# Do younger audiences not notice CGI or something?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 7, 2012, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227 "2012-05-07T22:30:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/41 "2012-05-08T17:50:18Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> And in another way Phantom Menace was the last of its kind, aside from the obvious CGI the movie had absolutely GORGEOUS sets and costumes and props,
> what practical effects work there was is also top notch(except the weird looking yoda puppet).
>
> This was the last SW film and probably one of the last big budget movies to feature so much practical work, Revenge Of The Sith is almost totally CGI generated sets and it is noticeable.
Wait until you see _John Carter_. Lots of great sets and awesome costumes. I frikkin’ loved that movie.
---
### Author:  [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/42 "2012-05-08T17:51:00Z")
I think the problem with CGI is paralleled well with what I’ve seen in videogames. At times when videogame graphics were very limited, the designers spent a lot of time maximizing what they could out of it by getting coloring exactly right and carefully designing the characters to work well as sprites or whatever. As the graphics got to the point where they could achieve very near realistic, they often focused too much on trying to make the graphics look realistic that they lost a lot of that artistic edge in trying to have memorable character designs and themes. As a result, I can look at some videogames from 15-20 years ago that are generations behind in graphics but they still look better because the focus wasn’t on realism but in creating a complete aesthetic design.
I think that’s where CGI fails with something like the OP mentions with the Planet of the Apes. The focus was on creating photorealistic apes and they did a damn good job of doing that, but without as much regard for making them fit in aesthetically, our brains will immediately spot even slight inconsistencies and it hurts the overall experience. But very careful design of characters and working them into the overall aesthetic and shot selection to conceal flaws in the models and focusing more on the characters they represent will have our brains focusing on those elements and let the obvious realism flaws pass either because they’re unimportant or because they made them work well in the environment.
And this is why some older movies will still stand up today despite inferior effects technology, because they were able to use those effects to their maximum where a lot of modern movies producers are still too infatuated with the new technology and just overuse it or try to bruteforce the audience into accepting the imagery through hyper-realism rather than more carefully designing the image.
ETA: As others mentioned, I think Davy Jones is an excellent example of careful attention to aesthetic design of the character. I can still notice a number of flaws when I actually look for them, but otherwise he fits right in with the design in a way that a hyper-realistic squidhead on some generic but realistic boat wouldn’t have.
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/43 "2012-05-08T18:00:47Z")
I’m 37 and I don’t notice CGI.
I mean, I notice it, just as I notice editing, lighting, costumes, dialog, sound; as another tool in the filmmaker’s toolbox. So a bad CGI shot doesn’t take me out of a movie any more than a bad line of dialog does - it has to be \*really \*bad.
What I really don’t get is people who say that CGI isn’t “real”. Folks, it’s the movies. \*Nothing \*is real. In real life people don’t look like actors, they don’t speak lines written like screenwriters and there isn’t random incidental music playing out of nowhere. If I want reality I’ll go outside.
---
### Author:  [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/44 "2012-05-08T18:07:12Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> What I really don’t get is people who say that CGI isn’t “real”. Folks, it’s the movies. \*Nothing \*is real. In real life people don’t look like actors, they don’t speak lines written like screenwriters and there isn’t random incidental music playing out of nowhere. If I want reality I’ll go outside.
What people mean to say is it doesn’t look “movie real,” as it it stands out from the rest of the picture.
---
### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/45 "2012-05-08T18:10:21Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> What I really don’t get is people who say that CGI isn’t “real”. Folks, it’s the movies. \*Nothing \*is real. In real life people don’t look like actors, they don’t speak lines written like screenwriters and there isn’t random incidental music playing out of nowhere. If I want reality I’ll go outside.
I once had a dream where I lived on a ranch in what looked like the Australian outback, very rural and there was a problem with an infestation of mammal/lizard hybrid dog looking things. I can still remember what they looked like, the angles I saw them from, and they didn’t look like they were computer models at all and the closest you could get would probably be with practical effects using actual animal hair/skins.
I love when a movie feels like it could be a dream, even though I know its not “real”.
---
### Author:  [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/46 "2012-05-08T18:30:24Z")
> [@Red\_Barchetta](#):
>
> What people mean to say is it doesn’t look “movie real,” as it it stands out from the rest of the picture.
