When CGI is a good thing

I can never truly hate something 100% (Janeane Garofalo ranks close). It's just not in my nature. That is why I give you 3 examples where CGI actually works for me:

1) Pixar Productions.
CGI is always less offensive in cartoon form. There are many exceptions though, mainly involving horrible children’s programming. For me, Pixar holds the reigns on quality. The one major flaw of CGI is that it looks dated way too soon. The first Toy Story definitely has a dated look especially when it comes to the “human” characters. All the other “toys” are pretty much identical to Toy Story 3. If you stop with the realism and rely heavily on style, the end result holds up. A good example would be The Incredibles which is human characters, yet they are very stylized animation wise. The film does not look dated, and thus kicks ass.



2) Inanimate objects.
No matter how good you are at computer animation, laws of physics will always render you amateurish. Leave the CGI to things that don’t move so fluidly. Robots are a good example, unless they jump, or twirl, or kung fu kick or breakdance, or….

I hate Michael Bay so.



3) Tron.
You can still hate CGI and love Tron because they figured it out. The story line is built around CGI. Even though the entire film is live action, it’s the computer world around them that becomes a computer artist’s playground. There’s no way you can say Tron looks too CGI’y. That’s like saying Twilight is too teenage’y. I welcome the new Tron movie with open arms. I’m hoping Jeff Bridges will be less sweaty than he was in Crazy Heart though.



That’s it for now. I could only think of 3 positives. There might be more down the road if I open up my cold heart to them, but for now, grumble grumble.