#no cgi

Jurassic Park

Jaws

The Dark Knight

Alien

Return of the Jedi

UP

The Mandalorian

I think that the 8th episode in particular confirmed that the issue that people have with CGI in Marvel shows is not about whether or not CGI was used. It’s about when the use of CGI distracts from the story, and distances audiences from the characters and stakes.

When Jen takes her power back from Agatha, they could have opted to make it some crazy mega battle between her and Agatha. They could have made it a big spectacle. But they didn’t. They chose to make it a personal, intimate moment where Jen takes her power back through her conviction (and Sasheer gets to show off her amazing dramatic chops).

Then, we get the CGI moment with Jen’s glowing magic. But it hits. We are emotionally connected to Jen and we’re excited to see that magic glow. There’s no “ugh, they’re using CGI” moment - because who cares??? It’s just a filmmaking tool, and it works perfectly here because we’re so connected with Jen’s story that it doesn’t take us out of the story.

Then when Billy is blasting Agatha with his magic, and she’s taking it from him. We’re not sitting there thinking “ugh CGI magic” either. We’re wondering if she’s going to betray him, watching the purple overtake the blue and willing her to let go and control it.

When Agatha kisses Death — the effects perfectly augment this moment, and make it better. Watching the black veins on Agatha’s face is a perfect touch to tell the story of what’s happening. Seeing her fade away to smoke looks COOL. It’s a beautiful moment and the VFX tells the story. It goes hand-in-hand with the moment.

When Agatha is covered with the plants - I don’t know if they were CGI or if they used some other kind of comp VFX and/or timelapse thing (my instincts think CGI but who knows). But it honestly doesn’t matter. Because A.) It looks good and B.) It is once again about the visual storytelling.

“Armored Trooper IPHONE”

Behold my first PARODY animation, based on the OP sequence from the anime “Armored Trooper VOTOMS” 

Forced Perspective

Some advise to Warner, Fox, Marvel and any other studio producing superhero movies.

LOWER BUDGETS - it’s insane to risk a quarter of a billion dollars on a film. “Deadpool” and “Logan” proved you can make comic films for less than $100 million and still make an incredible ROI. Too much money in your budget leads to unnecessary excess.

NO CGI VILLAINS - just look at the incredibly bad CGI used to create Steppenwolf, Dormandu, Abomination, Doomsday, Thanos and others. Who approved that? Real actors are far more effective and popular then pixels. Everyone looks forward to the next appearance of Loki but who wants another film with Ultron?!?

LESS CGI - do you really think audiences can’t tell when you replace an actor with a CGI double? Or what about those weird alien tendrils at the end of “Justice League”? Terrible. And Spider-man looked more like Gumby then human in Homecoming. Find real and practical ways of doing action scenes.