CG movies losing their edge?

[Doublehex]

[URL=http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/business/media/03animation.html?_r=1&oref=slogin][b]Thats what the NY Times are saying[/b][/URL], and frankly, I've got to agree with them. Over the year, there must of been at least a dozen CGI movies either releashed or announced, and its starting to get a tad boring. I remember when I was a kid, and Toy Story had just came out. I begged my parents to take us to see it for weeks, if only because it was different. Back then, CGI was cool. Now though, CGI is just another medium - its not this big dazzling thing it used to be back in the good ol' days.

So, what are your opinions on the matter?

[kalon]

There aren't many instances of CG movies that I care for. (I'm talking full CG animation, not effects.) Disney apparently isn't doing the hand-drawn animation movies at all anymore, and that just depresses me. What happened to films like The Little mermaid and The Fox and the Hound? There's an appeal to old time animation that current films don't have.

Much like my posts tend to be, movies nowadays are repetitive. The only CG movie I've really liked in the past few years was Shrek, but that was good because of the story and the comedy and the acting, not because it wowed me with its effects.

But of course, the big companies who know us so very well can see that we hate originality, and and that we really love to see computer generated fauna do the same things over and over and over again.

[John]

That article requires an account at NY Times to access, so I can't go off of it, but CGI kids' movies haven't had any "edge" to speak of for at least the last ten or so titles. I think we can definitely dismiss the genre as sucked dry now that the writers have gotten to a point where so much creativity is lost that the only new things differentiating one movie from the last are 1) some pathetic new theme that nobody else has gotten around to pulling out of their ***** yet, such as robots or cars, and 2) a title that, almost every time, is simply that theme restated in the most unimaginitive way possible, such as [u]Robots[/u] or [u]Cars[/u]. Go figure.

Put simply: these people have no drive to creat an actual, quality film, because they know the primary audience (or more accurately, the primary money pump) is kids, and kids won't be writing lit papers comparing its characters to protagonists from Moby Dick. As soon as the filmmakers figured this out, they immediately halted every bit of effort in making these things into real, decent films, started slapping together the same brightly-colored ****, and called it a day.

I guess at least [u]The Incredibles[/u] allowed the whole genre to go out with a bang.

[DeadSeraphim]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]CG hasn't lost it's edge, it's just become overstaturated. Almost all new animated films released theatrically are CG now, and it's understandable that the 'genre' is looking like it's lost it's touch. When the 'great' CG titles were released, back when Pixar were the only ones taking it seriously, they were the only things around, and the great scripts helped that. Now that production companies have seen how cheap it can be to produce a CG title in comparison to traditional 2D they use CG predominantly, especially because CG has much higher returns than 2D. Would you have been interested in Shrek or The Incredibles if it was 2D? Probably not, the CG made the experience. Production companies know this, and so they use it far more often than they would for 2D, and as such a lot of bad comes with the good.

Just like any other genre, really.[/font][/color][/size]

[Claire]

[FONT=Arial]I don't know if they're losing their edge as much as we're growing older. I'll use the example of the TV show, All That. Remember the good old days, with Lori Beth Denberg and Danny Tamborelli? When it was actually funny? Did the show itself become boring and stupid, or did we just grow up and realize how boring and stupid it is? (I don't remember where I read that which I just paraphrased, but I think it makes a good point).

So, did CG movies become dull and repetitive, or have they always been so, and we just realized it with age and maturity?

Another point, though, is that I'd still watch 2D Disney movies if I really felt like it. Those are timeless, and I still love them even though I'm fifteen. (Except for the ones I hated when I was younger. I still hate those). So, does the growing-up-and-realizing theory only apply to CG movies?

As for movies with CG effects, I haven't really seen that many. I know my friend was putting down League of Extraordinary Gentlemen because it used "way too much" CG effects. I don't care about that, and it remains one of my favorite movies. Though it's probably just cos' of the vampire.

I wouldn't be the person any movie company using CG effects should ask on the subject, though; the last movie I saw in theatres was the Producers last year, and there really hasn't been anything new that has interested me. All my most favorite movies were made in the 80s and early 90s, and that was when CG technology wasn't as good.[/FONT]

[Papa Smurf]

[quote name='DeadSeraphim][size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]CG hasn't lost it's edge, it's just become overstaturated.[/font][/color'][/size][/quote] Not really. If you don't think CG has lost its edge, and that the lame CG offerings of late are just due to oversaturation, compare Robots to Toy Story. The difference in quality is mind-boggling. If CG lameness was due to oversaturation, even Pixar would be suffering a hell of a lot more than it is. I agree with John that Cars was trite and annoying and obviously not up to the usual Pixar caliber.

