CGI indistinguishable from reality

I was so disappointed when I started watching this movie and learned it was basically a cartoon. I felt like I was watching a video game.

What did (and still) disturb me was the unnecessary use of animation. I mean, you have the actors in the studio...they spend extensive time memorizing lines and modeling in the blue suits--only to have the animated characters appear (nearly) identical to the them and merely standing around most of the time. In my opinion you only need animated effects if the alternative isn't cost effective and it helps draw in the audience. From my limited perspective though, unless the costumes/make up department really costs a fortune, are they really saving that much time and money?

I'll have it done by next week.

I don't know. I mean, Avatar was, and still is in my opinion, as close to '100% photo-real' as any movie has ever gotten.

I think it's interesting....Avatar in a lot of ways was a convergence of two different sections of film.

There were the 'live action films that tried to have photo-real CGI characters' that started with The Abyss, then went to Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, Dragonheart, The Phantom Menace, Lord of the Rings, Hulk, King Kong, Pirates of the Caribbean 2-3, Transformers, etc etc

But then there were the animated films that were trying to look as close to reality as possible.

Toy Story was the first fully computer animated film, and after that computer animated films went in two different directions.

The 'this is the new cartoon' direction of Pixar, Dreamworks, etc etc

Then there was the much more rate 'lets make an animated movie that looks realistic' approach.

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in 2001, The Polar Express in 2004, Beowulf in 2007.

Avatar was sort of a meeting of the 'live action movie with realistic CGI characters' and 'CGI movies that look realistic'. It was something like 25-30% live action and 70% CGI...and even the live action sections had a lot of CGI.

It was the natural hybrid and the evolution of both of those approaches.

It seems that the next time we will see another step in this direction...it will be the new trilogy of Avatar films.

As the movies that Marvel Studios and etc are churning out(which are fantastic) are sort of resigned to 'looking really good' but not pushing the envelope of photo-realism.

As far as 100% computer animated films that go in this direction, I don't know when we'll get another one, but I'm excited for it.

I mean, look at Final Fantasy, then look at the jump in realism to The Polar Express 3 years later, then look at the jump in realism to Beowulf 3 years later.

Beowulf is now over SIX years old...just imagine what the next attempt at this type of film could look like?

I think the right amount of time, money, and effort could REALLY allow a result that is extremely extremely close to looking like reality.

But Final Fantasy, The Polar Express, and Beowulf were all not that financially successful....so I'm not sure if we'll get another one of these films for a while.

But the Avatar sequels are coming, and they will without a doubt be the new high water marks for photo-realistic CGI in film.

"Mr. Cameron, people should know...how you saved us all, how you raised the bar."

When George Lucas decides it's time. He'll surely be the first director to make a "live action" looking film about people without people. He uses CGI for everything possible, even when it's completely unneeded, or unwanted.

Heck, he asked Martin Scorsese why he didn't use CGI instead of a built set for Gangs of New York. Yeah, Lucas is that nutty for CGI.

Time wounds all heels.

The Uncanny Valley syndrome still holds here. And, even a decade later, you look at high-budget videogames and they still look that way. Personally, I think that, if you wanted to do this, I would just film the actors, then add a layer of animation to them, instead of doing motion capture and then animating them.

I'm from twelve years in your future, and I'm here to tell you that they still haven't done it yet.

Right about now