CGI special effects or practical special effect.

[Canada]

I've noticed for a long time that practical special effect usually look better for a longer time than CGI special effects.

Case in point Star Wars A New Hope (Original) still looks better than the Phantom Menace when it comes to special effects.

Although things like Sin City and Avatar that are done almost entirely with CGI still look amazing.

[vegeta88]

I have no preference. Whatever gets the job done. I agree that CGI can look dated pretty quickly and some movies get way too ambitious with it, but it can achieve things that practical SFX cannot. Jurassic Park seems to be the prime example.

[Visco.]

Can't I just have a love triangle with both of them?

[remake]

Whatever Prometheus used. That movie was tight, yo.

[King Troll]

Practical gives the movie more magic

[GreenGaijin]

I would say to get it done right, both of them working together in harmony.

But to narrow it down: practical for close-up shots and CGI for scenery or action that's too complicated.

[Mandalorian]

You guys hear the news? CGI Muppets in 2015.

[Bluyoda]

How many threads are there about this nonsense already?

Please show me how to do Davy Jones or the skeletons, etc... in The Curse of the Black Pearl as practical guys.

Please show me how to do Coruscant, Geonosis, Kamino, Mustafar, General Grievous, Yoda fighting, Poggle the Lesser, Watto, Sebulba, Hulk, Iron Man, The Mummy, the monster from Super 8, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, etc......practically.

It's the combination that makes it look great.
Also, you have to know how to design VFX sequences, how to direct them, have talented people doing them, and enough money and time do execute them.

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

I have just finished re-watching SW Ep. I and II with the crew commentaries, and I compared the practical creatures with the CG creatures side by side very carefully (E.g.:The Nemoidians vs. Poggle the Lesser), and they while they both look great, the CGI creatures are just much more expressive (lip sync....).

I think the main problem often is that the action is too fast, and we don't get to see the creatures, characters clearly.
I went through many scenes in slow motion (Ep. I+II), and discovered a lot of detail I had never seen before.

CG is here to stay, and it's only getting better.
People just need to use it appropriately.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

[GreenGaijin]

Well for Davy Jones, you would need make-up to cover the actor's face so that's practical. But, to do the tenticals moving (which would be complicated) then combine CGI. Sometimes you don't even notice the difference. The creatures shown in Prometheus were puppets. ET is a damn puppet and look at the expressions on its face.

The stop-motion skeleton army in Jason and the Argonauts, is still one of the coolest and creepiest looking things ever. Also John Carpenter's 'The Thing' is awesome! The fact that computer animation is not involved and it's all in camera, is even more freaky.

Go check out the original Star Wars and Blade Runer - those are all practical special effect shots using models. I'm in love with the look of movies coming out today, and it's all thanks to CGI. But I think there will always be opportunity to do things the old fashion way for little details here and there.

[LordCrumb]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

How many threads are there about this nonsense already?

Please show me how to do Davy Jones or the skeletons, etc... in The Curse of the Black Pearl as practical guys.

Please show me how to do Coruscant, Geonosis, Kamino, Mustafar, General Grievous, Yoda fighting, Poggle the Lesser, Watto, Sebulba, Hulk, Iron Man, The Mummy, the monster from Super 8, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, etc......practically.

It's the combination that makes it look great.
Also, you have to know how to design VFX sequences, how to direct them, have talented people doing them, and enough money and time do execute them.

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

I have just finished re-watching SW Ep. I and II with the crew commentaries, and I compared the practical creatures with the CG creatures side by side very carefully (E.g.:The Nemoidians vs. Poggle the Lesser), and they while they both look great, the CGI creatures are just much more expressive (lip sync....).

I think the main problem often is that the action is too fast, and we don't get to see the creatures, characters clearly.
I went through many scenes in slow motion (Ep. I+II), and discovered a lot of detail I had never seen before.

CG is here to stay, and it's only getting better.
People just need to use it appropriately.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

Hit a bit of a sore spot did it? lol

[Minyainya]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqcR9...outu.be&t=1m5s

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by Canada

I've noticed for a long time that practical special effect usually look better for a longer time than CGI special effects.

Case in point Star Wars A New Hope (Original) still looks better than the Phantom Menace when it comes to special effects.

Although things like Sin City and Avatar that are done almost entirely with CGI still look amazing.

Funniest post ever!

[Foggy]

Uh-oh, the ultimate ILM Fanboy is on the case

[GreenGaijin]

Originally Posted by Minyainya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqcR9...outu.be&t=1m5s

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by Minyainya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqcR9...outu.be&t=1m5s

Originally Posted by Foggy

Uh-oh, the ultimate ILM Fanboy is on the case

In case you didn't know: A New Hope and The Phantom Menace were both done by ILM, so what's your point?

[Foggy]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

In case you didn't know: A New Hope and The Phantom Menace were both done by ILM, so what's your point?

Besides the point you going on a war path on this thread? I thought it was pretty clear

[toddly6666]

Originally Posted by Bluyoda

How many threads are there about this nonsense already?

Please show me how to do Davy Jones or the skeletons, etc... in The Curse of the Black Pearl as practical guys.

