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 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I've always throught that cgi looks too clean and crisp. You can always tell that it is a little bit off. They haven't quite left uncanny valley yet.

It's not that it's crisp, the lighting and movement is simply off. Even IN 2015, CGI still looks like unbelievable crap unless it's carefully hidden. IMO, Jurassic Park still has some of the best CGI thanks to those night scenes. They did a great job of blending the CGI and animatronics to the point it's hard to tell which one's which at times. But costumes and animatronics will always be superior to CGI until we can further increase the detail and light simulation on CGI models.
.

And yet, because practical effects are expensive and require more work, studios will not pay for them

Tiss a shame. I will always hold practical effects higher then CGI, or at least until CGI looks more "real", or Directors bother to hide their CGI again. Another good example is the Lord of the Rings, the Ururk Hai army in the Two Towers was almost entirely CGI, yet it looked real and believable. Meanwhile stuff like the Oliphants and Fell Beasts looked fake as hell due to being poorly hidden.

Thank god JJ Abrams is using more practical effects on the new Star Wars movies. A return to the old is welcomed.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
I've always throught that cgi looks too clean and crisp. You can always tell that it is a little bit off. They haven't quite left uncanny valley yet.

It's not that it's crisp, the lighting and movement is simply off. Even IN 2015, CGI still looks like unbelievable crap unless it's carefully hidden. IMO, Jurassic Park still has some of the best CGI thanks to those night scenes. They did a great job of blending the CGI and animatronics to the point it's hard to tell which one's which at times. But costumes and animatronics will always be superior to CGI until we can further increase the detail and light simulation on CGI models.
.

And yet, because practical effects are expensive and require more work, studios will not pay for them

Tiss a shame. I will always hold practical effects higher then CGI, or at least until CGI looks more "real", or Directors bother to hide their CGI again. Another good example is the Lord of the Rings, the Ururk Hai army in the Two Towers was almost entirely CGI, yet it looked real and believable. Meanwhile stuff like the Oliphants and Fell Beasts looked fake as hell due to being poorly hidden.

Thank god JJ Abrams is using more practical effects on the new Star Wars movies. A return to the old is welcomed.

I doupt w/o the backing of the mouse, we would be getting CGI, They can afford it. With Starwars printing money

 MrDwhitey wrote:

Dennis Nedry was from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He worked at Integrated Computer Systems. As Project Supervisor of the Jurassic Park Project, he was first told to "design a module for record keeping". Nedry was never told everything, and was always working in the dark. He had become very annoyed with InGen system; Hammond wanted things done that hadn't been included in his original contract, yet InGen demanded that it be done. Lawsuits were threatened, and letters were written to Nedry's other clients, and Nedry had no other choice but to give in to Hammond's demands.

Where are you getting what you got from? Is it something from the film, because I generally remember the book better.

To be more open, I'm talking about the book too. The film Nedry just comes across as a greedy feth, which is fine. I just like thinking of the Hammond line about expense + how Hammond is in the book.

Sadly in the movie version the entire undertone of Hammond screwing Nedry over is totally glossed over and instead of being an Everyman hero who’s forced into a corner by an awful boss. He’s just a fat guy who wanted to steal dinosaurs, which to be fair, still kind of makes him relatable and also still our hero.

Then again, I like how in the book Hammond and Malcolm die (though that got retconned). So for me, book > film.

Hammond was also more of a jerk, whereas in the movie he's much more grandfatherly. Also, I thought Malcolm survived from his injuries (raptors, IIRC)?

 jreilly89 wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:

Dennis Nedry was from Cambridge, Massachusetts. He worked at Integrated Computer Systems. As Project Supervisor of the Jurassic Park Project, he was first told to "design a module for record keeping". Nedry was never told everything, and was always working in the dark. He had become very annoyed with InGen system; Hammond wanted things done that hadn't been included in his original contract, yet InGen demanded that it be done. Lawsuits were threatened, and letters were written to Nedry's other clients, and Nedry had no other choice but to give in to Hammond's demands.

Where are you getting what you got from? Is it something from the film, because I generally remember the book better.

