There's been a lot of talk of bad special effects and CGI in films over the past couple years (reading The Flash is also a victim here), so here's a thread dedicated to it.

Every film I've seen since 2020 has had several moments of poor VFX/CGI or just poor VFX/CGI all throughout. The only exception might be Doctor Strange 2, which was largely good throughout with minor exceptions. (I haven't seen Avatar 2 or Guardians 3 yet among heavy VFX/CGI films lately.)

The most common form of this has been the green screen backdrops; they're awful in recent years. I can get engrossed in a film easily, but when it's very clear the actors are standing in front of a green screen, it causes a sudden distraction until the next scene begins.

I strongly believe today's special effects are worse than those from not just 5 years ago, or even 10 years ago, but even 15-20 years ago in many cases. (Green screen backdrops give me late 90s/early 00s vibes at times!)

I watched Spider-Man 3 recently, and while it's use of special effects/CGI is noticeable in parts, it's still quite good and at least on par with most films today, if not better. And there are some films, like the first three Pirates of the Caribbean films (and even the fourth one), King Kong (2005), and Transformers that are strictly better despite being 15-20 years old now. Just to name a few blockbusters.

Special effect studios/artists being overworked is a problem, and the pandemic can be to blame too, but surely we should be seeing some improvement by now, right? We've had films in very long post-production periods lately, and yet it doesn't appear to be helping none whatsoever.

Animation, however, has been amazing. Those aren't included for the most part as they, as a genre, keep getting better.

Yeah it’s weird I don’t understand it.

There were tons of VFX heavy movies for the last decade but it seems only a huge problem post pandemic

It is weird how much visual effects hit the wall the last 20 years compared to how much a difference mid 00s vs mid 80s was.

For Marvel movies looking kind of fake fits the light tone.

too many movies with heavy vfx shots being made. not enough artists/vfx houses to do them. and not enough TIME given to those artists/vfx house to do them properly. EVERYTHING IS BEING RUSHED!

Go back and watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy and you'll see that VFX has always been in the shitter

HOW DARE YOU!!!!

Honestly dude, I watched them all in the last few years and it's shocking how we ever thought it was good. It's not awful, it's just ... dated. But take a look at this:



That's giving me Matrix Reloaded vibes. So even in 2023 they can't get CG right.

War of the Worlds (2005) has better more realistic looking CGI than most films today. And if you want CGI green screen porn, Revenge of the Sith looks better than most Marvel movies. I feel like VFX peaked in the mid/late 2000s because there was still a mix of practical and CGI.

A seemingly lack of practical effects is worth mentioning. When you see clips of behind the scenes anymore for heavy special effects films, it's basically an empty room with people in motion capture suits and such.

Feels like most films are being built on special effects vs having special effects serve as a means of assistance when needed. We'll see if Hollywood hears and acts on the complains of the past couple years. I doubt it... but if starts impacting earnings, then maybe.

Yeah, that's exactly it indeed, from around 2000s they built the CGI in or around the film, altering imagery and what not. While since the last decade or so, they've been green screening the whole film, from costume to every object in it, and that's just too noticable away from realism still. I think we'll probably reach a point where CGI is as good as the real thing and a green screen film will look as good as anything, but right now this tech has felt like back to the 80s lately.

I always used the excuse of "they didn't have enough time" but Flash has been sitting on the burner for several years and every speedforce scene looked worse than Quicksilver's bit in Days of Future Past from ten years ago. Shit they looked worse than the same scenes on the CW show. No more excuses. They are bad cause the studios think that good enough is good enough.

The quicksilver scene was about 90% practical.

TGM was such a magical experience partly because they had so much real work involved with actors filming their own scenes while flying. It was almost fresh to see real stunts.

I'm curious about how generative AI will into all of this too. People are making really cool photos now with algorithms in seconds and video is advancing quickly too as well as sound. I think this is only going to make CGI and VFX in movies more scrutinized as consumer generated work quality improves for what would have otherwise required an effects artist or designer.

I see a boomerang back to live locations and stunt work. One of the biggest jaw dropping movies from a visuals perspective was the last Mad Max because it was so old school style like TGM.

Those are hard to pull off but they make amazing movies that are 10X more enjoyable than these effects heavy spectacles.

Without a doubt the most obvious contrast of yesterday to today is comparing the Pearl Harbor bombing scene in Michael Bay's 2001 film to the same attack scene in Roland Emmerich's 2019 film Midway. Bay's mixture of real/practical with CGI creates a truly stunning experience. Midway is entirely CGI is feels like a horrible video game.

A.I was released over 20 years ago and it has better cgi than anything new today.
Its shocking how these films today that have such a large budget look so cheap.

I’m seeing Haunted Mansion tomorrow. I’ve heard the CGI is not good..,

Indy, Mi7, and Transformers looked good. Flash was godawful at times. I think there is a major off balance right now coming off of the pandemic, because films in 2020-2022 looked better than now and the inflated budgets are showing it, because a lot of those films were finished, then shelved, which is an entirely different thing than stopping mid post production. I think it'll shift back, and some new advances in the mean time will get fleshed out to make 24-25 very interesting.