I wouldn’t put it past The Creature Workshop to actually make a convincing one somehow, probably involving a disturbing amount of animatronics in that tiny raccoon face. Like, just to prove they could. But of course that’s the branch not owned by The Mouse.
Then again the Imagineers managed Elsa’s animatronic at Epcot.
Regalli, they actually do use small puppets at times for those kind of movies. Game of Thrones uses a puppet stand-in for baby dragons, it wouldn’t be a shock to have a puppet stand-in for Rocket especially if one or more of the actors can’t do the scene without a visual cue
I usually assume such complaints come primarily from the animation and practical effects nerds. Like, if you’re going to do an all CGI Lion King and call it ‘live action’… sure Disney, you can, but even with Beyoncé on cast I’m still not sure how much will actually be added by this development. Or people who really love all the practical effects and puppetry in Jurassic Park being sad World was a primarily CGI affair. Good CGI is fine, but it’s sad that practical effects are losing so much prominence when the good stuff is so amazing.
And then there’s Revenge of the Sith having so much green screen and Lucas not having decided yet how scenes would fit into the greater picture while they were filming them that the actors just plain didn’t know what was going on or what emotions they should be portraying. Which is several bad decisions rolled into one greater problem.
It’s live action with CGI added on top. One of the most beloved Christmas movies in the past half century, The Polar Express, was made with CGI on top of live action. Hell, Tom Hanks was in it in four different roles including the main character and you’d never know it thanks to the way they disguised his voice as Santa Claus and used a real kid as the voice of his motion capture kid character
The Polar Express has horrible CGI. It’s basically the dictionary definition of “Uncanny Valley”. Its “realistic” humans look much worse than the more stylised characters of, say, The Incredibles.
I actually cited The Polar Express and its role in bringing the Uncanny Valley into the public consciousness with animation for my undergrad thesis. The tech just wasn’t up to par for it yet. Also Tom Hanks’s Ghost Hobo was… maybe not the best choice, script-wise, given that difficulty?
I think practical effects hold up better than most CGI up through the early 2000s. CGI absolutely has its place, bringing otherwise impossible scenes to life, but there are a lot of movies that are starting to look cheesy and dated now. (And not necessarily in an endearing way, like early 3D games.)
To defend ROTS’s use of CGI, the planets look amazing. Kashyyyk, Coruscant, the planets in the Order 66 montage, Mustafar… They were all different, alien, and visually interesting. Whereas the desire to use less CGI in The Force Awakens left us with Tatooine mark 2, that planet where the Resistance are which was so unremarkable I can’t actually remember what it looked like, Maz’s planet which lwas fine but ooked like it was shot somewhere in the Lake District, and that planet Luke was hiding out on which looked like it was at the top of a mildly steep hill somewhere in Wales.
Seriously, if you told me those last three locations were all on the same planet, I’d believe you.
There definitely has to be a middle ground. (Having extras for fight scenes rather than CGing opponents completely, for a start.) And the spatial confusion would have been way more manageable if they didn’t have pure script confusion. Just having an actual distinct vision of the story as well as the imagery helps, then decide where need to be standouts and where the actors really need to be grounded. (I also think a lot of the TFA settings were deliberately homaging the original trilogy ones. Neat idea, but didn’t help people pointing out how similar the story tracks were even with a very different new trio.)
I still remember watching the LotR films and being impressed, but at the same time, identifying the bits that were going to look dated within a decade. I find it fascinating that you could tell.
It’s amazing how much CGI evolved from 1993 to 2001. After finishing Voyager, I’m going back to watch Deep Space Nine from the beginning. And although the CGI of the last season of Voyager certainly isn’t up to modern standards, there is definitely a noticeable difference between it and the earliest DS9 episodes. I really hope they do a remaster of DS9 at some point.
And now a days movies have become smart enough and adept into using both like how the new Spider-Man with his suit but the eyelids are animated and they tell you it’s supposed to be a technological suit.
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or stop-motion!
Now I want a Robovac movie by Laika.
Kubo and the Two Strings set the action standard, let’s see if they can add robots next!
Oh yeah, this was from the time when CGI was still kind of a new deal. Man, remember those days? Wild.
It’s amazing how people will still complain about it decades later, even for movies that will *clearly* need it.
Imagine Marvel trying to do Guardians of the Galaxy without it. Imagine Rocket Raccoon.
*Rocket Raccoon Muppet* “LOCK AND LOAD”
I wouldn’t put it past The Creature Workshop to actually make a convincing one somehow, probably involving a disturbing amount of animatronics in that tiny raccoon face. Like, just to prove they could. But of course that’s the branch not owned by The Mouse.
