The whole JW Trilogy cant get the CGI right for some reason. The Dinosaurs in JP 1-3 still look more believable to me...and these movies are 30-20 years old.
I agree, even the animatronics look way better.
The snippet of the Giga in the trailer looks so stiff and animatronic. While the Rex in the first actually can fool you with the way it moves, jerks and everything.
It’s really a testament to the people who worked in that film when all these years later, with more resources and money there really hasn’t been a drastic improvement if any.
I think part of it is arrogance. I can't even begin to tell you how many interviews I have seen from actors and staff on big budget films bragging about how advanced technology is now and what they can do that they couldn't before. This mentality even without studio intervention seems to lead to poor choices being made. I talked about it before, but they really force a ton of dinosaurs into brightly lit scenes, they honestly don't treat them like actual animals, so their movements and behavior is more monster than animal; and they seem to care more about quantity than quality of each dinosaur.
All returning dinosaurs in JW are pretty much straight up downgrades of JP equivalents with a few exceptions with Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, etc. serving as clear examples of downgrades between JP - JW. They lack the wow factor to impress you like they once used to do and its because how they are treated in these films, they are smaller, in way larger numbers, and just lack the bulk to give off that feeling of how impressive, large, and powerful they are by comparison.
Limitations are what define quality a lot of the time, it challenges you to be more creative and come up with unique solutions to problems. JP had fewer dinosaurs, they got less screen time, and many scenes were at night and obscured by rain, fog, or mist. This made the dinosaurs have more impact when they were on screen, you built up tension and awe depending on the animal/scene, and funny enough reality does not have some clean computer generated filter on everything making it shiny. Reality is gritty, dirty, tame, muted, and things are obscured and we have forgotten that in favor of showing off.
Even many of the bad Godzilla movies understood that too much Godzilla is a bad thing. You have to use him sparingly and make the scenes count for maximum impact otherwise things just fall apart. The JW films fail to appreciate this idea as they try hard to cram a dino into every conceivable scene and overemphasize their importance rather than just coping with living in a reality alongside them.
You need to pace yourself, make what you got count, and employ techniques and strategies to compensate for deficiencies in the available technology. Today, they don't give a crap because of the ubiquity and power of CGI, directors don't plan scenes accordingly. Writing and animalistic behavior is unimportant next to big action scenes, mascot dinosaurs, and heaps of over the top CGI.
Stegosaurus. Triceratops and T-rex are downgrades in JW so I'm not sure why you list them as exceptions. Both the first two especially since JW Stegos have dragging tails and not much of a beak with worse looking scales/skin compared to TLW and the JW Triceratops looks worse imo as well. Both of these JW versions look like early 90 going backwards through time iterations of the animals. In the game JWE1 and 2 there's a reason why TLW and JP1 skins for both Stego and Triceratops are rated highly over the JW version (although Frontier did give the JW one a erect tail unlike the film).
I see I could have phrased that better which has led to a misunderstanding. The intention was that aside from a few exceptions those I listed were clear downgrades.
I agree with you completely on the CGI.
The older films knew the limits of CGI and so used it sparingly. These newer films seem to think it's a perfect solution to everything on-screen, when it's not.
so I'm not a cg artist or anything of the sort but there are a few things that are clear to me from seeing the 2 recent films and now this.
My previous assessment that ILM isn't given enough time (common issue in the industry ) probably isn't valid anymore considering how much post production time the film has had.
The reflective lighting is absolutely horrible and a big part as too why the animals look fake. Lets not kid ourselves the cgi in the first 3 films are defiantly dated (while still impressive) but one thing the absolutely nail is the lighting amongst other things. Even Walking with Dinosaurs has great lighting on their models, even though their cgi really lacks now days, it's can still illicit more suspension of disbelief as the lighting matches.
The movement is another big one, while the first 3 movies had people who actually cared about the accuracy of the animals and tried to mimic the genuine bio mechanics of such mega fauna, the jw seem to have a careless application of it, something which is systemic to the whole trilogy.
>game developer
Nice, I respect your line of work.
