hot.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
So if someone doesn't like 0.001% of all sci-fi and fantasy literature, they can't enjoy things.
Right. Let's start with some basic arithmetic. I would like to suggest that those who only enjoy 0.001% of all the sci-fi and fantasy literature are completely incapable of knowing why enjoying the other 99.999% might, just might, constitute enjoying a damn sight more. Get out of the closet, Narnia is in the one down the hall. You do not believe it, and that - as Yoda would say - is why you fail.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The big picture issue is and always has been that the movie industry avoids making movies with non-white male central characters out of some combination of lack of imagination, cowardice, and racism. We have saying all along that if you bother to try to have a few big pictures with not whitebread boring usual cast of characters, you could easily make big money doing that, too. And it will be FUN. Well, we were right. In spades.
You can argue over how important Blade was or was not, if it floats your boat. I liked that movie, BTW.
What what what what? Who are these people who don't like fucking Robocop? That movie is funny as hell, smart as hell, has a strong plot, great villains, and is a visual feast full of cray-cray. In what sense does it not "hold up"?
Next you'll be telling be Starship Troopers is a snore.
Breakfast served all day!
...everything looks like a nail.
I don't think this is limited to Marvel. This is across the industry. CGI is "relatively" new, and as technology has increased has become increasing popular. However there are many examples of not only overuse, but misuse. I think like the title of my comment many have become either over dependent upon it or just lazy. However I think the trend is only now just starting to correct itself where perhaps movie makers are realizing that CGI like anything is just a tool, and like any tool it is good for somethings and not so good for others. Really good movies depending on the need are going to use a lot of tools in the toolbox. Some might just need a screw driver, while others might need extensive use of the hammer so to speak.
I think a perfect example of this was the latest Star Wars. The didn't use CGI on Yoda, but rather went back to the roots and used a puppet. I enjoyed it much better. The other side of that coin is I recall in one of the prequels an extensive lighsaber battle between Yoda and Count Dooku. I remember laughing out loud, but not in joy, but rather in the total ridiculousness of it. Perhaps they felt CGI was required to make that happen, when really someone should have just said "nooooo!".
Where are you subjected to commercials these days? Aside from the odd billboard or bus shelter.
Some part of human advancing far more than the rest of the world ? Be it Atlantis or Wancanda or whatever ? Nan. See most tech is based on advanced from earlier tech. This is why the world advanced more or less by period, the WHOLE world. But having par utterly isolated and having such advanced tech ? Difficult to swallow
Meh. Wakanda had access to a very flexible and easy-to-use energy source that the rest of the world didn't have. This enabled them to become relatively advanced early on and convinced them that they needed to hide themselves. They were also in a position to coopt all of the advances made by the rest of the world while keeping their own secrets. Works for me.
Now, the fact that they seemed to have only a single research scientist in the entire nation, that was hard to swallow.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Whatever else you want to say about the virtues of most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (where we have a difference of taste), Black Panther is NOT a typical example. Absent some of the required fight scenes/tie-ins/stupid villian name its not a comic book movie. It has a real plot.
I highly recommend you see it.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Also, https://www.youtube.com/watch?... was interesting.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The special effects are questionable in some parts
To be fair that was the case when it was first released too.
Very true, and to compare it to the other effects generally in that genre of movies - check things like the Sinbad movies, or Clash of the Titans, or, really, anything that wasn't cutting edge or huge budget prior to the age of CGI. Star Wars did awesome space scenes, the Terminator and Alien truly stepped up models and puppets, and I can't really recall any others that were pushing the boundaries as much prior to CGI and digital effects making their entrance.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Two words: Gal Gadot.
"What about a couple of niche films from 15 years ago" is a bit bullshit isn't it?
A film franchise that grossed half a billion dollars in cinemas alone (earning three times the budget) is niche now?
Shit, I'll settle for that sort of fucking niche.
I guess you prefer mainstream successes like Black Panther, earning a massive 15% more at the box office than its budget. Tell you what, let us all know when the fucking marketing is paid for too.
Comics - nerdish
Computer graphics - nerdish
Film technology - nerdish
CGI - three letters that can mean different things even to the same people
MCU - three letters that can mean different things even to the same people
But hey, it's news for nerds, not arseholes. Maybe that's why this didn't appeal to you.
to the point that we ended up believing there was nothing else. And no longer really believing there could be anything else
So you're telling me that my school lied when it taught me about Sumatra?
The Egyptians didn't have millenia of civilisation before Rome was even built?
