I was reading the post on ancient computers and it got me thinking about one thing which I have always noticed in films: Computer graphics always seem to be really flash. I don’t just mean the desktop or the programmes which are running, but when the computer is doing anything.
Examples of this are:
Hackers. Good film, but all the stuff they do has to be accompanies by cool graphics. When hacking into a system, it is displayed on screen like some super cyberspace thing.
Mission Impossible. When he is sending an e-mail it shows the mail disappearing, like it is being posted.
Anyway, you get the idea. I can’t think of others right now, but there are loads.
The other thing which bugs me is unrealistic fight scenes. OK, a bit of artistic license is needed to make the fight exciting, but no one ever looks bruised (see Charlie’s Angels most recently), not a hair our of place and in some cases not even sweating. I can forgive most of this, but since The Matrix, some films think they can get away with doing totally imposible things during the fight. Two which really bug me are a somersault kick (hitting with both feet while flipping backwards and still landing on thier feet) and doing spins in mid air like gravity just forgot to pull them down for a 10 seconds. THe whole point was that in The Matrix it wasn’t real so they could do all that.
Anyway, that is the end of my rant. What does everyone else think of this? Is there a reasonable explaination? Do you even care?
I do like these films, and I am willing to forgive most stuff because it is all about suspension of disbeleif, but some things are just too silly.
I just kind of thought, some of this is pretty vague, but I did not want to give away any parts of the films to spoil them for other people who have not seen them yet. Those who have, hopefully you’ll know what I mean.
This really doesn’t have anything to do with your OP, but I love computer graphics and with movies like The Perfect Storm I look at all the extras on the DVD and they pointed out the scenes that were totally done by computers. My BF thinks I’m nuts and he got mad at me when we were watching the DVD and I was telling him what scenes were faked. He thinks I should just enjoy the movie and forget that some of it is fake, but I am fascinated by the CG and try to figure out how they do them.
I’ve concluded that its probably best that I don’t figure out where the CG scenes are in a movie. Aside from the incredibly obvious scenes, when I find out where non-obvious CG scenes are, I realize how fake they look. Then I don’t watch that movie ever again.
I guess I compare the CG in movies to a rollercoaster ride. I know, for a fact, that I will never be out in a swordfishing boat in the North Atlantic during a raging storm, so CG is the closest I’ll ever come to experiencing it, fake or not. On a rollercoaster, it is a ride and carefully controlled, but I still get a thrill.
I love special effects, especially movie effects. I’ll go to a movie or buy a DVD just for the effects.
What I meant was not the CG stuff, I think that is cool, but stuff the is someone sitting at their PC and on the screen the programme is doing something and the graphics are just totally awesome. Like having an e-mail programme that shows a letter disappearing into a postbox when you send it.
With the other things, I am not complaining at how they look, but the fact that people are doing things which are physically impossible as if anyone could do it with a bit of training.