r/movies • u/ChiefLeef22 r/movies Contributor • 4h ago

Article ‘The Odyssey’ Proves It: Audiences Want Movies Made the Hard Way | This year's breakouts like 'Project Hail Mary' and 'Obsession' were made by filmmakers who sweated. While CG-stuffed franchise disappointments such as 'Supergirl,' 'Moana,' and 'The Mandalorian and Grogu' looked lazy.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/
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u/smalltalk2k 4h ago

A good story goes a long way. Let's start there. 

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u/wagon_ear 4h ago

The Odyssey takes recycling old IP almost to its full conclusion. The only thing that could top it is if someone remade the epic of Gilgamesh. 

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u/Dontshootmepeas 4h ago

Kind of surprised no one has yet

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u/bentbabe 4h ago

There's still a bunch of it missing. Which is probably a factor.

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u/Dontshootmepeas 4h ago

That allows creative freedom though.

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u/cineglitch 4h ago

In before a bunch of people on Reddit complain about the historical accuracy of Enkidu.

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u/BigCommieMachine 4h ago

I am not kidding when I say that American “Christians” would probably take offense to it because it resembles the Bible too much.

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u/BFroog 4h ago

Also lots of gay.

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u/Herlt 4h ago

gilgamesh gone woke

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u/Wild_Harvest 4h ago

Gilgamesh: Do you dare presume to think I would consider the lives of those beneath me, MONGREL?!?

Gates of Babylon open and throw endless numbers of weapons

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u/TwistedBrother 3h ago

This would absolutely be the critique of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. Despite their very obvious bromance.

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u/XIIISkies 4h ago

Not gay if clay

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u/Raevyxn 4h ago

Not gay if it’s in a 3 way

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u/Gandolfthewhite182 4h ago

Can you imagine if these right wing lunatics ever really understood that the Ancient Greeks, inventors of the western civilization they hold so dearly as their culture, were biggest homosexuals in world history ?? I know people saw Troy, that’s not Achilles “cousin”, Achilles went nuts like he did because that was his lover.

Everyone made love to everyone back then and no one thought anything of it. And the most gay of all the city states in Greece was the Spartans. Those dudes loved man butt.

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u/xXKingLynxXx 3h ago

Its reductive to say that the Greeks were gay. While their were homosexual relationships, anyone known to be the submissive one, or the bottom in modern terms, was looked down on.

Many of their same sex relations were between grown men and young boys that they would mentor from the ages of 12 to 18.

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u/cineglitch 3h ago

Have you read The Song of Achilles?

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u/darklightmatter 3h ago

Can we not equate modern sexuality to what Ancient Greeks did? They raped young boys and looked down on the men who would bottom.

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u/William_Dowling 3h ago

Pretty sure Freddie Mercury was the biggest homosexual in world history and he'd be offended by you suggesting otherwise

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u/BigCommieMachine 3h ago

Lot of “wrestling”

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u/cogman10 4h ago

Who cares what they think, they get offended when women step out of the kitchen.

There's not been a blockbuster movie in the last 40 years where you can't find some fundi christian getting huffy over some "immoral" aspect.

These people are a shrinking minor demographic.

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u/kfpswf 3h ago

These people are a shrinking minor demographic.

They were a shrinking minor demographic when education was going strong, and people were growing in their intelligence every generation. We're seeing a reversal of this trend now, so don't hold your breath for the 'minor demographic' to sublimate completely. We might just see a complete 180 by humanity if things continue to go as they're going.

IMO, Liberalism is going to shoot itself in the foot by continuing to downplay the importance of a close-knit community for the well-being of humans, something Conservatism provides freely. We've dismantled so much of traditional community structures in the name of progress, instead of subverting them to foster inclusiveness and tolerance, that ultimately, liberalism itself is at the cusp of being rejected by the masses. Yes, the educated folks will likely uphold the principles of humanitarianism, gender/race equity, etc., till the end, but if these aren't assimilated by the masses, liberals might turn into the 'shrinking minor demographic' in the not too distant future.

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u/MetzgerBuns 1h ago edited 1h ago

Liberalism is going to shoot itself in the foot by continuing to downplay the importance of a close-knit community for the well-being of humans,

You're repeating a conservative lie. Liberals fucking love community, and community spaces, and all sorts of things like that. That's part of why liberalism is so common in cities and less common in areas that are structurally individualistic.

An incomplete list of community places and events that are liberal coded: Farmers markets, food co-ops, CSAs, coffee shops, bookstores, record shops, thrift shops, yoga studios, bike co-ops, film festivals, open mic nights, community theater, NPR, folk festivals, public libraries (and events at them), community gardens, non-traditional libraries (e.g. libraries for tools, or for parks passes, or little free libraries) , neighborhood associations, beach cleanups, pride parades, drag brunch, progressive synagogues, Unitarian Universalists, and and other more progressive religious groups, etc

The vast majority of your rant is just false bullshit spread by conservatives who want to pretend that their community (evangelical mega-churches, rodeos, gun shows, hobby lobby, NASCAR, AM radio, ATV clubs, etc) are the only valid community. Fuck all of that.

