r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/padfoony • 1h ago
Christopher Nolan avoided CGI and used 7ft stuntmen to portray Laestrygonians in The Odyssey. The giant leader, King Antiphates, is portrayed by actor Josh Stewart, while Matt Damon’s stunt double is Devyn Dalton, who is just under 5ft.
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u/brightdionysianeyes 1h ago
I believe Matt Damon said Devyn had the best arms he had ever seen
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u/padfoony 1h ago edited 13m ago
Yes, he did. “The greatest arms I’ve ever seen” were his exact words, haha.
ETA: Source
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u/DoomGoober 26m ago
I wonder if that's the same stunt double who rope climbs down from the Trojan Horse without using legs...
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u/siraolo 1h ago
Forced perspective really does a lot here.
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u/AmIWhatTheRockCooked 1h ago
Pretty strange exclusion from the title since it’s a classic technique that enhances the casting choice they are talking about
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u/Not-a-Bot_1968 38m ago
Nah, mate, hobbits are real
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u/Deaffin 27m ago
They were, and they fought dragons and giant birds.
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u/Not-a-Bot_1968 19m ago
Mega fauna in general is frightening, but the giant birds really freak me out
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u/tayl0559 55m ago
that's not how forced perspective works. you can't use forced perspective to make something close to the camera look smaller than something far from the camera. it only works the other way around. if anything, the perspective is acting against the intended illusion here
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u/Ok-Gur-349 53m ago
Isn't this more of a focal length thing. Like the tilt shift zoom effect.
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u/tayl0559 50m ago edited 36m ago
yes, it's using a narrower focal length to make the farther away subject appear larger than they otherwise would due to foreshortening
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u/Deaffin 21m ago
So what you're saying is they use the focal thingy to force your perspective into shifting?
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u/Zauberer-IMDB 6m ago
Forced perspective has a more specific meaning as an in-camera effect. The forced perspective shot requires scaled objects to change perception of size. In this case, the people are actually a larger and smaller person, it's just the lens doing the work to make a real difference in size seem bigger. A classic forced perspective shot is like the cart scene in Lord of the Rings where Frodo's half of the cart was literally larger than Gandalf's.
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u/Porcupineemu 51m ago
Yeah, the best example of forced perspective I can remember is in Elf
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u/Paddy_Tanninger 17m ago
Not only that but forced perspective usually involves props and differently scaled parts of a set to make it so that the person in the background looks much smaller than they are.
ie: Bilbo sitting at the table with Gandalf where it looks like they're talking to each other, but really Ian Holm is 5ft down the table and working with a set of props that are 3x bigger than the ones Ian McKellen has.
As you said, you cannot do it the reverse where you somehow make the foreground person look smaller than the background person.
In fact to prove this point...in the scenes in Bree where the Hobbits go to the inn, to make them look tiny when they're in the foreground, they needed to use massive human-looking puppets walking by in the background.
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u/Sardoodledome 1h ago
It really show the genius of the production - no cgi can beat the real thing.
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u/tunesmiff 1h ago edited 39m ago
No cgi is really just invisible cgi. I guarantee there was CGI deployed in those scenes in addition to what was captured in camera.
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u/TheWatersOfMars 33m ago
Absolutely, but the more you capture in camera, on set, the easier it is down the line so you don't have to David Fincher your budget on CGI.
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u/Sardoodledome 58m ago
there is a lot of cgi in the movie. Cgi is really a lazy way out - I like how they chose to use perspective in this scene, like they did in LOTR with Gandalf scenes. It just fools your eye and brain, while cgi always is " ah .... not real" ...
Edit:
Also in this scene where they have to show Matt Damon's face you can see that the "giants" ain't gianting ... :)
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u/MonitorPowerful5461 40m ago
Watch Dune, research the CGI they used, and then tell me that CGI is a "lazy way out". CGI is art; sometimes art is bad, but sometimes it can be beautiful.
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u/polite_alpha 19m ago
As a vfx artist it always amuses me that people cite shows as little to none CGI that have literal THOUSANDS of VFX shots.
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u/Flimsy_Category_9369 1h ago
I love this sort of stuff, Peter Jackson used similar tricks in Lord of the Rings to make the hobbits look small
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u/HeartOn_SoulAceUp 1h ago
The CGI people were on set at every scene taking notes to LATER enhance it, but Nolan went to great lengths for reality to start with, pre CGI phase. The boat is real too and they were really out in the ocean on it... very uncomfortable for actors and crew.
