The Memorex Sanction
Mrs. Ajasont has been asking me a lot lately about whether or not the actors in upcoming films are real or CGI. David Edelstein, film critic for CBS Sunday Morning disparaged the use of CGI, particularly in the film 300:
I don't want to get all doctrinaire. I don't hate computer animation. Another Frank Miller picture, "Sin City," has a luminous black-and-white palette, with breathtaking splashes of crimson. The images seem dredged up from the collective unconscious of graphic-novel freaks. And the film doesn't try to be ennobling like "300." It's happy to be a sick puppy.
I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, but I think the crux of the argument is fairly simple: CGI doesn't make a movie great. It's the use of the tools, including the actors and the script and even the marketing machine, that can make a good film great. I've seen 300 and it's gloriously bloody. It's faithful as any other adaptation of a grapic novel has been, but there's a point where Hollywood and the creators of comix need to take a step back and say "You know the money would be really nice because I have a lot of bills, and the comic will always exist no matter how you butcher the storyline and despite your sometimes STUPID casting choices, but just because the technology exists, does that mean that we SHOULD make the story I wrote and drew into a film? Is that responsible storytelling on my part? I mean, that mgiht influence how I approach my next comic...
"I don't know... Let me think about it.
"How many zeros? Gimme. Have a good time with my baby."
At that point, it becomes the responsibility of the comix-reading fanbase to make or break the resulting story rape into a hit or a dog.
"You know I always wanted to see Silver Surfer ever since Marvel intimated back in the late 70s that it was working on the idea, but it's not MY Silver Surfer, and it likely won't have any of the nobility of the Lee/Buscema stories in the original, short-lived run...
"Who's in the movie? And they did WHAT?
"Well, yeah, LET'S GO!"
Sigh. So I guess I'll be let down, despite my own personal enjoyment of the Spider-Man franchise, and the Lord of the Rings. What I guess will be the kicker will have to be the story, ultimately. If it's a good story (as both Spidey films have been as well as Batman Begins) and the tool of CGI is used with care in service to the story, I won't have much to get crazy about.
Of course, when it's all said and done, no one will decide that Flags of our Fathers was anything but great, despite using a LOT of CGI in big scenes. For my money, that film would have benefitted far more with less money spent on fewer effects and the leftover given to pay for someone to tell the screenwriters and director that their intended style actually took away from the film's impact.
Same as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Eastwood hasn't been GREAT since Unforgiven. And you all know it.
I don't want to get all doctrinaire. I don't hate computer animation. Another Frank Miller picture, "Sin City," has a luminous black-and-white palette, with breathtaking splashes of crimson. The images seem dredged up from the collective unconscious of graphic-novel freaks. And the film doesn't try to be ennobling like "300." It's happy to be a sick puppy.
I don't necessarily agree with everything he says, but I think the crux of the argument is fairly simple: CGI doesn't make a movie great. It's the use of the tools, including the actors and the script and even the marketing machine, that can make a good film great. I've seen 300 and it's gloriously bloody. It's faithful as any other adaptation of a grapic novel has been, but there's a point where Hollywood and the creators of comix need to take a step back and say "You know the money would be really nice because I have a lot of bills, and the comic will always exist no matter how you butcher the storyline and despite your sometimes STUPID casting choices, but just because the technology exists, does that mean that we SHOULD make the story I wrote and drew into a film? Is that responsible storytelling on my part? I mean, that mgiht influence how I approach my next comic...
"I don't know... Let me think about it.
"How many zeros? Gimme. Have a good time with my baby."
At that point, it becomes the responsibility of the comix-reading fanbase to make or break the resulting story rape into a hit or a dog.
"You know I always wanted to see Silver Surfer ever since Marvel intimated back in the late 70s that it was working on the idea, but it's not MY Silver Surfer, and it likely won't have any of the nobility of the Lee/Buscema stories in the original, short-lived run...
"Who's in the movie? And they did WHAT?
"Well, yeah, LET'S GO!"
Sigh. So I guess I'll be let down, despite my own personal enjoyment of the Spider-Man franchise, and the Lord of the Rings. What I guess will be the kicker will have to be the story, ultimately. If it's a good story (as both Spidey films have been as well as Batman Begins) and the tool of CGI is used with care in service to the story, I won't have much to get crazy about.
Of course, when it's all said and done, no one will decide that Flags of our Fathers was anything but great, despite using a LOT of CGI in big scenes. For my money, that film would have benefitted far more with less money spent on fewer effects and the leftover given to pay for someone to tell the screenwriters and director that their intended style actually took away from the film's impact.
Same as Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Eastwood hasn't been GREAT since Unforgiven. And you all know it.