I shouldn't associate the word Ottoman with 'Empire'?
I mean, sure, I didn't learn about the Songhai Empire at school, but I didn't learn about the Aztecs, the Mayans or the Han Dynasty either. Turns out there was a fair bit going on closer to home through most of recorded history, took a while to cover that.
You managed to read the part about fencing at state level, but failed to understand what making baron in SCA or teaching HEMA means.
Do you really think that those who spend ten or more hours a week training with swords never wonder what real fights entail? Do you think that burly sword geeks never get upset with each other and actually lay on each other? I've broken both ribs and wrists with a wooden sword and dislocated a knee in the plentiful grappling that accompanies HEMA training and grudge fighting (all accidental, I'll swear to anyone) and I have delivered hundreds of bruises, possibly thousands. And I've had cracked ribs and hundreds of bruises myself. For about fifteen years as HEMA enthusiast, it's about normal. No, this does not directly apply to fighting with a sharp blade, but it sure helps.
Yes, fencing is not real fighting. But Princess Bride's swordplay is to fencing as fencing is to sword fighting. In the first 30 seconds of fighting, Hell in the first ten seconds of fighting, we have:
- before the fighting starts, a blade is touched with bare hands, and sheathed without being wiped, by its owner, no less. On period steel that supposedly can hold an edge, that's a horrible practice.
- the two combatants are standing much too close to each other, even after the fight has started. They are in not just in lunge range, they are even closer. At that distance, whoever thrusts, kills. Signals have no time to travel from your eyes to your brain and then to to your arms to start an effective parry once the opponent starts moving.
- none, and I mean none of the swings would land on the opponent, even if they were not parried. But both combatants interpose their swords, or lean back, or duck those whiffs. When they do so, they place themselves completely out of balance. Their feet are too close, they have weight on the wrong foot considering which way they are likely to move next, the works.
- then you have what is called flynning. They stand much too close to each other and start swinging high then low at 45 degree angle from the horizontal. The high moves (those are not attacks) do not reach the head, the low moves do not reach the knee. None need to be parried, each leaves you out of position to parry. You wait for it to pass, and you have a direct pathway to the heart. Neither takes it.
- and then you have a full spin, outside the range where it could connect, but definitely within lunge range. As icing on the cake, the resulting swing is too high to bother someone who would be lunging at the exposed back.
And frankly, after that there is no point to comment. That spin cannot be topped.
During the whole time, there is one single thrust, not a lunge, and it is (1) too short (2) aimed a foot too high and a foot too far to the opponent's left, and (3) parried after the attacker has achieved extension, i.e.after it would do any good.
Don't get me wrong. I still love the movie - it is being watched in my household at least once an year, and I even enjoy the fight scenes. But its characters would not last any longer against a teenage fencer with a dress sword (as shitty a sword as swords get) any longer than most superheroes would last against a Mob or Organizatsiya crew, or 99.9% of superheroes against a Marines platoon.
That does not make it a bad movie by any means. It's just that it gets a pass from me where Jessica Jones or Luke Cage do not.
No good deed goes unpunished...
Remember the angel when asked if they were for or against Israel said neither. ;)
Art thou for us, or for our adversaries?
And he said, Nay; but as captain of the host of the LORD am I now come.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I do not believe you are correct about all self proclaimed Social Justice Warriors. I have encountered many of them who have simply decided that anything white and male is the enemy. White females are (sometimes) tolerated. That is not justice, nor is it sane. It is merely racist.
One example that really perplexed me: I tried to express to someone the virtues of restorative justice, and how the ideals underpinning them, when faithfully executed, are a balm for the victims as well as a path to redemption and positive change for the perpetrator. The response from a self proclaimed SJW biracial female was "How dare you, a white male, speak about this! You don't get to talk."
This person, who prides themselves on their connection to justice, couldn't see past my skin color and sex to hear the message I was delivering. The takeaway was that anyone who says they are after "social justice" is more likely using those words to hide their base motivations, and given enough rope, will hang themselves with their own hatred and bigotry. This conjecture has proven itself correct over and over, both online and in person. It is exceptionally rare that anyone who espouses "Social Justice" is not overtly biased, motivated by vengeance for imagined slights, and more concerned with punishing groups of people they don't like than treating everyone equally and fairly.
