Return of the Giger ALIEN?

[xenomorph36]

you guys are dumbass. You guys actually thought the avpr alien (guy in a suit) look better than ANY of the movies that come out recently (that are cgi)?  look at lord of the rings, king kong , star trek(that reptilian monster at the ice scene was phenomenal) they are pure GOLD.

The only dumbass here is you.

You're comparing a film made by a group of incompetent hacks, to films with established filmmakers and incredibly large budgets. For every movie with great CGI creatures there are plenty with utterly useless CGI creatures.

Want a better example to compare against the likes of Kong and Star Trek? Pan's Labyrinth, or Hellboy. Look at the practical work in those. They're so beautiful you could cry.

Strause brothers did not make the actual aliens in the film. ADI did. I agree that they had the money issue thus making it look cheaper.

Pan's labyrinth may looked realistic (although not as stylish as kong or startrek) the moventment was subpar imo. If some one wears a suit or whatever, they can only move as much as a human can thus making the movent very generic and human like. If CGI is used however the movent can vary a lot more.

Even JC said the movement of the creature is more important than the detail it self. Which is WHY aliens should be made in CGI.

[SiL]

Strause brothers did not make the actual aliens in the film.

Obviously. But they were in charge of executing them.

Even JC said the movement of the creature is more important than the detail it self. Which is WHY aliens should be made in CGI.

You're quoting the guy who executed the Alien in an incredibly convincing manner using suits and puppets ... to make the argument that CGI is how the Aliens should be done? What are you on?

[Deadmeat]

Hell yeah, if the alien will show up in a time before ALIEN, then it should like the original.

[Alien³]

Hell yeah, if the alien will show up in a time before ALIEN, then it should like the original.

amen to that.
I don't care how they do it, as long as two things are ticked off, 1. It's looks realistic enough and 2. I'm scared shit-less of it.

[SM]

Suits the films fine, I think they work very well.

Spider-Man usually look liked he was boneless and had no weight, and there were some Green Goblin shots that absolutely stunk.

[Nachtfalke]

CGI f**king sucks.  It completely ruined the 4th Indiana Jones film.  I remember them promising they would only use traditional special effects like the first 3 films.  God has Stephen Spielberg f**king lost it.
In moderation used stealthily I supposed it could be good, but in almost every film it looks fake as hell.  Seriously Godzilla 1985 looks more realistic than CGI does in most films.

Complain about C.G.I now, but in 50 years time, when we're in a whole new territory of cinema effects, we'll look back on films such as Indy4 and say they're classics, and no one will complain about about the effects because they'll be old techniques.
Indy 4 is awesome.

I will never call Indy 4 a classic. 

I agree. Neither shall I, personally. The cinema institution, however, probably will, just like they call 'Plan 9' a classic.

[xenomorph36]

You're quoting the guy who executed the Alien in an incredibly convincing manner using suits and puppets ... to make the argument that CGI is how the Aliens should be done? What are you on?

Cameron did suceeded when it was in the 80s period. Now it's 2009. Things have changed. Now people are using CGI for almost everything. Even you agrree that JC is good at trying to make a realistic monster. Although i have not seen avatar i'm PRETTY sure that he will make the monsters in avatar with cgi than the old fashied way like he did in aliens. Why do you think he is doing that? So it looks more unrealistic? I doubt it. He is using it so he can portray ALL of his vision into his movie.

I'm also pretty sure that if jc ever gets involved in the new prequal i'm pretty sure he will use some(if not all) CGI effects to create his visions. He seems to be pretty obssessed with the new cgi thing anyhow.

well i wish i could point out more but since my english is a little short, i'll stop here. 

[Alien³]

CGI f**king sucks.  It completely ruined the 4th Indiana Jones film.  I remember them promising they would only use traditional special effects like the first 3 films.  God has Stephen Spielberg f**king lost it.
In moderation used stealthily I supposed it could be good, but in almost every film it looks fake as hell.  Seriously Godzilla 1985 looks more realistic than CGI does in most films.

Complain about C.G.I now, but in 50 years time, when we're in a whole new territory of cinema effects, we'll look back on films such as Indy4 and say they're classics, and no one will complain about about the effects because they'll be old techniques.
Indy 4 is awesome.

I will never call Indy 4 a classic. 

I agree. Neither shall I, personally. The cinema institution, however, probably will, just like they call 'Plan 9' a classic.

