Amazon’s LOTR Rings of Power

[Daniel]

42 minutes ago, Xenos said:

Maybe? I think we notice the bad qualities more when the characters are bad. I remember reading how the Star Wars prequel had even more practical effects than LOTR but that didn’t matter in the end. 

See, the Star Wars prequels are actually the thing I think of when I think CGI fest.  Every ship, most of the aliens, most of the scenery is CGI.  It makes the whole thing feel like a cartoon.  Compare it to the original trilogy, where everything is a practical effect, and everything looks more real.  Vehicles have scuffs, the landscapes are real, it just allows you to get more drawn into it IMO.

They may have had practical effects somewhere, but CGI was front and center for those crappy movies.

[Xenos]

10 minutes ago, Daniel said:

See, the Star Wars prequels are actually the thing I think of when I think CGI fest.  Every ship, most of the aliens, most of the scenery is CGI.  It makes the whole thing feel like a cartoon.  Compare it to the original trilogy, where everything is a practical effect, and everything looks more real.  Vehicles have scuffs, the landscapes are real, it just allows you to get more drawn into it IMO.

They may have had practical effects somewhere, but CGI was front and center for those crappy movies.

And none of the CGI fest would matter  as much if we cared about the characters and story IMO. Why did a lot more people gravitate toward LOTR more versus something like the prequels if LOTR supposedly had even more CGI and less practical effects?

[adamq]

7 hours ago, Xenos said:

And none of the CGI fest would matter  as much if we cared about the characters and story IMO. Why did a lot more people gravitate toward LOTR more versus something like the prequels if LOTR supposedly had even more CGI and less practical effects?

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films in part because of the CGI, and I'd say that book is more loved than the LOTR series of books.

 

& the CGI in the LOTR movies was just for large scale monsters and the huge battle scenes.. everything else you see was done by hand and it shows

Edited February 18, 2022 by adamq

[Deadpulse]

1 hour ago, adamq said:

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films in part because of the CGI, and I'd say that book is more loved than the LOTR series of books.

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films because it was barely an adaptation of the Hobbit and more Peter Jackson s-ing his own D.

[Daniel]

16 hours ago, Xenos said:

And none of the CGI fest would matter  as much if we cared about the characters and story IMO. Why did a lot more people gravitate toward LOTR more versus something like the prequels if LOTR supposedly had even more CGI and less practical effects?

See, for starters, I just can’t believe that could possibly be true.

Maybe in Return of the King. Gollum is CGI, Treebeard too, but they’re the only major characters I can think of, and even the battle of Helm’s Deep was largely practical effects.

Star Wars, on the other hand, gas the list of the following characters that were entirely CGI:

Jar Jar

Yoda

Every pod racer besides Anakin

Watto

All the battle droids

All the monsters from the end of the second one

General Greivous

Every ship

[Broncofan]

9 hours ago, adamq said:

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films in part because of the CGI, and I'd say that book is more loved than the LOTR series of books.

 

& the CGI in the LOTR movies was just for large scale monsters and the huge battle scenes.. everything else you see was done by hand and it shows

 

7 hours ago, Deadpulse said:

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films because it was barely an adaptation of the Hobbit and more Peter Jackson s-ing his own D.

The Hobbit is also 1 book, and much like FOTR, has a very slow start (needed for background, but doesn't give much source material for the movies to expand on and keep crowds entertained).   To have strung out the book to 3 movies was the height of milking a dead cow.  

In the end, it's not the CGI, it's the story/characters.     If you care about the story/characters, the CGI won't bother fans nearly as much.    

[Xenos]

7 hours ago, Deadpulse said:

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films because it was barely an adaptation of the Hobbit and more Peter Jackson s-ing his own D.

I really wish Del Toro was able to adapt it before scheduling conflicts came up.

[adamq]

Overall I like those movies.. sure they are wayyy too stretched out, and the Arkenstone thing was dumb, and I hate what they did to Thorin, somehow the Smaug battle at Dane is over before the opening credits, and that damn river barrel scene and... ok they suck

[Xenos]

2 hours ago, Daniel said:

See, for starters, I just can’t believe that could possibly be true.

