CGI, has it become a crutch?

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-04-21 06:26pm

I have been watching some sections of the prequels, and cannot get over the CGI usage. No matter how much they try, it still looks 'fake'. Moreso in Ep2 than Ep1, even. Every little thing is done with CGI. I honestly think that alot of the original movies look better than some of the scenes from Ep2 and 1. That is because they used actual models. It kept the feel that something was actually 'there'. And that was done on a limited budget, unlike the multi-millions that George Lucas now has on his own. I mean, even the clone troopers were CGI, even the ones that were in closeups. And it is so easy to notice, too! They might as well have sold the movie off as an animated film with a few human actors, and some miniature sets with CGI overlays.

Have they gotten lazy and started using CGI as a crutch, or does everyone else just like this fake look everything has to it?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-04-21 06:39pm

I don't really dislike the new look, but I don't like the fact that it was taken to such a ridiculous extent. I mean, GL, it's OK to use low-tech stuff once and a while; it worked in your original movies, and it also worked in the LoTR movies.

Why all of the clonetroopers had to be ALL CG is beyond me. The shot in Kamino where Obi-Wan and Lama Su view a regiment of the clone army is so obviously fake that it's laughable. Obviously, you're going to need to use CG for certain shots that would be impossible to simulate, like the scene at the end with the clone army in Coruscant, but for some of the close-up shots of troopers? Real actors would have been fine, and not as noticeably fake.

I don't want to bash GL or ILM; I realize what they did in AoTC is outstanding, but it's depressing to see so much obviously fake stuff in a SW movie while Peter Jackson is pulling off LoTR without a plethora of fake-looking shots.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-04-21 06:47pm

I agree on the CT issue. In close shots, they should've been real people. Its not like you can tell they are different in height when only a single one is in the frame. Or even more than one, just not lined up next to each other.

For the scenes where they were all lined up in close shots (Coruscant scene) they could've used real actors and digitally altered their heights, and then added the other CG troops at a distance when it would actually look real.

To think, I actuallylikehow stormies look better than CTs.

Soontir C'boath · Post by **Soontir C'boath** » 2003-04-21 07:07pm

Yea it is sort of a crutch....but that doesn't prevent the fans from cheering to the point where you can't even hear the movie.

Cyaround,
Jason

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-04-21 07:54pm

Stormies look better than the CGI CTs by orders of magnitude.

I mean, they are so obviously fake. They look like they pulled them right out of a CGI cutscene in a video game.

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-04-21 08:16pm

I agree. It's too bad that the cost of hiring all the extras to be the actors, not to mention manufacturing the armor, is probably so prohibitively expensive that CGI was the way to go. Oh well. It looks cool anyway, even though it is fake.

Nathan F · Post by **Nathan F** » 2003-04-21 08:17pm

Vympel wrote:I agree. It's too bad that the cost of hiring all the extras to be the actors, not to mention manufacturing the armor, is probably so prohibitively expensive that CGI was the way to go. Oh well. It looks cool anyway, even though it is fake.

CGI is perfectly suited for huge pictures of troop formations and such, but, a few extras with CT suits wouldn't be all that hard. With the very limited budget of Ep4, they did a good job on the stormie suits and such.

DPDarkPrimus · Post by **DPDarkPrimus** » 2003-04-22 12:34am

CGI, has it become a crutch?

Yes.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-04-22 12:42am

There were only a few shots of CG CTs I would've replaced with extras:

Some of the scenes in the arena of CTs hopping off of LAATs and such.
The one scene with the CTs in the dust storm.
And the close-ups at Coruscant.

Also, in the OT, matte painting was used to great effect to simulate massed stormtroopers, like in Palpatine's arrival ot the DS2.

Not EVERYTHING must be done with computers.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-22 12:49am

Actually the arena in AOTC was a big model with CGI added in. The battles in that movie and most of the sets couldn't have been done another way though, or at least not without five times the budget. Is also difficult to integrate a CGI object and the same thing that’s real without it looking off. With things like the Clone troopers I think it was better to do them all CGI.