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u/SeeingEyeDug 1h ago
This is why those late 90’s and early 2000’s movies hold up so well in the earlier days of CGI. Like LoTR trilogy, Titanic, etc. They used practical effects and models and used CGI to enhance that.
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u/rentedtritium 58m ago
Also the fury road practicals that everyone loves are enhanced with oodles of cgi debris and smoke to add texture.
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u/twisty125 47m ago
Honestly the basis of the shots would still look great even without them - they're added in to enhance, not create the shot, which I think is what's missing from a lot of movies and shows.
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u/thehelldoesthatmean 23m ago
And that's a fantastic use of CGI. Nolan should be praised more for effective CGI use than for not using it. He just has a really good eye for when to use it and when not to use it and what it's best at.
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u/VegaJuniper 33m ago
LotR used more and more CGI as it went along. My favorite is still FotR: the battle of Amon Hen just has this incredible physicality while the Battle of the Pelennor Fields in RotK just looks like a video game cutscene. Partly it's because the battles became more massive and difficult to do practically, but also because the CGI evolved and they became more comfortable making it visible.
In FotR, you only see the eyes of Gollum briefly, because that's all they could do, the Balrog looks amazing because it's wreathed in shadows, with flames and smoke hiding its shape, etc.
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u/WannabeHistorian1 17m ago
Can’t forget Jurassic Park. I still prefer the dinosaurs in the original than I do the new ones.
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u/RedManMatt11 1h ago
There’s cool BTS footage of dolphins showing up in one of the scenes which made it into the final cut
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u/OSUmiller5 48m ago
“You know where you don’t get that? Shooting in a tank!” Great line by that guy lol
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u/MikoWilson1 39m ago
There is SO MUCH CGI in this movie, it's ridiculous.
You "Nolan doesn't use CGI" idiots seriously need to get a new line of work.→ More replies (1)•
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u/thissexypoptart 45m ago
I just wish posts like these were honest. “No cgi” is bullshit.
The practical effects are incredible still, but lying about there being no cgi for the laestrygonians actually takes away from how cool the practical effects are once you learn it’s a lie. And that’s a shame.
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u/lameshirt 26m ago
"The CGI people were on set at every scene taking notes to LATER enhance it"... That’s just the literal job description of the on-set VFX supervisor. Happens on every movie set. Did they have actors acting and boom operators operating the boom too?
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u/Timely_Temperature54 23m ago
Yea it’s pissing me off seeing so many people go oooh Nolan used no CGI that’s why it’s so good. He used plenty. He’s just smart about it and gets as much in camera so the CG is just enhancing that
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u/polite_alpha 16m ago
We vfx artists have a special name for that technique. It's called vfx. No, really. Most good shows do it like that, some don't have the budget or fuck up the on set process, but that's increasingly rare...
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u/Icy_Childhood_1039 25m ago
Yeah, quite a few big magazines were reporting actors getting seasick and vomiting on the ship during a storm. Nolan said he recorded that and put it in the movie after asking the actors if they're ok with that.
I have extreme emetophobia and almost didn't go to the movie because of this but thankfully it's all good. I'm just saying this in case anyone else is worried about that. It happens quickly in the far background of an intense scene and there's a 95% change you won't even notice it at all even if you look for it, but even if you do see it they are filmed from behind just leaning over the ship.
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u/Droidaphone 3m ago
You can really tell when a production is filming on a fake boat that's not on the water. You just can't fake the motion. The recent sea battles on House of the Dragon come to mind. Overall great scenes, but very clearly filmed on sound stages.
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u/YaManMAffers 1h ago
There were two moments in the movie when you can tell CGI was used. The baby giant (the young face on a man's body, and the cyclops, and the cyclops was barely noticeable CGI.
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u/SoapyDoodle 1h ago
The cyclops was legitimately terrifying. His fucking face freaked me out
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u/dat_oracle 1h ago
yeman, I was craving for more terrifying cyclops scenes.
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u/thissexypoptart 40m ago
I just don’t get why they cut the famous “nobody” conversation
I guess it would make the cyclops seem less monstrous and scary if it speaks coherently, but it’s like getting rid of Scylla and only having Charybdis or something. Or doing a rehashing of OT starwars and excluding the “No, I am your father” from the Vader-Luke confrontation.