There's a very clear decline in film quality here, and that's not because of oversaturation; it's because Pixar are the ****** masters, whereas everyone else is two-bit hacks.

But I will agree there's an oversaturation here. It's oversaturation of the Shrek variety. It's impossible to watch Shrek 1&2 and not be bombarded with what have become dated pop culture-isms and fast food ads. It's annoying as hell and that kind of bloated "OMFG lets use this reference" is what began sinking the industry.

Funny now Pixar's films rarely have "Sir Justin" posters and those films are regarded as the best in the genre. There's more to the wide-spread acclaim than just that, of course, but I still think audiences pick-up on that crap in the Shreks of the genre.

PLUS, if anyone still doubts why the genre is sucking now, off the top of anyone's head, which actors have done voice work for Robots or Over The Hedge? How many can you name? Now which actors did voice work for Pixar's The Incredibles or Monster's Inc? I don't know about you guys, but I sure as hell remember the voice actors in Pixar films a hell of a lot better than any of the other studios'.

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Papa Smurf']PLUS, if anyone still doubts why the genre is sucking now, off the top of anyone's head, which actors have done voice work for Robots or Over The Hedge? How many can you name? Now which actors did voice work for Pixar's The Incredibles or Monster's Inc? I don't know about you guys, but I sure as hell remember the voice actors in Pixar films a hell of a lot better than any of the other studios'.[/quote]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]I know [B]Robots[/B] had that one dude from all those boring comedy movies, and [B]Over the Hedge [/B] has [B]Steve Carell [/B] who is kewl. I dunno about the other two... but that's not relevant really >_<

I think CG has just become the new animated movie. Since the CG wave came about, there has yet to be an animated movie in american theaters that I can remember.

After the success of[B] Finding Nemo [/B] (amazing movie, BTW) and [B]Shrek[/B] all the other guys saw a bandwagon and didn't hesitate to hop on.

I agree that back when CG was 't3h shiz' with [B]Toy Story [/B] and pretty much only[B] Pixar [/B] doing them, things were much better. Also, the only CG movies that really got popular were the [B]Disney[/B] ones... there were a few others that were good but not all that popular (I liked [B]ANTZ[/B]...) but now CG is the thing so it gets attention.

The way I see it, the abundance of crapy CG kids movies is the same as the abundance of crappy animated kids movies. Kids movies just have a hig tendency to suck because what kids find funny, we find 'trite and annoying'

Of course, the studios still suck for making these movies. It's always a cast of animals doing something dumb, usually in the human world. There's always one animal that's in abundance, one that's cute and does silly things, and a large cast of lame charachters.

The worst part is the way they grab desperately onto the coattails of the movie before them. [B]The Wild [/B] was a direct copy of [B]Madagascar[/B]. And, because of all the damn penguins in Madagascar, we now have to deal with [B]Happy Feet[/B]. :rolleyes:

In any event, there are still some good ones which sneek in just like with live action movies. I don't know if it counts, but there was [B]A Scanner Darkly[/B], and [B]The Increadibles [/B] was great as well. [/COLOR]

[Doublehex]

I WOULD agree with you on a scanner darkly, if it was actually releashed in North Carolina. Thing is, it wasn't, which really sucks cuz I was really looking forward to it. I don't even understand why it was a limited release - it must of costed a large sum of money, and as far as I understand, limited releases will probably not bring any real profit to WB.

[DarkFactor]

Most genres have alot of staple crap productions. I think there that CG will evolve tremendously in the future because there are a whole generation of people currently mastering computer animation who don't work for the disney-mac conglomerates. I don't think the genre is dying or loosing its luster. I think its just in need of a regrouping and some new blood. There are alot of awsome short CG and foreign CG movies out there. CG is often just used as another tool in anime and combined with cell shading. Or great films are produced like FF7. In any case... Its a young medium still, and I htink we'll see it explode as technology increases.

[Guest valiantsword16]

[QUOTE=2006DigitalBoy][COLOR=DarkOrange]

In any event, there are still some good ones which sneek in just like with live action movies. I don't know if it counts, but there was [B]A Scanner Darkly[/B], and [B]The Increadibles [/B] was great as well. [/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[FONT=Comic Sans MS][SIZE=2]What's 'A Scanner Darkly'?[/SIZE][/FONT]