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Nearly 2 years later and District 9's CGI STILL blows my mind

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kehs

Banned
JGS said:
Yep, one thing you can't accuse D9 of is a fish out of water tale and stock cgi characters.

It was wholly original.

Yep.

It was at least entertaining, I hear Avatar was so flat, they decided to literally add a dimension to engage the audience.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
Gotta love it.

You can have a production, filled with tons of incredibly talented people, putting together amazing amounts of work in order to construct one of the most fully fleshed out fictional worlds ever seen in cinema, yet you'll still have people relegating it to "stock" status, essentially negating all the amazing (and rightfully rewarded as so) work done by everyone involved.
 
Dead said:
Gotta love it.

You can have a production, filled with tons of incredibly talented people, putting together amazing amounts of work in order to construct one of the most fully fleshed out fictional worlds ever seen in cinema, yet you'll still have people relegating it to "stock" status, essentially negating all the amazing (and rightfully rewarded as so) work done by everyone involved.

Yet if the same film were an underground anime with original japanese voice dubs, GAF would be in love with it.
 
Dead said:
Gotta love it.

You can have a production, filled with tons of incredibly talented people, putting together amazing amounts of work in order to construct one of the most fully fleshed out fictional worlds ever seen in cinema, yet you'll still have people relegating it to "stock" status, essentially negating all the amazing (and rightfully rewarded as so) work done by everyone involved.
Only a few people are denying Avatar's technical marvel, but you'd be an utter fool to say it's story hasn't been told since the beginning of time. I love the movie (hell, I bought all three versions of it day 1 with no regrets), but recognize its faults.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
TacticalFox88 said:
Only a few people are denying Avatar's technical marvel, but you'd be an utter fool to say it's story hasn't been told since the beginning of time. I love the movie (hell, I bought all three versions of it day 1 with no regrets), but recognize its faults.
He wasn't even referring to the story in regards to "stock," but you won't find me disagreeing either that its underlying core story has been told many times before ;P
 

JGS

Banned
Copernicus said:
It was at least entertaining, I hear Avatar was so flat, they decided to literally add a dimension to engage the audience.
District 9 wasn't entertaining. In fact, very few that have liked it have been able to explain what actually made it entertaining. That's one of the more frustrating things about it, but this isn't the thread for that I suppose.

I will say that the thing you accused Avatar of, D9 is guilty of. It's basically Avatar on a lower budget and uglier aliens and far less interesting characters...with inferior effects.

Whereas Avatar is a superior Ferngully :)lol), D9 is an inferior Avatar.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Avatar is impressive although inconsistent. CGI Sigourney weaver looked like crap. Anytime they used that purple lighting like in the final scenes at the tree looked poor as well. I thought the exterior shots of the spaceship at the beginning were mediocre as well. However everything under sunlight was downright gorgeous and believable.

D9 CGI was very nice given the budget but I feel the alien design helped tremendously. Major props however on getting those ugly prawns delivering emotion - particularly the scene where the kid prawn is told about the new camp.

However, call me old fashioned but that blade runner screencap looks and feels better than Avatar's CGI orgy.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
Although Blade Runner looked mind blowing back in the 80s too, I do think its fair to note that the Screencap of BR is not representative of the film as it was originally released

z1T8b.jpg


It'd be like if 10 years from now, after Cameron re-rendered the entirety of Avatar, someone posted a screencap from the new version to prove how its aged
 
The only thing time Avatar looks off to me is

1. The Earth opening city shot. It looks like all the actors are on a big soundstage. As I understand it, WETA wasn't responsible for doing the effects on that shot.

2. The 'lights out' scene where all the new Avatar drivers put their avatars to sleep for the first time.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
Scullibundo said:
The only thing time Avatar looks off to me is

1. The Earth opening city shot. It looks like all the actors are on a big soundstage. As I understand it, WETA wasn't responsible for doing the effects on that shot.
Its not that it was done by another studio. Its straight up unfinished.
 
Dead said:
Although Blade Runner looked mind blowing back in the 80s too, I do think its fair to note that the Screencap of BR is not representative of the film as it was originally released

snip

It'd be like if 10 years from now, after Cameron re-rendered the entirety of Avatar, someone posted a screencap from the new version to prove how its aged

What's the source for this? I've not heard that anything was remastered for bluray.

edit: Ok, now I've got to watch a movie.
 
