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/Mahajangasuchus 4h ago

“CGI” is basically meaningless now in mainstream film discussion. All it means is “visual effect I don’t like or noticed”.

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u/brandonct 3h ago

also it's crazy disrespectful to the work of all those visual effects artists when the marketing team trots out all the actors to talk about how the movie is all practical effects and everything on screen is just in-camera

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u/holydude02 3h ago

Yeah; I only caught snippets of the Odyssey promo and saw multiple mentions of "What you see on screen is what was captured in camera" and sorry, not sorry: Bullshit!

I also don't understand why CG is being treated as a second class contribution. It's a tool in the toolbox of filmmakers. If used right it can greatly enhance a story. If used like a bandaid for already bad filmmaking it's probably not the straw that broke the camels back either...

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u/Zalvren 2h ago

Seriously it's so weird too when some movies entirely done in CGI or were it's prominent are so big. Avatar series is literally selling itself on its awesome CGI. The Lion King remake. The Marvel movies. Every animated movie....

And yet some seem to be ashamed of their CGI. People dislike bad CGI but they have no problem with good CGI. And yes sometimes good CGI requires to work in combination with practical effects like what Nolan or Mission Impossible/Top Gun do, it's still weird to act like there's no CGI at all in a movie that has hundreds of people listed for it in the credits lol.

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u/Ver3232 31m ago

Because it’s technically animation and the American film industry has zero respect for animation

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u/PSIwind 2h ago

I think when they say that thing, most people immediately think of heavy CGI use movies like Superhero films where something isn't actually there at all. Visual artists touch up a lot of the scenes, but if the large chunk of the shot is made with practical effects, that's what they mean. 

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u/stupidtreeatemypants 2h ago

if you’re talking about project hail mary, the claim was simply that they didn’t use any green screens, not that there was no vfx. the problem is general audiences don’t understand the difference

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u/brandonct 2h ago

I'm talking about the Odyssey but you see this claim repeated about lots and lots of movies in recent times, because practical effects are a selling point.

the "no CGI is just invisible CGI" series on YouTube covers many movies that make this claim while showing that they all actually use a ton of VFX.

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u/stupidtreeatemypants 1h ago

ah, my mistake then. I’ll check that series out though

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u/N8CCRG 3h ago

Aw, I like to compliment good CGI though when I see it. Like the teleporting spaceship fight in Supergirl, or like the escape sequence in Fantastic Four.

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u/zsynqx 55m ago

I think It’s the difference between trying to do as much practically as possible, while still using cgi when necessary to enhance. As opposed to the fix it in post attitude, which leads to a lot of the “bad cgi” in modern blockbusters. Odyssey and PHM both fit into the former category.