'Plan 9' is a classic for all the wrong reasons. But still a classic.

[FearPeteySodes]

you guys are dumbass. You guys actually thought the avpr alien (guy in a suit) look better than ANY of the movies that come out recently (that are cgi)?  look at lord of the rings, king kong , star trek(that reptilian monster at the ice scene was phenomenal) they are pure GOLD.

The only dumbass here is you.

You're comparing a film made by a group of incompetent hacks, to films with established filmmakers and incredibly large budgets. For every movie with great CGI creatures there are plenty with utterly useless CGI creatures.

Want a better example to compare against the likes of Kong and Star Trek? Pan's Labyrinth, or Hellboy. Look at the practical work in those. They're so beautiful you could cry.

Strause brothers did not make the actual aliens in the film. ADI did. I agree that they had the money issue thus making it look cheaper.

Pan's labyrinth may looked realistic (although not as stylish as kong or startrek) the moventment was subpar imo. If some one wears a suit or whatever, they can only move as much as a human can thus making the movent very generic and human like. If CGI is used however the movent can vary a lot more.

Even JC said the movement of the creature is more important than the detail it self. Which is WHY aliens should be made in CGI.

For the record dude, Doug Jones is brilliant.  There was absolutely nothing wrong with the suitwork in Pan's Labyrinth.

[SiL]

Cameron did suceeded when it was in the 80s period. Now it's 2009. Things have changed.

And? If Cameron can pull off realistic suitwork in the 80s, it should be even easier now. The only thing stopping people is laziness and/or time restraints.

[SM]

And time = money.

But SiL is right.  If those practical effects in Aliens still stand up today - and they obviously do (even the Queen in Aliens is better than AvP) - then they could still be utilised today and succeed.

[BayonneBridge]

I'd rather this movie wasn't being made.

But if they must, use Giger's original creature design

[SiL]

But SiL is right.  If those practical effects in Aliens still stand up today - and they obviously do (even the Queen in Aliens is better than AvP) - then they could still be utilised today and succeed.

This is where I say CGI has ruined ingenuity.

Obviously the technique itself can't be blamed, only the people that use it, but since it started becoming so readily available, people have become lazier and lazier with how they choose to execute effects shots.

There's a lot of love that went into the effects of Aliens, and it shows. People saw "Aliens running on walls" and "14 foot tall mumma Alien" on the page in the script and went out and made it happen. They dragged people into the air on wires and stuck two dudes in a rubber suit, all in-camera.

Then you get to the AvP movies, and it's "Well f**k it, we'll just do it in the computer". Anderson wasn't too bad on this - He really only used it when he had to - but AvPR was just ridiculous. Sure it had a small shooting schedule and budget, but damn, it's not like they couldn't have covered it in the re-writes they did.

[SM]

I still can't tell where the full scale Queen finishes and the puppet starts in the final fight.  If I gave it some thought I could work it out, but nothing jumps out immediately as being a model.

Ingenuity doesn't always come off either.  The Alien3 rod puppet probably sounded good on paper, and the actual puppeteering performance is pretty decent - but the final execution in a lot of cases did not work.

The Aliens swarming up the pyramid in the AvP is probably the best shot in the film - the wide shot anyway, and there's no other way of doing that beyond spending years on a stop motion shoot.

I was watching the first Narnia flick again last night and that's wall to wall CGI.  Some works and but a lot doesn't.  Aslan is generally okay, as are the beavers, but the wolves are sorely lacking.  And apart from the aforementioned Aslan and beavers, most of the shots that linger on CG characters too long give too much away.

[SiL]

I still can't tell where the full scale Queen finishes and the puppet starts in the final fight.  If I gave it some thought I could work it out, but nothing jumps out immediately as being a model.

I didn't even know they used models until I watched the special features, then started seeing it in the final fight on later viewings because I was looking for it.

Ingenuity doesn't always come off either. 

True ... but that's where CGI comes in.

That's what's sorely lacking. It's a balance between effects. Some people still have it, like Guillermo Del Toro, and it works out beautifully. Some people don't have it, and it's all "HEY AREN'T THESE EFFECTS PRETTY?"

Obviously there are always time and budget restraints to think about, and slavishly choosing one over the other is silly if you can't pull it off, but there's barely even the consideration for compromise these days.

It's one of the things I like about The Dark Knight. Wanna flip a truck in a street? Then bitches, let's flip a god-damned truck in a street. And they did.