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u/strawbery_fields 3h ago

Totally agree with you. I’m as liberal as they come, but these goddamn leftists purity tests are getting out of control.

I had a good friend bitch me out for watching Euphoria because it’s extremely loosely based on an Israeli show.

I’m like all the super fucked things in that show and that’s your biggest problem?

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u/xteve 3h ago

I'd like to believe fundamentalist Christianity is a shrinking demographic. But a whole lot of somebody is voting for the GOP ergo MAGA and Trump. The alliance based on sexual restriction and opposition to reproductive freedom that underlies the "normal Christian" political voice seems pretty fundamentalist to me.

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u/Dapper-AF 4h ago

Still crazy to me that Christians dont know that this is a rebranded story to fit the abrahamic narrative that got incorporated after the jews were conquered by Babylon.

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u/trialsofamadman 2h ago

The stuff before Deuteronomy, sure. None of the Bronze Age stuff in the bible has any archeological evidence, really.

On the other hand, the Old Testament/Tanakh was written by city dwellers in Jerusalem during the second temple period, firmly during the Iron age, and many of the events that take place then DO have historical evidence. We focus SO HARD on arguments about Genesis, Job, Exedous, Leviticus, and Numbers. The more historically interesting bits come later - Judges, Kings, Chronicles... You know, the stuff most people never really make it to when they start reading the bible. The boring middle bits, before getting to the New Testament.

Those early bits also were being written by priests who wanted to create a religious significance and background to the recently reunited Hebrew kingdoms, the easiest way was to re-work existing stories into a framework whereby all the patriarchs were related and the kingdoms were once all united, later split, and have been again re-united as one using common and well known mythological figures placed into lineages specifically to demonstrate this.

A critical reading of the first five books of the Old Testament makes it clear that the goals of the text were to set up a common mythos for several people groups to say they were related and united once, and to establish that they share a common history and traditions, tying in well known myths (like the flood).

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u/MonsterRider80 3h ago

It goes further back. There are stark similarities between ancient Egyptian religion and modern he Abrahamic religions. Which is not surprising since Jews were in Egypt for a long time before going back.

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u/Canesjags4life 4h ago

Haha. American evangelicals don't read as much Genesis as you think.

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u/Sad-Artichoke-2174 3h ago

I love Phil Collins

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u/Lactancia 3h ago

I'm a Peter Gabriel guy myself.

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u/punksmostlydead 4h ago

If they had any inkling how much of their dogma was stolen wholesale. Old Constantine knew what he was doing.

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u/CCLF 4h ago

I'm loving the image of rage and hysterics about "woke garbage" when Gilgamesh "civilizes" the wild hairy beast man through sodomy, and then they embark on happy, gay new voyages.

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u/Xagzan 3h ago

I mean, not for nothing but you realize Shamhat is the one who "civilizes" Enkidu through sex.

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u/CCLF 3h ago

Thanks for the clarification. I haven't read Gilgamesh since high school so the details are a bit hazy.

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u/ShahinGalandar 2h ago

always those damn facts meddling with the yaoi fanfic!

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u/LessInThought 3h ago

On the flip side let's get outraged at Hollywood sanitizing Greek mythology. All these adaptations and none show even 1% of the depravity Zeus gets up to.

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u/Acceptable_Cut_7545 3h ago

Okay but seeing a massive Humbaba in all his glory would be SO cool.

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u/Starbucks__Lovers 4h ago

We fell for that with game of thrones 

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u/Earthpig_Johnson 4h ago

Time to start harassing the writer of the Epic of Gilgamesh until they finish it.

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u/krombough 4h ago

He's been too busy trying to return some dogshit copper.

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u/Mr_Piddles 4h ago

I’m just going to get my pitchforks ready for when they don’t make it gay enough.

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u/Animajation 4h ago

Ohh I love a good séance

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u/bentbabe 4h ago

I hate to say this. But the cracks of Game of Thrones started pretty much after the first season. It wasn't so much creative freedom as "how can we wrap this up?" in my opinion.

Which I think is also why GRRM is unable to finish. Because he is torn between "just get it over with" and "I can't fuck this up."

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u/LupinThe8th 4h ago

I'll give it seasons 1-4 as pretty damn great, but you could see the cliff approaching as they ran out of book to adapt.

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u/Intelligent_Oil7816 4h ago

Nah. Seasons 1-3 are very good adaptations of the first 3 books. Not perfect, but very enjoyable. Then we get to seasons 4 and 5 and - like the books they are adapting - they begin to become hot messes.