Maybe. I’m sure CGI would stand out for me more if I looked carefully, but why would I want to do that? If I have the time to study the details of the special effects, then the movie is doing a bad job at keeping my interest.
Its just that I have this feeling that when it comes to CGI, some people have unrealistic expectations for perfection, even purity.
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/47 "2012-05-08T18:50:53Z")
> [@Alessan](#):
>
> Its just that I have this feeling that when it comes to CGI, some people have unrealistic expectations for perfection, even purity.
I agree, and I’m not sure where it comes from. I mean, [these are also pretty obvious special effects](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyvbZwPiWtQ), but no one ever complains about how Ray Harryhausen pulls them out of a movie.
---
### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/48 "2012-05-08T19:00:03Z")
It’s such a shame they’ve allowed CGI to replace stop motion photography. The model work they did in the original Star Wars, Star Trek movies etc. was so much better than CGI. They put a lot of very talented artists out of work. Jamie and Adam specialized in that sort of special effects work and had to become Mythbusters when it dried up. Ever see the Mythbusters Moon Special? Jaime and Adam created an entire moonscape that would have been any film directors dream twenty years ago. These guys had such amazing effects skills and the movie industry isn’t interested.
There are times CGI is the way to go. But, it shouldn’t be totally replacing special effects, models, and stop motion photography.
---
### Author:  [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/49 "2012-05-08T19:07:53Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> It’s such a shame they’ve allowed CGI to replace stop motion photography. The model work they did in the original Star Wars, Star Trek movies etc. was so much better than CGI. They put a lot of very talented artists out of work. Jamie and Adam specialized in that sort of special effects work and had to become Mythbusters when it dried up. Ever see the Mythbusters Moon Special? Jaime and Adam created an entire moonscape that would have been any film directors dream twenty years ago. These guys had such amazing effects skills and the movie industry isn’t interested.
>
> There are times CGI is the way to go. But, it shouldn’t be totally replacing special effects, models, and stop motion photography.
Uhm, yes, yes it should.
Sorry, but there’s no way in hell that a space ship model is going to look better than a good piece of CGI. It might look as good, but never better. It would also cost less money and time to build an equally good CGI model. And there’s also a lot more that you can do easily and cheaply to a CGI model that cannot be done to a physical one.
It’s just silly to think otherwise, there’s a reason they are not used anymore.
---
### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/50 "2012-05-08T19:21:07Z")
I have two questions. The way CGI is done nowadays, is it being done by artists or programmers? Has that changed over the last few years?
---
### Author:  [@grude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/grude)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/51 "2012-05-08T19:41:18Z")
Alright I will name an example of CGI that does ruin a movie, ruin the tone I mean.
I Am Legend
1.The infected when done through CGI simply look silly, there was no damn reason to do them in CGI rather than makeup aside from wow the CGI creations can open their mouth wide.
2.The hunting scene in Times Square with the CGI grass swaying bizarrely, not to mention the deer and cougar were just totally out of place. It hurt the haunting isolation and grimness of the city with these cartoonish animals. I think a more gritty and realistic approach would have helped.
EDIT:There is a show called Face Off where makeup artists compete, they have had some jaw dropping creations. Worth checking out if you like makeup effects.
---
### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/52 "2012-05-08T19:55:43Z")
> [@grude](#):
>
> The infected when done through CGI simply look silly, there was no damn reason to do them in CGI rather than makeup aside from wow the CGI creations can open their mouth wide.
Concur 100%
---
### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/53 "2012-05-08T20:18:24Z")
> [@aceplace57](#):
>
> There are times CGI is the way to go. But, it shouldn’t be totally replacing special effects, models, and stop motion photography.
It’s not, really. Well, stop motion doesn’t really have much of a place in special effects photography anymore, because CGI is much better for this purpose.
But miniatures? There’s still plenty of good miniature work being done. A lot of the crazy destruction in _2012_ was done with miniatures and conventional pyrotechnics. Christopher Nolan is big on model work. Peter Jackson, too.