YMMV, and hopefully it does. I would gladly join a group of people trying to create a colorblind and genderblind society based on the concept of universal acceptance of all humans exactly as they are. Unfortunately, the social justice movement is anything but that.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
People have died simply from getting into a fight, being pushed backwards and hitting their head on the ground or just hitting another object, giving them a thunderclap headache (internal bleeding of a major blood vessel in the brain) and dying from a crushed brain.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
"What about a couple of niche films from 15 years ago" is a bit bullshit isn't it?
A film franchise that grossed half a billion dollars in cinemas alone (earning three times the budget) is niche now?
Shit, I'll settle for that sort of fucking niche.
I guess you prefer mainstream successes like Black Panther, earning a massive 15% more at the box office than its budget. Tell you what, let us all know when the fucking marketing is paid for too.
For the love of god... how good an investment a film was for the studio has precisely shit all to do with the cultural impact of a piece of art. Goddammit, this is the same argument we get about iPhone being the most umazing thang evar because Apple makes the most money. I don't care how much money a film makes. It has nothing to do with my enjoyment of viewing it, or the impact it has on the world.
And if you must argue return rates (fuck this is dull) , are you really stupid enough to compare Black Panther's opening weekend with the Blade's entire run?
Heh. Go back to the original source material (Marvel comic books). Bring a pack of Rolaids.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
The very fact that you name a single person by name should tell you something about just how rare that is.
Eat the rich.
You don't matter.
At least not to the people making the "cheap/expensive dross" movies. They're making tons of money, and the fans love the movies.
And stop trying to act superior, it never works.
Eat the rich.
You should add to your rant, that isolation usually slows down scientific progress, as you can't discuss your ideas with people from the outside your own circle.
Then again, while you argue some good points, you are wrong. As soon as you accept Tony Stark, lone genius capable of putting together any tech he needs from whatever he has at hand, places like Wakanda are reasonable. we are talking about whole nation - what stopped them from having their Tony Stark's three generations in a row?
What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
No, it has to do with me being an adult and no longer finding kids stuff interesting or amusing.
Have you ever been in an actual movie theater? You have to pay no matter if you like it or don't like it.
hone
hÉ(TM)ÊSn/Submit
verb
1.
sharpen (a blade).
"he was carefully honing the curved blade" synonyms: sharpen, make sharper, make sharp, whet, strop, grind, file, put an edge on;
2.
refine or perfect (something) over a period of time.
"some of the best players in the world honed their skills playing street football" noun
1.
a whetstone, especially one used to sharpen razors.
"Hone in" is not a thing. If you heard someone else say it, they said it wrong or you heard them wrong. The appropriate expression is "home in" \pedentry_end.
The very safe statistic is why you get out of bed every morning. Some one out there has died doing just about anything you will doing over the course of any day you live.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
You really don't see how movies from 15 years ago are relevant to a discussion about this movie being the first?
You really don't see how movies from 15 years ago are relevant to a discussion about this movie being the first?
I don't think it's relevant because I question the motivation behind the "well actually" brigade. There is an undercurrent of cynicism about representation of under-represented groups in films. And it *always* comes from smug white men in their 30s, who are very perfectly well represented. It's not very clever to find the exception that demonstrates the rule, and that's pretty much what it is. Yay Blade. How many films since then and now? If you have to go back that far, aren't you showing the exact point?
It's clearly the first *blockbuster* superhero film with a black lead, but it's way more than that - nearly every character is black. And when do we get to see an African culture in mainstream films? When do we get to see an optimistic future-Africa?
"Oh but Blade" misses the point entirely.
So I was also thinking the other day, since I just recently rewatched Blade, how Wesley Snipes was fucking cool.
I didn't worry what fucking skin colour everybody was because I'm not an insufferable cunt.
No. Because you're white, and you get to see positive representations of people who look like you all the time.
No it doesn't. It makes pictures with famous names, and given the vast majority of people in the west are white, it stands to reason the majority of famous actors are white too.
I think you are subjecting yourself to confirmation bias. We have Sam Jackson, Wesley Snipes (who was very big in the 80s/90s), Morgan Freeman, .. and just thinking about the number of big-name black actors in Hollywood is so long a list I'm going to stop there.
So now we have yet another super hero movie with a black cast. Whoop de doo. Is it fun? Possibly, I've not seen it but I'm told its good. Is it any better than, say, the last Marvel movie? Is it better than Deadpool? There's nothing special about this one except that certain groups have gone bananas over it simply because its got black people in it.
The big picture perhaps is that Bollywood is full of Asian actors. Wakaliwood is full of black actors. and Nollywood is full of black actors. OMG racism!!!! Not. So why would Hollywood having fewer black actors be any different to anywhere else in the world.
Yep. It looks like crap. CGI only looks good when it's used to clean up or enhance actual real people and real objects. Less CGI is better, pretty much always. But when used correctly, it is fine. These guys aren't using their head, they are trying to use CGI for everything.
Or if it's a full-CGI movie, Pixar-style.
Eat the rich.
The first Thor was a thoroughly enjoyable fish-out-of-water movie.
The second Thor was pretty forgettable.
SPOILERS for Black Panther ahead.
I do not believe you are correct about all self proclaimed Social Justice Warriors. I have encountered many of them who have simply decided that anything white and male is the enemy. White females are (sometimes) tolerated. That is not justice, nor is it sane. It is merely racist.
Which also was the mindset of the primary antagonist in The Black Panther, and the reason why reconciliation with T'Challa was not going to happen. He had too much hatred for the "colonists" and oppressors to turn away from the race war he was inciting.
It at least used to be that, if you left not too long after it started, you could ask for and likely get a refund.
However, we're not seeing discussions of the relative merits of Thor: Ragnarok versus Captain America: Civil War vs. Wonder Woman here. We're seeing people who don't like an entire genre of movies. There are also reviews. I usually know whether I'm going to like a movie before I go. It isn't a perfect system, but it works well enough.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Wonder Woman was good, but not that great. Its nonsensical plot holes worked against its own message it was trying to push.
Yeah, it's certainly the best of the DC movies since Nolan's Batman, but that's not a high bar to overcome.
I think this misses bigger problem: the writing for Storm was really bad. She was a completely two-dimensional character, with no development, no story arc. She was just there. I don't mind that being black wasn't portrayed as an important part of her identity, I mind that there were literally no memorable aspects to her identity. The role of the black female X-Man was to stand near the white X-Men and agree with them. She wasn't portrayed as a person with independent agency who was adding a lot to the team, she was portrayed as a cardboard cutout with superpowers.
Well, X-Men was an ensemble series. It was about Magneto, Professor X, Wolverine, and then a bunch of other guys. I'd say Cyclops got the character development shafting even harder than Storm, and the only reason Jean Grey got anything at all was they were setting up her love triangle for Wolverine. One of the primary definitions for Badly Written Female Character is that she's just there as a love interest for a male character. Rogue got a little more, as she was the McGuffin of the movie. Storm got bad lines, and an actress who didn't really try to make it sound believable.
Blade, on the other hand, was the focus, the primary protagonist. It's hard to compare a movie like Blade with a movie like X-Men, because they have two different (intentional) cast types. One ensemble, one not.
Black Panther isn't the first superhero (ensemble or not) with a black cast, but it may be the first mainstream breakout hit with one.
I don't think it's relevant because I question the motivation behind the "well actually" brigade. There is an undercurrent of cynicism about representation of under-represented groups in films. And it *always* comes from smug white men in their 30s, who are very perfectly well represented.
Under-represented is a given. But there's a little bit of blowback when hyperbolic claims are presented, like people in this comments section claiming it's the first superhero movie with a black cast. Now, the biggest and best? Sure, I can get behind that. Of course, it's subjective, but because it's subjective it's a claim you can more credibly make, as opposed to something fact-based that will have people saying "well, actually..."
So now we have yet another super hero movie with a black cast. Whoop de doo. Is it fun? Possibly, I've not seen it but I'm told its good. Is it any better than, say, the last Marvel movie? Is it better than Deadpool?
Hard to say? They're like.. two different types of movies. Like, different genres except they both have folks with powers in costume.
There's nothing special about this one except that certain groups have gone bananas over it simply because its got black people in it.
I think Black Panther is a fantastic movie. Is it a 'masterpiece?' No, it has some problems, almost all of which has to do with so-so action scenes. Action is pretty important for an action movie, so that downgrades it from 'masterpiece' to 'oh yeah, it's really good.'
You took the time to know the proper spelling of the white nation, Atlantis, but couldn't give two shits to even google how to spell the black nation Wakanda.
Because we've had 2500 years of tales about the hidden nation of Wakanda, right?
Wakanda is a recent invention. Atlantis has permeated Western culture since the time of Plato. Don't put Wakanda on too high of a cultural pedestal.
I'm with Rakarra. Say what you mean.
If you state something that's objectively false, people are going to point out that it's objectively false.
DC is praying that they can mimic even a fraction of Marvel's success. They're copying Marvel's formula as closely as they can...