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u/CodeComprehensive734 4h ago

Season 4 was also an adaption of book 3 but it also starts to get muddier and less direct book to season translations.

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u/Canesjags4life 4h ago

It didn't help that A feast of Crows and Dance of Dragons happen simultaneously in time.

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u/Tesco5799 3h ago

Agreed and I would add that from a book perspective Dance of Dragons furthers the story and it kind of feels like we are starting to move towards a conclusion of the story but we are far from it.

The show just ran out of material and tried to go from end of book 6 directly to an ending and it was half baked. If GRRM ever finishes the story it's going to be at least 2 more books.

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u/SirJack3 4h ago

Creative freedom? So an AI can fill out the blanks! ~ a producer, somewhere

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u/Prudent-Marsupial-42 4h ago

We can add Poochie into it seamlessly

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u/Zachariot88 4h ago

(Poochie died on his way back to Mesopotamia)

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u/Synicull 4h ago

Don't give them ideas

wE aRe InNoVaTiVe BeCaUsE AI WrOtE iT. NeXt GeNeRaTiOn ReTeLlInG oF a ClAsSiCaL tAlE

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u/saphiki 4h ago

didn't stop game of thrones

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u/awpdownmid 3h ago

It did though, that show's legacy died and along with it millions of revenue.

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u/Out-For-A-Walk-Bitch 1h ago

Still angry.

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u/Xatsman 4h ago

It in a way did.

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u/AWildEnglishman 4h ago

Get Benioff and Weiss to fill in the blanks. Worked for Game of Thrones.

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u/William_Dowling 3h ago

Just fill the gaps from that other great work of historical fiction, the bible

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u/thePedrix 3h ago

Claude, please fill in the blanks in Gilgamesh's tale. Make it profitable.

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u/kingofphilly 3h ago

Didn’t stop HBO from ruining Game of Thrones

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u/SnooBooks1243 4h ago

Fate/Stay series leads me to believe Japan has tried to fully control the Gilgamesh market.

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u/dennisasu 2h ago

He's also a summon in a few Final Fantasy games

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u/SnooBooks1243 2h ago

Ah yes, of course.

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u/cmnrdt 4h ago

I mean, Gilgamesh doesn't so much have a narrative as much as it's a series of fanciful exploits that are all attributed to the same person. It would be hard to adapt into a ~2 hour movie without taking a lot of liberties with the source material, and by that point it's an entirely different kind of story.

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u/krunamey 4h ago

Feels like it could work if they gave it pacing similar to something like The Green Knight

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u/TheWatersOfMars 3h ago

It's actually a surprisingly similar vibe. Gilgamesh's journey to find immortality after the death of his best friend is melancholy and heartwrenching. I'm sure there's a great modern Hollywood script in there somewhere.

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u/Nachooolo 2h ago

The problem here is that the journey is the last third of the story, and it wouldn't be as impactful (emotional, even) without the two first thirds.

Gilgamesh meeting and befriending Enkidu, and their adventures together are as important to the story as the journey.

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u/TheWatersOfMars 2h ago

It's not unlike The Odyssey, though, in that Odysseus's famous adventures are really just the middle third of the poem. But Gilgamesh is much, much shorter and has far fewer iconic moments to draw on.

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u/TheVich 4h ago

How about a miniseries?

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u/Mediocre_Scott 4h ago

It’s weird as hell too don’t forget that

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u/Jonthrei 4h ago

Nothing weird about a goddess fucking civilization into a wild man

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u/Exodan 1h ago

Not even a goddess - just a well-respected, human temple prostitute who was damn good at her job (they banged the wilderness out of him for 2 weeks straight).

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u/Radixeo 3h ago

What do you mean it doesn’t have narrative? It follows Gilgamesh’s character arc from a tyrant, to finding a best friend in Enkidu, to the loss Gilgamesh feels when Enkidu is killed by the gods, to his search for the herb of immortality. It concludes with the snake eating the herb and Gilgamesh accepting it.

It has conflict, character growth, a beginning and an end. I think you could make a great movie out of that.

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u/BrianWonderful 3h ago

Modern Hollywood would hear that and say "Wow! A franchise with a whole set of sequels already planned out!"

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u/Oy_of_Mid-world 4h ago

Remember what they did to Beowulf? Just kidding. I didn't watch it, either.

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u/Jonthrei 4h ago

The 13th Warrior was actually a pretty solid adaptation of Beowulf, tbh.

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u/Panzer_Man 2h ago

That movie was awesome

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u/iwilldeletethisacct2 1h ago

That scene where they're all chatting around the campfire and the language shifts from whatever language to English so the audience can understand to show Ahmed learning the language lives rent free in my head. "I LISTENED!"

