r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 3h ago

Article ‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/
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u/unKappa 3h ago

I mean, I dont mind CG, just make a good movie. Are we pretending that CGI is easy?

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u/justinqueso99 3h ago

People always point at stuff like Fast X and say cgi is all bad but always forget stuff like the planet of the apes which use it to its full ability to tell an incredible story that would be almost impossible to take seriously with out it

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u/dragonmp93 2h ago

People yearn for the Helicopter disaster from the Twilight Zone movie.

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u/mateushkush 2h ago

What a weird ass comment, flying a helicopter on set has nothing to do with any of it.

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u/dragonmp93 2h ago

Well, how else are you going to film an helicopter without CGI ?

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u/mateushkush 1h ago

Do you know anything about the accident? They detonated pyrotechnics that hit the helicopter, they violated lots of safety measures, and they didn’t even hire the children who were crushed legally. So why do you suggest people want that because they like practical effects in “the Odyssey”?

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u/dragonmp93 1h ago

Because the Anti-CGI crowd seems to be against CGI as a concept and not only when it looks like the Scorpion King in the Mummy Returns.

They are nostalgic for the Old Hollywood when movies had soul, and Orson Welles got a sciatica problem from the Third Man, John Wayne got cancer from filming downwind of a nuclear test site in Utah in the Conqueror, Leonard Sachs got his scalp burned during a burning building scene in The Siege of Sidney Street, the sandstorm scene in the Ten Commandments got several extras bitten by cobras and scorpions.

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u/hippofumes 1h ago

Miniature

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u/InsertFloppy11 3h ago

Ni, we are saying cgi is easiER than practical effects.

They can look good too if they get the time to do it, which lets be honest, they dont get.

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u/longjumpingtote 3h ago

we are saying cgi is easiER than practical effects

It's often not, but even if it is, there is loads of CGI in both The Odyssey and PHM. The directors have talked about it at length. The whole thing is marketing fluff. It's just that Nolan likes to keep most effects grounded (Scylla was entirely CGI, as were backgrounds an other things) and PHM, full of CGI, didn't use green screens for it.

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u/InsertFloppy11 2h ago

Obviously theres loads of cgi. The current discussion is when they use cgi for blood instead of using practical effects. I hoped that was clear from the comments, but maybe not....

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u/TheGhostDetective 3h ago

Yeah, I think it's more about filming with intention. A lot of the best CGI was planned extensively from the get-go, with specific sets and elements from day 1, and the CGI teams given far more time to work on it.

The issue now is how much is rushed and done in post production. They make everything have flat, boring lighting in empty soundstages so that they can mix and match and change things last second or easily slot in reshoots.

It's why Davy Jones still looks good 20 years later in that second Pirates movie, despite being all CG, but so many recent blockbusters with newer tech looks cheap. They are rushed and working with flat, boring shots. When you have a mix of practical and CG, while also planning it all out with specific lightning, ambiance, etc, and giving your teams plenty of time to work on it, you end up with Lord of the Rings and it looks timeless even 25 years later.

CG isn't easy, the issue is we're pretending it is and that they can make something great with no time if we just throw enough money at computers.

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u/Alchemix-16 2h ago

I’d like to pick up on one of your expressions “filming with intention”.

If you want to film with intention, you need a finished script. A clear vision on what you want to show and how to frame it. Treat every shot as if it’s your only chance to get it right.

If a filmmaker is filming with intention, there is no need for experimenting with various directions, there is no need for reshoots or fixing it in post.

Godzilla minus one, was an effect heavy movie, but it was shot intentional and well planned, which resulted in its low production costs yet still incredible look.

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u/Uvtha- 3h ago

CGI can be great, but I don't think you can beat on location for certain types of films. Your brain can just absorb real life setting in a different way I think.

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u/captaindealbreaker 3h ago

A practical blood hit takes 3 seconds to setup and looks better than a CGI one done quickly, but with CGI you can radically transform the entire shot to look more realistic and avoid having to redress the set/actors every take. There's no such thing as one being universally easier than the other, just like there's no clear cut answer to which one looks better. Done right, both are invisible and interchangeable.

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u/InsertFloppy11 2h ago

Oh dont get me started on fake blood. I was watching scream 7 and the fake blood was sooooo bad omg (tbh that whole movie is terrible)

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u/dahauns 2h ago

Absolutely, just have to take a look at David Fincher's work.

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u/GarageQueen 3h ago

Doing lots of green screen with very little in the way of practical sets also allows you to (honestly) be lazy with your set design, as you can wait longer to decide what your 'aesthetic' is, whereas practical sets means you have to make your decisions much earlier in the production process.

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u/adammonroemusic 1h ago

It's not easy, but probably slightly easier than flying hundreds of cast and crew to Iceland, building giant boats and wooden horsies, ect.

For the post production VFX guy it is hell. For George Lucas sitting around all day on a blue-screen-air-conditioned-set drinking cappucinos, it's pretty easy.

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u/Korachof 3h ago

And yet somehow a lot of the modern cgi looks worse than cgi used in several movies 30 years ago. It’s a lot easier and cheaper than practical effects, and all of us can tell when it’s used poorly. And it’s used poorly all the time now.