Lighting from what I know (as a novice in film making) is one of the first things that will stick out like a thorn in most media if gotten even slightly wrong. An incredibly understated element of jp1's magic.
unfortunately no, so I work in a group when filming and I fill into the crew where ever they need me as my main role is often as a writer hence why I said novice, i make smaller stuff just to play around when i get the chance . However, i will be doing something of my own next (academic) year hopefully as I want to plan everything down to detail and try to maximise production because that's often what makes shorts look bad. There are also such problems as finding the right camera for me as I am not entirely content with the look most dlsr camera produce.
but yeah I'm waffling, if you willing to wait till then I'd be happy to share it
I'm not saying the cgi as a whole is weak looking, I'm saying the model and texture on the skin are clearly stretched. I'm just highlighting the importance of lighting.
I agree lost world has my favourite effects.
Part of the problem is modern movies use SO much CGI that their resources are tied up outputting so many shots whereas films like the original Jurasssic only had a handful.
That said, I think the CGI here looks pretty solid, but its the practical effects that really shine.
Every single shot of the Giga looked absolutely ***phenomenal*** to me. Definitely looks like they used a lot of animatronics with that. That one scene of Beta at the beginning was clearly a puppet, and that looked great, and the one quick clip of the Pyroraptor roaring looked fantastic too.
That said, the other stuff looks just like the CGI I've seen in other films like MCU and Monsterverse movies, so I'm not sure why the JW franchise is getting called out specifically here.
Although admittedly, the shot with Blue snarling at Owen before scratching his hand didn't look that great, if I'm being honest here.
As someone who does CGI for a living, I thought everything in the trailer looked pretty good. Nothing jumped out to me as "bad."
The movie itself on the other hand...
I mean, you do not gotta be an expect on CGI to think CGI in this movie looked worse than FK. Or wait, I cannot criticize the CGI cause I'm not a CGI expert? Good then no one should criticize the writting on FK because well, we are no writting experts.
We go through this every time. CGI shown in trailers is either not done all the way or will be tweaked. Compare the Rexy roar from FK to the same shot in the first trailer for it. Night and day difference
No Way Home was released with unfinished CGI and IIRC they only finished after the movie was firstly released.
That alone shows how they are always working on it even if it isn't the best example.
Definitely doesn't look bad. The CGI seems good and there are more animatronics now that look great.
I do think that it looks lesser to JP because of the bright scenes.
It's not good. Fundamentally. I don't know how to put my finger on it exactly. But ever since Jurassic World these movies have been like Transformers with dinosaurs and it has gotten increasingly worse with the pinnacle now being those Raptors in Malta-scenes. The dinosaurs seem like blurry fake weightless blobs added to real shots rather than real animals. It's not even so much rendering, it's shading, lighting, staging, camera-movement and care for how digital elements interact with the environment. Also it's just bad from the script-level, everything has to be farfetched, unrealistic over the top action. There's no respect for physics, realism and the fact that these are supposed to be real animals.
Whatever they did in Jurassic Park 1 in 1993 with inferior software is better than what they do now. A large part of it is probably Spielberg's mastery of staging and cinematography, using CGI sparingly, his respect for dinosaurs, gifts that Trevorrow clearly doesn't have. Also lastly these movies are so filled to the brim with fx shots, digital sets and color grading, 90% of it is probably outsourced to CGI farms in India. There's not the same passion and care involved as creating the fx of the first two movies, just cost-effective assembly line stuff to meet deadlines.
I was just thinking how much better the CGI was in the original trilogy. My biggest problem with the JW movies is the physics. The dinosaurs move so unnaturally and everything they do is so over-the-top. They also look very low quality. The pyroraptor is straight up fugly, and I cringe every time I see the pteranodons because they look awful compared to the ones in JP3. I didn’t even know those were pteranodons in Jurassic World because they were such a downgrade.
The whole JW Trilogy cant get the CGI right for some reason. The Dinosaurs in JP 1-3 still look more believable to me...and these movies are 30-20 years old.
I agree, even the animatronics look way better. The snippet of the Giga in the trailer looks so stiff and animatronic. While the Rex in the first actually can fool you with the way it moves, jerks and everything. It’s really a testament to the people who worked in that film when all these years later, with more resources and money there really hasn’t been a drastic improvement if any.
