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[brewer bob]

Have the writers of that review watched any TV in the past, oh, decade? It’s all contrived coincidences and bizarre character choices, relying on big-budget effects instead of anything else?

Can't say about the writer of the review, but yeah, pretty much the reason I've been avoiding watching any new TV shows. I just can't stand CGI (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit -- sometimes it's good, though rarely).

(Possibly I'm just turning into a middle-aged grumpy person who can't do anything else but complain how things suck these days... The very person I swore never to become. So, please ignore me whining and yelling at clouds. )

[King Zultan]

I've noticed that a lot of the CGI they use for TV shows is pretty crap, but the CGI in movies isn't much better.

[scriver]

My biggest issue with Rings of Power, like Lord of the Rings before it, is the title. I go into these stories expecting magic rings that have ridiculous powers, and heroic figures abusing those powers to turn the tides of wars and influence nations. What I get instead is a story about a lame cursed ring of invisibility that barely even gets used, and then a prequel with a whole season that only barely mentions rings in the last 10 seconds of the final episode.

Aside from that, the palpable melodrama in RoP was taxing at times, but not as bad as LotR. I consider it a small step in the right direction.

Thatsbait.gif

[Starver]

I've noticed that a lot of the CGI they use for TV shows is pretty crap, but the CGI in movies isn't much better.

The CGI of the '80s (ok, so much of it was essentially Computer-Aided Rotoscoping) set my bar, making even that of the '90s a great improvement.

The spiritual grandpappy of most CGI films, Tron, did do well with the frankly basic computers (by today's standards, naturally) and a whole lotta manual effort in the multilayering of artistic rotoscoping and back-lighting with mattes. The likes of Automan (made a point of its computerishness, perhaps ahead of anything else similar for TV) actually used surprising amounts of physical effects to make it look real (the 'CG suit', etc).

Looking at something like Earth: Final Conflict, the gratuitously tweaked footage was very obvious, even there at the very end of the '90s. Doesn't help that it tries to do the "organic alien tech" of the visitors (and their rivals) when computers weren't yet so good at that, while Babylon 5 at least went with (mostly) hard metal space hardware in its non-physical scenes (which certainly also helped in the next legacy-Roddenbury series, Andromeda).

All of these both more and less convincing than the various visual effects used in The Adventure Game...


I think, actually, the threshold of CGI being good enough for purpose (as more than CG-animation as its whole concept) was when it started to have the basic means to do hair/fur/etc well. Any further dissatisfaction would then be more down to the wage-bill and pool of talent available to pull around the mice and tap on the keyboards. Or at least everyone stopped bothering to shoehorn less convincing attempts in there just to be cutting-edge.

[brewer bob]

The CGI of the '80s (ok, so much of it was essentially Computer-Aided Rotoscoping) set my bar

If CGI is used to aid in rotoscoping, stop motion, matte paintings and/or models, what-ever-etc., that's something I think works pretty well. It's when it's just plain CGI (as in 3d models) then no matter what, it still looks clunky and "plastic" to me (e.g., the original unaltered Star Wars: A New Hope with its models and such still beats the best of modern CGI, imo).

...Probably a reason why I can't stand modern video games either with all their "fancy" 3D graphics and such, but maybe I'll just stop complaining for now.

[Robsoie]

Babylon 5 cheap CGI worked really nicely and were very good in term of cost-effective.

[McTraveller]

I dunno - I liked B5, but I always cringed at its CGI.  I thought it was awful, especially compared to TNG which started a full 5 years before B5, and the ship effects of TNG were no question better.

[brewer bob]

There's a certain trashy/campy charm to (old) cheap CGI, which fit B5 quite well. Another favorite of mine is the crappy CGI from SG-1 (note to self: should re-watch this again).