Then again the Imagineers managed Elsa’s animatronic at Epcot.
Regalli, they actually do use small puppets at times for those kind of movies. Game of Thrones uses a puppet stand-in for baby dragons, it wouldn’t be a shock to have a puppet stand-in for Rocket especially if one or more of the actors can’t do the scene without a visual cue
Star Wars did that, with Yoda.
Sean Gunn was a stand-in for Rocket in both films.
I usually assume such complaints come primarily from the animation and practical effects nerds. Like, if you’re going to do an all CGI Lion King and call it ‘live action’… sure Disney, you can, but even with Beyoncé on cast I’m still not sure how much will actually be added by this development. Or people who really love all the practical effects and puppetry in Jurassic Park being sad World was a primarily CGI affair. Good CGI is fine, but it’s sad that practical effects are losing so much prominence when the good stuff is so amazing.
And then there’s Revenge of the Sith having so much green screen and Lucas not having decided yet how scenes would fit into the greater picture while they were filming them that the actors just plain didn’t know what was going on or what emotions they should be portraying. Which is several bad decisions rolled into one greater problem.
Two words for that: Motion Capture.
It’s live action with CGI added on top. One of the most beloved Christmas movies in the past half century, The Polar Express, was made with CGI on top of live action. Hell, Tom Hanks was in it in four different roles including the main character and you’d never know it thanks to the way they disguised his voice as Santa Claus and used a real kid as the voice of his motion capture kid character
The Polar Express has horrible CGI. It’s basically the dictionary definition of “Uncanny Valley”. Its “realistic” humans look much worse than the more stylised characters of, say, The Incredibles.
I actually cited The Polar Express and its role in bringing the Uncanny Valley into the public consciousness with animation for my undergrad thesis. The tech just wasn’t up to par for it yet. Also Tom Hanks’s Ghost Hobo was… maybe not the best choice, script-wise, given that difficulty?
I think practical effects hold up better than most CGI up through the early 2000s. CGI absolutely has its place, bringing otherwise impossible scenes to life, but there are a lot of movies that are starting to look cheesy and dated now. (And not necessarily in an endearing way, like early 3D games.)
To defend ROTS’s use of CGI, the planets look amazing. Kashyyyk, Coruscant, the planets in the Order 66 montage, Mustafar… They were all different, alien, and visually interesting. Whereas the desire to use less CGI in The Force Awakens left us with Tatooine mark 2, that planet where the Resistance are which was so unremarkable I can’t actually remember what it looked like, Maz’s planet which lwas fine but ooked like it was shot somewhere in the Lake District, and that planet Luke was hiding out on which looked like it was at the top of a mildly steep hill somewhere in Wales.
Seriously, if you told me those last three locations were all on the same planet, I’d believe you.
Ireland, actually.
There definitely has to be a middle ground. (Having extras for fight scenes rather than CGing opponents completely, for a start.) And the spatial confusion would have been way more manageable if they didn’t have pure script confusion. Just having an actual distinct vision of the story as well as the imagery helps, then decide where need to be standouts and where the actors really need to be grounded. (I also think a lot of the TFA settings were deliberately homaging the original trilogy ones. Neat idea, but didn’t help people pointing out how similar the story tracks were even with a very different new trio.)
I still remember watching the LotR films and being impressed, but at the same time, identifying the bits that were going to look dated within a decade. I find it fascinating that you could tell.
It’s amazing how much CGI evolved from 1993 to 2001. After finishing Voyager, I’m going back to watch Deep Space Nine from the beginning. And although the CGI of the last season of Voyager certainly isn’t up to modern standards, there is definitely a noticeable difference between it and the earliest DS9 episodes. I really hope they do a remaster of DS9 at some point.
I, uh, feel as this was a deliberate jab at something c. 2004, but I can’t tell what.
And now a days movies have become smart enough and adept into using both like how the new Spider-Man with his suit but the eyelids are animated and they tell you it’s supposed to be a technological suit.
Now Shortpacked! is creeping into BOTH comics
I’m not sure Robin has enough food there in the 1st panel.
What do you mean? That should easily last her through the opening trailers. 😛
TrailER
Was this discussion where the seed of the character of Ethan was born?
Oh, hey, it’s the guys who always sit behind me. At least pretend you’re trying to whisper, dudes!
I prefer the costume to 2004 CGI…
Take a look at Godzilla.
Final Wars was awesome, you take that back.
(Godzilla 1998 doesn’t really have any relevance to 2004 FX.)