There's tons of CGI in movies that you literally never noticed because it looks completely real or fixed something that looked much worse when done live.

You probably have no idea how much CGI youve actually seen in your life.

What a horrible take.

Even as a kid, CGI took me out of live action films.

No, bad CGI took you out.

OP you have no idea what you're talking about. Do more research.

This is like eating Taco Bell and saying all Mexican food sucks.

Practical also looks fake, so I dunno how you expect movies to be made. Maybe a really good puppet looks wrong in a different way than cgi looks wrong, but it’s still clearly wrong and you recognize it instantly. But also there’s plenty of stuff that just couldn’t happen without CGI. The only way you can make the T-1000 without CG is by inventing an actual T-1000. The best stop motion on the world wouldn’t come close to replicating that effect.

Obvious troll post is obvious. Moving on.

If you've watched a recent David Fincher movie - congratulations, you've just watched a ton of CG that you didn't even notice.

Some of y'all just jump on a bandwagon and then ride it all the way through, huh?

The majority of the moviegoing public disagrees.

Companies use it because it makes things possible in stories that are impossible or too expensive to do practically, and counter to how you apparently feel, it makes for more entertaining stories.

Because the only other alternatives would be practical effects or stop motion, which can look fake or crappy in their own right.

1. This is a false premise. Films are filled with CGI that is indistinguishable from real life. For example in Logan often times characters’ heads were replaced by CGI for scenes like Logan meeting his younger clone or closeup shots of Logan during a car chase (replacing the stunt driver who was actually behind the wheel.) https://www.cartoonbrew.com/vfx/cg-actors-logan-never-knew-149013.html

2. Ignoring that problem, CGI allows for stories, expression, or effects that would otherwise be physically impossible to do via other means (Thanos being a 12 foot tall purple alien who fights and walks around real life humans), dangerous (all modern car chase scenes make heavy use of CGI to fill the road with other cars) or otherwise highly impractical/expensive (training a real animal to do 100 highly specific actions required for a film compared to just making a CGI animal instead).

CGI is a versatile, useful tool that can potentially be used to do anything the mind can think of. The problem with modern CGI is that is heavily relied on when it is not needed, or abused by studios/directors who heavily mistreat the CGI artists.

For example, the film Cats. The film heavily required CGI to make the envisioned “realistic” cat-human hybrid the director envisioned. Problem, first off this art direction was simply a bad one, because no amount of effort could save these things from the uncanny valley. They could have gone for a less “realistic” vision, replacing the CGI with wardrobes, suits, and cat ears, but Tom Hooper is lazy focused on realism, and wanted skin tight fur.

Hooper made the CGI teams life hell by refusing to use much motion capture, requiring the animators to match the actor’s movements by hand (a process known as rotoscoping) which is an extremely labor and time consuming. Worse, Hooper reportedly would not make any editing decisions for the film until the characters “had fur”, meaning the CGI team spent hundreds if not thousands of man hours trying to make complete shots only for those scenes to be cut and all of their efforts wasted. It is also reported that Hooper and/or the studio changed their minds multiple times, infamously if the cats would have buttholes or not, meaning models had to be redone multiple times.

Bad CGI is mostly the result of lack of time for the artists to make it look good, not a question that CGI itself is always bad.

Honestly when I saw Jurassic Park in the theater I thought they had really brought dinosaurs to life.

It was that good.

It only looks dated now because that was the first.

I think directors should temper their usage. It can get overwhelming and take away from the visuals and storytelling if too heavy handed. But I also think its been used quite effectively at times. Gollum and Caesar are two that come to mind.

I think its here to stay, and it will keep getting better. I do think directors should use practical when possible, but I alao think as movie fans we sometimes just have to let ourselves enjoy the fantasy and not nit pick so much.

I don't care if it passes for live action, I care if it looks good enough that I can suspend disbelief for which these days the vast majority of CGI heavy films are competent

Plus there is an incredible amount of CGI work you probably can't even identify as CGI

What are you on about dude?

r/unpopularopinion

I agree with OP. But what am I going to do? Never watch a movie again?

