Well I am trying to create conversation here, I personally like the old Godzilla in a suit much better than the CGI lizard. But I also like the Jurrasic Park dinasours as that movie was real stunning when it was first released.
Movies like John Carpenter's "The Thing" and "Ghostship" and the "Sixth Sense" proof a good movie can still be made without relying on CGI. What do you think?

I voted for using it sparingly or only when necessary. I used to be a big hater, but it fits for certain genres like fantasy. We can't have Spiderman without cgi really. And full cgi, animated features are good too. But when it's overdone or used when real effects could've been used, I don't see the point. CGI gore is terrible.

Oh yes I agree, Spiderman was well done. My wife and I also like "Cars" and a few others. But in the last Star Wars movie I thought they went nuts on the CGI, I am surprised they even needed actors. The flow of the movie seemed rushed. I still prefer the original Star Wars and the hand made aliens and bantha costumes, as well as the even pace of the movie and balance of special effects.
In horror movies you hit it on the head, they shortcut by using the CGI instead of getting creative with real effects.

P.S. how you get so many skulls under your avitar???

I AGREE WITH YOU, IT DOES WORK WELL IN SOME CASES BUT IT SEEMS THAT THEY ARE JUST TAKING THE EASY ROUTE ON ALL OF THE NEW MOVIES, I THINK THAT IS WHY I AM A BIG FAN OF THE 70'S & 80'S

Anybody that saw sabertooth tiger i believe it was called knows that cgi ruined that movie.. I love real soecial effects. CGI only when needed!!

Jeffrey, I kind of feel like that with Snakes on a Plane! They could have used some shots of real snakes and it would have been so much better but all the CGI snakes in the movie! It was like they were to lazy to do it right!

I AGREE WITH YOU BUT YOU KNOW I AM A FAN OF K&B BUT EVEN NOW THEY ARE HIT & MISS AS FAR AS THE REAL EFFECTS

Yeah, that's true. Sometimes they do phenominal work but lets face it, with Snakes how many clips of documentary or National Geographic snakes were probably out there to purchase and edit in which might have been even cheaper to do than paying for total CGI. That's why I think it was sheer laziness on the part of the filmmakers to go with total CGI.

I AGREE 100%

I like CGI, but I also Like old school if I had to choose it would be people in makeup or even puppets, I susposse it makes it more real, however CGI can place things where a person might not be able to go

I voted for use sparingly. I do like CGI if it’s done right, but I think there should still be real props used in horror. A movie like the 300 that was mainly CGI is good. As a matter of fact the 300 is one of the most awesome movie I’ve ever see, for the effects. It was like a comic and the look fit the movie. But, a horror would not be sweet like that (for the scare factor) if it was done the same way. In my opinion.

I thought Slither did a wonderful job of using CGI sparingly. Movie makers, in my opinion, are relying too heavily on computer generated special effects and leaving the actual "scare" out of the movie.

I now see too many movies who blew their budget on special effects at the cost of a decent cast, a proper story line, and actual scares.

You are absolutely right on the money with that one!

I also voted for using CGI sparingly. We have the technology and filmmakers should be able to use it but there's nothing wrong with the "old man in the monster suit." Look at The Howling and how well their werewolves turned out, compared to the CGI crapbeasts in An American Werewolf in Paris.

lol crapbeasts! I voted for sparingly also because I thought it was a pretty good analogy comparing it to watching a video game, don't ya think?

I completely agree about Star Wars. The first three were far better than the last three and I think it has a lot to do with the focus: the special effects.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I voted for CGI sparingly.

I like real props and real stunts. only if it's necessary should CGI be used.

And recently they took the old "Star Trek" and over dubber the space scenes with CGI. At first I thought it would kinda cool, but I came to realize it was so phony it actually made it worse. Maybe because I have seen the old shows 20 billion times I could never get used to the changes. But they did film each episode and used good quality film for the 60's anyway, like a short movie almost. So to dub in CGI just does not mesh.

Amen to that. Give me a movie with makeup, fake limbs, the works. I think the Exorcist is the PERFECT example. How I long for the movies of the 80's and earlier, where they had to rely on makeup and camera tricks. I'm still amazed how they made that movie (Exorcist), even though its still the one movie I can't watch alone. Not bad for a movie made over 30 years ago.

