Best/Worst CG FX in movies

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Inspired by the Spiderman 2 thread, I'd like to know what y'all think are the best and worst Computer Graphics special effects/sequences used in any major movies over the past two decades or so. Animated movies like Shrek or Finding Nemo don't count. My personal votes are:

Best:

Jurassic Park's dinosaurs.
Gollum from the LOTR movies.
T-1000 from Terminator 2.

Worst:

CGI Hulk
Jar Jar Binks from Star Wars: Episode One and Two
Lost in Space (all the effects)

Yes, I am aware that I'm a dork.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Some of the CG effects from the new Star Wars trilogy are amazing (see esp the factory in II). Also, I loved The Hulk.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Animated movies like Shrek or Finding Nemo don't count.

~~Fuck you~~ Why ever not?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:40 (twenty-one years ago)

With something like Jar Jar Binks, is it the animation you find lacking or is it the animation itself? Because I thought he was decently executed, there are far more egregious cg problems with episodes 1 & 2.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Best: LoTR films. Prob'ly the most transparent CGI ever so far.
Worst: Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions. There are PS2 games with more consistent graphics.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

By transparent I mean it doesn't seem CGI, btw.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I've been really let down by the overuse of CG in Star Wars. I mean WTF IS WRONG WITH A MUPPET EVERY SO OFTEN?!

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember a scene in Ep II set a huge library where it was very obvious where the set ended and the CG began. I'm sure older movies are far worse but this one came out last year.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I kind of miss Muppets too.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

other films that would benefit from muppets: http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/44/87/43m.jpg
http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/38/69/06m.jpg
http://ia.imdb.com/media/imdb/01/I/75/21/63m.jpg

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

(nice)

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I know it has the excuse of being from the mid-late '90s, but still: Escape from L.A. Ho-lee crap.

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

"Fuck you. Why ever not?"

I should've been more specific. Shrek and Finding Nemo are both beautifully animated films, I only didn't count those types of films because they're self contained, and aren't tying to blend in with live actors. I certainly was not trying to downgrade the art of animation.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, Escape From LA had some crappy FX, for sure. Pretty much any John Carpenter movie after 1993 sucks big time.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:56 (twenty-one years ago)

haha Star Wars is all about getting away from the "live" "actors"!

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 15 December 2003 20:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Jurassic Park, LOTR , last half of Episode II, some of Hulk (love the desert battle with the tanks) are great . League Of X Gentlemen, most of Spiderman and countless others BAD.

― Jay Vee (Manon_70), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

I know its early too, but the CG alien in Species is dreadful.

― fletrejet, Monday, 15 December 2003 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

With something like Jar Jar Binks, is it the animation you find lacking or is it the animation itself?

Oops, I meant to post: is it the animation you find lacking or is it the character itself? Because as I said upthread there's nothing really awful about the animation, it's just that the character is awful and the actor doing the voice, etc. didn't do such a great job either.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Lost in Space effects weren't memorably bad...

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Yeah, that's another case where the movie itself is just lousy.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:04 (twenty-one years ago)

"haha Star Wars is all about getting away from the live actors"

True, but they're still in there. Except maybe the "actors" part. It's probably more appropriate to call them "line reciters".

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Much as I love Brotherhood Of The Wolf, the CGI is crap.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:06 (twenty-one years ago)

JJB was an awful character simply because of could *kind of* understand what he was saying. If Chewie had talked like Scooby-Doo he would have been equally as lame.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

"Lost in Space's effects weren't memorably bad"

Did you see that space monkey critter?

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Did you see that space monkey critter?

That's the most evil description of Lacey Chabert I've ever read.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

But perhaps the most accurate.

― El Diablo Robotico (Nicole), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't remember the space monkey from Lost In Space. I do remember the liftoff from earth which was cool and the space battle with 'Friends' Joey. It just seemed kind of run-of-the-mill, but not especially awful.

Oh! I remember the monkey. It was alright...

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

But there for every film (MIB/Star Wars) where there are actors to interact with, there's one like Hulk where that's rarely an issue. I mena, the scene everyone talks about for good or ill in The Matrix Reloaded contains no live actors at all!