To be more open, I'm talking about the book too. The film Nedry just comes across as a greedy feth, which is fine. I just like thinking of the Hammond line about expense + how Hammond is in the book.

Sadly in the movie version the entire undertone of Hammond screwing Nedry over is totally glossed over and instead of being an Everyman hero who’s forced into a corner by an awful boss. He’s just a fat guy who wanted to steal dinosaurs, which to be fair, still kind of makes him relatable and also still our hero.

Then again, I like how in the book Hammond and Malcolm die (though that got retconned). So for me, book > film.

Well,, it fits into the theme of the movie "Dinosaurs are Mejestic and magical"

Hammond was also more of a jerk, whereas in the movie he's much more grandfatherly. Also, I thought Malcolm survived from his injuries (raptors, IIRC)?

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

I doupt w/o the backing of the mouse, we would be getting CGI, They can afford it. With Starwars printing money

Disney money has nothing to do with Abrams deciding on more practical effects.

Good CGI is much more expensive than practical effects. The idea that CGI is making movies cheaper is a myth.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

I doupt w/o the backing of the mouse, we would be getting CGI, They can afford it. With Starwars printing money

Disney money has nothing to do with Abrams deciding on more practical effects.

Good CGI is much more expensive than practical effects. The idea that CGI is making movies cheaper is a myth.

0
Yeah.........No. IT has everything to do with it.
CGI is also EASIER then practical effects. Why have a Lifesize Falcon when a CGI one does just as goo.

Because it is cheaper.

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

I doupt w/o the backing of the mouse, we would be getting CGI, They can afford it. With Starwars printing money

Disney money has nothing to do with Abrams deciding on more practical effects.

Good CGI is much more expensive than practical effects. The idea that CGI is making movies cheaper is a myth.

0
Yeah.........No. IT has everything to do with it.
CGI is also EASIER then practical effects. Why have a Lifesize Falcon when a CGI one does just as goo.

CGI is easier for the director because it gives her/him more control over the shot on various levels which is why it is being used, but that doesn't mean it's "easier" to produce compared to practical effects. CGI takes an enormous amount of man-hours to finish, and the more elaborate and higher quality the effects, the more expensive and longer it takes. Money isn't the issue here, as just about every studio is more than happy to dump an endless amount of cash on CGI for even the most gakky of movies.

Regardless of your incorrect opinion, good CGI is much more expensive, especially if you want it to be flawless. Don't believe me? Look at the Lord of the Rings compared to The Hobbit: LotR used pretty damn good CGI and lots (and lots) of practical effects, including sets, costumes, prosthetics, tons of extras, and models (seriously, the models built for the movies are nothing short of incredible). The Hobbit on the other hand, had a staggering amount of digital effects, which despite everyone's complaints about them, are just about the best money can buy. In the end, the Hobbit movies cost more than twice as much to make compared to the first trilogy: each LotR movie cost lest than $94 million while the combined cost for the Hobbit trilogy was somewhere north of $560 million.

So no, Disney money has absolutely nothing to do with Abrams using a more traditional approach to a making special effects-heavy movie as far as money goes. He (and the studio) know that is what people want and they're willing to give it to us.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

I doupt w/o the backing of the mouse, we would be getting CGI, They can afford it. With Starwars printing money

Disney money has nothing to do with Abrams deciding on more practical effects.

Good CGI is much more expensive than practical effects. The idea that CGI is making movies cheaper is a myth.

0
Yeah.........No. IT has everything to do with it.
CGI is also EASIER then practical effects. Why have a Lifesize Falcon when a CGI one does just as goo.

CGI is easier for the director which is why it is being used, but that doesn't mean it's "easier" to produce compared to practical effects. CGI takes an enormous amount of man-hours to finish, and the better the effects, the more expensive and longer it takes. Money isn't the issue here, as just about every studio is more than happy to dump an endless amount of money on CGI for gakky movies.

