It's largely a generational thing in an odd sort of way. There are definitely people my age and younger expressing frustration at CGI in films, but they are people who have their own reasons for revering a lot of old cinema, people who still put Star Wars and Indiana Jones on a pedastool. The success of crap like Stranger Things shows we have a significant portion of Millennials who've bought into the overly pedaled narrative that the 80s was some kind of Golden Age.
Whenever I hear "looks like a Video Game" being used as an inherent criticism, like SFDebris in mentioning Attack of The Clones in his Star Trek Nemesis review, I instantly tune out. I don't play truly advanced games much, but I've watched footage of them, YouTube videos that edit them into massive movies (often more like a miniseries) and sometimes Let's Plays. Particularly when I watch the cinematic Cut Scenes in Final Fantasy XII or XIII I go "why can't movies look this awesome? I want to see this on the Big Screen."
I keep hearing all this talk about "when it's practical effects there was something actually there" and I go "no there was not, you're looking at light reflected on a screen either way". I feel like these people should stick to watching plays if they feel that it is so necessary to be truly authentic. I don't say that to denigrate plays, I would go see a play live every month if I could afford it, and where I lived had more. But what I want from movies, especially nerdy fantasy block busters, is to see things that are inherently unreal.
When I saw Rogue One, I was really impressed with what they did with Tarkin and Leia. I know pretty much everyone who critiques films online for a living went on about "uncanny valley", but trust me the average film goer didn't notice anything wrong, the people in my theater went "Woah" when Tarkin's face appeared on screen. Similarly with the use of CGi to de-age actors recently in Civil War and GOTG2.
And from that I honestly started thinking, why use this only for dead actors and de-aging old ones? Maybe we should just phase actual live acting out of live action films altogether, at least for Sci-Fi and Fantasy? Since I'm tired of marketing campaigns trying to assure us that A-List celebrities do their own stunts when I know for a fact that insurance companies will not allow that. Motion Capture tech can enable us to use the talent of actors without needing to have them in the right place or care that much if they look right for the part.
All that above is a post I've been wanting to make for awhile but putting off. And I'm glad I delayed it because when I saw The Last Jedi yesterday, they played the Battle Angel Alita trailer.
I'd been hearing about this project for awhile, and even heard about the trailer recently. People saying "they put Anime Eyes on a real human face and it looks creepy" and even I was skeptical, I who made posts on this blog about wanting Live Action movies to look like Anime, didn't think that sounded like a good idea.
But when I saw this trailer on that massive Ultra Screen I went "Wow, this is beautiful". I've decided I want to not watch the Anime till I see this movie so I can view it on it's own terms.
There really is just about nothing we can't do now. I know you're probably thinking, "aren't you just saying you'd prefer movies that aren't even Live Action?" Most fully CG animated movies disappoint me, mostly because it's old school 2D Animation they're trying to complete with not Live Action. What I'm advocating for is a further blurring of the line between Live Action and CGi. That we quite revering what's real. Once again I'm gonna recommend a KyleKallgrenBHH video Yes, Monster Factory is an Artistic Masterpiece.
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