And The Bad News Is...

CGI: three letters that changed movie-making in ways once unfathomable. Before Computers revolutionized the way we created worlds, and the entire set had to be constructed with pure grit and determination, movie-making was confined to what could be built and taken down in a small period of time. And it wasn’t only a time issue. The process was also limited by space and storage. Large sets were needed to create the films of old, something which has become a thing of the past thanks to powerful technology which allows enormous amounts of data to be stored on the most miniature portable devices.

But even CGI isn’t free of problems. As with everything there is the good and the bad. And when CGI is done badly, you wonder why they didn’t just build the set and be done with it...

You’d think that terrible CGI would be something confined to the low-budget pictures, but here’s the bizarre thing: some of the biggest films—and the biggest studios in the business are no exception to the rule—are badly flawed pieces of junk, too. Why? For several reasons: usually bad CGI can be attributed to the makers wanting to make the film seem as real as possible, in which case the fluid graphics can seem disturbingly realistic, completely out of place, and as fun to watch as a day spent having a sand-blasted Rhytidectomy (face-lift to you and I). Another reason why CGI goes wrong is simple: the filmmakers simply get carried away with the unlimited possibilities on offer, overworking the movie to the point that it seems anything but realistic.