Regardless of your incorrect opinion, CGI is much more expensive, especially if you want it flawless. Don't believe me? Look at the Lord of the Rings compared to The Hobbit. LotR used pretty damn good CGI and lots (and lots) of practical effects, including sets, costumes, prosthetics, tons of extras, and models (seriously, the models built for the movies are nothing short of incredible). The Hobbit on the other hand, had a staggering amount of digital effects, which despite everyone's complaints about them, are just about the best money can buy. In the end, the Hobbit movies cost more than twice as much as make compared to the first trilogy: each LotR movie cost lest than $94 million while the combined cost for the Hobbit trilogy was somewhere north of $560 million.

So no, Disney money has absolutely nothing to do with Abrams using a more traditional approach to a making special effects-heavy movie. He (and the studio) know that is what people want and they're willing to give it to us.

Also, much like with the original movies, they don't have to do insanity like make a life-sized model. They just make a small model, the size of a typical toy, and shoot it in the same style that Lucas did in the 70's. The most famous shot in the trilogy with the Star Destroyer going over the top of the screen was just a model anyway.

Also scooty, your sig is awesome.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Also, much like with the original movies, they don't have to do insanity like make a life-sized model. They just make a small model, the size of a typical toy, and shoot it in the same style that Lucas did in the 70's. The most famous shot in the trilogy with the Star Destroyer going over the top of the screen was just a model anyway.

Also scooty, your sig is awesome.

Well, studio scale models are generally pretty large. For Star Wars, ILM built a 5' model (!) of the Millennium Falcon for filming. The hero prop X-wings were roughly 1/24 scale which made them close to 3' from nose to engines. For The Empire Strikes Back, they built a 32" Falcon model based on the 5 foot model which is the one most often seen on display around the world.

The models built for Interstellar were pretty big too... for the Endurance (the 'mothership' they fly through the wormhole), they built a 4' study model and that was then used to build 1/15 scale filming "miniature" (the model was about 14' wide) for the exterior shots. The Ranger (the scout craft) was built as a 1:1 prop, a 1/15 scale miniature (for when it's docked on the Endurance), and a 1/5 scale filming miniature that was about 9' long. They also built multiple versions out of different materials for different shots.

 jreilly89 wrote:

Hammond was also more of a jerk, whereas in the movie he's much more grandfatherly. Also, I thought Malcolm survived from his injuries (raptors, IIRC)?

Originally he did die, but Crichton decided to revive him for the next book. Considering the sequel book was made after the film (where Malcolm and Hammond live), I'm guessing it might have something to do with his revival in the second book. Could of course be entirely wrong there.

 MrDwhitey wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Hammond was also more of a jerk, whereas in the movie he's much more grandfatherly. Also, I thought Malcolm survived from his injuries (raptors, IIRC)?

Originally he did die, but Crichton decided to revive him for the next book. Considering the sequel book was made after the film (where Malcolm and Hammond live), I'm guessing it might have something to do with his revival in the second book. Could of course be entirely wrong there.

The Lost World novel was released in 1995 and the film adaptation was released in 1997.

 LordofHats wrote:
Honestly I just don't remember that movie. That's how forgettable I found it. I remember not a damn thing XD

Robocop. It's still a good movie, don't get me wrong, but I don't fell like any of the special effects in the first 2 movies have stood the test of time (I don't much remember the third either ). Not even the Robocop costume itself.

Get out of this room, sir!

Seriously, the original is a classic. It's tongue-and-cheek, essentially just robot Dirty Harry, with a nice bit of Verhoeven social commentary thrown in. Watch it in that way, and it's a great deal of fun. It's certainly a much better film than the recent update, which lost that vein of humour going through it (as well as the violence level) and become indeterminably dull as a result.

I remember reading that the original film almost got changed drastically in the editing room because the studio thought the film might not have gone down well with police forces. As a result they staged a test screening with some local police forces. The cheers, when Robocop marched into the building (with the guy holed-up with hostages), and then just threw him out of the window with a one-liner, could apparently be heard outside the room. That persuaded the studio to release the film as it was.

Oh I like Robocop. It's just that when thinking of a film with special effects that haven't held up well that movie came to mind.

We have the luxury of comparing Alien to decades worth of other productions. When Alien came out it was literally creating a genre.

