CGI vs. Analog Effects

Yeah agreed. But the Thing prequel was pretty much filmed using all practical effects before the studios said the pacing of the movie was too slow and wanted to cut parts of the movie. check it - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBzpT7VmSaU

I think with CGI when its done very well it looks great.... When its not it looks pants... I think the best thing is when you merge the two like Prometheus has done and like the Thing Prequel did the scenes where they had actual effects overlayed looked not bad.... Sadly the other pure CGI effects looked poor and rushed in some scenes of the Thing.

Hey, yeah I definately agree with you - Practical effects are more scary and realistic than any CGI, because it is real! I think prometheus did well though, by keeping a lot of the film practical with the big sets, make-up and verious creatures unlike some films these days. I think Prometheus is a bench mark for films of this new technological era, mixing and balanced combo of practical effects as much as possible, but CGI where necessary :)

Rob Bottins practical effects for Carpenter's original Thing were awesome. Now that worked! The original facehugger & chestburster worked & looked realistic & alive. I often find CGI disappointing because you can tell it's not real. You don't go home thinking wow how did they do that? because you know it's a digital effect.

I like the fact that Prometheus was kept a lot more true to it's roots regarding actors in suits/prosthetics. It could have been all so easy to just got CGI all the way, or at least more enhanced than actually undertaken. Still intrigued as to the purpose of Fords head scan

Forgot to add how much I loved it though. Even if it's mostly what it's about. i definitely will only see it again in IMAX. What a difference. Awesome.

I think traditional SFX and CGI both have there shortcomings. The original Alien took a very minimalist approach to showing the Xeno; total screen time was maybe 2 minutes for the entire film. However, there are many moments in the franchise where it's like "guy in suit" or "puppet", especially the more and more you watch. I thought the xenos in Alien Resurrection were particularly cheesey, primarily because we saw way too much of them. I think the CGI of late, and particularly in this movie, are VERY realistic. The squid-hugger at the end was incredibly realistic. The biggest problem with CGI is that it's seldom presented in away to sufficiently impart a sense of dread, and many times it's too over the top - one exception being Silent Hill - that movie was terrifying and deeply disturbing. That's where traditional SFX have an advantage, because you're pretty confined in terms of what you can do, forcing a more creative approach in terms of screenplay and direction.

I also forgot Yoda. Granted, he's not going to be doing any light sabre wielding back flips, but the puppet Yoda from Empire Strikes Back is a lot better than the CGI version from the latest three duds. Frank Oz steeped that character with personality that the CGI just didn't convey.

Real effects and models all the way! Cgi should not be overused. the later star wars showed that Lucas was doing too much in cgi, Causing the charachters act not real because they stood in front Of the blue screens way too often.

Just saw this thread so I wanted to jump in and try to revive it! I love how Ridley opted to use in-camera effects whenever possible on Prometheus. While creating convincing CG spaceships is easy, computer generated creatures can look extremely dodgy. The movement tends to look too elastic or exaggerated, not to mention the way the light hitting the textures of a creatures skin can be very hard to pull off right. When I fist found out that Ridley had used actual animal organs in the egg and shellfish for the underside of the dead face hugger in Alien, my mind was BLOWN! It was always disturbingly realistic looking, because it was in fact real tissue. BTW - I think that after 4 films they still haven't been able to get the CG Spiderman in the recent movies to look anything close to realistic. He looks like some tiny, hopped-up little cartoon character bouncing around on screen!

I recently watched Alien³ again since a few years and was horrified about the poor looking CGI elements they used for the xeno, especially the running scenes when it was crawling through the shaft. Its moving looked anything but smooth and the lighting was flat and did not match the environment. Not comparable to the well looking real model movements as seen in both other movies of the franchise.

Everybody HATES CGI Monsters! Sure it can be used for lot of things and it might look "good enough", but for LIFEFORMS its cruelty... Think about the robots from "I ROBOT" or that zombies of "I AM LEGEND". Really a BAD joke! Also the engineer in prometheus on the beginning - you SEE when it is CGI and when not, because of the "unnatural moves" the creature is doing. I would rather relinquish on that scenes then do them with CGI as every movie where you use CGI simply LOOsES 30% of its quality, it "brings you back to reality" as simply everyone can SEE that it is not real, but PAINTED... So BIG respect to the directors who use REAL puppets like the alien queen in aliens was SUPERB ART. You can also use puppet/robot marionettes and it may look LAUGHABLE if you dont do it the right way, but expecially the effects team of ridley scott and james cameron do a SUPERB job... So REAL, so PERFECT. Well done, well done! By the way - i HATE HATE HATE the blue CGI aliens in AVATAR.