Is CGI Getting Worse?

2. There’s No Physical Presence Anymore

There are still plenty of films being made based on practical stunt work and effects, like the Mission Impossible and Fast And Furious franchises or Mad Max: Fury Road, where CG elements are used to enhance exhaustively, cleverly planned and shot set-pieces, not replace them.

Still, often CGI isn’t just a weapon in the director's arsenal but the whole arsenal itself. Yet green screen productions and CGI set-pieces tend to have a weightless feel to them: simulated, a little plastic, like cut scenes in a video game.

For some movies this can spell disaster for the finished product. Assembled and structured after shooting, George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels looked lightweight and cartoonish, and with the mediocre quality of his dialogue his cast often complained of having very little to work with during the shoots themselves.

Long CG takes and lingering shots can also expose holes in the post-production work, no longer allowing for the traditional sleight-of-hand cut away from a shoddy effect. This accentuates the negatives rather than camouflaging them, practically begging you to notice the cracks and sending your suspension of disbelief plummeting through the floor.

There are other side effects: they often don’t date nearly as well as other films (look at how cartoonish 2005’s King Kong looks now), and the viewing experience can suffer when watched on a smaller screen at home.

But even excellent examples of the type, shot and edited by talented filmmakers, can lose that all important physical proxy that holds the audience within the artificial world of the movie. Without the presence of a camera acting as the audience’s surrogate, that all-important point of view can whirl and cavort over, under, around and through solid objects, placing the audience at one remove from the action.

It’s telling that representations of Iron Man in the MCU have become increasingly cartoonish over the years. By Avengers: Endgame, the high concept of a man encased in armour had been reduced to a floating image that looked like it would blow away in a stiff breeze.