When I say 'Push the envelope', I kinda mean in terms of believability, too.
It's kinda like the T-Rex demo that shipped with the PlayStation. Or the first time you saw a replay in Gran Turismo.
When you look back on these things now they look archaic in comparison to today's real-time visuals, but at the time just about everybody was staring at that screen, jaws agape saying "This is it, this is as good as graphics will ever get". I remember distinctly commenting on how photo realistic it all was.
It's like a weird cognitive disconnection that occurs when you see something so far beyond anything that you're used to seeing that your brain gets dazzled by having nothing of similar scope to compare it to.
Michael Bay's shit is technically impressive, yeah. But it's like watching an uninteresting tech demo or a benchmarking loop. It's too polished and clinical to ever be mistaken for anything other than CGI.
I wish there could be a practical effects resurgence. It'll clearly never happen in mainstream cinema, as the costs/timelines would be astronomical compared to doing everything on a bank of workstations, but there was just something so wonderful about the puppetry and animatronics of the 80's especially that we just haven't got back since.
We certainly don't need trendy Milleninerds trying to improve on 'old' films that they've deemed dated. Fuck that. What's next, colourising Citizen Kane?
(, Thu 25 Nov 2021, 20:49, Share, Reply)