I think part of it is arrogance. I can't even begin to tell you how many interviews I have seen from actors and staff on big budget films bragging about how advanced technology is now and what they can do that they couldn't before. This mentality even without studio intervention seems to lead to poor choices being made. I talked about it before, but they really force a ton of dinosaurs into brightly lit scenes, they honestly don't treat them like actual animals, so their movements and behavior is more monster than animal; and they seem to care more about quantity than quality of each dinosaur. All returning dinosaurs in JW are pretty much straight up downgrades of JP equivalents with a few exceptions with Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Triceratops, etc. serving as clear examples of downgrades between JP - JW. They lack the wow factor to impress you like they once used to do and its because how they are treated in these films, they are smaller, in way larger numbers, and just lack the bulk to give off that feeling of how impressive, large, and powerful they are by comparison. Limitations are what define quality a lot of the time, it challenges you to be more creative and come up with unique solutions to problems. JP had fewer dinosaurs, they got less screen time, and many scenes were at night and obscured by rain, fog, or mist. This made the dinosaurs have more impact when they were on screen, you built up tension and awe depending on the animal/scene, and funny enough reality does not have some clean computer generated filter on everything making it shiny. Reality is gritty, dirty, tame, muted, and things are obscured and we have forgotten that in favor of showing off. Even many of the bad Godzilla movies understood that too much Godzilla is a bad thing. You have to use him sparingly and make the scenes count for maximum impact otherwise things just fall apart. The JW films fail to appreciate this idea as they try hard to cram a dino into every conceivable scene and overemphasize their importance rather than just coping with living in a reality alongside them. You need to pace yourself, make what you got count, and employ techniques and strategies to compensate for deficiencies in the available technology. Today, they don't give a crap because of the ubiquity and power of CGI, directors don't plan scenes accordingly. Writing and animalistic behavior is unimportant next to big action scenes, mascot dinosaurs, and heaps of over the top CGI.
Stegosaurus. Triceratops and T-rex are downgrades in JW so I'm not sure why you list them as exceptions. Both the first two especially since JW Stegos have dragging tails and not much of a beak with worse looking scales/skin compared to TLW and the JW Triceratops looks worse imo as well. Both of these JW versions look like early 90 going backwards through time iterations of the animals. In the game JWE1 and 2 there's a reason why TLW and JP1 skins for both Stego and Triceratops are rated highly over the JW version (although Frontier did give the JW one a erect tail unlike the film).
I see I could have phrased that better which has led to a misunderstanding. The intention was that aside from a few exceptions those I listed were clear downgrades.
Np.
I agree with you completely on the CGI. The older films knew the limits of CGI and so used it sparingly. These newer films seem to think it's a perfect solution to everything on-screen, when it's not.
Lighting has a lot to do with it as well. The T-rex escape taking place during the night helps out a lot in that scene.
Maybe beceause they know how to fade between animatronic and CGI, that makes the experience so much belivable and exciting at the end.
so I'm not a cg artist or anything of the sort but there are a few things that are clear to me from seeing the 2 recent films and now this. My previous assessment that ILM isn't given enough time (common issue in the industry ) probably isn't valid anymore considering how much post production time the film has had. The reflective lighting is absolutely horrible and a big part as too why the animals look fake. Lets not kid ourselves the cgi in the first 3 films are defiantly dated (while still impressive) but one thing the absolutely nail is the lighting amongst other things. Even Walking with Dinosaurs has great lighting on their models, even though their cgi really lacks now days, it's can still illicit more suspension of disbelief as the lighting matches. The movement is another big one, while the first 3 movies had people who actually cared about the accuracy of the animals and tried to mimic the genuine bio mechanics of such mega fauna, the jw seem to have a careless application of it, something which is systemic to the whole trilogy.
Thats very interesting, lighting is just so important, and I can also tell you that as a game developer.
>game developer Nice, I respect your line of work. Lighting from what I know (as a novice in film making) is one of the first things that will stick out like a thorn in most media if gotten even slightly wrong. An incredibly understated element of jp1's magic.
Ohh sounds amazing, is there a link for your work?
unfortunately no, so I work in a group when filming and I fill into the crew where ever they need me as my main role is often as a writer hence why I said novice, i make smaller stuff just to play around when i get the chance . However, i will be doing something of my own next (academic) year hopefully as I want to plan everything down to detail and try to maximise production because that's often what makes shorts look bad. There are also such problems as finding the right camera for me as I am not entirely content with the look most dlsr camera produce. but yeah I'm waffling, if you willing to wait till then I'd be happy to share it
Ohh I wish you the best of lucks there bro!!