[Starver]

I think TNG did its equivalent effects (the various ships) far more as practical sculptured models, run through multiple passes of Motion Control (camera and/or model(s)) to extract the matte mask, the plain illuminated model, the various glow effects (in-camera?), etc. Which they mixed and put over the starfield artwork (basic CG, mostly flat with minimal animation, perhaps a slowly rotating view of a planet; or "screensaver"-like for warp backgrounds) and have the likes of the firing torpedos/phaser-arrays and various other nebulous[1] foregrounds added on top.

The transition for Trek into purer CGI came with the later ST series (and later seasons of TNG), I would say. And I know they had a physical DS9 at least at the start of that run.


Certainly by today's eyes, B5 renders are less than perfect. Also probably visibly not as full-HD as you'd expect (so may unfairly suffer from upscaling onto any fairly modern TV or not-as-modern computer display) and even the live action has a peculiarity of the film stock/broadcast framerate/etc that a proper connoisseur of the small screen could identify (also something to do with natively being NTSC rather than PAL..?).

Of the age, though, it allowed all kinds of dynamism and depth of scene that was very hard to integrate into physical models. (Compare drop-launching a squadron of starfuries with the best they could do with shuttlecraft leaving the Enterprise's shuttlebay.) And I remain much in awe of the 'realistic' flight models in B5, vs Trek/Wars/Galactica/etc. Well, with Earth vessels, certainly. They did all the "space-swooping" thing with such as the whitestars, but that's in line with the in-universe 'fact' of Minbari having a system of propulsion more exotic than reaction drivers and thrusters.


I'm trying to think what kind of equivalent programmes I've seen recently to compare against old stuff. Rebooted Galactica is the first that comes to mind. And right now the last, as the Star Wars serieses and other obvious things I really ought to have seen have been sequestered away on channels/streamers that I haven't subscribed to (or equivalent). But BG certainly is (graphically) at the mature end of full-package CG, when it comes to TV productions.

Films are another thing. But given the visual nature of the likes of Iron Sky, seems to not be much of a hurdle to accomplish with enough commitment to anything up to two-ish hours of variously augmented footage. However hard it would be to commit to a significant multiple of that across a whole TV season.

[1] Possibly literally.

[King Zultan]

I still prefer practical affects, they look so much nicer compared to CG equivalents, especially in horror movies since CG blood looks so shit.

[Robsoie]

It's important to judge those effects for their time.
As it's been mentionned B5 effects were very cheap but they nicely integrated with the series decorum and the actor makeup, that were also not big budget either.
I still remember how awesome it was when the first Shadow bio ship appeared , ominous moment full of overwhelming threat .
Yeah now it sure looks much less awesome, but in its time it was.

Even in its time this wasn't that bad :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SK0cUNMnMM
But now sure it's a good laughing time, kudos for the actor to have managed to keep a straight face

[Folly]

Star Trek: Picard's third season has concluded. This is reportedly the final season, though the final minutes did leave the door wide open for a continuation or spinoff.

This season started off very strong. There were beloved characters reunited, intriguing mysteries and exciting action sequences. Honestly, the first arc with the Changelings was pretty amazing, and felt like TNG at it's peak.
But then the season kept going, with some Borg stuff that felt a bit confusing and entirely out of character for them. And finally it all wrapped up with the dreaded 'Our raw unearned emotions can simply overwhelm all of the insurmountable challenges arrayed against us!'. Blech.

Beyond all that, this season completely reversed almost all of the major plot points from the previous seasons. Major characters died? Nope, bring them all back. Villains went through a redemption arc? Nope, now they're villains again, with zero explanation. It honestly felt like each season had different writers and they did not collaborate at all as they were making this series.

Still, it could have been far worse. Overall I am happy that I got to see the classic TNG characters go on one last adventure.

[Caz]

Star Trek: Picard's third season has concluded. This is reportedly the final season, though the final minutes did leave the door wide open for a continuation or spinoff.

TIL this exists. Picard and Seven of Nine show, ah it's childhood all over again.

Most shows are just nostalgia bait these days I guess.

[scriver]

Shouldn't it be called Eight of Nine?

[Caz]

Shouldn't it be called Eight of Nine?

I'm gonna regret asking this, but why?