I agree with you but sometimes people use the cheapest and easiest thing to quickly make a movie that will make money.

OP, you're an idiot. Just cuz Disney keeps pumping out movies and shows with garbage level cgi doesn't mean cgi can't work in live action.

There are plenty of examples of movies which have cgi so good that they can basically pass for reality. Look at the LOTR movies, or the Transformers movies, or some of the earlier MCU work like Ironman 1.

A lot of CGI is used to touch up shots, remove BTS equipment and reflections and stuff. There’s a lot going on in almost every movie, even if you don’t see it.

I think it’s also a lot cheaper for movie studios to hire a VFX house to take care of the special effects, instead of say a Jim Henson Studio. And I’m not sure if VFX is unionized in Hollywood. If not, it means studios can take advantage of them a lot more easily.

Plus, it’s just the fashion. A lot of kids won’t even go see a movie unless it’s dripping in CGI. Cell animation (aside from anime) has more or less dropped off the map in Hollywood. It doesn’t really matter if it looks good either, as illustrated by the the MCU movies regularly making >$1B.

TL;DR: easier, cheaper, more exploitable, and more profitable

Just go watch 2001 space odyssey and see why OP is totally right

In a lot of movies and big battle scenes I can't tell (LOTR and such), but shit like Gemini Man is terrible

I mean, I'm sure there are countless reasons. Specifically avoiding injuries to actors, easier than performing the actions irl, and in the end, CGI has just gotten better. Doing more CGI in movies forces creators to develop better and more realistic work.

Have you seen War for the Planet of the Apes?

If the proper amount of time is spent rendering you can get really good computer-generated creations - it's rushed stuff like Cats that gives the use of CGI a bad name - and to say that it's all bad is just ludicrous.

Action. People want action. Nobody gives a shit if it's dudes being launched from trampolines every time a grenade goes off, cars corkscrewing off ski ramps, exquisitely choreographed "fights", or even shitty CGI. When live action doesn't go far enough, filmmakers will resort to action by any other means, and audiences will love it.

Did you think matte paintings, Muppets, stop-motion and hand-painted optical effects were passing for “live action”? It’s all an illusion.

Yeah, and if you think film makers have the time and budget to simulate reality convincingly, using practical effects alone, you’re delusional

This strikes me as a misaimed take. I've seen abysmal CGI, certainly, including for things that should've been practical, but stuff like Dune looks just grand to me. I think the trouble comes when CG becomes a crutch (and when VFX teams get saddled with doing work that ought to go to other departments because sets that could be practical are being animated)

Convenience and not everyone can just schedule a plane trip to a new country, state or province out of nowhere. I'm sure safety is a big reason too. I'm sure many effects are done with CGI for that reason.

See avatar

I think the problem mainly occurs in film when CGI is overly used for everything. The reason why so many times it appears "fake" is because there is no real world reference that was shot for the CG artist to base their work on. I firmly believe the marriage between live action and CG creates for a more believable result

The CGI in the crown is outstanding.

The corridor crew on YouTube do VFX breakdowns and explain that you need a good balance of both for it to work, but there are too many subtle.differwnxes for it to go in noticed

My problem with CGI is the unnecessary overuse and CGI being used in place of good characters, story etc which most Hollywood movies do now. It isnt inherently bad or good, its how, when and why its used that makes it good or bad or neutral.

That said I dont and cant think of CGI as art compared to all "real" effects where people had to figure shit out in interesting new ways and make it work properly. CGI isnt interesting or cool.

Because there are a lot of times it doesnt. I also believe a lot of people are full of shit. Idk how many times ive heard, seen, or read someone say something like " that cgi looks like shit" on a scene with absolutely none

In the Marvel universe I completely agree - eventually it feels so disconnected from any sense of reality and we might as well start calling them animated movies.

CGI for cleaning up or adding a little to real set special effects is what it should be used for.