 LordofHats wrote:
Oh I like Robocop. It's just that when thinking of a film with special effects that haven't held up well that movie came to mind.

So you're telling me this isn't an accurate portrayal of someone that has been melted by toxic waste?

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:

 MrDwhitey wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

Hammond was also more of a jerk, whereas in the movie he's much more grandfatherly. Also, I thought Malcolm survived from his injuries (raptors, IIRC)?

Originally he did die, but Crichton decided to revive him for the next book. Considering the sequel book was made after the film (where Malcolm and Hammond live), I'm guessing it might have something to do with his revival in the second book. Could of course be entirely wrong there.

The Lost World novel was released in 1995 and the film adaptation was released in 1997.

I was meaning that the sequel book was made after the first film. My wording was really awful wasn't it?

My thoughts are that people greatly liked the Malcolm/Hammond in the film* and this may have influenced the writing of the second book.

*I have heard that a lot of people also liked Malcolm in the book and so wanted him to live.

I've been playing Alien Isolation this week and have to say it's caught the atmosphere of the original film very well. Genuinely scary, the girlfriend and I have been turning out the lights late at night and scaring ourselves silly with it. Jump scares are ok, but the constant tension works well too. It's the game this franchise deserved, until now it's been shoot 'em ups which where ok but I never felt immersed or invested in it.

 Orlanth wrote:
People are anti-CGI because of the appalling showcasing done in the Star Wars prequels, and similar movies, but especially Lucas's abominations. Done well CGI looked real, and has done for a long time. Jurassic Park is a good example of that, the dinos were mostly CGI, no one complains about CGI then and the tech has improved considerably since 1993.

CGI hasn't got crap, it has got lazy.

Agreed. Another excellent example is the LOTR films vs. the Hobbit films. Enough said.

Alien is such a beautifully designed film. The sound design and cinematography is gorgeous. It is a well done horror/thriller. I love that movie.

And Aliens is a great action movie and a good film. I love how both movies are completely different in style but are both awesome parts of the same series.

Jurassic Park was a fun film, but I hated that the guys I loved the most in the book (the hunter and the lawyer) were horrible in the film.. In the book, they were both heroes that lived. Heck, the lawyer fought the raptor is hand-to-hand. In the film, they both got killed in stupid ways.

Nevelon wrote:The 3rd movie wasn’t a bad movie, on it’s own. It was a horrible sequel the the second movie though. It does harken back to the first movie in tine though, with more suspense/horror, rather then action/horror.

The 4th was OK. I’m not a fan of some of the hybrid/queen themes, but the movie held together ok, there was some cool character interaction/lines, but it’s worth watching.

The biggest problems with both 3 and 4 is a bad case of sequel-itis. They are part of the franchise, but don’t really bring anything new to it. Just another visit to the world. Which is cool and all, but nothing really shines about them.

Medium of Death wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
It was better than the 3rd one.

Woah. Woah. Woah.

No. Stop that right now.

Maybe the third is a good film on its own, but like Nevelon said, it is a terrible sequel, i was so invested in Hicks and Newt, that they were just killed as a plot-point infuriated me immensely couldn't appreciate the movie on its own after that.

The fourth had some interesting twists, Hybrid Ripley clone was way cool, And Brad Dourf's Alien Fetish was fun to watch. I even liked the ideas in Prometheus the idea that the alien may have human origins.

It wasn't even a plot point. Hicks and Newt were plot foot notes at most

 hotsauceman1 wrote:

Yeah.........No. IT has everything to do with it.
CGI is also EASIER then practical effects. Why have a Lifesize Falcon when a CGI one does just as goo.

Oh, I hope this is going to be followed by you regaling us with your vast experience with CGI and practical effects in the industry!

It's made me think of a quote from the Deed of Paksenarrion (one of my favourite fantasy stories).

Young sir, if you think it is easy to produce even illusory fire, I suggest you try. My old master, who is well known in the arts, always said that a fine convincing illusion was far more difficult - because reality carries its own conviction, and saves its own appearances. If you make a flame, it is a real flame, and you don't have to worry, once you've got it. But an illusory flame can go wrong in many subtle ways - even such a thing as forgetting which way the wind is blowing, so that it flickers in the wrong direction.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

You have put your finger on something there. Everything looked well put together and real because it was real.