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u/Aiseadai 4h ago

I actually liked that movie, especially the first half. It was some pretty effective horror.

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u/ContinuingAnyway 3h ago

It was good

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u/Spiritual_Corner_977 4h ago

They aren’t ready for boy love on the big screen

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u/CosmicDesperado 4h ago

Brokeback Mountain 2: Gilgamesh XXX

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u/Mr_Piddles 4h ago edited 4h ago

I can already imagine all the right wing chuds whining about how “woke Hollywood is turning Gilgamesh and Enkidu gay!”

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u/GooseQuothMan 4h ago

"why is he not a blonde white guy like in the Fate anime"

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u/KamachoThunderbus 4h ago

Guillermo del Toro could so something interesting with it I bet

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u/Foehammer58 3h ago

The best retelling of the story was by Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

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u/BulLock_954 4h ago

Nolan read your comment and will now be making the Epic of Gilgamesh next in a cave, with a box of scraps

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u/LiterallyJoeStalin 4h ago

with a box of scraps

Don’t be rude, identify him by his name, Matt Damon. 

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u/Synicull 4h ago

I volunteer to be a box of scraps if I too get to look that good and have that much money at his age

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u/Ratorasniki 3h ago

The studio is currently backing several dump trucks of cash up to his home trying to get him to do the iliad as a prequel.

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u/feartheoldblood90 4h ago

We need to re-enter the era when Hollywood was pumping out big epics with insane amounts of actors and extras on huge sets that they would, like, flood with biblical amounts of water or light on fire or redirect a meteor from space to hit, all while 50 synchronized swimmers danced in a pool the size of Manhattan

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u/droidtron 4h ago

20 good men died, but we got the shot.

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u/BattledroidE 3h ago

The boom mic was in frame, let's do it again.

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u/Nachooolo 2h ago

Is it truly cinema if two kids don't die in a horrible helicopter accident?

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u/TenaciousJP 4h ago

You must mean Sir Twenty of House Goodmen, pivotal in Season 5 of Game of Thrones

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u/ltra1n 3h ago

Pissed me off that whatever happened there happened off screen and was completely unexplained. Season 5 was where we knew the series was in freefall.

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u/imnotreallyapenguin 4h ago

Im still waiting on the film adaptation of Gates of Fire..

Come on hollywood... swords and sandals epics are cool again!

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u/Z0MBIECL0WN 3h ago

Im still waiting on the film adaptation of Gates of Fire

Sorry. Best we can do is a dramatized version of Bill Gates makings Microsoft.

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u/MontyAtWork 3h ago

I've been watching movies from the 70s-90s and that's something I've noticed happened WAY more: multiple crowd shots and scenes with people moving through crowds.

Those places felt real and inhabited.

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u/TheOnlyBongo 2h ago

Lawrence of Arabia from 1962. When P.T. Lawrence has to cross the Sinai Desert from Aqaba to Cairo to deliver the news of taking Aqaba by land through the Nefud Desert, boldly claiming "Moses did it." When he reaches Cairo he is swarmed by British Officers who tell him to get out of his Arab clothing and get his Arab friend out of the officer's bar. Everyone falls silent when he claims to have taken Aqaba by land of his own authority and he calmly makes his way out of the room as people part away for him, like Moses and the Red Sea.

Much later in the movie when he reaches Damascus and tries to establish an Arab Council rub by the Arabs with no foreign intervention, it is pure pandemonium as multiple tribes do not wish to cooperate and there is much infighting. Lawrence tries to leave the meeting to attend to urgent matters but is swarmed by a bunch of people needing signatures for different areas of government. He fights against the crows but is unable to make his way through, having lost his control of the situation and unable to part the people like before.

Lawrence of Arabia has some of the best cinematography of any movie in my opinion. The shots are gorgeous and many are deliberately done where the frame tells the story.

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u/cherinator 3h ago

We still have Indian cinema for that at least, and it is glorious.

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u/comrade_batman 3h ago

After The Odyssey I’d love to see someone (like Villeneuve) make an epic adaption of Virgil’s The Aeneid, connects to both Troy and Rome’s founding myths.

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u/kiwigate 2h ago

Spectacle aside, those films had good writing. Then Hollywood blacklisted all the good writers because they 'made capitalism look bad' or whatever fascist bullshit era we apparently still live in.

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u/exolyrical 3h ago

With hardware prices these days it might still be cheaper than CGI.

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u/HiddenCity 4h ago

until someone writes a story specifically inspired by a cave painting.

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u/CriticalEngineering 4h ago

Werner Herzog has done it.

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u/Individual_Rip_54 4h ago

Nolan had to do some work to update the morality of the odyssey. Updating the morality of Gilgamesh would be as hard as making it.

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u/droidtron 4h ago

Rape king finds maybe rape only half the time, and loves his beast man.

