Do people even LIKE movies anymore?! (rant)

Wow, a very good and interesting thread, took a while to read.

OK one thing about trailers. Trailers are in now way an indication of final quality. Both The Hulk and Matrix trailers probably contained a fair bit of work in progress. There are countless examples of this. The first Twister teaser (where a tractor wheel smashes the windshield) was actually the test ILM did that convinced Jan DeBont to go ahead and give the job to ILM. The MIB trailer with Jeebs head reforming you could see the "matte" lines where they rotoed out his real head and started painting the background in, but the final shot on the film was fine. For the ad campaign of The Perfect Storm (the poster and trailers), the big wave was specifically done for that, the actual shots of the big wave were redone for scratch for the film. Besides TV and movie files are not the ideal format, from lower dynamic ranges and comperssion artifacts that might make things look worse or hide faults. It's analogous to seeing older movies on TV and being able to discern the garbage mattes. If you want to criticize a movie or parts of it wait until it's released. They might still be bad but then again those shots in the Matrix and The Hulk might be in progress, after all rendering and compositing come at the end of the pipeline.

On the topic of trailers I do agree with others that sometimes they spoil too much. While it might not be a new phenomenon it seems more accute now. In particular it seems that for comedies most of the good (and sometimes the only ones) are put in a trailer. For popcorn movies sometimes the whole plot and even shots of the ending are used. Even if we know the outcome of such movies sometimes they go to far. At least there is still sensible people which have trailers that leave you wanting more without spoiling all. I really love The Dreamcatcher trailers. I thought the first Matrix trailer was good in that respect.

As far as AI, well that end in the far future was actually originally conceived by Kubrick. And the ending of that can also be thought every bit of sad and depressing as him running out of batteries at the bottom of the ocean. Same for Minority Report you can interpret the ending as very depressing (hint it's all a dream in the Hall of Containment). Anyway I unerstand why people wouldn't like AI, but I absolutely loved it and I think it was very overlooked even by critics and the Academy. I could go on about why the AI ending can be very depressing but I'll stop for now.

As far as CG, I see a lot of people having an unbalanced look. Don't you think that the VFX Supervisors know what they are doing? And then they don't use the arguments for the other side of the coin. You barely hear anyone complaining that the Orc armies in LOTR are all CG, when they could have used the extras with prosthetics and armor and film them countless times and composite them together. Why was Gollum CG? After all he is supposed to be a "deformed" hobbit like being, thwey could have easily casted someone and used makeup and prosthetics right? But no, PJ can do no wrong and Lucas does. I'm not saying that I believe this things are true for LOTR but some people don't apply their "opinions or rationalizations" across the board.

Anyway I agree with much of Jedi2016 arguments. Hollywood only cares about money for the most part so that's why we get a lot of lowest common denomiantor stuff. But also you'll be surprised how many people enjoy that stuff. Sometimes I hear how some people enjoyed or how much they laughed in some of those movies. Personally I like all kinds of movies, from some LWD and B-type movies to popcorn superproductions to epic dramsas or small films. Now discussing them rationally is the trick as RocketGirl mentioned ;-).

 

I advocated rationality??? I? Whoah...it's too warm for Hell to have frozen over...

 

I like movies .

 

Going back a few posts, someone mentioned that they didn't like that the Clonetroopers were digital. See, this is something that I quite liked, although for probably the wrong reason.

I don't know if Lucas did this intentionally, but by making the Clonetroopers digital, he dehumanized them, in essence making them mindless drones. You don't care that they die because they aren't real people.

But that's just my three cents.

Peace Out,

The Admiral

PS - Saw "NARC" yesterday. Dark and gritty fun. Jason Patric's best performance since "Rush."

 

ok, good thread, i'm gonna hop back to something mentioned (sp?) in one of the first posts, mentioning the look of THE HULK.....i dont know about you gusy but i love it, i cant wate to see the final film, but bare in mind, as far as we know they are just the base renders (first batch) for THE HULK, just so people can see what he will look like, so when people say he looks like crap, they have no real clue how he will turn out (plus the comic book look of him is great IMO)

as for the rant on why people bitch about films form trailors, i think it could be that they ahve nothing better to do.....IMO

 

If you have a good story, and can make your effects look better without all the hassle of doing it the hard way, I say, go for it. I personally will be the first in line to see the Hulk and X2, not too sure about the Matrix sequels, you all read the comics? Anyway...

