Having seen a few comments in other threads, like for example the new Star Wars thread, what's everyone's opinion on CGI.

Babylon 5 was one of the earliest shows to make widespread use of CGI and while their effects look a bit dated today I don't think it spoils the show, besides, the primary use of CGI in that show was purely for the space battles, sets were still constructed otherwise.

It seems however that CGI is being overused with some directors substituting CGI for plot. I think personally that CGI is a good thing, if used properly. For instance, Lord of the Rings made excellent use of CGI, and lets face it, can you really imagine something like the Balrog as a costume.

On the other hand, you have the George Lucas's of this world who seem to think that CGI should make up 90% of the film.

Thoughts?

Good topic, like all things CGI should be used in moderation!!! Half the time its used its barely noticable. Wiping out wires would be one use, or say the bullet sparks in Black Hawk Down would be another good example. I only realised it was CGI because there was a documentary. They replaced most of the squibs in that film with CGI. That is where CGI SHOULD be used. On the other hand, too much CGI looks so obviously fake that it spoils the film, which is a shame. I guess and exception to the rule would be Sky Captain, but as I haven't seen it, I couldn't really say. Of course it was purposely all CGI, or maybe Spirits Within.

Things like the big fight at the end of Matrix 3 i find really dull, as well as the Spiderman films, cause its all just fake. I saw a documentary where they built up a shot of him swinging through a street, the only real thing was a superimposed pair of eyes for a second, fake spidey, fake skyline, fake buildings, fake road and cars. Whats the point?

Now i like cgi if its something like Jubei was saying were you dont notice it like an explosion or something but i absolutely despise it when it comes to people and spaceships and stuff like that.Good examples of shite SHITE cgi would be things like the cave troll in the first lord of the rings movie, i mean it looks so blatenly computer genrated as it is, only for them to have a computer generated legolas run up its back!Terrible!I also realy dont know why people are so convinced a cgi ship would be better than a model!I think model ships look a million times better than cgi ones!THEY LOOK REAL!

Interesting mix of CGI and models though, Minas Tirith (is it?) in LOTR 3, the little CGI horseys add to the realism and sense of scale of the model.

I love this argument, i think that CGI is now seen as an important part of film making but, i think some films relie on it to heavily. Even with a film like lord of the rings i get bored of the "effects" shot you know their fake, and yes it is in lord of the rings a fantastical world full of magic and wonder, but sometimes it feels like when your watching a film like that "oh look there is the big special effect ....wow" and you wait for it too come.

I would disagree with the post about spiderman however. I think that the effects are extremely important to these films. In the Comics he is amazingly flexible and flys through the city, like an acrobat and the effects show spiderman as he was ment to be seen. But the important thing about the spiderman films is that the plot is not built around the effects they are there to add to the plot, the real story is a bout peter parker and coming to terms with his powers and the effects just add to the story telling.

But when you take films like daredevil and the new star wars films they tend to feel like a show case for what can be done in terms of special effects as aposed to telling a story and thats what film making should be 100% about story telling. CGI is a tool and shouldent be used as everything

I think CGI is fantastic addition to film making...however....it needs to be done well, and not overtly.
I watched Phantom Menace again today, just to see what it was I hated so much.
And it was not all the CGI, it was the Disney type casting of Anakin, and other Disney type aliens in it

with one very funny exception
I noticed when Queen Amidala puts a vote of no confidence in the senate , Lucas cuts to 3 of Spielbegs E.T's all screaming vote now ...I laughed my arse of!
Could not believe I had missed that till now...

I think CGI is fantastic BUT when it takes the place of stunt men or what could easily be filmed live motion, then that just irks me!
luvs nix

Well, I used to hate cgi so completely and totally, and a little bit of it still remains. I can see that it has an advantage sometimes, but entire films made with it in my opinion suck.

It should exist like music does in films, and be there to enhance the story not take over it. You should never notice it's there unless you're really looking for it.

Except that when CGI is so good that they can do that, it'll become an EVEN MORE popular alternative. "Well, we thought we'd have 10000 extras, but then we figured we could it with 100 and some CG people, then we thought, sod it, we don't need any real people, we'll bung in some CG dust and you won't be able to tell anyway, unless you really look for it..."