The computer screens were real. The keyboards were actual keyboards with buttons that punched. The Alien was a very tall, thin Masai man in a suit, not CGI.

The biggest disconnect in the Star Wars prequel for me was the CGI everything in Episode III with "big red rocker switches on his chest" Darth Vader standing next to everything new.

The big disconnect is between ep1 and ep3.

Ep 1 STILL had about 80% physical props and sets (even if the sets WERE miniatures and composited in). Artoo was real. Yoda was still a puppet. That podrace stadium WAS a real prop (albeit a miniature, with each "head" in the stands a painted q-tip (cotton bud to us aussies) moved with little motors.

Move to ep3 and it's 20% props and models and 80% cgi and it shows.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Perhaps "young people these days" have grown up with instant gratification from VOD and consequently have not learned the patience to sit through a film or play that takes a couple of hours to build its plot. I don't mean this as a pejorative, simply a possible result of the way modern culture is produced and consumed.

35 years ago, if you wanted to watch a TV drama series, you had to sit down at 9 p.m. every Wednesday night to watch each episode as it was broadcast. There was no +1 channel, no catch-up TV and probably not even a VHS release until a couple of years after first broadcast. The virtue of patience was forced upon the viewer.

That doesn't track though, indeed I would argue the reverse; high quality serialised shows are more common today than they ever were in the past, and that's a direct result of "VOD culture" - most TV in the past was produced to be as episodic as possible, with actual story advancements reserved for rare "special event" episodes or two-parters that could be advertised well in advance to ensure maximum viewership(and thus ad revenue). Think back even just to the late 90's and how big a deal it was that Babylon 5 was all a single story told over multiple seasons that often required you to have seen certain previous episodes to understand what the hell was going on - these days that's the standard; Game of Thrones, Extant, the Battlestar reboot, Stargate Universe, it's now the norm for genre shows in particular to focus on building plots over multiple episodes and multi-season arcs, even the more episodic ones like Agents of SHIELD have a cohesive over-plot that ties everything together and gives most of the seemingly-"monster of the week" episodes broader context. And audiences want that - "young people these days" have and take the opportunity to watch more slow-burn serialised content in a year than was produced in a decade during The Before Time, and what's particularly hilarious about this proposition is that older and supposedly-wiser people were throwing exactly the same "instant gratification" aspersions at our generations for watching TV at all, afterall if we weren't impatient ungrateful young people we'd be reading a good old-fashioned book dagnabbit!

All shows are more common because there are more TV channels.

I'm not sure if anyone has posted this yet, but the original script for alien 3 by William Gibson focuses on Hicks and Bishop, and I suspect also influenced parts of the excellent Alien: Isolation. IMO, It's much better than Alien 3 ended up being.

Well worth a read, if you don't mind reading a script - You can see it here, if anyone's interested :
http://home.online.no/~bhundlan/scripts/alien3/gibson.htm

 Kilkrazy wrote:
All shows are more common because there are more TV channels.

Really? There's been a significant rise in the number of TV channels since the end of the 90's(actual content-producing channels, not 500 new Bible-bashing donation-traps), a rise commensurate with the increase in serialised programming - particularly among genre shows - that has come about in the last ten or so years after on-demand and online streaming became commonplace? I don't think so. We live in a time when Marvel, owned by Disney, will soon be running at least one perhaps two semi-serialised network TV shows and FOUR fully serialised on-demand-exclusive Netflix shows, concurrently. A time when Steven Spielberg is EP'ing a fully serialised high-concept sci-fi show on CBS. A time when a heavily serialised remake of Battlestar Galactica and a multi-season-plotline epic Game of Thrones adaptation are held up as the standard by which all genre shows are judged, one of the most critically acclaimed political dramas yet made is a slow-burn serialised Netflix show, and Breaking Bad is(inexplicably IMO, but there's no accounting for taste) an international phenomenon.

Your contention that young people have been spoiled by on-demand and so don't have the patience for longer or slow-building stories is unsupportable.