2006_potc_dead_man_chest_progression1_003.jpg

This fucker right here. What amazes me is that people were fooled by it, thinking that only a part was CGI. No, you goddamn motherfuckers, Davy Jones was ENTIRELY CG down to his boots.

davydevojones.jpg
 

jett

D-Member
Dead said:
Although Blade Runner looked mind blowing back in the 80s too, I do think its fair to note that the Screencap of BR is not representative of the film as it was originally released

http://i.imgur.com/z1T8b.jpg[IMG]

It'd be like if 10 years from now,[B] after Cameron re-rendered the entirety of Avatar[/B], someone posted a screencap from the new version to prove how its aged[/QUOTE]

Huh, only the color temperature was changed...but I agree, it's not exactly representative of how Blade Runner looked in 1982.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
BigNastyCurve said:
What's the source for this? I've not heard that anything was remastered for bluray.
Blade Runner was remastered frame by frame for the Final Cut, re-color timed, some enhanced visual effects, digital clean up, etc, etc.

jett said:
Huh, only the color temperature was changed...but I agree, it's not exactly representative of how Blade Runner looked in 1982.
lol, yeah, maybe a drastic comparison
 
Dead said:
Blade Runner was remastered frame by frame for the Final Cut, re-color timed, some enhanced visual effects, digital clean up, etc, etc.

Interesting. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to the details of the Final Cut edition.

BTW, Blade Runner never feels aged to me. Star Wars (original trilogy) feels aged. A lot of other good 80's movies feel aged, but Blade Runner feels very timeless. A true masterpiece.
 

jett

D-Member
Dead said:
Blade Runner was remastered frame by frame for the Final Cut, re-color timed, some enhanced visual effects, digital clean up, etc, etc.

Minimal and unnoticeable, rather than enhanced visual effects I'd say they fixed a few errors in the movie. The new color timing is the one big change.
 

Dead

well not really...yet
BigNastyCurve said:
Interesting. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention to the details of the Final Cut edition.
The BR restoration is midn boggling

YTqB8.jpg


iYGH7.jpg


sxR9f.jpg


dat teal
 
Alucrid said:
Does Avatar's CGI look bad? No, it looks great. To me though it just doesn't look realistic because the entire world is CGI. That's where District 9 stands out, it, for me, in many places, blends the CGI prawns seamlessly into the world. There were times in District 9 where I had trouble telling if it was CGI or actual special effects when it came to the prawns. As for the face idea, I'd say it's far harder to give a bug-like alien readable emotions than giant cat-people.

9mEGg.jpg
 
Scullibundo said:
Excellent trolling my friend. I tip my hat to you.
No. Usually I let these type of comments slide but no. I am an honest person (maybe too honest) who has shared my thoughts. Like I said I dont share your perspective on things, so please dont just dismiss it in such a way. These accusations may stem from paranoia or an inability to deal with other points of view. I suppose people who do effects for a living take pride in their work, aside from that Im rather puzzled. Form and content are one for me. Thanks for listening.
 

Anth0ny

Member
HomerSimpson-Man said:
It's like someone set some kind of crazy special effects challenge for the FX team.

Producers:
"So you are going to make visuals effects of quality of more typical $150 million dollars films.....

......at only 1/5 the budget."




FX Team:
challenge-accepted.png

It worked for Star Wars.
 

artist

Banned
Copernicus said:
It was at least entertaining, I hear Avatar was so flat, they decided to literally add a dimension to engage the audience.
lol

I think OP's point was give the D9 director 300+ million and he'll shit all over Avatar. Designs and everything.

Oh and the Avatar pimps should realise that Avatar is technological marvel because of its tools, those are ground-breaking. Give WETA or ILM so many years with the render farms and they will easily crank out better visual fidelity than this.
 
irfan said:
lol

I think OP's point was give the D9 director 300+ million and he'll shit all over Avatar. Designs and everything.

Oh and the Avatar pimps should realise that Avatar is technological marvel because of its tools, those are ground-breaking. Give WETA or ILM so many years with the render farms and they will easily crank out better visual fidelity than this.

I love district 9 and im not a big fan of avatar but this is total bullshit. There is no way to know that for sure. Just because those teams can work well with a small budget doesn't mean they could achieve more than the avatar team given the same budget.
 

artist

Banned
AdventureRacing said:
I love district 9 and im not a big fan of avatar but this is total bullshit. There is no way to know that for sure. Just because those teams can work well with a small budget doesn't mean they could achieve more than the avatar team given the same budget.
Well, atleast the designs would have been more creative. :p :D Compare the mechs in both movies, the airships, alien form designs etc
 

antiloop

Member
Instro said:
Avatar is by far and away more impressive than any other movie out or coming out with regards to CG. There's no comparison, even if you hate the movie you cant deny that Avatar is a technical marvel.

Yep, I had no expectations and knew nothing about the movie other than it starred blue smurfs. I nearly fainted when they ran through the CGI forest. The effects, the smooth motions etc.

