‘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.

[u/ChiefLeef22]

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/odyssey-box-office-2026-practical-effects-1236652219/

[u/celix24]

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

[u/longjumpingtote → u/celix24]

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.

[u/throwawaydisposable → u/longjumpingtote]

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.

[u/Styrn97 → u/celix24]

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.

[u/Churba → u/Styrn97]

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.

[u/banjosmangoes → u/celix24]

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

[u/Ridespacemountain25 → u/celix24]

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.