Please show me how to do Coruscant, Geonosis, Kamino, Mustafar, General Grievous, Yoda fighting, Poggle the Lesser, Watto, Sebulba, Hulk, Iron Man, The Mummy, the monster from Super 8, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park, etc......practically.

It's the combination that makes it look great.
Also, you have to know how to design VFX sequences, how to direct them, have talented people doing them, and enough money and time do execute them.

Look at Pacific Rim!
It looks out of this world amazing! I can't wait to see this, and they could NEVER do anything like that practically.

I have just finished re-watching SW Ep. I and II with the crew commentaries, and I compared the practical creatures with the CG creatures side by side very carefully (E.g.:The Nemoidians vs. Poggle the Lesser), and they while they both look great, the CGI creatures are just much more expressive (lip sync....).

I think the main problem often is that the action is too fast, and we don't get to see the creatures, characters clearly.
I went through many scenes in slow motion (Ep. I+II), and discovered a lot of detail I had never seen before.

CG is here to stay, and it's only getting better.
People just need to use it appropriately.

My 2 cents.

Cheers

People dressed up in costumes, animatronics, old school practical special effects, real sets, painted backgrounds, etc. are a billion times better than all of the examples you listed above. Sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the 1970s-1980s not only look better than most sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the 1990s-2010s but are more memorable. The 1990s-2010 sci-fi/fantasy flicks suffer from quick datedness, sort of like the early ones from 1950s-1960s. The CGI in The Mummy, Star Wars prequels have seriously dated special effects where they look awful now. Movies like Jurrassic Park and Iron Man are good because they are overall good films with balance of everything. If you get a movie with CGI overkill (Star Wars prequels), you'll end up with a quickly dated film, and especially when everything else about the movie sucks as well. Regarding monster movies, there has not been one "holy shit, that's a scary intimidating" CGI monster. Jurrasic Park may be the last one because Spielberg used a mixture of animatronics and CGI. But if a monster is totally CGI, as awesomely animated as it may be, it still looks not real nor threatening as someone dressed in an Alien costume.

You are right that CG needs to be used appropriately. Most of the time, it's not. The last best recent example of perfect harmony of old school effects and new school effects were The Lord of the Rings movies.

[The Great Owl]

Practical effects still have a spatial presence to them that CGI effects cannot match.

The 1981 Clash of the Titans, with the crude stop-motion special effects from Ray Harryhausen, trumps the ephemeral blandness of CGI effects in the 2010 remake any day of the week.

The special effects in the Star Wars original trilogy were not always perfect, but I never felt as though I were watching cartoons, as I felt while watching most of the scenes in the prequel trilogy.

Consider the 1954 original Japanese version of Godzilla. I know deep down inside that it's just some dude in a rubber suit walking around makeshift model buildings, but I never lose sense of the fact that it's actually there. That old-style Godzilla is immense, awesome, and ultimately convincing. The 1998 Godzilla, by comparison, makes me want to close my eyes and nap on the sofa.

The 1933 original version of King Kong is one of my all-time favorite movies. That crude model version of King Kong just astounds me every time. It scares me, it makes me laugh, it makes me cry, and I always somehow relate to it. Peter Jackson's 2005 incarnation of King Kong was admittedly impressive when it comes to CGI effects, and it looked as through Jackson had actually hired an extraordinarily talented 50-foot gorilla to act in the film, but even that visage pales in comparison to the awesomeness of the original Kong.

I believe that CGI effects have a place in movies, but mainly for supplemental use (removing wires from models, removing background camera props, removing certain things from the background, etc.).

[Bluyoda]

Originally Posted by toddly6666

[Show spoiler]People dressed up in costumes, animatronics, old school practical special effects, real sets, painted backgrounds, etc. are a billion times better than all of the examples you listed above. Sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the 1970s-1980s not only look better than most sci-fi/fantasy flicks from the 1990s-2010s but are more memorable. The 1990s-2010 sci-fi/fantasy flicks suffer from quick datedness, sort of like the early ones from 1950s-1960s. The CGI in The Mummy, Star Wars prequels have seriously dated special effects where they look awful now. Movies like Jurrassic Park and Iron Man are good because they are overall good films with balance of everything. If you get a movie with CGI overkill (Star Wars prequels), you'll end up with a quickly dated film, and especially when everything else about the movie sucks as well. Regarding monster movies, there has not been one "holy shit, that's a scary intimidating" CGI monster. Jurrasic Park may be the last one because Spielberg used a mixture of animatronics and CGI. But if a monster is totally CGI, as awesomely animated as it may be, it still looks not real nor threatening as someone dressed in an Alien costume.

You are right that CG needs to be used appropriately. Most of the time, it's not. The last best recent example of perfect harmony of old school effects and new school effects were The Lord of the Rings movies.

Your opinion is 3000% subjective. You don't even attempt to be objective about it.
All techniques can yield good results. It all depends on how you use them.
Nuff said.

EDIT: Also to the OP, if you don't even know that it's CGI visual effects, it just clearly reveals that you are utterly clueless when it comes to visual effects of special effects.

[Shawn Elestren]

Practical magic.