Reviews Film / Man Of Steel

You come off to me as saying that CGI at all is bad for movies. You talk of taking away soul (a term I don't understand) and not being able to connect with audiences. I just don't see how CGI is worse at evoking emotions than puppetry or other types of special effects.

How is this commercial culture? It just sounds like you didn't like cgi and the action. And how is this a new direction? I've seen stupid overdone action films since the 1980s. What made this different from them other than the explosions were added in post?

Why does the title of the review have nothing to do with the review except for one paragraph?

Thanks for the comments.

@doctrainAUM: I don't think CGI is all bad. I liked Star Trek Into Darkness, which has also been looked upon unfavorably also for its CGI. But I don't think CGI can replace the basics of film, such as good dialogue and likable characters. Unfortunately, trying to seek international revenue, studios much prefer nice visuals instead of anything else. I wanted to add that I thought it was culmunative of the directions movies have been going in since around the release of the Phantom Menace, which I felt shared much of the same problems.

@fenrisulfur: I think it represents the sum of studios trying to seek international revenue from countries like China by making films with nice visuals instead of anything else, which won't translate.

@Mc Someguy: I wrote this review in fifteen minutes and I ran out of space. But it's basically my thoughts on the movies.

Man of steel made about as much outside the US (as in all other countires worldwide) as it did in the U.S. If that was the plan, it is a waste of effort. That said, what part of writing and characters won't translate to international audiences? People who speak a language other than English can understand a story that's been translated. There's a reason Woolseyism exists.

@fenrisulfur

I can find the economist article if you really would like to know, or if you want to stick to your preconcieved notions I won't bother.

@chaosakita: I don't see anything in fenris's post showing "preconceived notions". And I know that I, at least, would like to see that article.

Pixar would like a word with you.

But Pixar used a bunch of dolls and robots for the most part, which are just fine to do with CGI as they're never meant to be alive.

I rather dislike CGI myself, because it removes all the limitations, the need to think outside the box and come up with clever solutions. As a random example, consider the shark from Jaws: if that movie was made today, they could have easily rendered the shark in CGI and, instead of showing the action from its point of view and having the shark appear in the flesh very rarely, it would have been around all the damn time. And that would have taken out more than a half of the tension and excitement, reducing it from a classic into a yet another boring flick.

Pixar gets a free pass, for the most part, because they just use CGI to replace traditional animation, which never had any limitations to start with. But even with CGI cartoons, I feel that mostly everything made out of flesh would look so much better if it were drawn and animated in the traditional way, because CGI makes them look all plastic and unliving: again, of course, dolls and robots don't count because they're already plastic and unliving by design.

I think if someone half does the cgi it will be bad, but on the other hand, a well planned use of cgi where time is invested can allow for stuff practical effects would either not do or just cost too much. If you compare the hippogriff and the werewolf from harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the hippogriff looks like an actual animal because of the time and effort put into integrating him with the movie, while the werewolf was just put in in the last few months of post production because the practical effect was cut.

Also, for clarification, when I stated how much it made, I was going by boxofficemojo's report of Mo S's gross revenue. Then there was me saying people who don't know the original language can still understand a story, as justified by woolseyism and idiomatic translations. As far as I can tell, my assumptions were that Boxofficemojo was correct, people can understand a work if it's translated, and Woolseyism exists for a reason. Am I missing some sort of accidental subtext? Sorry if I did.

^ Removing limitations on what can be created is good. The shark from Jaws looked atrocious when it was out of the water and that detracted from the movie more than CGI ever would have. Any director worth his salt knows that the key to maintaining a threatening monster and keeping up suspense is to show as little of it as possible. That's Suspense 101. The problem with modern movies isn't CGI itself, it's lazy directors.

@ Mcsomeguy Amen brother

@ Mcsomeguy Amen brother

@Mc Someguy: Why do you think we have so many more lazy directors these days, than we did a few decades ago?

It's so easy these days, CGI making these matters so incredibly trivial, that even good and non-lazy directors fall for it far too easily. By contrast, before the advent of CGI, the lack of good, easy, and cheap special effects outright forced directors to think outside the box and figure out ways to go around the problem, using as little special effects as possible. And now, all this has been replaced by throwing in as much special effects and fighting and explosions as possible.

Perhaps lazy directors are the problem, but CGI is what allows them to be lazy, so I'd say it's still the root of it.

@Potman: We've always had lazy directors. Look at the Slurpasaurus. "Okay, we need a dinosaur for this scene, but I don't feel like hiring a good animatronic artist. I know, I'll just get an iguana at some pet shop and pretend it's a dinosaur! No objections? Good! We're rolling." Lazy directors are far more likely to half-ass it than to go through the trouble of thinking outside the box.

@Potman

Sturgeons Law has always been in effect. Lazy directors did not suddenly appear with the advent of CGI. There was as much garbage back then as there is now, it just didn't look as good.

I don't know. Sure, we had lazy directors and horrible special effects even back then, but it was pretty glaringly obvious to everyone that they looked that bad, so there were less people willing to stoop to their levels, and the movies that did so hardly never gained critical acclaim. Now, though, most CGI looks legitimately good and quite realistic, which has made it pretty acceptable for them to be used universally - and it won't hurt their odds of being successful films. Entire movies can be made without ever leaving greenscreen.

When even the good directors no longer need to make a whole lot of detailed sets, props, and miniatures, instead of whipping them all up on a computer in an afternoon, you get a bunch of oversaturated, excuse-plot snorefests such as the Man of Steel here.

It's not like CGI is cheap, easy, or quick. They require months and millions of dollars to get right. Like everything, you need to put work into it so it doesn't look fake or unpleasant. That's why Ratatouille and Ratatoing look nothing alike.

@Potman You cannot "whip up" good CGI on a computer in an afternoon. CGI is a type of art in and of itself. The love and attention to detail needed to make detailed sets, props, and miniatures are also needed to make good CGI. The only difference is that good CGI is both easier to make look good (so more attention can be spent elsewhere), and far more versatile (99% of what happens in action movies nowadays would be impossible or highly impractical without CGI). If you can get past your CGI phobia, you'll see that Man of Steel is far from the oversaturated snore-fest you accuse it of being. There are plenty of character, emotion, and story to be had in this version of Superman. It only seems like you were too distracted by the flashy colors to see that.