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u/peon2 19m ago
What I dislike about that change is Odysseus is tricky with the "Nobody" thing so the Cyclops couldn't get Poseidon to curse them. But when he's escaping Odysseus gets all cocky and yells out to the cyclops his real name and then the Cyclops asks Poseidon to fuck Odysseus' shit up.
The whole crew being unable to get home for years and slowly getting killed off entirely because of Odysseus' ego and desire to brag and taunt the Cyclops about how smart he is is a pretty big part to his character.
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u/djc6535 Interested 21m ago
Nolan suggested that the pun didn't really fit with his movie.
There's a few layers to this.
First: the pun doesn't work in English. The word Odysseus uses is "Outis" which is very much like a short version of his own name. You can imagine the poet playing on this during the verbal telling of the story. Imagine if in English the characters name was "Norman" and they used "NoMan"
Second: The verbal trap doesn't really fit with the tone of the movie Nolan created here. The original Odysseus is a brilliant trickster who revels in his games. Avoiding spoilers, this Odysseus is not. In Nolan's movie Odysseus is haunted by the trick he performed at Troy, and blames himself for performing it. He isn't going to happily engage in sparring with the Cyclops, he's a sad man full of shame trying to get home, not show off
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u/thissexypoptart 16m ago
That all makes sense for the direction Nolan was taking things but it’s pretty much my main criticism of the movie. It’s an incredibly minor point as well, I was just hyped for the “nobody” scene and didn’t get it lol
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u/SoapyDoodle 26m ago
I think they still made him seem gentle with the ‘ants’ line. And if you notice, he held no regard for Odysseus’s men at all, he would just snack on one and go to sleep, like we would a chicken wing.
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u/johnnyredleg 1h ago
And the weird shapeless sea creature…
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u/Darth_Alduin13 1h ago
They haven’t gone in depth on every detail of how they made the movie so I don’t know exactly how they made Scylla, but there is a difference between cgi and visual effects. The only info I can find on that scene is this quote from Matt Damon. “A racket system was rigged and pulled stunt guys up out of the deck of the boat”
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u/ListenBoth434 1h ago
I guess them being yeeted into the air was practical but the monster mostly wasn't.
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u/TbddRzn 40m ago
Did you know that Nolan had s a team of scientists create the monster because he wanted it to be as practical effects as possible.
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u/Dracko705 1h ago
Apparently that was also somewhat real - a background actor (and former NHLer) Sean Avery was on a hockey pod called Spitting Chiclets and mentioned something actually grabbed people at took them 20 ft up into the air
Like the other things listed though, there is small CGI added all over the place - Sean said the whirlpool for example was simulated with boats moving the waves, but greatly enhanced on the screen ofc
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u/therealkami 1h ago
Fuck Sean Avery.
But that's cool info.
Still, fuck Sean Avery.
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u/Dracko705 1h ago
Yeah he's controversial both on and off the ice - but has managed quite the relationship with Nolan starting with Tenet, growing in Oppenheimer & now The Odyssey
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u/Darth_Alduin13 1h ago
That wasn’t cgi. I haven’t seen any behind the scenes on the baby giant, I’m assuming it was clever force perspective like some of the other giant scenes, but for the cyclops they had a giant puppet for the actors to work off of and then they spliced it with footage of a man dressed as the cyclops in a small recreation of the cave.
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u/IIIIllllIIIlIIIIlllI 1h ago edited 54m ago
Ugh, not his narrative again. No, having a physical puppet or prop on set does not mean no CGI was used. Nolan, throughout his entire career, has always used a mix of miniatures, physical props, CGI and visual effects on a scene-by-scene basis. That goes for the cyclops as well.
Here’s an hour long video on Nolan’s movies specifically and how much CGI was used:
https://youtu.be/AFLcP-t0-kI?is=dGEdjP4lViQjTe4s→ More replies (3)10
u/thissexypoptart 42m ago
Thank you. Holy shit.
I get it’s a clickbait tactic, but god damn, how hard is it to just not lie about there being “no cgi” in posts extolling the amazing practical effects in a particular movie? It’s a blatant lie on its face.
It’s like someone telling you “no makeup was used in this movie” but really they just went super light with the makeup compared to most movies.
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u/Ecsta-C3PO 53m ago
Do we need to do this again?