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u/obeytheturtles 3h ago

He rapes. But he saves more than he rapes.

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u/zatalak 4h ago

Don't lose yourself in what you love?

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u/Ion_bound 4h ago

Eh, the actual moral of Gilgamesh is 'The King's decision to rape the women of his country was, in fact, awful and the gods punished him for it. He was a terrible ruler and through the events of this tale, he redeemed himself and became a better and wise one'.

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u/AnAncientBog 2h ago

'The King's decision to rape the women of his country was, in fact, awful and the gods punished him for it. He was a terrible ruler and through the events of this tale, he redeemed himself and became a better and wise one...

...by enslaving men instead.

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u/ApsleyHouse 1h ago

A certain self-styled king keeps getting rewarded for raping women in his country and there's no divine intervention so far. We aren't that far off.

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u/sexytokeburgerz 4h ago

The odyssey is no one’s IP.

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u/CommonLand414 4h ago

I would love to see this! It was in Gilgamesh that my Judeo-Christian upbringing first cracked. There in plain view was the flood story, but no Noah, just another fable. Wham! That hit me good. Knocked me off the main road as I read more and more ancient mythology to realize they were all full of shit, making up origin stories.

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u/SpaceOdysseus23 4h ago

I'd kill for a high quality Twelve Labours of Heracles movie

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u/XT-421 4h ago

It'd be a smash hit if Patrick Stewart helps narrate.

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u/dable1 4h ago

"recycling old IP" is a wild way to describe making a movie of The Odyssey

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u/mikenasty 4h ago

Beowulf would like a word

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u/enjoythepain 3h ago

Hope they use the Binderman translation

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u/wagon_ear 3h ago

HE'S A HACK

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u/xantec15 2h ago

They could do the historical epic of Darmok and Jalad instead.

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u/super_cheap_007 4h ago

Absolutely. An entire movie could ve made via practical effects but if the story sucks, Im not wasting my time or money. A good story and well shot film will absolutely get my ass into a chair at the theater. 

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u/CombatMuffin 4h ago

It's not just the story. The filmmaking matters: the sound, the cinematography, the editing, the acting.

Plenty of amazing stories are badly translated to film.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 4h ago

The filmmaking matters:

Prime example is the LOTR vs The Hobbit movies.

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u/EdenIsNotHere 4h ago

I'd say The Hobbit isn't the case of the filmmaking itself being bad being the main issue, but rather an studio trying to rush an adaptation of a short, lighthearted children's story, which is completely different from the LoTR saga in terms of tone and scope, into 3 three hour movies.

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u/gozutheDJ 4h ago

yeah there's absolutely no reason for the hobbit to be a 3 movie series

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u/FCalleja 4h ago

Exactly, the issue is technically still a bad story. They took an incredible story and padded it to hell and back, to the point it's no longer a good narrative experience. The filmaking would've been FINE if it was just one movie, honestly. We nitpick it because it sucks.

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u/SmallLetter 3h ago

Padded to Hell and Back again: A The Hobbit Trilogy's tale

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u/Sushi-DM 3h ago

I still think if you approach the movies with the attitude that it is meant to be a children's fairytale, then they are quite good.

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u/Fn_Spaghetti_Monster 3h ago

The Studio might be the root cause, but there was still a lot of bad "filmaking". The CGI was bad, there was a lot of pacing issues, ,most of the Dwarves all kind of blend together, hamfisting Legolas in, Legolas running up falling stairs, the whole barrel scene, the love story. Did I mention the CGI / overuse of greenscreens?

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u/Kelly_HRperson 3h ago

The barrel surfing was integral to the plot!

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u/ScubaSteveEL 3h ago

The moment I saw they announced it was going to be a trilogy instead of a 2-parter I knew it was a bad sign.

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u/AnAncientBog 2h ago

I actually think the biggest problem with The Hobbit IS the story because they decided to turn it into a three part narrative which resulted in adding a bunch of stupid bullshit and fucking up the pacing.

The effects and film making didn't help it very much, but a two-part movie (or god forbid just ONE film because its not that long of a book) that more closely aligned with the actual story probably would have worked under the exact same conditions. It wouldn't have been LOTR but it might not have been awful.

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u/thedoginthewok 2h ago

There is a fan edit of the Hobbit movies: https://m4studios.github.io/hobbit-book-edit/

It removes about 50% of the runtime and the end result is a 4 hour movie that is so much better than the original movies, it's almost unbelievable lol

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u/BlackTecno 3h ago

Anime or games being made into live action is probably the worst offender of this. People do like animation and it isn't "just for kids."

We have been getting some good animated films (some being from Japan), but animation for adults is effectively an untapped market for Hollywood. Best part? You can tell any story in any way you want and get the exact shot you want 100% of the time.

