Is CGI the "Death Knell" of Cinema?

Months ago before Kill Bill Vol.1 was released, Quentin Tarantino featured in an interview in Empire Magazine. He said...


For some reason I've been thinking about what he said all day. I disagree with him, I think CGI is a step forward in cinema.

I was just curious, what are your opinions on CGI?

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The Lord of the Rings trilogy directly contradicts Tarantino. CGI can be abused, but it's just another tool in the filmmaker's arsenal. It can be used for good.

This all ties back into the odd, recurring sentiment that movies must be judged collectively, rather than individually. Memento is no less a movie because Booty Call exists, and great modern films do not cease to be great simply because another studio releases a CGI-laden crapfast.

Tarantino's quote is exaggerative, purist nonsense. Cinema is not a singular entity, or a floating average that can be brought down by poor movies.

I totally agree with Yoda. Yeah there is some pretty bad abuse of CGI- but then most of those films don't turn out to be good anyhow. It is a very useful tool, and in some cases it makes the stuff on screen feel real even when you know it's CGI.

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I didn't even notice the CGI that was in Once Upon A Time in Mexico until I watched Robert Rodriguez's Ten-Minute Film School.

But I really hated the CGI in Blade II and Matrix Reloaded. I can't stand CGI humans.

Yeah, that's still pretty tough to pull-off...but as long as it's done sparingly, it can work. The CGI humanoids in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and the CGI Spider-Man in Spider-Man 2 were pretty believable.

Yeah, the CGI Spider-Man is great. But I'd be a little worried if I were a stuntman.

Good CGI is things like LOTR, Spiderman and T3. Then there's bad CGI and things like Star wars where its so overkill. There are times when its just better to have a few extras running about in alien costumes/suits of armour etc etc.

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I hate CGI people as well, especially Blade 2 and Matrix sequels, but LOTR does use it to great effect and Spiderman 2, the actual CGI spiderman bits were awesome. Tough thing to choose on, if done right its ok, and lets not forget all the excellent Dreamworks/Pixar films.

I don't really like the CGI that's used as background environment such as used in the new Star Wars films. I'd prefer a real environment much more... Sometimes though CGI can look really striking like the velociraptors in Jurrasic Park. I'm glad it exists because it could get better and be applied to things that would be impossible otherwise.... QT's comments are going to be superceded I think.

CGI is no different than matte backgrounds, blue screen, or lens filters. It's obvious when you watch The Wizard of Oz that there are matte backgrounds. It's obvious in a countless amount of films when directors use blue screens to simulate the backgrounds when cars are driving down the road. It's obvious in a lot of movies when day for night lens filters are used to simulate night shots. None of these have been the "death knell" of cinema.

Why does CGI get criticized when matte backgrounds, blue screens, and lens filters don't?

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I have a guess: I think CGI, to a much greater extent than the other tools you name, can be and are jobbed out to overseas workers.

Tarantino's quote is pretty silly, for the reasons already given, but had he said "CGI is the death-knell for american animators", he'd have been much closer the mark. It's thrown a whole lot of those folks out of work.

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Yeah, it's all about usage.

It's gonna be interesting to see how the up-coming batch of all-CGI-except-the-actors films turn out. i.e. Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Casshern and Sin City. Immortel (ad vitam) seems to have turned out alright, tho not amazing.

There's still gonna be the issue of quality, and industrialised/'1st world' countries (where it's gonna be more expensive to employ workers etc) are still ahead of the game in knowledge base and technical-innovation i reckon.

Whether that continues is partially up to the industry.

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CGI's are probally the most annoying specimens in films you know their fake you know its new technology but I don't think they will ever go away. Take for instance the new genre of kids films they are all CGI not the great animation that was once used. Mostly big name actors have to be added in order to make the value or interest of the films attractive in order for us to go see the film.

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I'm not sure I quite follow you on the quality/national economy connection... The US has led the field in development of all sorts of fx, true, but the equipment used can easily be shipped to and taught to people in less-developed countries. From there, artistic skill and income are obviously not related, so it's not as if artists in other countries couldn't do work of comparable quality... Clarification, por favor?

Personally, I don't care for CGI. I much prefer hand-drawn animation of things like animals and such, and if it's a show about humans... well, I think humans relate best to other humans. That was my beef with Millennium Actress.

I was thinking more of software development and expertise in using it. (after that there might be a trickle-down effect in top-of-the-range technology reaching the cheapest labour countries etc).

But as for artistic creativity, of course there are no boundaries. (i can imagine some culture-conflict with the studios potentially, but that's 'subjective' ).

Crapppy CGI Humans, in movies like Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions , and Final Fantasy; The Spirits Within werent crappy because they were CGI, they were crappy because they didnt use any motion capturing for the sequences.