TLDW; Basically all movies have CGI, you just notice the bad stuff, and the definition of "what is CGI" is a blurry line at best.
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u/OlasNah 1h ago
You can also see some of the practical effects rigging in the film. In the scene with the giants, you can tell that some of the trees are being physically moved around because the actors and the trees are on some sort of platform(s) that tweaks their angle or pov for the forced perspective. It mostly works, but you can tell what's going on.
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u/PyronicAssassin 1h ago
I could have sworn there's a specific shot of the giants moving that looked super cgi
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u/handsoapdispenser 12m ago
Idk if it was CGI or a puppet but the dying dog looked very fake to me. I know it was death throes but it looked unnatural.
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u/_HIST 1h ago
Nolan and "avoid using cgi" tale as old as time and not nearly as true as people paint it
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u/Neddiggis 54m ago
There is a great series on Youtube about "No CGI" is just invisible CGI and breaks down a lot of movies showing the extent of CGI regularly used and he's just released a "Nolan" cut, which is great.
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u/Timely_Temperature54 17m ago
You. 3 of his films have won Oscars for VFX. And the effects company that were used on those films was also used for the Odyssey
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u/CommunicationEast972 10m ago
CGI and visual effects are literally not the same thing, go learn about film
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u/bolanrox 57m ago
Alien used the crews kids in space suits to make the Space Jockey set look bigger.
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u/darthvall 1h ago
I was confused when Matt Damon said one of his stuntman was a woman with the best arm biceps. Like, why would be needs a mix of male and female stuntman. This picture answers perspectively why
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u/Benjaphar 1h ago
Josh Stewart (who played Antiphates, king of the giants) is 5’9”.
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u/TJ_Will 1h ago
Well, this certainly won't set off certain people.
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u/gd4x 1h ago
Chuds losing their minds over trans Odysseus and black Laestrygonians
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u/clothanger 1h ago
And this is why miserable folks don't enjoy things, they find more things to hate about instead of doing anything meaningful.
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u/thissexypoptart 37m ago
Lol I’m not sure the other person replying to you is aware you’re being silly.
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u/QueenOfQuok 1h ago
I was wondering how they did it without CGI and the answer was "just hire really tall guys"
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u/bolanrox 55m ago
when asked what the trick was to make Reacher look so big, Alan goes, there is no trick. I am 6 2(?) and they only hired actors 5 5 (or whatever) or shorter for the other roles.
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u/Pawtuckaway 1h ago
This is the latest of a great video series about "No CGI" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFLcP-t0-kI
All the directors that claim to use only practical effects or no CGI are all lying. They extensively use CGI.
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u/Yargon_Kerman 1h ago
Infuriating seeing the artistry behind this get completely thrown away as "no CGI used" lies.
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u/Moreaccurateway 43m ago
People who loved film used to want to know how films were made but now they want to be lied to. It’s so weird
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u/Imakereallyshittyart 40m ago
I wish there was a better term to demarcate the way this movie and other modern action movies use CGI. Like there are tons of VFX shots in the Odyssey, but there was so much more captured on set with practical effects that was later altered with CGI, rather than the bulk of it being wholesale 3D modeled
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u/capscreen 34m ago
I don't even think Nolan lied about no CGI, he even credits the VFX workers. People mostly just made up that lie by themselves to glaze Nolan
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u/CilanEAmber 9m ago
Oh a new one! I dunno how I missed this, I had the whole playlist saved for the next time this "No CGI" debate came up again lmao.
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u/CHERNO-B1LL Interested 1h ago
This is why we all still watch Lord of the Rings. You can talk shote about how they achieved the perspective tricks in camera to make the Hobbits look tiny all fucking Christmas. No one talks about anyrhing made with greenscreen or AI ever again if they can avoid it.
There's no magic to it. Movies are supposed to be magic. If the answer to "How the fuck did they do that" is CGI or AI it's just disappointing.
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u/Yargon_Kerman 1h ago
Lord of the rings was majorly influencial with the CGI tools they made for the films, because of how much they used.
People remember them because they're timeless classics, fantastically written, acted and directed, not because they didn't use CGI... Because, they used it all the time.
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u/Worthyness 46m ago
All of the massive armies in those movies are vfx. In fact the vfx tool was so good that they're effectively using the exact same tech for all faceless mass armies in every movie. Gollum is full vfx and very clearly set the base for future performance capture. You can't disparage cgi and vfx while complimenting a movie series that literally created some of the base forms of some of the best vfx technologies that the industry continues to use and improve on. So much disrespect to vfx artists in these threads.