I think this topic is just a little too up-tight for me. I need a break, who's with me? We'll do something everybody likes, SEE A MOVIE?

-Matt


(P.S. Just on a side note. All this negative movie talk and here we are on a FAN FILM message board. Anybody else see the irony?)

 

I'm a big comic book fan, its great to see so many of the comic book characters coem to the screen in great fashion (my lil list)

Batman (Tim Burton) - one hell of a great adaption

SpiderMan (Sam Raimi) - helps having a comic "geek" as a director

The Hulk - Ang Lee.......having never seen any of his films i'm dieing to see The Hulk

X2 - if its anythign liek the first....its the year of the comic "geek"

 

Well, someone talked about CG so I am going to give you a small rant. I think that there are apropriate and non-apropriate ways to use CGI and it is all being tested out in the theaters around us.

The apropriate use of CGI is to do it sparingly and rationally. I look at a movie like 'The Rock' and its CGI, while primitive by today's standards, is MUCH more convincing than spiderman. CGI is a tool, not a holy grail. It is my belief that CGI should ONLY be used in a studio film when it is indistinguishable from the live action ideas.

Contrasting is 'Spiderman', the absolute apitamy of all I hate about CGI. During the movie I felt detatched from the protagonist because I realized... "Well look at that, I sure hope that one computer algorithm doesn't kill the other computer algorithm!" It was so over-the-top that is was just ILM eyecandy so instead of me going 'Whoa! Look at spidy webslinging, that is awsome!' I said 'Well, that surely is a nice effect'.

Now EP II falls somewhere between these two. In some places everything is beautiful and passes cinematically for real life such as the scene where mace walks into the senate or the clone war. But in others, the area looks fake and cartoonish.

Well, I never really hit a point so I am going to hit it now. Just as Brevity is the source of wit, so it is of CGI.

 

You know...on the subject of CGI: is everyone incapable of willing suspension of disbelief these days?

I mean, granted, sometimes CGI is bloody obvious, and that makes it hard to ignore. I think Gollum in LotR or Dobby in Harry Potter are good examples of that, honestly. Neither was very life-like and that made it hard to ignore.

But a lot of CGI is mostly indistinguishable from the live-action. Oh, maybe you'll notice that something looks a little too perfect on its surface, or that motion isn't very life-like. But for the most part, CGI tends to blend well.
I wasn't thinking at TPM that Boss Nass looked fake. Intellectually, I knew he was CGI, but if I let myself get lost in the movie, I don't notice. He's just another character.

That's willing suspension of disbelief. In all honesty, with the amount people complain about CGI, it almost sounds as if people go to movies these days trying to play "Spot the Computer Graphics".

And that's not really what the movies are all about. Not really. If you let yourself, you can get lost in the story and only realize there was CGI in the film at all after its over.

What's the point of going to Jurassic Park if all you're going to do is try to spot when they switch from a physical model to a 3D CGI model? You might as well be attending a class instead of trying to watch a flick!

And, honestly, I think that's the real problem with people bitching about movies these days. People just don't have imaginations anymore, or so it seems. No sense of wonder. No mindset of sitting back and allowing oneself to be entertained.

And, truly, that's very sad...

 

It's good if people can look at a CG character and know its CG in the back of their mind, but still believe its real, like in TTT, I really felt for Gollum. I believed he was a real being, just as i did Jar Jar and Boss Nass and Dobby etc etc. They interact well with the characters around them, move the story, and were for all intents and purposes 'real'. Suspension of disbelief is a great thing.

 

is everyone incapable of willing suspension of disbelief these days?

Personally no. Very rarely will Jar Jar or Boss Nass or Yoda or Watto or whoever do something to make them seem like they're not sharing the same space as the other actors, but 99% of the time I just see them as another character.

To the contrary on your throughts on Gollum, I thought he was utterly astounding. I believed him 100% of the time.

Spider-Man though, very fake. I wanted to really dig on Spider-Man cos I'd heard so many good things about it, but the visual effects were a real letdown to otherwise great film. Same deal for Mummy Returns. Pretty dodgy Scorpion King at the end there.

