Art Evolution / Film

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• Computer Animation as a whole has evolved and improved vastly over time, becoming more consistent and just plain better. Even lovers and artists will admit the early artworks especially way back in the day were dreadful, with basic textures and colorings and characters who move weirdly and looked bizarrely shaped and have a rubber and plastic feel and look to them. Comparing the early works, with its incredibly bizarre and inconsistent work and basic shape, texturing, movement and interaction, to the more detailed and flowing works today. It goes to show just how much the art team and the technical team have evolved and improved years later and till this day. Here are the examples◊ of the comparison.
  • Pixar itself has undergone this as it has grown more skilled at averting Unintentional Uncanny Valley and No Flow in CGI. This is especially noticeable when you compare the look of the Toy Story and The Incredibles characters from movie to movie.
  • In the first Cars film, Lightning McQueen is depicted with a pair of large stickers on his front bumper that resemble fake headlights (hence his nickname, "Stickers", from his girlfriend Sally). In the sequel, he has his fake "headlights" replaced with real ones for the World Grand Prix, and it has remained that way ever since (calling him "Stickers" would now be pointless since he has real headlights now, but Sally keeps the habit out of affection). Also, in the first film, all of the background cars are clearly based on completely fictional models, while in the sequel, all of them are now based on real models.
  • Expected from a CGI movie sequel released 14 years after the original, Incredibles 2 took a huge step forward from the first film. It's clear to see that the character models have been massively refurbished yielding more detail in facial expressions, clothing texture, and hair. In short, everything looks better. Compare the overlapping ending and opening of the two films here.
  • Combining this with Technology Marches On, try watching the first Shrek after watching Shrek Forever After. Three films' worth of subtle CGI improvement become immediately apparent.
  • The look of DreamWorks Animation films before Shrek the Third was way more appealing than most other CG studios, yet it was a huge step below Pixar, specially regarding character and prop rendering. Beginning with this film however, the aesthetics of the studio's output became much more polished, coinciding with DWA's Tone Shift into more character-driven works. With The Bad Guys (2022) and Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, the studio began to experiment with more stylized animation and rendering, including the use of 2D effects.
  • Frozen is a pretty noticeable place to explore advancements in modern CGI. The CGI in the first Frozen is impressive enough, but by "Olaf's Frozen Adventure", Elsa and Anna's dresses flow more naturally with their movements, up to the hairs on Elsa's fur collar. And by Frozen II, the CGI has become so much more evolved that one can actually make out the peach fuzz on Elsa's cheeks.
• Wallace & Gromit look very different in their first short, A Grand Day Out, which was effectively a glorified student film. Wallace, in particular, lacked his characteristic wide-mouthed grin (except while saying "cheese", however it was less defined), and Gromit looked rather anemic. Also, the modelling and production were rather more rough-and-ready. The designs (and production methods) were greatly refined in their next film, The Wrong Trousers, and have remained that way ever since.
• A curious example, but take a look at Piglet's one-second appearance in the original intro song of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (the "there's Rabbit, and Piglet, and there's Owl" part). Someone at Disney must have done some heavy redesigning before Piglet made his "official" animated debut in the second featurette.
• Most of the Disneytoon Studios Direct to Video sequels from The Lion King II: Simba's Pride onwards, due to a budget increase and transition to digital animation, make a better attempt to replicate the level of quality of the original theatrical films, compared to the TV episode quality of earlier sequels such as Aladdin: The Return of Jafar.
• The Asterix movies animation gets better with each installment, for example Asterix the Gaul was animated in an early 60's Hanna-Barbera/UPA cartoon style while Asterix Versus Caesar uses a style reminiscent of Disney theatrical films.
• Godzilla has had numerous changes made to his appearance over the years, with newer designs often bringing back elements of older designs that had been abandoned.
  • The later Showa films gave him an Anthropomorphic Shift to make him less scary as part of a Lighter and Softer tone shift to appeal more to children, as well as removing the external ears and fangs of the original Godzilla.
  • The Heisei films gave him (particularly post-Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah) stout legs, multiple rows of teeth, a feline face, and red eyes, as well as the return of ears and fangs. This is also when Godzilla's atomic breath changed from a wispy vapour into a solid laser-like beam.
  • The Millennium films gave him very large and more jagged dorsal plates starting in Godzilla 2000, as well as giving him a spinier skin texture. The designs for Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus also changed his colour from dark grey to dark green and the colour of his spines from bone-white to purple.
  • Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! gave him an even more monstrous face with larger fangs, a pudgier belly, and blank white eyes.
  • Godzilla: Final Wars shrunk his eyes and coloured them red, as well as making his body slimmer and more compact to facilitate the elaborate fight scenes.
