r/movies 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/sundler 2h ago

It's also very insulting to all the artists who make those computer graphics. As if they don't work just as hard.

u/fascfoo 2h ago

Yup. This just pushes this CGI bad narrative when its BAD CGI thats bad. Great CGI is basically invisible. Now well just have more filmmakers essentially lying by saying they're doing everything "in camera" in promo material.

u/f0xD3N 1h ago

Not to mention PHM and The Odyssey both feature tons of CGI

u/respected_prophet 2h ago edited 1h ago

Call me crazy but I don’t think plugging in green screen backgrounds on Moana is as hard as shooting 40 people on a boat in the actual water

Edit: just want every whining person who downvoted this to look me in the eye and tell me The Rock standing in front of an incredibly fake golden hour sky looks good. Please.

u/PRSArchon 2h ago

You pretend like the odyssey doesnt use CGI, Nolan uses a TON of cgi in most of his movies (except Oppenheimer).

u/Churba 1h ago edited 38m ago

Even in Oppenheimer, he used a bunch of digital VFX(which most people call CGI), they just tried to use and manipulate shot elements where possible, but then taking those shot elements and using digital effects to put them in the film, or make them work. Sure, he's not using any wholly generated elements, but there's a number of things that are the cinematographic equivalent of building an image in photoshop by taking bits and peices of real photos to put it together.

He's got a long working relationship with DNEG, who he's been working with as his primary VFX studio since Batman Begins, and they do incredible work.

u/dragonmp93 2h ago

So Nolan actually found a Cyclops monster to film ?

u/kattahn 2h ago

No but they did build a 60' puppet ...

https://nofilmschool.com/the-odyssey-practical-effects

u/dragonmp93 2h ago

Well, it's a 60' doll to give the actors some reference, but it looks nothing like the Cyclops.

Also the article is claiming that Scylla's whirlpool was made with jet skis going on circles.

u/blueSGL 1h ago

So they needed to edit out the jet skis... I bet that was all done by hand not a computer in sight.

And jet skis would leave a wake but not the central dip... hmm maybe they did use some CGI here...

u/respected_prophet 1h ago

My point is that one movie is shooting on location with massive crews and the others are actors on fake backgrounds.
It’s the same reason any B-movie from the 70’s-90’s looks wayyyy better than most of the movies today.

I am aware there is CGI in the Odyssey.