Eh, are you taking the piss outta me. I can get quite angry you know. If not I've just woken up after a lovely long nap.

Isn't there a union that's up in arms about the use of CGI to replace extras in crowd scenes? I want to say Equity, but I'm not sure they represent supporting actors.

CGI, like you've all said, can be amazing; I still can't get over how incredible Gollum looks in Lord of the Rings (and you know how much I hate those nasty hobbitses). But there's directors like Michel Gondry who show that you don't have to use computers to make your film look fantastic(al). In Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Gondry did all the special effects (people disappearing, changing size etc) in-camera by using perspective or having the stage hands change sets very quickly. I think I'm right in saying that nothing was computer generated.

I think CGI has helped some Sci Fi battles for a number of reasons. Model building can be expensive, and a show like B5 that used a lot of CGI, this helped with the very limited budget they had, especially when they had something like 30 Omega Class Destroyers on screen at one time.

i reckon all narative film-making is in a way artificial. what seems important to me is that cgi doesn't disrupt the audiences suspension of disbelief, it should aid it. we choose to accept fictitious situations and characters and care about what happens in the film despite knowing that in reality these events aren't actually occuring. spiderman 2's animation is so excellent that when dr. ock and spidy fight on the side of that building i can naturally accept that this is occuring and be thrilled and excited by the danger and peril of the situation. no less than if a two stunt men had performed this sequence (which i doubt they could). it allows film-makers to show things literally (as they would appear realistically as opposed to theatherically or symbolically) that they couldn't have without it. cgi annoys me when the animation doesn't fit coherently into the film world, when it sticks out and thus detaches the viewer from the viewing experience. or if its used lazily to fix problems that could be remedied more sucessfully through other means leaving shoddy end results. on the other hand you hear stories of it being extremely helpfully and seamlessly to fix problems like putting labels on bottles on 'way of the gun' or making even tides and adding trees blowing in the wind to 'castaway'.

there are other films in which the attraction, at least partly, seems to be witnessesing impressive physical acts that actually happened, such as martial arts like jackie chan, which is very physical, or physical comedy such as buster keaton. the things these performers do seem to me to be impressive because of the difficulty or danger involved in the peforming them. stuntmen in most films just risk themselves as an means to the end of improving the believability of a film and hence if it can be convincingly i'm fine with it being replaced by cgi, however, a film like 'rumble in the bronx' exists purely to display jackie chan's talent. i think such displays of physical ability are most effective when they are without cgi enhancement.

so yeah, alright in moderation.

Well yeah, if the comany purely cant afford to do it then fair enough, but if you have the choice, in my eyes models are better.



All you need to do is change a few letters and that becomes a very good point, so im going to hi-jack it!(this is what i thought it said the first time i read it over anyway!)

what seems important to me is that cgi doesn't disrupt the audiences suspension or belief

mmmmm deja vu?

I used to think CGI was a good thing, but after seeing Star Wars and it's overuse of it, and Red Dwarf, which had excellent model shots, I have to say that CGI is a bad thing!

I agree that models can be better than CGI for big hulking slow moving ships, and there are times when the use of CGI ships has actually put me off a show (Battlestar Galactica the new series anyone?) but sometimes models just won't work. Take the fighter battles in Space: Above and Beyond, they had real world physics on those ships, fly bys with ships spinning and firing backwards mid fight, they used shaky cams and quick zooms, as though it was being filmed by actual observers, and it was all CGI. There is NO WAY they could have done that iwth models, and it was by far the best space battles I've seen.

One advantage of CGI is in ship destruction.

How many people here remember Blake's 7? I remember reading the guys saying that when they destroyed the Liberator at the end of season 3 that they absolutely had to get it right because that was the only model of any detail they had. They might have had small liberator models for distance shots, but the main one, if it hadn't worked right away, it would have been a real problem.

Though some models are nice, the USS Cygnus from The Black Hole is a stunning model, as is the Draconia from Buck Rogers.

The one other good thing about CGI is that it can be easier to put a variety of shots in. Now I like Battlestar Galactica (both series) but even the most ardent fan of the original must admit that it got a bit old when they kept reusing the same half a dozen battle shots.