Minis are great for architectural stuff. Articulated, stop motion animation, though? Not used much any more because we have much better options. The stuff Phil Tippet did for _The Empire Strikes Back_ and _Return of the Jedi_ was superb, and the best possible at the beginning of the 1980s. Combined with motion control cameras, it looked _very_ good - especially when the subject was mechanical.
But if you wanted to do a mounted Tauntaun today and were hoping for some degree of “realism,” you wouldn’t look at stop motion miniatures, because they are necessarily going to look like stop motion miniatures, and that’s going to be much more “fakey” than CGI, assuming you have competent people working for either technique. Those animated Tauntauns in _Empire_ (or the Rancor in _Jedi_) still come off a little bit Rankin & Bass, because there’s only so far you can go with that.
---
### Author:  [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/54 "2012-05-08T20:25:35Z")
When Nick Park decides he doesn’t want to do Wallace and Gromit by hand any more, I don’t want to live on this planet.
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/55 "2012-05-08T20:31:57Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#):
>
> I have two questions. The way CGI is done nowadays, is it being done by artists or programmers? Has that changed over the last few years?
It’s done by artists, by definition. The people responsible for, say, [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iONZmKZsWQ) are artists, even if they created it entirely by writing it in assembly language.
Generally speaking, though, CGI artists are not also programmers. They probably know some scripting, but for the most part, they are not coders, and without exception, they’ll be talented artists in non-digital mediums, as well.
This is a relatively recent change, as the availability of graphics tablets and software like ZBrush have made it much easier to port traditional artistic skillsets into digital art. The guys doing the effects for _Tron_ thirty years ago were primarily trained in computer science, and created those effects using tools they wrote for themselves. The guys who did _Tron Legacy_ were mostly using off-the-shelf graphics packages, maybe with a few custom tools created by Disney people whose specific job is creating new tools for use by in-house artists.
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/56 "2012-05-08T20:38:33Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> When Nick Park decides he doesn’t want to do Wallace and Gromit by hand any more, I don’t want to live on this planet.
That’s apples and oranges. Nick Park makes cartoons, not special effects. He’s not trying to make things look realistic. I love 2D animation, but I don’t think _The Incredible Mr. Limpet_ should be held up as the gold standard for special effects in live action movies.
---
### Author:  [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/57 "2012-05-08T21:05:18Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> When Nick Park decides he doesn’t want to do Wallace and Gromit by hand any more, I don’t want to live on this planet.
As **Miller** says, it ain’t no thing. Stop motion is still doing just fine, for applications that it works well for. (I’m looking forward to seeing Aardman’s _Pirates!_)
Hell, a lot of people who saw _Coraline_ came away thinking they’d seen a purely rendered feature. It was heavily computer aided, but it a stop-motion feature. Computer controlled cameras, of course - but most of the digital VFX was along the lines of painting out the models’ external armatures and removing the seams where facial animation was done with swappable features. Nice effects reel [here](http://www.traileraddict.com/trailer/coraline/visual-effects-reel) to give you an idea, if you haven’t seen it already.
---
### Author:  [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/58 "2012-05-08T21:09:42Z")
> [@KneadToKnow](#):
>
> When Nick Park decides he doesn’t want to do Wallace and Gromit by hand any more, I don’t want to live on this planet.
Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas were CGI. Pirates is back to stop-motion, though.
---
### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/59 "2012-05-08T21:13:10Z")
> [@](#):
>
> The guys doing the effects for Tron thirty years ago were primarily trained in computer science, and created those effects using tools they wrote for themselves.
Actually, the guys doing the effects for Tron mostly didn’t use computers at all. Computer effects were still too expensive, so even much of the “computer graphics” were actually done using more conventional means (though obviously there was some real computer work mixed in there too).
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [May 8, 2012, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227/60 "2012-05-08T21:13:53Z")
> [@Bosstone](#):
>
> Flushed Away and Arthur Christmas were CGI. Pirates is back to stop-motion, though.
Not completely stop motion, though. I believe a lot of the water effects are CGI. At least, Park has frequently gone on record as citing water, smoke, and fire as things that stop motion cannot effectively replicate.
[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227.md?page=2)
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-younger-audiences-not-notice-cgi-or-something/621227.md?page=4)