This sort of thing can wreck the whole suspension of disbelief thing.

I wonder if many people think of the old Yoda as a 'puppet' rather than a character. I know I never once thought of him as a puppet while watching the other SW flicks. Never even entered my head.

 

See, my problem with Gollum was his face. He came off to me like a cartoon. I know Gollum is supposed to have big eyes, but I'm sure there's a way to make big eyes that don't smack of Looney Tunes. Coupled with his often goofy expressions, I felt more like I was watching a cartoon with Gollum than even the hardiest Jar Jar dectractors ever did.

As for Spiderman, except for the scenes that even Jackie Chan would request a stunt double for, scenes that had to be CGI because no live actor would ever do such ridiculous things at any salary, I never once thought to myself that I was looking at a CGI character. Not once.

I'll give you the Scorpion King at the end of The Mummy Returns. It looked like it was made of foam rubber, not very life-like at all.

 

Really? You never once thought that Spiderman looked kinda...... fake? Some of the physics I couldn't believe, such as his falling speeds and what not. They did do a great job on him though. What FX house did FX for Spiderman?

 

Pixel Magic

I didn't think it looked fake. For the character, extremely agile, it looked alright to me.
For me, Gollum could have been a guy in a suit and it wouldn't have made any difference, I really believed in him.
I thought Yoda looked fake. No matter how photorealistic he was, it didn't feel right to me.

People aren't always expecting the same things for CG to look real.

 

Since I'm pretty much over what this topic started to be about I'll contribute to the new tangent.

The funniest thing to me is when people talk about how something was "So obviously CG" when it wasn't at all CG. No one in this thread has done so (yet), but it happens surprisingly often and I'm inclined to agree with RocketGirl.

I wrote an article for JediTAC's upcoming site comparing special effects in movies to magic shows: there are some people out there who geniuinely just love to sit back and be amazed, but there are more, many more, who want to find the trick, who insist that it "looked fake" or they could see the gimmick.

Why? My theory is pride. They don't want to admit that they've been stumped so they tell the world how obvious the trick was -- and as a once-in-practice charlatan myself (okay, so I did card tricks, but I kicked @$$!), I can tell you they're often wrong as to what the "trick" was.

But unlike good magicians, effects houses persist to give away their secrets, and that makes it even easier for the detractors to sound knowledgable.

I'm not pointing fingers at ANYONE in this thread or anywhere else. But you all know the kinds of people I'm talking about.

The CG Spiderman was all right, though I think it suffered some in the detailing (or lack thereof), it was the CG Peter Parker scenes that really screamed "FAKE" to me. They just didn't animate a person well.

CG Yoda...eh, he was all right. My best friend at the time actually had thought his entire life that Yoda was a midget in makeup, the performance was that well-done.

As with all Muppets, I personally never think of him as a puppet, but as another character. They're just so well-performed, dammit!

And Gollum...no complaints at all. Believed him all the way.

What with my obsessions what they are (mainly CG and direction), I try to watch every movie for its entertainment value the first time, then watch with a technical eye the second. Watching it with knowledge of how things were done (or likely done, even worse) totally ruins the experience.

I think this was a longer post than the "rant" that initiated this thread.

M. Scott

 

Contrary to what was implied above the VFX for Spider-Man were mostly done by Imageworks (not ILM and not counting the minor work Pixel Magic did) under the supervision of John Dykstra and Scott Stokdyk. Anthony LaMolinara was Animation Supervisor. Spider-Man was for the most part great, as any film it might have objectionable shots, like when Tobey MMaguire is running on the roofs with the camera overhead looking down, but other were nothing short of brilliant like when Spider-Man jumps slow mo inisde the burning building evading the Goblins blades.

I do have a semi-related theory but a bit different about the CG detratctors. It has to do on a more practical level with perceptual theory and physcology. Just because someone knows that something is a VFX or CG. say a dino or alien, it doesn't mean it looks fake or CG. The ability to spot that is nothing to brag about, it's as simple sometimes to know the type of shot, say when you see a the dino from head to toe walking, well you know there is no animatronic that can do that. Couple that with RocketGirl's comment about lack of suspension of disbelief and you have a recipe for disaster.

I wouldn't fault VFX houses for giving their secrets. The worst thing that could happen is if they isolated themselves. Reason why it has progressed so far lately is because the cross-pollination of ideas and people. Most of what is actually "revealed" is so generic, low level, that you can barely get any info at all (most DVD documentaries and specials). Only a few places really give out info Cinefex (though not as much as years ago), SIGGRAPH and VES, but most people aren't interested in that. If you ask me I think the VFX industry is too secretive from my POV, but that's in part because the contracts and wiork they take from studios and in part to remain competitive which is perfectly understandable. You are right Dorkman_Scott, too many detractors would appear knowledgable, when they don't have any freakin idea of what the work entails or how the business is. I'm sure most of them wouldn't know the difference between a NURBS and polygon, or what IK was ;-). Heck let see, even people can't keep straight who did what film ;-).

I'm with Dorkman_Scott, even though I think a lot about how VFX are done, I have no bit of problem of suspending disbelief and enjoying the movie. And yes the good ones I see more than once.

 

DorkmanScott - good point you just made.

"No sense of wonder. No mindset of sitting back and allowing oneself to be entertained."

Well then let's all go out and watch the Goonies one more time. (Or even TESB)

Pete

 

I think I'm going to jump on WD's bandwagon on this one. I really like "smart" CG. I like to look at Star Trek to see how far special effects have come and also how to use them. Look at TOS, rubber masks, bad hair pieces and stiff, imoble models. I love it. I don't watch that old show expecting to be dazzled by effects, I'm not concered with how REAL the sets look. It's the story that keeps my disbelief suspended. Like old video games, or books for that matter, it's my imagination that fills in the gaps.

Now look at Enterprise. They use CG, but only when it makes sense! The got rid of thos old models and made a CG space environment. Instead of using paper mache and set paint for locals not on an earth-like planet, they use CG. It looks a whole lot more real and really helps the story along. The internal and earth-like planet sets are either all real, or a mix of real and CG that makes sense. I don't ever find myself being slapped in the face with an effect. Everything just fits right into the story. I never care what is CG and what isn't

In Jurasic Park, I didn't "notice" the CG. They used CG where they couldn't do anything else. That's the cool part about CG, it allows you to create anything. That way, if you have no other way to do something, or if any other way you do it costs too much, you can use CG. Good use of CG expands the realism in a movie and doesn't jump out at you. It helps you further suspend your disbelief. I like ID4 for that reason alone. If you watch the behind the scenes stuff, the director only used CG where he couldn't do anything else. He did everything he could to get effects in camera and when he didn't they were made to fit with the rest of the movie. AOTC, half the time, Obi Wan was CG, but ILM took the time to make the CG stuntman look and act like the real Obi Wan, If I didn't watch the bts material, most of the time I wouldn't know there was a CG standin. GL used the CG stuntman where and only where he needed to. Or look at MIB, you tell me which aliens are CG and which ones are real. Even more, which ones are animitronic and which ones are actors in makeup. Which set is real and which one is fake? They all fit and flow.


Now we go to CG overuse. Example 1 FOTR. During the fight scene in the mines, there is an overhead shot of the Fellowship running through a vast chamber while being surrounded by orcs. It looked like a gen 1 Dreamcast game. It yanked me right out of the film and threw me on the floor of the IMAX theater. Why do that? Why make a shot that you know looks super fake? What they used to do is just not do the shot. They'd find some other way to get the point across. Example 2 Die Another Day. Where to start. . . The parasurfing scene. Super fake looking. Again, an old Dreamcast game. Why not put a stuntman on a wire and zoom the shot in. I didn't go to the movie to watch someone play a video game. If you can't make it look real, don't do it.

I just want CG that fits into the film. If you are going to make arcade looking CG, make the whole film that way. At least then I'm not slapped in the face with it. What would you say if in the middle of an animated film, for no reason, one of the animated charecters is replaced with a live actor? Then it's back to animated the next scene. The exact opposite is happening a lot in live action film. That's what bugs me. Use CG if it fits and is needed. If you can't make the hulk look real in CG, toss a guy in green fur and makeup! I'd rather see a guy in well done makeup and fur than some fake-looking CG "thing." I'm not saying the CG hulk won't look good, but if it looks like someone playing a video game in the middle of the movie, I'm not going to be willing to suspend my disbelief. I can more excuse someone in poorly done makup (Star Trek TOS) in live action than some video game looking CG object.