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u/YouJustGotSmurfed 3h ago

Definitely. You could argue the story is the foundation though. A good story with bad execution will probably be better than a bad story with good execution. But who knows.

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u/pzkenny 3h ago

Yeah, good point to make is F1 Movie. Story was very basic, but the script was good and the filmmaking was brilliant. 

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u/Necessary-Duty-7952 4h ago

Yep. Execution is the most important part. It can take a mediocre "story" and turn it into something epic and vice versa.

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u/gloriousrepublic 2h ago

And plenty of amazing stories can be translated to film while also writing garbage dialogue and losing the complexity and depth of the themes through explicit exposition intended for the lowest IQ audience member.

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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago

An entire movie could ve made via practical effects but if the story sucks, Im not wasting my time or money.

Yep. And both the Odyssey and PHM had loads of computer visual effects and other computer work, just look at the credits. Nolan has said he's more reliant on them than any other director. Scylla was CGI, DNEG did a lot with backgrounds.

Mostly they are invisible, and in PHM they didn't use green screen, but that's just one technical choice.

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u/dwadley 4h ago

Also “no green screen” usually just means a lot of manual rotoscoping which gives the same end effect. Just more work from the artists

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u/Worthyness 3h ago

Just another circle jerky article about how vfx/cgi is bad while not understanding that there's a metric fuckton of vfx/cgi being used.

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u/mrdude05 3h ago

Either that or they're using an OSVP system like The Volume that projects a CG backdrop onto the set itself. "No green screen" is the film making equivalent of "organic". It's a buzzword implies a lot to the consumer while being almost meaningless

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u/disappointer 3h ago

That PHM acronym always confuses me. "Pretty Hate Machine: The Movie"?

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u/Huttj509 3h ago

One thing I noticed with The Odyssey (saw it yesterday) is they made really good use of partially revealed things. The Cyclops mostly in the shadowy flickering light from the fire. The Sirens in mist and fog at a distance. Scylla coming in in flashes from offscreen, even the full shot kinda blending in with the rock and being indistinct. Circe's transformations being partially/mostly obscured as things changed.

It hides a lot of the potential CGI uncanny weirdness, by not lingering on it when you have time to notice.

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u/Zalvren 2h ago

The Movie Rabbit Hole just released a video about CGI in Nolan movie

Nolan "no CGI" discourse is as always marketing BS.

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u/fla_john 4h ago

Scylla needed a bit more rendering time

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u/whichwitch9 4h ago

Let's also not forget- Jurassic Park was an early user of cgi. It was the combination of cgi, practical effects, and the pace of the movie that made it work. You seriously need everything to come together to create a good movie. One of the best scenes- the Trex breaking the car roof- is a literal on set accident, but the actors did not break character and the movie used their genuine reactions to the animatronic Trex. The first Iron Man is another example of combined practical and cgi effects- which also gave it a benefit of having a brighter color palate while not looking cartoony by not either using off putting cgi or darkening it to hide flaws in cgi.

Spiderman is another example- Doc Oc was much better in Spiderman 2 compared to the most recent one. But even the actor found the overuse in green screens off putting and hard to play against. He didn't do a bad job, but his performance in Spiderman 2 is easily better.

We're losing a lot by using too much cgi, tbh. It's not just how it looks, but it's the actors, too. Practical effects provide more routes for creating genuine and unique performances. Green screens force everything to be exactly as scripted with little chance for change, even if change could be better. I honestly believe it's why actors seem so bland lately- they don't have to work on their craft and all are conforming to the same styles for various reasons

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u/astroK120 3h ago

One thing I do think gets lost in these discussions is that sometimes CGI is the right tool for the job. Jurassic Park is a great example. It was a mix of practical where it was possible and CGI where it wasn't. I don't think a flat out refusal to use CGI makes movies better. Oppenheimer in particular I think would have been better if Nolan hadn't done the bomb with practical effects.

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u/originalcondition 2h ago

The CGI in Jurassic Park was also applied very, very carefully and intelligently. They knew it'd look best in low light, with rain often obscuring it. They knew that placing shots of practical effects among the shots of CGI would lend to the reality of the entire scene.

Now it feels like CGI is used for everything within the scene regardless of how good it'll look and how real it'll feel, because it's simply cheaper to underpay CGI artists rather than bother with any careful application of the tech or peppering in any practical effects.

I'm an animator myself and don't want to discredit the artists working on the CGI but if their career is anything like mine, they're frequently underpaid and overworked on shoestring budgets and breakneck schedules with tons of revisions that they don't really have time to accommodate, but will try to anyway because they're artists and want to do a good job.

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u/FeloniousDrunk101 4h ago

I think I read somewhere that Nolan used a puppet for the cyclops in a lot of shots to elicit genuine responses from the actors, but utilized GCI for the cyclops in the broader shots? This is a similar hybrid approach to Jurassic Park IMO.

