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/longjumpingtote 4h ago

All movies are hard to make.

Audiences want good movies. All the other stuff is marketing.

There's plenty of CGI in PHM. Obviously. Some invisible, some not. Just no green screens were used but that's only one technique. And there's CGI in Odyssey. Nolan literally said he's more reliant on visual effects than any other director working today.

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u/celix24 4h ago

Marketing likes to say no cgi, but when oscar season comes, odyssey and PHM will be nominated for vfx...

As an vfx artist, it's really annoying.

https://youtu.be/AFLcP-t0-kI?t=4026&si=o_jnPaf6njVtD15l

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u/longjumpingtote 4h ago

As an vfx artist, it's really annoying.

I bet. If anyone doubts it, just screenshot the VFX credits for those movies and send it to them.

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u/throwawaydisposable 2h ago

one movie I worked on they went out of their way to ask my boss for my names/everyones names

then stiffed even my boss on credits. I think they re-released the movie later crediting us, IDK if that was a digital release or what but I'm sad I never got to see my name on the credits of the coolest movie I worked on.

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u/Styrn97 4h ago

Thank you, I'm in the VFX industry too and where you hear advertisements/marketing claiming there's little or no CGI, it's so disingenuous to the people behind the scenes.

It was the same with Top Gun Maverick.

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u/Churba 2h ago

It was the same with Top Gun Maverick.

For the non-VFX folks who might be curious - Basically the only flying shot that is showing an actor actually sitting in the aircraft they're meant to be in while it's in the air, is Tom Cruise flying his personal Mustang at the end.

Tom Cruise and the marketing team were not directly lying, but they were absolutely lying by omission - They really did get a lot of shots in real jets! Those Jets were just L-39 trainers, which look almost nothing like the jets in the film.

Basically every shot of a cockpit in a non-stationary craft was a CGI model insert. And that's along with most of the fighter jets(virtually all of them were either wholly animated, or tracked on to the motion of an L-39(which is also used for lighting and surface reference), and a lot of the terrain and backgrounds are just full CGI models so they can do the flying scenes a lot more safely.

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u/banjosmangoes 4h ago

The PHM one is particularly egregious. I didn’t work on it but I bet there was a lot of cg replacement of rocky when the directors changed their mind or didnt like the puppetry performance

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u/Ridespacemountain25 4h ago

It'll be the same thing with AI in a few years. Studios will say they made their films without AI while actually using it.

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u/verikul 3h ago

Audiences want good movies.

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is currently the highest grossing film.

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u/Sumeriandawn 4h ago

"audiences want good movies"

They want good movies that are familiar, safe and conventional.

Try recommending a foreign, arthouse or unconventional film to them. Many will dismiss them outright.

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u/scolbert08 4h ago

Visual effects covers a lot more than just CGI

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u/BigTomBombadil 4h ago

The article references those movies and their use of CGI, people are just extrapolating the title.

Articles point is audience like the movies to feel “real” (animated movies don’t count for that reason, for all references to Toy Story and Mario). Not using green screens goes a long way in making it feel more real. As does filming on location and using extras rather than CG to fill people in the background (for the odyssey).

But yes in the end people want good movies, can’t disagree with that.

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u/SowingSalt 2h ago

People want good CGI that blends with the action.

There are a whole lot of badly greenscreened scenes in modern Marvel movies, while there are a whole lot of movies that do greensrceen very well.