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2003-04-22 12:51am

Nathan F wrote:[

CGI is perfectly suited for huge pictures of troop formations and such, but, a few extras with CT suits wouldn't be all that hard. With the very limited budget of Ep4, they did a good job on the stormie suits and such.

But they where never in a position to need both close ups and long range shots of troops in ANH. While the battles of AOTC had troops inches from your face and others spread out over a kilometer away in the same shot.

Sokar · Post by **Sokar** » 2003-04-22 01:01am

George Lucas has basically fallen in love with the technology, and strangely with the prequels hes doing the opposite of what he did in the original trilogy. The originals used special effects that were new and innovative to tell the story, the effects were in service of the story. On the last two films the exact opposite is happening, the story is in service to the special effects, all as part of GL's techno-revolution style of film making. Problem is that as good as the effects are, you can still tell Whats CG and what isn't. For me the problem is that the CGI shots look TOO perfect, and somehow lack the 'imperfection of reality' that the miniatures shots had in ROTJ and ESB.

Maybe they'll do another mock-umentary "George Lucas in Love : With his Digital Camera"

Clone Sergeant · Post by **Clone Sergeant** » 2003-04-22 01:58am

I agree with Sea Skimmer, Live action clones would have actually made completing those shots much more difficult. They would had to gone out and cast a dozen or more men who were Temuria Morrison's height and build, If they couldn't do that they would have to go back and digitally alter the heights of the extras to match morrison's. Add to that they would have to paint out all the blue or green light reflecting off their shiny white armor. Odds are the scenes would have ended up far less dynamic and looked much more fake.

This is probably why Lucas decided to do go all CG. He knew that they were going to have to touch up the clones at some point anyway, In addition to all the other CG work they are working on, why not simplify his people's lives and just have them do a high resolution CG model, do some good motion capture, drop it in to the scene, done. That way you can also make sure the clone that is right up in the camera looks consistent with the one a mile away next to the artillery piece.

I thought the clones looked great, with the exception of the Kamino marching scene. The rest looked very good. Most people I know who saw the film were completely unaware that all of the clones, even the ones close up, were CG.

Darth Garden Gnome · Post by **Darth Garden Gnome** » 2003-04-22 02:04am

Ahh, spoken like a true clone trooper.

I guess that makes a bit more sense, but I still think the Coruscant scene looked incredibly fabricated. Extras there wouldn't have hurt too much.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-04-22 02:04am

Clone Sergeant wrote:I agree with Sea Skimmer, Live action clones would have actually made completing those shots much more difficult. They would had to gone out and cast a dozen or more men who were Temuria Morrison's height and build, If they couldn't do that they would have to go back and digitally alter the heights of the extras to match morrison's.

What about just filming Temuera Morrison in Clonetrooper Armour, and then duplicate him many times over??

Nathan F wrote: Have they gotten lazy and started using CGI as a crutch, or does everyone else just like this fake look everything has to it?

I think they use a bit too much CGI for locations, but for aliens which could are hard to do realistically with puppets or other methods (eg. the Kaminoans) it is justifiable.

Clone Sergeant · Post by **Clone Sergeant** » 2003-04-22 03:16am

Simon H.Johansen wrote:What about just filming Temuera Morrison in Clonetrooper Armour, and then duplicate him many times over??

Maybe, But replication would only work if they were standing at attention. When they are moving Morrison would have had to be filmed as each individual close up clone for it look realistic and they did it for the unarmored clones because you were going to see their faces(CG faces, btw still tend to look very fake). But for the armored clones whose faces are hidden by the helmet it's easier to do just a purely CG model driven by motion capture.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2003-04-22 06:57am

Well, I think eventually CGI is going to reach a point where it becomes impossible to tell real from fake. Will it cease to be a crutch then?

Warspite · Post by **Warspite** » 2003-04-22 07:11am

Well, putting the clone trooper question aside for the moment...
Yes, it has become a crutch, George has become a strong defender of digital film making, and allows him to build a versatile non-existant world, since at any moment he can change several details without shooting whole scenes again... Now, that I think of it, it speeds up the shooting process, perhaps fewer takes will be necessary to achieve a certain result on a scene, everything can be touched up on the computer afterward.
He also is a strong supporter of cutting edge technology, his films are always at the forefront, if not THE forefront of technology. So he wants always to explore and develop this field in each and every film he's making.