  • Godzilla has once again had his design updated in Godzilla (2014). The most noticeable changes are gills on his neck, round, sauropod-like feet, dark-coloured dorsal plates, and a much longer tail. The film crew also spent quite a while tweaking his face:
    Edwards: "Trying to get the face right was the main thing... I guess he's got more of a bear's face, or a dog's. We also used eagle. There's a lot of nobility in an eagle. It made him feel very majestic and noble"
    • The sequel, Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), gave Godzilla some small makeovers, in particular, giving him slightly more muscular proportions, a longer and more rounded tail, feet that were less stumpy, and redesigning the dorsal plates to much more closely resemble how they originally appeared in Godzilla (1954). The way his body lights up when firing his atomic breath is also made to be much brighter, more blue, and shows through his skin and eyes as well as his dorsal plates.
  • Shin Godzilla features one of the most drastic changes in design for the character since Godzilla (1998), making Godzilla far more grotesque, with an even longer tail, lumpier face, red skin highlights, pathetically tiny arms, beady fish-like eyes, a jagged protruding sternum, and jaws that can split apart like a snake. Similar to the Monsterverse version it also has noticeable gills and dark-coloured dorsal plates. The atomic breath colour is also changed from blue to purple.
  • And this doesn't include the much more drastic changes seen in the Marvel Comics series, The Godzilla Power Hour, or the 1998 film, which tended to overemphasize his reptilian features to the point they more resembled parodies of the character.
  • Here is an index of pages that go more in-depth with the various idiosyncrasies of each design.
  • Nearly all the other kaiju in the series, and sometimes even the vehicles, also receive drastic redesigns between films, often due to improved special effects technology since their last appearance, to the point that describing all of them would be fruitless.
• Gremlins 2: The New Batch: The gremlins' designs between the first movie and its sequel has changed, from dark monsters to wackier and more colorful monsters. Chris Walas designed those of the first while Rick Baker did those of the sequel.
• DC Extended Universe
  • Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice leaned on a slightly brighter and higher contrast color palette compared to Man of Steel. Superman's costume also had a few minor cosmetic changes (the "buckle" on his waistline was square whereas it was previously oval).
  • Suicide Squad had a generally more realistic visual design, more resembling crime dramas than bright superhero movies.
  • Wonder Woman: Prior movies had a much darker and more muted color scheme. Diana's Wonder Woman outfit in this film has almost supernaturally vibrant blues and reds, which was a deliberate contrast to the outfit in the movie Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (it appeared to had been scuffed up over a long period of time whereas in this movie it has never been used before).
  • Justice League sought to really amp up the brightness in an attempt to placate complaints of Real Is Brown (which was also criticized, as it resulted in "bright and colorful" garish look as the costumes and sets were not meant to be seen that way). It does find a medium ground with Wonder Woman's costume, cleaned up compared to BVS but not quite as bright as in her movie.
  • Zack Snyder's Justice League:
    • Steppenwolf has a new, more alien and H. R. Giger-esque, design. It's based on the design he was teased with in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the theatrical version was a compromise made relatively early on to lighten the film with something a little less scary and a little more comics accurate.
    • Superman was originally filmed with the classic blue and red costume on set and seen in the original film. This film color-corrects it to black and silver, since no black and silver costume was actually made. It's meant to resemble the costume he wore after his resurrection in the comics.
    • The movie was originally shot in the IMAX 1.43:1 aspect ratio but released in the more standard 1.85:1, this version returns to what was originally intended. The color grading as a whole was also restored to be more in line with the darker, muted color palette of Man of Steel and Batman v Superman''. The theatrical release had artificially brightened the colors in response to Real Is Brown complaints from audiences, but resulted in numerous other technical problems with composition, framing and wardrobe note .
  • Aquaman uses very bright, crisp colors compared to the previous films.
• An American Tail has a much higher level of quality than its sequels, which feature stiffer animation and less detailed backgrounds.
• Thor: Ragnarok has a very different colour palette from the two previous Thor movies. There's a lot more neon, for a start, and it's generally brighter and more colourful, since while all three films are Science Fantasy, Ragnarok is heavily aesthetically inspired by the Science Fantasy cartoons of the 1980s.
• The first trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog (2020) had a radically different design for Sonic, given a more "realistic" look (smaller eyes, human-like body musculature, highly detailed fur, furry white hands). Shortly afterwards it was announced they would redesign Sonic entirely, and the second trailer introduced a new look for the movie that is almost directly taken from the modern games (bigger eyes, longer legs, muted fur detailing, White Gloves).
• The first BIONICLE animated film by Creative Capers redesigned the original toys drastically, giving them human-like features like hands, fingers, moving eyes, mouths, expressive masks and even visible muscles. Shapes were simplified and made to look more organic, proportions improved and the gaps in the toys were filled in. By the third movie, the characters looked a lot more like the toys with more mechanical details and visible toy-like gaps. In the fourth, produced by Tinseltown Toons, rigid accuracy to the toys was favored over expression, and the characters were only slightly changed compared to the LEGO sets. Toy design also evolved and took some notes from the films, giving the figures hands, more organic shapes and in some cases face-like masks or even just faces.

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