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u/sam_hammich 3h ago

Yeah, they used the puppet for casting shadows, up close shots like a hand grabbing someone, a target for actors to act at, and as a lighting/color/material reference for animators.

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u/IAmKermitR 2h ago

There are filmakers that rely heavily into CGI that we just don’t notice. The big problem with late Disney/Marvel productions I think, is that everything is made generic (script, lightning, coloring) so they can change anything in post-production if needed. That takes away from style and make a disjointed final product.

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u/Slow_Werewolf3021 4h ago

It’s hard to believe we have to keep repeating this to the bigwigs over and over again, time and time again… it’s always been about telling good stories. That’s what cinema is all about, good TV series, and of course books… well, water is wet and the sky is blue. Welcome to our era

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u/astroK120 3h ago

I do think there's some other piece to this. There are movies every year that have this sub going "This movie deserved better!" after bombing despite being good.

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u/dl064 1h ago

And then you've absolute shit which makes XXX million.

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u/kiwigate 2h ago

Because the money contradicts that claim. Audiences are still lining up for crap and they don't even know it. Just look at 2025 highest grossing films: sequels, IPs, a goddamn Minecraft movie

The money says audiences don't give a shit about storytelling.

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u/Daihatschi 46m ago

yeah. I just thought the same. Looking at the yearly Top 10 in earnings for the last 15 years, story is absolutely not important, or else Marvel would have been dead in the water a long time already. I have friends who pretty much say word for word that going to the cinema is practically a 2-hour rollercoaster to them and anything that isn't big and bombastic they don't care about. I guess they are pretty close to the 'general audience'.

I can see the argument that the market is pretty much saturated and the superhero genre has been chasing quantity to an extreme just not sustainable. We might also see a revival of the early 90s where a bunch of experimental films and filmmakers gained popularity after years of extremely cautious, mass market appeal, studio films with all edges carefully sanded off. We've seen some critical darlings after covid, but I think this is the first time they actually make big bank competetively.

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u/timmyintransit 2h ago

and its been the same story with hollywood going back to the inception of movies.

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u/Chaosmusic 4h ago

Yeah, the CGI was not the problem. Superman had a lot of CGI, but it was a good movie. I was expecting more of that from Supergirl. It was OK, but fell far short after Superman. Same with Mandalorian. It was OK as well, but felt it should have been a lot more after the series ended.

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u/sadir 3h ago

Ya on the cgi part, mando was full of practical effects and sets. Like the whole selling point of grogu is he's a cute realistic puppet baby.

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u/Dav136 2h ago

It took Werner Herzog calling them cowards to stick with the puppet lol.

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u/Chaosmusic 1h ago

That's fair. I would feel the stain on my soul for the rest of my life if he called me a coward.

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u/beermit 35m ago

The story was definitely the weakest part of Mando and Grogu. While it was a fun romp, it felt like it should have come a couple years ago. It could easily have slotted in after the end of season 1 or somewhere in the middle of season 2 with minimal tweaks

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u/TheWatersOfMars 3h ago

Tbf, the weakest scene from Superman was the CGI river of Bizarro cubes. Apart from that, it's a quality movie that doesn't get nearly enough praise.

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u/Responsible-Draft430 3h ago

Yeah, CGI just lets them try to do eye candy instead of story. It's more of a symptom. The author is conflating correlation with causation.

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u/BrianWonderful 3h ago

Disney couldn't assume that people going to Mandalorian and Grogu all saw 3 seasons of a TV show on a particular streaming service. I actually enjoyed the movie a lot; it felt like a simple fun action romp in the Star Wars universe that was finally not connected to any Skywalkers.

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u/DaddyO1701 2h ago

I thought it was one of the most pure SW products to come out in a long time. A fun summer sci fi action flick that you can take the whole fam to. That’s all I really need from SW.

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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago

Yes. PHM was a great story, adapted by one of the best screenwriters in Hollywood, one of the best director (teams), with great characters and the perfect actor for the role. That's the "hard way" part, getting all that talent together.

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u/castlite 3h ago

And the music/score was incredible.

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u/kiwigate 2h ago

Is there a story? The big criticisms of Weir's work is he's more interested in sequence-of-events than he is able to write compelling characters.

It's the same criticism of Nolan. Audiences seem to think a story is when you withhold information rather than dramatic irony of watching characters change. But a character with growth is bad for sequels so I guess we're just done with that outside the indie scene.

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u/deraser 4h ago

That’s really the issue with many recent films, especially reboots and sequels. The writing is just not good. The film needs a good base that the director, actors, and everyone else can build on.

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u/ThinkThankThonk 4h ago

All the good writers are making limited series now (and probably very frequently being told to stretch their feature scripts into 6+ episodes).

