4 ms·

CGI can be beneficial, it just can't carry a film or show by itself. think about star wars OT. for a trilogy that's ostensibly about a galaxy-wide struggle for

CGI can be beneficial, it just can't carry a film or show by itself. think about star wars OT. for a trilogy that's ostensibly about a galaxy-wide struggle for freedom, we spend an awful lot of time following a few people around in small rooms and remote earth biomes. as a product of the time, they hold up just fine, but like, where are all the normal people? are the rebels fighting for the freedom of a few dozen moisture farmers on tatooine and some small bears? the crew of a single star destroyer must be larger than the combined population of every world we see in the original trilogy (note: we don't actually "see" alderaan). the prequels (for all their faults) show that there was a very large part of the star wars universe that george lucas simply couldn't depict in the early 80s. I suppose some might argue it would have been better if he hadn't, but I digress.

mixmastamyk 5y ago
Yes, budget. The newer versions of ROTJ for example have scenes of celebration on other planets inserted after the DS2 explodes.
hammock 5y ago
More to do with budget than limitations of lack of CGI. Take a look at epics like Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. They use HUGE scales with no need for CGI.
- leetcrew 5y ago
  if we do a naive inflation adjustment to 2021 dollars: star wars ANH: $50 million star wars ESB: $100 million star wars RoTJ: $90 million lawrence of arabia: $137 million ben hur: $144 million so yeah, the movies you mentioned had significantly larger budgets, but not massively so (at least compared to ESB and RoTJ). I'd argue the bigger difference is the subject matter. you can do a large 1930's battle without CGI just by throwing money at the problem. there isn't an amount of money you could spend in 1970 to do any of the prequel trilogy coruscant scenes. they probably could have done most of the naboo scenes, though. I'm also not arguing that huge CGI renders are always a good thing. most stories are really just about the interactions between a few people. I do think it's a significant value add for the scifi genre especially, where the world itself is often a character.
- JohnWhigham 5y ago
  Except now those huge budgets went from shooting everything on location to shooting everything on a sound stage and the movie being 95% CGI.

mixmastamyk 5y ago

Yes, budget. The newer versions of ROTJ for example have scenes of celebration on other planets inserted after the DS2 explodes.

hammock 5y ago

More to do with budget than limitations of lack of CGI. Take a look at epics like Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. They use HUGE scales with no need for CGI.

leetcrew 5y ago
if we do a naive inflation adjustment to 2021 dollars: star wars ANH: $50 million star wars ESB: $100 million star wars RoTJ: $90 million lawrence of arabia: $137 million ben hur: $144 million so yeah, the movies you mentioned had significantly larger budgets, but not massively so (at least compared to ESB and RoTJ). I'd argue the bigger difference is the subject matter. you can do a large 1930's battle without CGI just by throwing money at the problem. there isn't an amount of money you could spend in 1970 to do any of the prequel trilogy coruscant scenes. they probably could have done most of the naboo scenes, though. I'm also not arguing that huge CGI renders are always a good thing. most stories are really just about the interactions between a few people. I do think it's a significant value add for the scifi genre especially, where the world itself is often a character.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Except now those huge budgets went from shooting everything on location to shooting everything on a sound stage and the movie being 95% CGI.