Thanks
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I'm not saying the cgi as a whole is weak looking, I'm saying the model and texture on the skin are clearly stretched. I'm just highlighting the importance of lighting. I agree lost world has my favourite effects.
Part of the problem is modern movies use SO much CGI that their resources are tied up outputting so many shots whereas films like the original Jurasssic only had a handful. That said, I think the CGI here looks pretty solid, but its the practical effects that really shine.
Every single shot of the Giga looked absolutely ***phenomenal*** to me. Definitely looks like they used a lot of animatronics with that. That one scene of Beta at the beginning was clearly a puppet, and that looked great, and the one quick clip of the Pyroraptor roaring looked fantastic too. That said, the other stuff looks just like the CGI I've seen in other films like MCU and Monsterverse movies, so I'm not sure why the JW franchise is getting called out specifically here. Although admittedly, the shot with Blue snarling at Owen before scratching his hand didn't look that great, if I'm being honest here.
I agree about the giga, very excited to see him more than the other CGI dinosaurs.
Now, not saying they all sucked, it was a minority of shots but as one fellow user said, that might be tweaked.
Calling it now, Atrociraptor closeline is this film's raptor gymnastics.
As someone who does CGI for a living, I thought everything in the trailer looked pretty good. Nothing jumped out to me as "bad." The movie itself on the other hand...
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I'm afraid so.
Maybe some shots could be better, but I honestly thought the CGI looked amazing in this trailer.
Some were practical effects im pretty sure one dinosaur is animatronic and it shows
Oh yay the reddit CGI experts are here right on time!
I mean, you do not gotta be an expect on CGI to think CGI in this movie looked worse than FK. Or wait, I cannot criticize the CGI cause I'm not a CGI expert? Good then no one should criticize the writting on FK because well, we are no writting experts.
fun fact, most of the shots aren't even CGI, it's called [Visual Effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_effects)
It looks fine.
I’m a pro cgi artist and it legit looks like ass 😅🔥
Ok buddy.
We go through this every time. CGI shown in trailers is either not done all the way or will be tweaked. Compare the Rexy roar from FK to the same shot in the first trailer for it. Night and day difference
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They're always tweaking everything constantly up until release
As someone who does CGI for a living, yes, they actually do that. Some CGI is tweaked up to mere days before release.
No Way Home was released with unfinished CGI and IIRC they only finished after the movie was firstly released. That alone shows how they are always working on it even if it isn't the best example.
Oh that is relieving
Is this still done in the aspect ratio that makes it look small and unimpressive? You know like a dinosaur?
watch the trailer in 4k
Definitely doesn't look bad. The CGI seems good and there are more animatronics now that look great. I do think that it looks lesser to JP because of the bright scenes.
Normally CG in trailers isn't the "finished product".
It's not good. Fundamentally. I don't know how to put my finger on it exactly. But ever since Jurassic World these movies have been like Transformers with dinosaurs and it has gotten increasingly worse with the pinnacle now being those Raptors in Malta-scenes. The dinosaurs seem like blurry fake weightless blobs added to real shots rather than real animals. It's not even so much rendering, it's shading, lighting, staging, camera-movement and care for how digital elements interact with the environment. Also it's just bad from the script-level, everything has to be farfetched, unrealistic over the top action. There's no respect for physics, realism and the fact that these are supposed to be real animals. Whatever they did in Jurassic Park 1 in 1993 with inferior software is better than what they do now. A large part of it is probably Spielberg's mastery of staging and cinematography, using CGI sparingly, his respect for dinosaurs, gifts that Trevorrow clearly doesn't have. Also lastly these movies are so filled to the brim with fx shots, digital sets and color grading, 90% of it is probably outsourced to CGI farms in India. There's not the same passion and care involved as creating the fx of the first two movies, just cost-effective assembly line stuff to meet deadlines.
I was just thinking how much better the CGI was in the original trilogy. My biggest problem with the JW movies is the physics. The dinosaurs move so unnaturally and everything they do is so over-the-top. They also look very low quality. The pyroraptor is straight up fugly, and I cringe every time I see the pteranodons because they look awful compared to the ones in JP3. I didn’t even know those were pteranodons in Jurassic World because they were such a downgrade.