I love limited series, but I do miss mid-budget features a lot. Not every story has the material to stretch beyond 2 hours, no matter how well it's written.

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u/VirinaB 4h ago

Supergirl had a good story; an established comic. Too bad no one stuck to it.

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u/feed_me_moron 2h ago

Know your demographic and have good timing too. I think Supergirl and Moana suffered a bunch from that. Their timing was bad and their key demographic wasn't there. Supergirl is like Wonder Woman and should be a role model for young girls, but that's not the story you got. Which is fine, but not at that budget being released in a crowded time.

Moana should appeal to kids, but they can just watch the animated one or the sequel that just came out recently. Maybe if it gets release before Moana 2, you get something. Or make it more adult to appeal to the kids who are now older wanting to watch it.

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u/Dreadedvegas 4h ago

Yeah its more on the quality of storytelling the past few years has been horrid.

Good stories do well? Who would have thought lol

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u/whichwitch9 4h ago

Hollywood needs more script writers out of Hollywood. They have a huge problem with scripts becoming more insular to the Hollywood culture and not resonating with the general public. Even The Oddessy is a victim of needing to retread an old, known story to interest audiences. They aren't telling new stories that interest people, and studios need to get out of their own way to find people telling stories the general public wants to hear

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u/roberta_sparrow 4h ago

Been saying that for so long, but I think studios are very averse to risk with scripts that don’t follow a formula or use reliable tropes. However look what happened with Backrooms and Obsession - audiences are so thirsty for that type of content

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u/QTRqtr 4h ago

Because original films constantly bomb. There’s been a network of these films you’re talking about for years.

Minecraft and super Mario galaxy did amazing.

The biggest box office winners will be project Hail Mary, odyssey, spiderman, dune, and avengers.

Lilo and stitch remake made a billion.

The box office is still dominated (and has been for almost 20 years) by IP movies. That’s not going to change.

An IP still has less of a chance of bombing compared to an original film.

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u/Sphiffi 4h ago

To be fair, there’s plenty of good stories that do not do well.

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u/haysoos2 3h ago

Hollywood has been failing to learn this lesson for generations.

There's some trend, and it starts to fade over time. Hollywood thinks "people don't want gangster/cowboy/musical/pirate/car/kung fu/horror/alien/animated/historical/superhero movies any more!", and stops making them.

Then someone makes one that actually has a good story and it explodes, does fantastic at the box office, ignites discussion, becomes a cultural phenomenon, and Hollywood goes "oh, people want to see more gangster/cowboy/musical/pirate/car/kung fu/horror/alien/animated/historical/superhero movies again!" and pumps out a hundred shitty knock-offs that no one watches.

Rather than realizing that it was the quality of the story, writing, and acting in the hit movie, and not the genre they once again conclude, "Gangster/cowboy/musical/pirate/car/kung fu/horror/alien/animated/historical/superhero movies are oversaturated, we need to stop making them again".

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u/San-T-74 4h ago edited 3h ago

Let’s see, the movies from this article are based on the most famous classical text ever, a critically acclaimed novel, and a horror script from a well-liked skit YouTuber (good at comedy=good at timing=good at horror). Checks out!

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u/SnakeDoctor80 4h ago

Exactly. Disney and WB think audiences just want pretty visuals, so they pour all the money into VFX and CGI, and because they spent so much on that, they just slap together the most banal and safe screenplay possible. Thinking because they played it so safe, they are capturing the widest audience possible. As usual, a product designed to appeal to everyone, appeals to no one.

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u/Nanowith 4h ago

Seriously, I don't know why these sorts of articles ignore this crucial element! It's like the entire industry are determined to ignore the fact that good stories are what people want.

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u/Ok-Impress-2222 4h ago

A bad story goes an even longer way.

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u/Swimming-Tax-6087 4h ago

We’re all ignoring the absolute hype machine around this movie. How many people actually know this story? They’re know of it.

They’re going because this is a Christopher Nolan flick with a stacked cast and a great making of pitch that people are actually hearing, so it’s getting into every crevice of the media machine.

I’m sure it’s great, I plan to see it, but most aren’t paying their $20-30 out there for “story.”

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u/Flush_Foot 4h ago

I expect Spider-Man and Avengers to do pretty well too, and we don’t exactly expect them to be “light on CGI”

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u/drowse 3h ago

Bingo.

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u/exodius33 1h ago

Film is a visual medium and the most important way of telling the story is through visuals, which includes ensuring that your movie doesn't look like it was recorded in a green broom closet

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u/KeysUK 19m ago

Visuals is the first thing you judge. As soon as i see god awful CGI/green screen, i stop watching it. Doesnt matter how good the story is, if im looking at a blurry mess, im out.

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