My Issue With CGI in Movies

The recent "Live Action Remake" of How To Train Your Dragon made me realize Computer Generated Imagery has no place in cinema; neither for Animation nor for Live Action Filmmaking.

Now dont get me wrong, CGI has its place in visual media. I personally grew up on Early 2000s Video Games like SimCity 4 and Empire Earth, which I hardly believe would have had the same impact on me if they were done with 2D Imagery. In fact most Video games and all simulators benefit more from CGI than 2D imagery just on a practical level (being that immersion into the details is the point)

Also, Don't Get Me Wrong, this doesn't mean I hate Pixar either (at least not early Pixar). Pixar is hardly a company that could've been as successful as it was without CGI as with it. That being said, I believe Pixar's success depended more on the technical aspects of innovation than on story per se. Between 1995 to 2009, I believe Pixar's appeal was how they were able to innovate the CGI medium to include things like better movement, realistic hair, and more realistic graphics and textures (alongside innovative ways of telling a story). However, I also belive that Pixar was a company with an expiration date. Once Toy Story 3 came out and the Medium became an "easy standard", Pixar pretty much was obsolete.

On a Personal note, my favorite Pixar movie is Cars, mainly because I always loved automotive technology and believed the CGI was fitting for the movie.

But what I do have a problem with is how Mainstream media abuses CGI Technology as a quick fix over genuine filmmaking. The End result is that all movies (yes, ALL movies, animation or Live Action) all look the same regardless of media or even country (TBF to Hollywood, a lot of foreign film industries are starting to have the exact same problem...even Japan to a minor but possibly early stage extent). The end result will be the eventual death of Cinema Altogether if we are not careful (albeit, its a hypothetical now, but it ain't impossible)

To show you the severity of the situation, let me illustrate for you what Animation and Live Action Filmmaking looked like in America in the 1980s

Now while these may not be everyone's first choices (though they are personal favorites of mine), they are examples of how movies back in the 1980s were treated as separate mediums with separate rules on how to make them work. In Live action, you use actors to bring characters to life and people who study cinematography to get the best shots. In Animation, you use Animators to bring the world to life and voice talents to inspire and inform the animators how to visualize the world. Sounds obvious, right? It is...or at least it should be

Now lets take a little trip across the pond to Japan in the 1980s to Illustrate my point further...

I have always been fascinated by Japanese Anime and Tokusatsu films, especially those from the 1980s, because they are excellent examples of masterpieces made on a budget. In the Case of Godzilla on the left, he made a comeback in the 80s and 90s during the heisei Godzilla era. And while these movies were made with scale models and rubber suits, they still managed to be as trilling as Godzilla movies should be. In the case of the anime on the right (1984's Glass Mask); while not the most famous example, Glass Mask seemed to epitomize Anime's use of cinematography, character design, and dramatic acting to make a very serious and expectation defining animated series (despite the lack of fluid animation).

In both cases, both productions has severe limitations placed on them due to lack of rescources, but managed to go above and beyond. America also had similar limitations at the time (albeit to a lesser extent), and the reason these movies worked was due to these limitations as clear boundaries.

Now by the 1990s, Computers began to be introduced into the process but didn't overtake it.

The best example of the early use of CGI in film is Jurassic Park. That said, people tend to also forget that Jurassic Park also made heavy use of animatronics to make up for scenes where the CGI (still rudimentary at the time) couldn't cut it. Also, Jurassic Park made use of sets and filming locations; specifically those in Hawaii (I know because I live here and its a big thing at Kualoa Ranch). The result was that the movie was able to pull off more realism than before, which enhanced the experience.

In the case of animation, Computers have been used in 2D animation since the mid 1980s, mostly to streamline the process and encence the final look. However, they did not detract from the integrity of animation but rather enhanced it. Movies like Beauty and the Beast and Balto were prime examples of this

Now lets fast forward thirty years and countless bad corporate executive decisions later to today

The Biggest problem I have with How To Train Your Dragon is that despite both movies being De Jure different mediums, They look almost Identical

The reason for this is that because we have overused CGI in film, from VFX in live Action to Computer Animation in Animation, the result is that everything looks so fake and computer generated in an easy attempt to make things look more realistic. Unfortunately, these lack of limitations on a given movie only undermines the qualities of both and make modern films look like cheap products and not actual movies.

If you think this is bad...brace yourself for the "Live Action" Moana Remake.

To me this is emblematic of everything wrong with the modern filmmaking landscapes; cheaply made movies with heavy use of "Easy" CGI (more often than not banking off of an already established property) to churn out movie quotas to maximize unearned profits over actually creating good films that are appropriate to a given mediums qualities or shortcomings. The end result will be films (it wont make a difference whether live action or animation because they will be exactly the same) that will ultimately give no audience member any reason to watch them if they are no different from each other; and ultimately no reason to go to the movies or pay for streaming services (I myself still would rather buy DVDs and Blu-Rays just to save money to get something I want to watch).

That said, there is a saving grace. While I don't anticipate the mainstream media to change anytime soon, the best advice I can give is to value individual identity and patronize entertainment (movies or not) that are independent. I believe the future of entertainment will eventually go that route fully.

In the meantime, here is my contribution (and Shameless Plug XD); you can buy my recent Book The Hoverboard Girls on the Image link below