*huff puff* and I'm spent!

 

While I agree with RocketGirl's statement that, if you can get lost in a story, the CG won't smack you so hard in the face, I also tend to have issues with films that seem like they are "letting the CG tell the story".

The Star Wars prequels, first and foremost, fall into this category. While I don't have many complaints about the CG visuals themselves, I do have issues with the overall amount of CG sequences. Even if you wanted to forget that most of both films is CG, it would be nearly impossible to do so, especially since the story in each movie isn't particularly mind-blowing. I mean, a film with amazing visuals and a lackluster plot fails to entertain an audience with storylines, and the visuals have to pick up the slack. That forces the viewers to pay full attention to the CG, and thus pick out the details. Somehow, I get the feeling that George went willy-nilly with the CG, and neglected the screenplay altogether.

Spiderman and The Hulk seem to be following this trend. While Spiderman's story was top-notch (because the comic is), some of the CG sequences (as Dorkman said about the CG Peter Parker shots) were a little dry, and I was detracted from the realism. Conversely, the Green Goblin's movement on the glider was thoroughly believable (the way he pulled up on the front to lift, and the way it twirled and spun on an axis). The physics were there, because they are important.

That isn't to say that CG is bad. It's just kinda like drugs. If you mess with it too much, you can get addicted. I mean, c'mon...anyone in the film business (professional or otherwise) must have an amazing imagination (as do us all here on the boards), and CG must be an amazing resource to have. If any of us had access to a professional team of CG renderers that could churn out ILM-quality material, there would be no end to what we could come up with. But at some point, the CG literally engulfs a film and essentially becomes the main character, and that's when the problems start to rear up.

I think Peter Jackson has hit the balance of CG and story right on the head. His CG shots are stunning in the Lord of the Rings, but the story and characters are so compelling, that you really become immersed in the plot. Now, you might say...well, that's easy. He didn't have to write such a good story...it was already there. But Peter Jackson also directed The Frighteners, and the CG in that film balances evenly with the quirky, yet rich story. Hell, even Death himself is quite believable...definitely more believable, because the dark, looming CG quality gave him character.

I guess I'm just a big proponent of "good story", and it must be the artist in me that demands believable CG. I mean, something like a huge energy ball or a spaceship is made up, and can be convincingly believable. But anything that is supposed to representational and based on true physics (ie. a human figure, a true-to-life-vehicle, or a digital actor that must resemble the real one) MUST be flawless to really keep us vultures from picking it apart.

 

OK, I just watched ROTJ again, paying close attention to Oz's performance. For a puppet, it was unreal. Looking at all of the little motions, subtle movements of his hands and stuff.....absolutely amazing. The one thing I just can't get over is that, throughout the ROTJ Yoda sequence, his eyes are crossed. Noticably crossed, anyway...just my $.28. (Some people say two cents, some say three. Me? I'm 28. You can't buy my opinions cheap.)

As for Smeigel/Gollum, I kept kicking myself in the head, because I could stop thinking he was real. The animations in the face were eerily convincing. Remember the TTT teasers from months ago? It would consist only of him doing his "Precious" speech, approaching Sam and Frodo. Recall how crappy he looked? Three months later, undetectable realism.

Oh, and, by the way....I've loved Yoda since the first 30 minutes of the first time I sa TESB. But if I saw TPM's Yoda walking down the street, I would mug the frickin' midget.

I hate that Yoda.
Fig

 

I'm pretty sure that Yoda wasn't just all Frank Oz's hand up his bum. I mean, if you take a look at Labyrinth, most of those Muppets have full-on animatronics for facial expressions and such, making them capable of display great ranges of emotion.
I mean, take a look at some of Yoda's footage in ESB, you can see his eyes bug out when he's surprised, you can see him shake his head in resignation at Luke, and we buy it.

Now, with a CGI Yoda, a lot more is possible, and was even done in AotC. The range of Yoda's facial expressions increased dramatically. Granted, his skin didn't look quite as real as the Muppet, but...there was only one shot, maybe two, in AotC where I suddenly stopped buying the CGI Yoda, and both of them are close-ups. It doesn't even occur to me to notice during the scene in the Jedi kindegarten, however...which is as it should be.