By Alex Zavala
Back in the nineties, movies that included Computer Generated Images (CGI) were groundbreaking and incredibly expensive. Today, they are a commodity that studios and some filmmakers over-use, making many high-profile movies look like video games.
When done right, audiences will think it is now possible to put absolutely anything our minds can imagine on the screen. When done wrong, which is unfortunately very common, the audience will just leave the theater wishing the movie had looked more real, even if that meant less spectacular.
There’s two clear examples that come to mind when thinking about the good and bad uses of CGI:
GOOD: Jurassic Park
Along with Terminator 2, this movie is practically the reason CGI is as evolved as it is today. And it did it in style. It was its carefully-crafted blend between animation and practical effects that makes those dinosaurs still look real and terrifying 26 years later. They actually look WAY more real than the ones we see in the “Jurassic World” films.
BAD: Star Wars I, II and III
With these long-awaited prequels, George Lucas became CGI-obsessed, to the point of even making completely useless CGI chairs. The series was supposed to come with the necessary technological innovations to tell the beginning of the story. Instead, it looks more fake than anything from the original trilogy, and that one is over twenty years older! They even changed the way Yoda looks entirely from one movie to the next. Perhaps filming 90% of the movies in front of a green screen contributed to the less-than-stellar reviews of the cast’s performances.
For the high-profile filmmakers who just don’t get it, the lesson here is that CGI is only a tool to portray what you have envisioned. Anything that can actually be caught on camera, should.
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