ST CGI in The Force Awakens

So I hear a LOT of people complaining this movie had to much CGI. That Maz shouldn't have been, snoke shouldn't have been (that I get because IDK why they did that when make up is easier and faster.)

To me the CGI was great,just as good as ROTS. I don't get the hate. IT was so small but then I see people on youtube like hellogreedo and his army say things like "I don't know why they have to have cg in this film when there's such good practical effects".

People need to move on into the future. Not everything is practical effects, that limits what they can do, and takes more time. We're at a point where lucasfilm CGI can't get dated because of how real it is.

But this is all just me, what do ya'll think. Was the CGi to much or bad? I don't care about practical effects VS CGi, I just want to make sure that

if it's CGi, make it look good. Which star wars always does.

if it's a puppet, makes sure it's not gonna look bad or have some flaw like seeing the hand or something. And don't make characters limited by it if they'd be better in CGI. Like Yoda in ROTS. You simply couldn't do that stuff with puppetry. He needed to be CGI. And it still holds up to this very day.

 

I think it was really ok, no overuse.

Regarding practical effects: I think there aren´t many limits to them, even big battle scenes can be done with models. They are time-consuming but if a practical effect fails to fully convince you it looks like a puppet or a stage set but still has some magic, not convincing CGI does way more damage. Maybe thats just my taste, for example Ben Hur does´t look realistic at all, but is still nice to look at although it is like watching a play.
Furthermore the physical presence of the effect while filming can help actors a lot.

 

Perfect balance between digital & practical. Other movies of this kind should emulate the mix they hit on in TFA. Also a welcome amount of location shooting.

 

That's the problem with puppets, it's more cost effective, but takes more time. Imagine Yoda VS Sidious if he was a puppet. That'd take FOREVER! Plus CGi characters have more range in their faces, can move faster.

 

It was fine. Nothing ground breaking, but overall well handled. I think Mad Max had the better CGI and practical effects, plus did a better job blending the elements together.

 

The CGI was nothing special.

Unlike the previous uses of CGI in Star Wars, the major characters created via CG could have easily been practical.

Snoke and Maz could easily be done as prosthetics. Compare this to Jar Jar or Watto, who most definitely could not be done practically.

The dogfights were all kind of bland, and pretty repetitive to me. There was nothing to distinguish the battle on Takodana and the battle at Starkiller. It was just a bunch of X-wings crashing into a bunch of TIE fighters.

None of the CGI was very groundbreaking. There was nothing like the battle droid army, or General Grievous. It was pedestrian.

 

You're right it didn't look like a cartoon. The best thing about the CGI in TFA is that in almost all cases it didn't look like CGI. Which should always be the goal.

 

Oh it looked like CGI.

And the Battledroids don't look like a cartoon.


Look at the tiny cuts and dirt marks on the face. They look hand-crafted to me.

Or how about Grievous?

The detail on the face in phenomenal.

Maz and Snoke are much more cartoony and noticeable to me.

And the battle scenes used so much obvious CGI.

It's not that I don't like CGI, but these battles were nothing special. They were truly boring to me, as they had no tension, and were incredibly simple. There was no focus on characters during them, like in the Battle of Hoth or Geonosis.

 

Yeah it can look great in a still frame. Problem was the movement & lighting back then. Check out the animated clones walking around awkwardly with the actor's head superimposed their bodies. Awful.

 

I don't get how anyone can say ROTS had cartoony or dated CGI. It looks JUST LIKE the real world models made. Until reading ""Making of Revenge of The Sith"" I didn't even know Anakin's Robotic arm/gauntlet was CGI. It looks real in every shot. The way they move is perfect as well.


As for the force awakens, it's not as groundbreaking as the PT yeah but.....how can it be? After ROTS you can improve the CGI....like at all. Sure they didn't make the characters more even just AS complex and impressive as the PT.....but the goal wasn't to break grounds with CGI. They were selfish and wanted practical effects so they can act easier/ have things to touch so they had more fun. Good for them but does nothing for fans.

The Force Awakens couldn't do anything groundbreaking because we've been at the level where the CGI and the real world blends so perfectly you can't tell half the time.

Sure if you TRY to tell what's CGI you can. You can say "No way Grievous was a guy in a suite! It's CGI!" But the problem with practical effects supporters is most of em just don't want CGI because it's CGI...it doesn't matter if it looks good because their bias against it will make them hate it. You should hate BAD CGI not just CGI for being CGI. I think people forget without CGI woe would never have had the lightsaber -_-

I mean Rey's bread-People originally thought it was CGI. most didn't care, some hated it and thought why do we need CGI breed and flipped their noggins on message boards.

THEN they go and say it's a practical effect....and the practical effect elitists have fangasms. "OH MY GOD! IT"S NOT CGI THAT MAKES IT GOOD! OH MY GOD!" Like really?....It's literally the same quality as before you knew it wasn't CGI, but when you knew it wasn't CGI you stopped calling it obvious, un-needed CGI......some people man I swear.....

Okay rant over. I respect the CGI of the lucasarts team. They always do good. I hate CGI when it's stuff like adobe flash replacing my animation for cartoons, but stuff like General Grievous in ROTS...I'm sorry but anyone saying that looks bad has to be lieing.....

 

It's perfect.

 

Everything was great except for Snoke.

 

Agreed. I refer to him as Darth Sméagol.

I liked the way they did Maz.

