CGI

     Ah, good ol' CGI. Computer Generated Imagery, it's such a gift, and yet such a curse. It has been lightly used in movies dating back to the 60's, but the first time it looked realistic on a large scale was in 1993 in a little film called Jurassic Park. And here's my problem: Tron used computer effects in 1982, and at the time I'm sure it looked really great. Mind blowing, even. I don't know, I wasn't around yet. What I do know is looking at the original Tron now, it looks like crap. Neat, nostalgic crap. But still crap. Fast forward eleven years and Mr. Spielberg is working on his dinosaur movie. He was almost sold on using a stop-motion technique for the dinosaurs called go-motion, or something like that. It doesn't matter because when someone suggested using CGI on the dinosaurs, go-motion was instantly obsolete. Or extinct. That's right, the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park almost looked like the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts!
     Backing up a bit, we can agree that watching Tron today looks like crap. I can't stress this enough. But have you watched Jurassic Park lately? It's almost 19 years old and the CGI STILL HOLDS UP! The dinosaurs look like dinosaurs! They seamlessly blend from CGI to full size animatronic and it looks great! So what's my problem? According to the Laws of Ways I Think The World Should Work, every CGI image since Jurassic Park should look better or at least equal to the creatures in Jurassic Park. I put that in bold because I'm just that pompous. Don't believe me? Go back and watch Spider-Man 1 and 2, (avoid 3 at all costs.) They are still really good movies, but Spidey swinging through the cities and beating up the baddies just isn't holding up anymore. It's falling into Tron territory, except it lacks that so-bad-it's-good fun. But it should look better than Jurassic Park! But it doesn't. Why? I don't know. I'll leave that open to you, and now when you see bad CGI, you'll ask yourself the same.