>...so good that nobody needs to do such things anymore.
There is a lot of CGI that just looks fake. I would even say most, at least to me. I go back to Star Wars (ep 4). The physical models still look good. The original Blade Runner still looks good. I've also noticed that CGI movies look okay in the theater, but once they hit the high compression formats like Blu-ray or streaming, the CGI really becomes noticeable. The practical stuff still looks good in these formats. Go back and watch Hunt For Red October, and know that during the submarine underwater scenes are just physical models in rooms of smoke to simulate underwater. I really notice when they do 100% CGI characters like Spiderman and Hulk.
I have two maybe contradictory things to say about this. On the one hand, thinking all cgi looks fake is confirmation bias. There is so much cgi you don’t notice (cars for example, look incredibly real). But when you do, it’s because it’s bad.
On the other hand, I agree that 100% cgi characters look bad. I recently watched the latest Avengers and was amazed that with all the budget and years of experience they have, the Hulk looks terrible.
It’s a useful tool, but when it becomes the only tool it gets old. There’s a lot of charm to practical effects. Yeah I can tell that Yoda is just a puppet, but it works.
>On the one hand, thinking all cgi looks fake is confirmation bias. There is so much cgi you don’t notice (cars for example, look incredibly real). But when you do, it’s because it’s bad.
I'm not sure its /just/ confirmation bias.
CGI scenes are qualitatively different. With CGI there's no limit to what you can put on screen. You want a space battle with 12000 ships, each firing lasers and missles? No problem. Models are different, each one costs.
Compare Star Treks. ST:TNG had the Enterprise and maybe one other model at best. Battles were rare, because that would mean destroying your model, battles were an end of series finale thing. Compare that with a modern Star Trek. Where theres a massive battle every episode.
There is a lot of CGI that just looks fake. I would even say most, at least to me. I go back to Star Wars (ep 4). The physical models still look good. The original Blade Runner still looks good. I've also noticed that CGI movies look okay in the theater, but once they hit the high compression formats like Blu-ray or streaming, the CGI really becomes noticeable. The practical stuff still looks good in these formats. Go back and watch Hunt For Red October, and know that during the submarine underwater scenes are just physical models in rooms of smoke to simulate underwater. I really notice when they do 100% CGI characters like Spiderman and Hulk.