 

I can't complain about about it!

 

Maz did not stick out to me as being CG until everyone threw a fit about it online. I could of course tell she was animated but it didn't bother me at first

 

Speaking to the two CGI characters specifically, Maz was great, but Snoke was underwhelming, likely because they didn't finalize a design for him until much later on in the production.

 

I thought the CG was excellent overall, although I would agree with the sentiment that Snoke could have looked better. Maz was much better done, in my opinion. The ships all looked great, especially in the Battle on Tokadana. The shots of the X-Wings flying close to the water were absolutely gorgeous, in my opinon. I would definitely agree that the CG in this film was on the same level as ROTS, if not even better.

 

If people are complaining about over-use of CGI in TFA, then they haven't watched certain Hong Kong or Japanese sci-fi movies yet... Many of which have so fake and cartoony CGI that it's hard to watch those movies!

I feel the CGI in Episode 7 is just right, and manages to lend that amount of realism to the movie... Although had Snoke and Maz been puppets, they will definitely look so much better!


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The reason y Watto, Binks & Grievous look better then Maz & Snoke is because those 3 look ALIEN. Maz & Snoke r to HUMANOID. Every time u make a human/humanoid via CGI they look "OFF".

Examples....

The giants in Jack The Giant Slayer.

Any cgi Hulk.

The Rock as the Scorpion King.

Dr. Manhattan in Watchmen

Azog & Bolg in The Hobbit trilogy.

The end result is they look cartoony.

 

I thought it was top notch. I do find that CGI sometimes goes off the rails for me with vehicle dynamics; there seems to be something about setting up a physical model for a shot in which the brain facilitates the "potential motion" connection between hand and model much better than it does between hand and mouse, where objects operate in an abstract digital framework. The CGI can look like a video game with a bad physics engine. I found that the X-Wing/TIE Fighter scrap over Maz's place was a bit frenetic for my taste, compared to the more deliberate motion in ANH, but I'm sure that's more about ANH being the movie to set that particular "bar" for me personally.

 

Sometimes I say lucasarts, it's a bad habbit. I play the games so much whenever I say or type lucasfilm arts just comes out.

I don't think them slipping in oil looks bad at all, nor do I think you can improve lighting when it already looks perfect. Everything blends well, Maz looks real.

Every star wars looks real with its cgi if you ask me, I think it's selfish because practical effects take longer, and are cheaper and more restraint.....also most people pro practical effects are trolling. It's fine to prefer them, but the people who hate things for just being cgi are the problem. (If you hated Rey's breed when you thought it was CGi and said it looked fake but THEN said it was amazing and looked good when you found out it wasn't cgi..... sorry but you're part of the problem for me.)

I don't get how it looks fake when you THOUGHT something was CGI, but when you found out it was real THEN it looks good....what?! It doesn't look different at all!

I even tested people and said "does this CGI look fake and obvious to you" and many of the anti prequel/ anti cgi people said YES!!!!!!!.....then I told them the thing I showed them was actually a practical effect -_-. Like the invisible hand where The Chancellor was being held, people said the bluescreen stairs and stuff were bad.....and fake.....but it's a real set.....-_-


Also it'd be easier and faster and cheaper to make snoke just have make up, however the design being bland to people doesn't make the CGI bad, it just means the artist(s) who designed it were at fault, not the animation itself. I can only justify snoke being CGI as a good idea if they need to do something with him CGI like blow his brains out or something that you can do with make up. Maybe it was just to get lord of the rings fans excited because it's the same guy as the my precious grunt from the movies doing it.

Overall I completely disagree with people saying the force awakens had to much CGI. People said it was a step in the right direction but still horrid and overused.....that's just ridiculous if you ask me.

 

I have no problems with Snoke, as it was just a projection image... I will wait to see him for real in EP VIII before judging his CGI.

 

You were that guy who corrected someone politely rather then attack them online, so thanks for being the good version of the corrector guy Look at it that way.

Sadly as a huge star wars fan I see the anti cgi thing typed a lot online. most people don't care but online it's overused worse then the biggest memes....


The only thing I miss from the look of the OT is not the practical effects, but the grit. I miss film grain, it makes things have a better coloring and texture to them. Cameras now are TOO clean, if that makes any sense. It's why I hate digitally colored cartoons, no grit. Steven universe and bobs burger look terrible next to ed edd n' eddy and futurama.




I agree on your stance of waiting and seeing about the snoke thing, but to me Gollum looks obviously CGI and colored badly. I never got the hype with it. Jar Jar looked much better to me. The little guy stands out and doesn't blend with the movie, it looks like something photoshopped in.


To me weather or not CGI looks good is opinionated, as it's art but to sy TFA has it overused or the PT stands out as fake all seams crazy to me, weather you think the droids look cool doesn't really work with if you think it blends with the real stuff. SO I don't get when people say grievous looks fake because he literally touched, interacted and was interacted with things on screen. He threw Obi-Wan after grabbing him. He looks like the real model. He looks like he's there. When I was 6 and saw TPM for the first time in 99' I believed star wars was real and the droids didn't look fake, nor did it stand out and not blend. It still works.

To me CGI seams to be getting worse, someone said mad max looks great, to me it sticks out like a sore thumb. I'd take TPM over that stuff. Jurrassic world looked like it was there though, maybe I'm spoiled from lucasfilm but most movie don't have good CGI lately.