Maybe in Return of the King. Gollum is CGI, Treebeard too, but they’re the only major characters I can think of, and even the battle of Helm’s Deep was largely practical effects.

Star Wars, on the other hand, gas the list of the following characters that were entirely CGI:

Jar Jar

Yoda

Every pod racer besides Anakin

Watto

All the battle droids

All the monsters from the end of the second one

General Greivous

Every ship

I can’t find the exact article anymore comparing the prequels and LOTR. But here’s another article breaking down the practical effects in the prequels. I also don’t know how you personally felt about Mad Max Fury Road. I loved it. But there’s your other movie comparison.

https://makezine.com/2015/10/07/the-surprising-practical-effects-of-the-star-wars-prequels/

Quote

There’s nothing more hilarious than listening to zealous anti-CGI ranters ramble on and on about how CGI sucks and models or latex masks are totally the only way to do SFX. Why? Because about 80% of the time the stuff they’re pointing at as “CGI” is actually a model. And frequently the stuff they laud as “practical effects” is, in fact, laden with CGI. For example, remember all of the people raving on and on and on about Mad Max: Fury Road using practical effects and how it was a great example of how CGI was ruining the film industry? In reality, virtually every single shot in the entire movie had CGI in it.

 

I also don’t think it’s realistic to compare something like the prequels to the originals anymore since CGI is so prevalent in everything these days. Ultimately, I stand by my point that if the story and characters are strong enough than we don’t really notice the CGI unless they’re glaringly bad. The MCU movies especially IW and EG are also good counterpoints.

Edit: included a video breakdown also.

 

Edited February 18, 2022 by Xenos

[Xenos]

1 hour ago, adamq said:

Overall I like those movies.. sure they are wayyy too stretched out, and the Arkenstone thing was dumb, and I hate what they did to Thorin, somehow the Smaug battle at Dane is over before the opening credits, and that damn river barrel scene and... ok they suck

Two movies max. The cartoon from the 1970s actually did a really good job of adapting the book as a shorter animated movie.

[Daniel]

25 minutes ago, Xenos said:

I can’t find the exact article anymore comparing the prequels and LOTR. But here’s another article breaking down the practical effects in the prequels. I also don’t know how you personally felt about Mad Max Fury Road. I loved it. But there’s your other movie comparison.

https://makezine.com/2015/10/07/the-surprising-practical-effects-of-the-star-wars-prequels/

 

I also don’t think it’s realistic to compare something like the prequels to the originals anymore since CGI is so prevalent in everything these days. Ultimately, I stand by my point that if the story and characters are strong enough than we don’t really notice the CGI unless they’re glaringly bad. The MCU movies especially IW and EG are also good counterpoints.

Edit: included a video breakdown also.

 

Mad Max was awesome.

I mean, at the end of the day, you're right, what matters, mostly, is the quality of the writing, directing, and acting.  If that's good, it can be all CGI and be fine.

But when I see what looks like gratuitous CGI, I assume that's where they put all of their effort, instead of in the other stuff.  If there are obsessive practical effects, I feel like it comes from a desire to make everything look and feel more real, which probably correlates to better story treatment.  That's why I said a correlation.

At the end of the day, I agree with your original point and we're just arguing semantics, more or less.

[43M]

On 2/18/2022 at 1:49 AM, Deadpulse said:

A lot of people despised the Hobbit films because it was barely an adaptation of the Hobbit and more Peter Jackson s-ing his own D.

Yeah....the Hobbit movies were complete trash.   Just a shameless cash grab that was all style and zero substance.

This looks even worse.

[MacReady]

Are people acknowledging this looks like the most expensive failure in streaming history and that it looks cringeworthy or are they still in the, “Lol it was one preview trailer,” stage?

Because that looked like the most terrible thing I’ve seen.

Amazon still hasn’t perfected lighting by the way.

[Deadpulse]

5 hours ago, Outpost31 said:

Amazon still hasn’t perfected lighting by the way.

FFS why'd I need you to tell me what was bothering me about it?

[MacReady]

3 hours ago, Deadpulse said:

FFS why'd I need you to tell me what was bothering me about it?

Because they’re spending a billion dollars on it and they have no excuses whatsoever.