As for using real actors for CT, and digital ones on diferent scenes, I don't think that would work very well, Sea Skimmer has already touched this point very well.
In defense of GL's preocupation with detail, Queen Amidala's dresses in TPM were very detailed, in a LOTR way.

My problem with digital is the plastic feel... AOTC Yoda! It looks plastic!

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-04-22 07:19am

I have always thought that puppets (especially the excellent ones done for Lucas by people like Oz) look more "real" than CGI.

Yoda was done very well, as was Gollum in TTT, even Jar Jar, but still... we've got a long ways to go.

About the only time I really said to myself "boy, that sure looks fake" was during ANH:SE when they showed Jabba the Hutt (when he "goes right through him" with his hand a few times) and the Stormtrooper riding on top of the Dewback (he bobs back and forth too much, while maintaining a completely stiff appearance, like a toy, rather than a man in a suit).

In AOTC, the scene where Anakin "rides" that fat buffalo/pig creature, that looked fake, and the scene where Padme "eats" that fruit. Otherwise, I could pretty much buy it, even though I knew most of the movie was in front of blue/green screens.

The Clonetroopers looked totally real to me throughout the entire movie, except for two scenes, one where Yoda is talking to the Trooper with his binoculars and says something like "bring my ship" and the scene where it pans over the troopers faces as they are about to take off in the Acclamators. That looked like a cutscene from a video game. ; )

TPM did a great job, only a few times when they talked to Jar Jar and didn't seem to be looking right at him (as you would in a "natural" conversation with someone), did I say to myself "ah... fakey!"

One scene that looked fake (you could see the lines where the model looked like it was "pasted on" to the background) in AOTC that I only noticed at the IMAX theater in Toronto (but not at the regular theater I saw it on in Iowa, or on my DVD) was the initial scene where the camera zooms in on that above water building on Kamino.

Slartibartfast · Post by **Slartibartfast** » 2003-04-22 07:13pm

Lucas did it because he was too lazy to make even one actual Clonetrooper suit

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2003-04-23 02:38am

I am not sure on the CT issue, but I do know that I perfered the model ships over the CG ships. CGI for the planets, space, weapons fire and such is good, but for the actual ships I perfer the models.

Emperor Palpatine · Post by **Emperor Palpatine** » 2003-04-23 05:32am

Perhaps I'm not as welcome here anymore...

Never mind... anyone here agree that the CGI Yoda looked very fake? I would've preferred the puppet anytime (no, not the Ep1 ones.). Yes, progress is needed, but why change some things when it is not really neccessary? Maybe give the puppet Yoda more expressable expressions and there. And the actors can actually see Yoda. You can sometimes tell the actors are not looking really directly at the CG Yoda. Lucas doesn't care much about eyelines? I think I've heard it once before, but it was probably just a joke.
The only part where they should use CG Yoda should've been the Dooku and Yoda duel.

A little offtopic. Notice that lightsabres don't seem to light up any other characters, but areas of Yoda glowed green when he ignited his sabre? Dooku didn't glow when he swung his lightsabre around when saying "our skills with a lightsabre...". And some of the lightsabres look quite faked. The OT Special Editions' lightsabres look more... 'light'-like, although I am not in the position to say that is the real look.

Emperor D. C. Palpatine

Kurgan · Post by **Kurgan** » 2003-04-24 01:53am

Yeah, though some of the saber effects in ANH look really bad (compared to later movies)... note Obi-Wan's "disapearing glow", Vader's "white lightsaber" and the crappy effects used when Luke first ignites his father's saber in Ben's hut.

Peregrin Toker · Post by **Peregrin Toker** » 2003-04-24 09:15am

Knife wrote:I am not sure on the CT issue, but I do know that I perfered the model ships over the CG ships. CGI for the planets, space, weapons fire and such is good, but for the actual ships I perfer the models.

Maybe it is because model spacecraft simply just look more massive than CGI ones. More awe-inspiring. They certainly do to me.