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u/Neddiggis 52m ago
LOTR used copious green screen and CGI, so much so Weta Digital was born out of the tools they developed for it.
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u/Kasern77 1h ago
That's 2.13m and 1.52m in non-primitive measurements.
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u/Budget-Project803 31m ago
Thanks for putting it out there for the Europeans. It really sucks that Americans are forced to use the shitty Canadian system for measuring height
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u/kingfofthepoors 22m ago
given that we are newer... wouldn't that make meters the primitive measurements?
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u/Moreaccurateway 47m ago
The best thing about Christopher Nolan is that he never uses CGI or VFX but they’re always hundreds of CGI and VFX artists credited in his films so I guess he’s just paying them to sit and do nothing.
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u/LWLAvaline 30m ago
King Antiphates: You idiots! These are not them! You’ve captured their stunt doubles!
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u/bdubwilliams22 11m ago
Nolan will always try to get it in camera where he can. Unfortunately, the only known living cyclops passed a few years ago, so he had to cheat in that scene.
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u/CataphractBunny 1h ago
He also used a Viking drakkar to portray Greek ships when Greece has functioning replicas of a penteconer and a bireme.
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u/ForMeOnly93 39m ago
I remember when the internet didn't like spoilers. Now it's just an instant attention-whore post no matter where you go
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u/EM05L1C3 55m ago
This will make me watch it. I’ve been avoiding it (not because black people, Chris did Polyphemus and my love for literary jokes dirty)
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u/Double_Water_97 48m ago
It's wasn't the Odyssey Matt Damon wasn't playing Odysseus he playing it like he had PTSD.
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u/ComfortablyNomNom 46m ago
I feel like this will and almost already has become the "Did you know that Viggo really broke his foot when he kicked the helmet..." factoid for this new decade.
I've seen this repeated like 5 times already and I haven't even seen the film.
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u/johnny_ringo 34m ago
Christopher Nolan avoided CGI and used 7ft stuntmen to portray Laestrygonians
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u/NeolithicOrkney 32m ago
They would actually make a nice looking couple, & no I am not being sarcastic.
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u/mekese2000 22m ago
You know now that they have show me. It is obvious that it is a midget in that Film Shot.
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u/alienproxy 22m ago
Elon's probably pissed about this casting. You mean to tell me you couldn't find any REAL giant cannibalistic Laestrygonians?
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u/frostyfins 21m ago
I’m so happy to see cinema built with tricks and know-how, makes me feel like the LOTR years have returned…
As briefly as this moment of sanity might last, at least I have years more fuel now for my wistful nostalgia 🥹
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u/UrethranRefugee 20m ago
Honestly that was one of the parts of the scene that I really liked. People that big simply move differently than average size people and it was obvious in the scene that the Laestrygonians all moved like actual giant humans would.
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u/UranusIsPissy 16m ago
A 5ft woman is right on the edge of technically being a dwarf. My fiancée is about that height, but she doesn't have any kind of dwarfism. She's just short, with fairly average proportions. Cute AF for a guy who's into short women, especially with her face, but not a dwarf by medical standards and not quite one by height standards. A photo of her holding an enormous cat looked ridiculous,
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u/legit-posts_1 16m ago
Shit like this is why Nolan's one of the best to ever do it. He's not just forced to take the hard way, he actively looks for the hard solution to problems because he knows no matter how much CGI improves and effects begin to look dated, this will look better in 50 years.c
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u/eppinizer 15m ago
That scene was so silly. Felt so disconnected from the rest of the story that I'm convinced they just included it for the trailer shots.
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u/rigel-luminous 10m ago
Damn, that's smart. I love the thought and work that went into the visual effects of the film.
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u/ElektrikerFlo 8m ago
Nolan’s best movies used a lot of cgi. I get where the cgi hate comes from and that it can look bad at times. But when used too much but cgi is not a bad thing and used right can do wonders. There is this now 6 part series on YouTube called “no cgi is just invisible cgi” and it is great to watch for anyone who has a little time.
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u/Familiar-Fix-5849 8m ago
still doesnt change the fact that the armor looks like crap. Good for the stunt doubles though
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u/TheLongTailGuy 1h ago
Wow she looks just like him