The Exorcist is a classic. You know the seen in the exorcist when linda blair was shakeing up and down on the bed. Yelling stop make it stop!!
she was in real yelling to stop the device they had her attached too!!
It shook her so violently it broke her back. I watched a documentery on her. When they interviewed her she told the story on that part of the movie...........

Some films need a bit of CGI to shore up the effects of their creatures,like the Blade series for instance.
The way that they chose to disintegrate their vampires is very well done,although I'd have preferred to have a bit more ''dust-and-crumble'' involved as opposed to having them flash-fry.
I like their DI's a bit better than the ones in Buffy.

However,I did NOT really care for their interpretation of Dracula in the Trinity film.
They chose an actor with the wrong type of build,face,and voice.Dracula as WWF wrestler?PLEASE!
Dominic Purcell may be a good actor,but Dracula he AIN'T.
And the ''Vampire Beast'' that he morphs into simply reminds me of the Predator,with the weird mandibles,and glossis.
I guess it was an attempt to show his lineal connection to the Reaper Strain in Blade II.
Who knows?
It's simply out of place, concept and context.
they should have tried to go with more of a Tomb of Dracula look to the character,instead of trying to ''update and improve''.
Some things are better left unmolested by 'progress.'
+

Vampire movies are one of them,in my opinion.

That same story also happened to the first female victim in Jaws, the drunk girl had on some sort of waist band with lines attached to it going down below her so that divers underneath could pull her back and forth in that scene where she's being eaten and the shark is pulling her from one side of the screen to the other. They broke her ribs in that stunt and because the divers were under water and she was supposed to be screaming, nobody realized that she was screaming for real out of the pain from her broken ribs, that is one of the reasons why the scene ended up being so realistic!

One form of filming I did leave out involves stop action. I believe "Robocop" was done this way for the most part. A lot of 50's and 60's movies are done with the help of stop action. I think it was Ray harryhausen (spelling?) who used it in the Sindab and other movies. I was intrigued by these movies as well but kinda rate them along with the Godzilla class, I cannot think of many scary movies that used this technique except for Evil Dead I think used a some of this stop action and did a wonderful job of it.

While on the topic of CGI, I did see the new Spiderman movie last night. I will not give away to many details but it kinda went from being very poorly done to being done very well. Hard to complain because there is a lot of action but I did notice a few things I will bring up int the future after everyone has seen it. I will mention this because it is a "Horror" chat room, did anyone else catch the cameo of Bruce Campbell of "Evil Dead" fame in this movie? How the mighty have fallen LOL.
I think on certain remakes if they know everyone will see it no matter what, they can loosen the standards a little (see Star Trek V) not that this one is that bad at all. Any thoughts??

Bruce Campbell has a cameo in all the spiderman movies as well as Sam Raimi's brother, Ted. Sam always puts at least one of them in everyone of his movies, good luck or something i think.

I believe it is the writer's and director's job to make horror movies scary, but it seems that a fad has ran throuh movies recently where the director wants CGI to do all the scare work and in my opinion it doesn't work.

The same can be said for other movies, too. The director or suits rely on special effects to make the movie great, but they do so without maintaining a story. Perhaps I am just old fashioned, but I want the story and the action and the scare.

The only exception I can think of would be Jackie Chan movies. Even though a lot of the storylines in the older Jackie Chan movies were lame, it was always a lot of fun to watch his movies because of all the great stuff he and his stunt people would do without a computer.

Go back to that Hollywood, go back!

Bruce as the French Maitre D: 'Mr. Pecker...'

Peter: 'Ummm thats Parker'

Bruce as the French Maitre D: 'That's what I said, Mr. Pecker...'

Bruce has such classic moments in those films. After all, he was the one who gave Spidey his name.

I have to say I'm tired of CGI in films. In certain instances it is necessary, after all it's kind of hard having 10,000 Orcs laying seige to Helm's Deep or Vamps turning to dust instantly upon their demise with out it. But we're seeing WAY too much of it these days.

Everyone says that doing CGI is cheaper, which in some cases is true, but for real quality CGI one is paying close to the same amount as they would for Physical FX. And since most Horror films are made on the cheap, it's better to go Physical over CGI. So I'd say use CGI sparingly, maybe to touch up certain sequences of your film, but for the most part stick to Physical FX.

what did they do before cgi, i can't stand cgi in movies the best movies i've seen did not have cgi in them long live savini

Typically you had a lot of Stop Motion FX. Or tons of models/matte paintings.

I'm not a fan of CGI in horror films. I think that the effects and gore need to be achieved with makeup. This makes everything more realistic. Phantoms was a total letdown movie for me. I had read Koontz's wonderful novel, and I was excited when I heard that a film version of it was coming out. The CGI monster ruined it (well, to be honest, that and a lot of other things). It is nothing compared to what I had imagined in my mind when reading the book. I do enjoy CGI in sci-fi films, though. But, there should be a balance between it and miniatures, makeup, etc.

I like them.

Just watched the fly, the cornenberg version and I love how that giant puppet looks years better than most cgi effects!

That's funny, cause I popped that in the other night, but never finished it.

The end is the best part though!

Yes, it's like comparing Jabba the Hut in Return of the Jedi to the Hutts in The Phantom Menace. Puppet Jabba in RotJ looks so much better! But, Lucas sure does love his CGI. I will take puppet Jabba anyday over those awful Hutts in PM!

Here Here! I love Puppet Yoda soo much better too!

Yes, puppet Yoda kicks CGI Yoda's ass!

I agree with you both. Although it improves drastically in Episode 3, CGI Yoda is still fairly lifeless compared to the puppet. As stupid as many people are (and I believe there ARE many), they can still tell the difference between something that is physical, and something that is computer generated... and we prefer something that is physical.

The only computer animated characters in a live action film I have ever liked were in Who Framed Roger Rabbit! Greatest human/animation film ever! And its a murder mystery, which is my favourite genre.

Yea Muppets Kick Ass!

All this CGI has me worried about the sequel to The Dark Crystal. But then again, it's being made by Henson's company. So we should have LOTS of Muppets again!

Oh, I didn't know they were making a sequel to The Dark Crystal. That's interesting. I loved that movie! I do hope that it's filled with muppets instead of CGI creatures. The Gelflings and Skeksis (both misspelled I'm sure) wouldn't be the same as CGI.

I didn't know they were making a sequel either. I think the first one creeped me out a bit because it was darker than what I expected from the muppets creators. I would be interested to see it again.


Back to CGI: Tim Burton's claymation (sp) movies are the best! The Nightmare Before Christmas ranks as one of my top favorites, and that was old fashioned hard work...human hard work.

Just my 2¢. But I have always been a firm believer that a movie with CG is okay. . . as long as it doesnt become a distraction to the movie itself, or is unnoticable.

The moment that you notice it than it no longer serves its purpose and becomes a distraction.

Is it scary that I had a crush on Kira, the female gelfling, from the Dark Crystal when I was a kid?

And yes, the Dark Crystal 2 is planned. It doesn't involve any of the original characters, save perhaps Aughra, since it's supposed to take place MANY MILLENIA after the original.

I prefer subtler frights to the CGI stuff as the films and TV series which enter the horror genre are far more effective when done in a much more restrained style using stunts, props and sets as opposed to films and TV shows in the horror genre which use CGI effects that display the terrors in a blatant fashion, which in my viewpoint tends to cheapen the chills thereby. It's just a thought that I wished to express. Thanks for your indulgence. MartinKandell September 2, 2008

cgi sux, the more real the better

Does blue screen count as CGI or traditional SFX?
I prefer the traditional props and sets and lighting. I build sets and props for local indie film shoots and photo shoots, so I like CGI sparingly.

Frankly, Cranky, I'm in agreement with you in reference to the CGI subject, as I prefer that, if they don't exclude the use of CGI altogether in a horror film and/or TV series, at least that they keep the usage of CGI to a minimum when producing a horror film and/or TV series. It's simply a thought that I wished to express. Thanks for your indulgence. MartinKandell September 24, 2008