I'm not being facetious, I genuinely don't understand why there's this distiction. Is stuff like The Final Flight Of The Osiris/Final Fantasy excluded?

Nick: what was the CGI in BOTW, apart from devil dog?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:10 (twenty-one years ago)

Just the devil dog/lion/werewolf/beast thing, which was lame in every scene apart from the one where it's in the mist, in which it's awesome, cos you can't quite see it.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

Does Waking Life count?

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Personally, in regards to Jar Jar Binks, the animators were so bent on creating a goofy, cartoonish character that he actually looked like a friggin' cartoon. He just didn't seem to have any sense of reality to him at all. The interaction between him and the live actors was decently staged, though. Though not decently acted.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:15 (twenty-one years ago)

the "gomation" or whatever it was called of the earlier star wars movies was so much better. It involved stop action shots with models and stuff with blurring to make it less choppy. That looked totally realistic.

― A Nairn (moretap), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Well, I suppose I should be making a clear distinction by saying that stylized animated movies (eg Waking Life, Finding Nemo, Final Fantasy,etc) wouldn't count in my definition, because they're trying to create a world of their own, versus blending in seamlessly with live actors and sets. That's what I originally meant. I'll admit, though that the lines have been blurred alot recently, and maybe my original definition wasn't adequate.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Go-motion, when properly done, looks excellent. Originally Jurassic Park's FX were going to be mostly go-motion, until the computer effects people showed Spielberg their test shots. The making-of documentary on the DVD shows some test shots of the go-motion raptors and t-rex which look almost as good as the CG ones.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

The CG aliens in Alien^3 are totally cringeworthy.

― Leee Iacocca (Leee), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Alien 3 or Alien Resurrection? Alien 3 used standard creature effects for most shots, and a rod puppet in front of a blue screen for others.
Alien Ressurection used actual CGI shots, and they were pretty crappy.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 21:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Your descriptions seem to apply to the opposite films haha!

In Alien^3, the whole chase sequence: the alien crawling up the sides of the tunnels was clearly CG.

Resurrection seemed to have in comparison few CGI.

― Leee Iacocca (Leee), Monday, 15 December 2003 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

No, Alien 3's rod puppet looks like CG, but isn't. CG wasn't advanced enough in 1992 to do what the creature in that movie did (plus, I read how they did Alien 3's effects in Cinefex, a special effects magazine). The rod puppet was inserted into the picture optically, with the rods removed. The matte line and the color difference between the creature and the background make it appear similar to badly-done examples of CGI today. Alien Resurrection was the first Alien movie to use actual, fully computer generated Aliens.

― latebloomer (latebloomer), Monday, 15 December 2003 22:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Amelie had some pretty neat CG.

― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Monday, 15 December 2003 22:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Blade's CG varies, but when it's bad, it's bad.

Of course, I find that the best CG is the kind that you don't realize is CG until someone tells you. Some good examples:

Contact had a lot of stuff that obviously had to have been CG, but it wasn't obvious how. And a good deal of other scenes had very subtle stuff I never realized was until I saw the DVD special. Oh, and the opening scene is completely wonderful.

Rules of Attraction (no, I will not stop talking about this film) - the snowflake landing on the corner of Sean's eye and turning into a tear. At first it seemed like the snowflake was CG and the tear was real, because the camera cranes up and the tear stays very realistic over the course of that motion. But I found out the whole thing was fake - not bad!

Godfather III - I heard that the only ILM scene in the film is for the pane of glass that breaks when Joey Zaza gets shot. Another subtle one.

The Doors - because all of the CG stuff looks like in-camera opticals.

Elizabeth had some excellent exteriors that really didn't look fake at all.

Time Regained - too much to detail

― , Monday, 15 December 2003 22:50 (twenty-one years ago)

In Irreversible it's a CGI cock.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Monday, 15 December 2003 23:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Industrial Light and Members

― nate detritus (natedetritus), Monday, 15 December 2003 23:20 (twenty-one years ago)

best = t1000 from terminator 2, especially the bit w/the tiled floor

worst = titanic - where did all that money go, exactly?

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 15 December 2003 23:27 (twenty-one years ago)

To James Cameron's head.

― Leee Iacocca (Leee), Monday, 15 December 2003 23:36 (twenty-one years ago)

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