District 9 looked ok but I didn't like the movie at all.
 
bafflewaffle said:
No. Usually I let these type of comments slide but no. I am an honest person (maybe too honest) who has shared my thoughts. Like I said I dont share your perspective on things, so please dont just dismiss it in such a way. These accusations may stem from paranoia or an inability to deal with other points of view. I suppose people who do effects for a living take pride in their work, aside from that Im rather puzzled. Form and content are one for me. Thanks for listening.

I'm sorry for assuming you were trolling, but I honestly thought there was no way you could have seriously misinterpreted the point of this thread after my explaining it to you very clearly 3 times.

Let me try again.

I agree with you; we share the same thoughts regarding story as the paramount priority over visual effects when it comes to film. However, the original poster of this topic specifically started a discussion solely about visual effects - excluding any room for discussion about story should the topic be swayed and lose the focus on visual effects as a talking point.

Or let me put it another way. If this topic was about great ways the colour blue has been used in art and many people post about their favourite uses and shades of the colour blue, it would be completely irrelevent to the fact that you or I prefer the colour red. Whether or not I prefer the colour red makes no difference to the topic at hand. So in order not to deviate the focus of the discussion and respect the intention of the original poster and his wishes to make his thread about uses of the colour blue...I'm going to discuss the colour blue (EVEN THOUGH I REALLY PREFER RED).

So even if you think story should be of more importance than visual effects (again, as I do), that is irrelevant to the thread you're expressing that opinion in. And by expressing that opinion and attempted to sway discussion toward this new idea that is completely unrelated to the thread, you are SHITTING UP THE THREAD.

I can't believe I really had to spend so many words trying to explain that for a fourth time.
 

idwl

Member
Discotheque said:
Probably 90 percent. Even some of their human characters were 100% cg (Stephen Lang)

That man is not real. I refuse to believe it.
Wow. That really is impressive then.
When's district 10 coming out?
District 9 was the first movie I went to cinema twice for. Avatar was the first movie I went to four times (because I had to drag along reluctant friends/family to come see it ):p
 
I was joking about Stephen Lang by the way, but yeah almost all of it is CG (with the exception of some practical stuff like mechs and choppas)
 
Discotheque said:
I was joking about Stephen Lang by the way, but yeah almost all of it is CG (with the exception of some practical stuff like mechs and choppas)

The scorpions (choppers) were actually half-half. There was the fuselage/bulkhead shell and the rest was added in afterward.
 

Solo

Member
Discotheque said:
I was joking about Stephen Lang by the way, but yeah almost all of it is CG (with the exception of some practical stuff like mechs and choppas)

Lang was 100% CG a few times.
 
Solo said:
Lang was 100% CG a few times.

Whenever he's in the Mech with the lid closed its CG.

Any rebreathing masks you see being worn are all CG.

Basically, anything that couldn't be done for real with practicals is CG. The practical workshop work they did on Avatar is still impressive as fuck. Still shocked they built and designed a real 13ft mech for the film. It sits on Cameron's lawn.
 

ScOULaris

Member
Avatar's visuals were impressive on a technical level, but the whole film was basically like watching Advent Children or something. I can't give a shit about the characters when the entire film looks like a fucking videogame cutscene. Not to mention the writing was beyond awful.

District 9's SFX were and still are impressive because of how naturally they fit in with the environment. Avatar's CGI took more work and technology to create, but the end result was still very CG-looking.
 
yeah despite my misgivings with the actual film itself, technically Avatar is at the top of it's game. And you gotta love that Cameron can still shoot competent action scenes.

And also I think Stephen Lang's body was CG. If not then all 50-ish year old males should be ashamed.

I'm super anxious to see WETA take on Gollum again after all this experience under their belts. Finally I'm probably one of the few people who is unimpressed with District 9's cgi, it didn't feel like it blended well for me.
 

beelzebozo

Jealous Bastard
i so despised 95% of the aspects of AVATAR i find myself incapable of judging its effects objectively. they take on a negative quality because i feel they were given such higher priority over other things that make a movie great. that said, i will admit that if i turned it over to the fox box after a day of elementary school and saw AVATAR, i'd probably be pretty impressed and get a blue crayon to do some sketching.
 
Discotheque said:
yeah despite my misgivings with the actual film itself, technically Avatar is at the top of it's game. And you gotta love that Cameron can still shoot competent action scenes.

And also I think Stephen Lang's body was CG. If not then all 50-ish year old males should be ashamed.

I'm super anxious to see WETA take on Gollum again after all this experience under their belts. And also I'm probably one of the few people who is unimpressed with District 9's cgi, it didn't feel like it blended well for me.

Dude, Lang was a fucking BEAST. He got my 80s-fueled blood-lust going so much I wanted him to jump out of the mech and try take the Na'vi on with his bare hands.
 
It's all too fitting that Lang's vengeful brother (Die Hard 3 style) should be Arnold. Lang really did remind me of an 80s protagonist.
 
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