While I think CGI has lots of flaws, I do think people have nostalgia glasses about practical effects. People who grew up with practical effects think theyre better, and people who grew up in a more modern CGI era generally dont have the same issues with it.
Also, we have to admit something. Most of the time practical effects were shit. For every Rob Bottin and Rick Baker theres The Dude Who Worked On Invaders From Mars. I think the fact that youre putting stop motion ahead of CGI is kind of a clue that theres some rose tinted glasses going on. One of the things CGI can do, and far, far, better than practical effects, is motion. It's not a coincidence that the majority of the best practical effects movies sparingly show them, and would never shoot a long form motion shot of anything. American Werewolf in London is phenomenal, but theres only half a wolf and you see it for a second at a time.
Kong Skull Island is a pretty medicore film. But the entire thing is impossible to do with practical effects, and some of the special effects shots in that movie are better than any practical effect ever made. I said it. Come at me.
Part of the reason CGI is so prevalent in blockbusters is because the things that happen in blockbusters are not possible with practical effects. Yeah, you could have a robot/puppet gorilla, but it wouldnt do the things in that movie as well as it did.
The fidelity of this shot is absolutely impossible with any practical technique. It also looks spectacular, with the hair and water moving realistically. It's absolutely nuts.
And thats true of many shots in the movie.
It would be impossible to pull off this sense of scale with a practical effect:
While I agree with you its not always the right tool for the job, old school boys like us have to be able to admit that CGI overall is a better technique for a lot more than we'd like to admit. And on top of that, practical effects were not always good. Jaws might be my favorite movie, and a great example of a movie that is as perfect as a movie can be.
Still, the shark itself is pretty terrible without the Hitchcockian skills of Spielberg to enhance it's presence
I grew up with CGI. I'm not from the older generation by any means. But I still prefer practical to CGI. Of course I'm not comparing the worst of practical with the best of CGI, or vice versa. Of course there's a bell curve where the very best of one would be preferable to the lower end or worst of the other. But generally speaking, a vast majority of the time, comparing the average-to-better practical films with even the very best CGI films, I'll take practical almost every single time. I look at it kind of like the rides at Disneyland. The ones where you watch the ride via a screen (like a movie) is fine, it does the job, but it's nowhere near as awe inspiring as the practical rides with actual real objects you move past and look at. Those, to me, are far more entertaining and fun, and I get way more out of them.
I find the animatronic shark in JAWS absolutely terrifying, even to this day. Compare that to the video game shark in The Shallows and I feel no fear at all. It looks like a video game and comes across very aritifical; far more so than the animatronic shark. And I'm not counting Spielberg's brilliant work. I mean literally the animatronic shark versus the CGI shark. Bruce is better in pretty much every regard, besides maybe overall motion. But even then, I still prefer his slow methodlical movements > the lightning fast swishy movements of the CGI shark. He just feels way more
real than the shark in The Shallows. And
far scarier.
Same for your Kong gifs. The
detail and
clarity and
fluidity is good, but it's betrayed by the overall "CGI look" of it all. No matter how good the CGI is, it still
looks like CGI. There's no sense of wonder. It doesn't wow me. There's no real scale. It's completely lifeless and hollow and fraudulent. It's intangible. There's no weight behind any of it. It's bland and utterly boring. GxK is the perfect example of this. Wall to wall action, that's still somehow mind numbingly dull.
There's many older films I can watch and be absolutely gobsmacked and astounded by, because their practical effects are
so good. I'm talking literally sitting there with goosebumps and my mouth on the floor gasping in disbelief because of how utterly amazing it looks and the effect it has, versus CGI, where I can safely say I've *
literally* never seen something that had that same effect on me. Thanos in the MCU looked fantastic for CGI. I was happy with the way he looked. But I was not sitting there in awe, with my mouth on the floor, mind blown by what I was seeing. It was more like: "wow, he actually looks pretty good. Cool."
So many times with practical I've had a
visceral reaction to what I was seeing. Time and time and time again where I sat there wide eye'd and said: "...HOLY SHIT!" because of how great it looked. CGI, on the other hand, basically never elicits that kind of a reaction. Not because I "don't let it" or have "special glasses" on, but because CGI genuinely just doesn't elicit that type of a reaction. It's like eating a rice cake. If I eat enough of them it'll fill me up, but it doesn't make me feel the same way that eating filet mignon and lobster does. It's not because I force myself not to like the rice cake. It's because the rice cake genuinely just doesn't hit any of the spots that lobster and filet mignon hits. Good lobster and filet mignon are better than even the very best rice cake. It really has nothing to do with nostalgia. (Again, what nostalgia? If anything, I should have nostalgia for CGI)
As far as stop motion goes, let me give you an example.... I can still enjoy the absolute living hell out of Clash of the Titans. It's an amazing movie from top to bottom. It has lots of stop motion, but it works. Compare that with the remake, which has a shitload of balls to the wall CGI action, and I couldn't have been more bored. It's not because of nostalgia, it's because CGI is missing that special something that practical has. Another example is the tauntaun in Empire Strikes Back. It's done with stop motion, and because of that, it has a certain tangible realness to it. It's far better than the CGI beast that Anakin rides in Attack of the Clones. Sure, both ultimately look fake compared to real life, but the practical one at least gives the impression that
something is really there, versus CGI, which doesn't.
I agree that there are things that would be impossible to do practically, at least and not have it be radically expensive. But then it's a matter of moderation. CGI seems to have changed the way movies are made. I'd say for the worse. Because movies now are missing so much of the mood and atmosphere and grit that past movies had. Where those had to rely on shadows and slight of hand, now it's all front and center, in your face, non-stop, overload, all of the time, and it loses its effect rather quickly. An example I can think of where CGI was used correctly is Terminator 2. They still did everything they could with practical and only used CGI when it was
absolutely necessary. That's how it should be today. Use ALL of the tools
together, not just one tool for everything. Ideally, CGI would only be used to
enhance practical effects. If a sitution comes up where practical is impossible then go for CGI, but only then. And still try to combine it as much as possible with practical. That is the best way. This shit where it's CGI on top of CGI on top of CGI is just so meh. Like eating rice cake. It does the job, but it's not really satisfying or memorable. Not truly.
Die Hard vs Skyscraper. Hell, even Fast & Furious 1 vs Fast X. Think back to when Dom crashes his car in 1 and how it was a
major OH SHIT moment. Now think of any of the number of CGI crashes in Fast 8, 9, 10, and it doesn't even come close to eliciting the same reaction.
When I listed all of the different practical effects, including stop motion, I am talking about them being done at the absolute peak of what's possible today. Like, imagine a big time movie with a $250 million budget that puts that money into practical instead of CGI. It would be mind blowing! (assuming the right people are hired; people with real skill and talent, not just a bunch of DEI stooges).
Anyway, I'm happy that this director is wanting to do as much as he can
in camera. It's definitely a step in the right direction.
Nice interview:
